new old magazines

One of my co-workers gave me this stash of old knitting magazines. I haven't been able to look through them yet but I did take them out of the bag last night.

Yesterday was such a beautiful Fall day. After buying Yankees playoff tickets (woohoo!) on my break, I went out on the terrace and knitted. There are flower pots and chairs with little tables/foot-rests and you look out at trees and water. It's very nice, as I think I've mentioned before. I worked on the camisole and am almost done with the back. I'm doing the neck shaping right now and am hoping to cast on for the front of the sweater by the end of the night. By the time this project is finished, it'll be too chilly to wear. That's okay--I'll wear it under a jacket or fold it nicely and put it in my drawer until it warms up again.

Orange hat & a lot of catching up

It's been a while since I posted so I have a lot of catching up to do.

I went to the knitting program at the library last Tuesday and it was a little different than I thought it'd be. I was the most experienced one there and ended up showing a few other people how to knit in the round on dpn's. They had signed up for the class because they wanted to learn how to knit socks and the instructor, who has made costumes for the Metropolitan Opera, wouldn't even demonstrate how to do it (apparently she'd only made one pair of baby socks). As you can tell by looking at my FOs, I'm definitely not much of a sock knitter but I can show them how to knit a tube! It was actually kind of fun to get them started and I met a couple of nice women. I'm not sure if I'll go back though...

Speaking of knitting in the round, I gave my friend his orange hat on Thursday. It was his birthday present and he loved it! I used two strands of yarn at once, which I hate doing when decreases are involved; it hurts my hands because it's basically knitting 4 together. Blah. It turned out pretty well though.

He saw my apple hat in person shortly after I made it and loved the idea of the fruit and vegetable hats. He requested a pumpkin hat but I selfishly didn't want to walk around with a twenty-something man in a pumpkin hat. Hopefully he thinks the plain orange is a suitable substitute. :)

To add on to my Yarn Harlot post, I remembered the name of the red shawl the next morning when I wasn't so tired. I even looked it up in my back issues of Interweave Knits and picked the color I'd like to use on it. I excitedly did all of this before I realized that the *only* lace knitting experience I have--and I didn't realize until recently that it even counted--is the feather and fan baby blanket I'm making now. Maybe Icarus isn't the best first "real" lace project. I looked around on Elann and found a good beginner shawl that I'll start on when I have a little more money. (My sister's wedding-related things have been eating up the extra cash ;)

Speaking of--today was my sister's bridal shower. I did not give her a single handmade thing even though I planned on it. The original consideration was handmade potholders. Didn't quite work out. For, oh, 3 1/2 months after that disaster I really meant to drive to the LYS and buy Manos del Uruguay in a more pleasant color and knit up some new hot pads. This delusion continued until approximately 5 days ago (yes, FIVE days before the actual shower date) I considered making her the nice little "Wedding Day Lace" purse that's in Bags : a knitter's dozen. That went fabulously (photocopied and all) until I realized that I didn't have enough lace weight yarn and that the project was completely insane for me to attempt, especially with the deadline quickly approaching. Lastly, I moved on to a little drawstring pouch. Obviously none of this happened. She seemed to like the things I gave in addition to the bridal party's present...even though they were all store bought. There's always the wedding!

Yarn Harlot in NY

Okay, so I don't generally post at midnight and I never post pictures of myself but today is an exception. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was in NY! I went into Brooklyn to see her (well worth the long car trip) and she was wonderful. I read her blog all the time, adore her books, and just love her. She's great.

She told stories about the Knitting Olympics, telling people at cocktail parties that she's a knitter/writer, and what to do when someone stumbles upon your stash, among other things. I found the cocktail party stories especially funny because I get the same reaction from people when I say I'm a librarian! Imagine what they think when they find out about my hobby. ;) Anyway, I'm so glad I went to see her and put a voice to her stories.

Meeting her at the end and holding the sock were added perks. :)

As you can imagine, lots of people in the audience were wearing handknits and just about everyone brought knitting along. One person was wearing a beautiful red shawl that I'd love to make.

Stephanie got stuck in some traffic on the way in so I made my first attempt at knitting while standing. I only did one row of the green baby blanket (too heavy), but I got up to the arm shaping on the back of the camisole. Good stuff.

(I was hoping to meet some other Nassau County knitters, but everyone lived in the city. *sigh* My one knitter friend and I have been trying to find a SnB near us so if anyone knows of one, please share the info!)

Off to bed now...

projects, voices, classes

I knitted 1 ½” of the original orange hat (104 sts) before deciding that it wasn’t working for me. Yesterday I bought two balls of worsted weight yarn, did a swatch, cast on 78 sts, and started over. It’s only been about 24 hours and I already have 5” done. That’s more like it. Much better. The project seems to be flying now in comparison and as an added bonus, it’ll be warmer. Maybe I’ll even be able to finish the hat tonight. My hubby’s at band practice so I do have the place to myself…

The new issue of Knitty is up. I looked through it and found two projects that I want to knit and two that I like but have no one to make them for. I love Serrano and was considering using the exact yarn mentioned in the pattern, but it’s a little out of my price range (3 balls @ $25 each), especially considering the mortgage we’ll be paying before too long. Hmmm…

So I was catching up on my Cast-On podcasts on Friday and I heard a familiar voice at the very end of the "Knitting Mash Up" episode. I was on my 15-minute break--knitting in one of the comfy chairs in the corner of the library and listening to my iPod--and just about to skip the end of the episode to head back to work when I heard a familiar voice leaving an audio comment. In disbelief, I played that part again. Sure enough, it was one of the librarians I used to work with. What are the chances of that?!? (Probably better than you’d think considering how popular Brenda’s podcast is.) Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise—especially since I didn’t know she was a knitter. (Hey, Susan, if you’re reading this! :)

Almost everyone at work knows that I knit. I tried to be secretive about it at first but after a while I didn’t care. Why shouldn’t I take my knitting out by the water and knit on a bench under a tree if I can help it? It’s very scenic where I work and I like going outside or sitting on the terrace on breaks. Eventually people noticed. (There’s one regular “customer” who always watches me. She was especially fascinated by the argyle.) I was surprised to find out how many knitters I work with. Anyway, I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here. I started writing about this because one of the library’s branches is having a knitting program. It’s four sessions long, only cost $5.00, and is being led by a knitting instructor. (Part of the description: "master knitter, who has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera’s costume departments. She will guide, teach and inspire participation to reach new expertise as a knitter.") Exciting!

Knitting answers

I saw The Knitting Answer Book by Margaret Radcliffe in my library, checked it out, and liked it so much that I bought a copy—I’m currently reading it from front to back with a highlighter in hand. It’s geared towards all knitting levels so I’m learning a lot from it, especially since I’m self-taught and without any knitter friends living nearby. Over the last year and a half or so I’ve learned whatever techniques I’ve needed in order to finish my projects, but I know there were “better” ways to do some of them.

For example, I’m a continental knitter who doesn’t wrap the yarn around my pinky finger. Everyone remarks about how evenly I knit, but I’ve noticed that my purls look a little looser than my knits and it bothers me.* I’m using sport weight cotton/modal yarn for the Ballet Camisole and hadn’t worked on it in a while, partly because the slippery yarn was giving me trouble on the purl rows. After reading Radcliffe’s reasoning for learning multiple knitting methods, I gave it a shot. This morning I wrapped the yarn around my pinky finger on the purl rows, got a better grip on it, and was able to tighten up my purls just enough to better match my knit sts. No dramatic results, but it was just the tip I needed to smooth out my pre-blocked tank front.** It felt funny at first, but I’ll definitely keep up this technique for the rest of the Camisole and will give it a try with other yarns.

*In fact, this very problem haunted me when I tried to knit my father a sweater in the round and couldn’t get the fabric to look the same once I switched to flat knitting at the underarms.

**Blocking usually fixes the problem well enough, but I bet this will look even better!