Category Archives: Knitting

Festing, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I don’t spin

20 Comments

These are the people I spent my afternoon with:

If you’re astute, you’ll notice that they have spinning stuff. You might be thinking, “Chris, you don’t spin. Why did you spend your afternoon with some obviously lunatic spinners?”

A good question. Yesterday I realized that June of Two Sheep lives in Minnesota, only an hour south of Minneapolis. I mentioned in her comments where I lived, and June invited me to a monthly gathering of spinners at Creative Fibers, which is only about 10 minutes from my home. I wanted to meet an actual blogger who I hadn’t already known before I started blogging, so I headed over to Creative Fibers, Olympic knitting in hand.

Here’s June, prepping some cotton for spinning – check out the gorgeous sweater she’s wearing:

I spent an enjoyable afternoon listening to incomprehensible fiber talk, admiring lovely yarn being spun, laughing a great deal, and getting quite a bit done on my Olympic sweater (a very few more details on my sweater progress over at the Team Midwest blog).

Update: It turns out that I met a second blogger yesterday: Kerry of Furballs!

Chaos continues to be fascinated with my decoupage forms… Moments after this picture was taken, Boobzilla was knocked to the floor and much wrestling ensued. So much for redirecting his attentions…


“Mom, I think they make this stuff out of catnip!”

Thanks for all the fabulous captions, which have provided many smiles and giggles these past few days. Remember, even if you couldn’t think of a funny caption before, you have until 6 pm CST on Monday!

Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I actually post a progress picture

22 Comments

Here’s my progress as of Monday evening – body done up to the armpits and first sleeve about 1/2 done. I’ll warn you that this is not a particularly photogenic project – look! Black blobs on the carpet… but wait? Where is the black blob? Hmmm…

The sleeve and I have have gone a few rounds of ripping. (Carole had warned me of hubris and offending the knitting gods in the comments on Sunday and she was so right.) I knew I didn’t want the bellshaped sleeves in the pattern, but I didn’t think through what I did want until I had cast on, sealed up the hem, and knit merrily away for a while. Finally, denial just didn’t cut it anymore. Rip rip rip, refigure the numbers, and off we went again.

Tonight I go home and take a hard look at the gauge on that sleeve compared to the body gauge… I’m thinking that, because knitting the sleeve is sort of like knitting a sock and I knit my socks tightly, my gauge on the sleeve is too tight. It might be mandatory that I drink wine while knitting the sleeves – what do you think?

Oh, I tracked down that missing blob:

“Go away. I haven’t forgiven you for that incident earlier. It’s not my fault when you lead me into temptation.”

Update: Go check out Gale’s pictures – she went and saw the care packages getting packed up for the Red Scarf Project! Thanks for letting us know, Norma!
Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I have some setbacks and an alarming realization

29 Comments

Jeanne has posted her pictures from Friday night! Head on over and check them out for a slightly different perspective on the evening – or if you’re morbidly curious what I look like when slightly tipsy and being menaced by the Bugman.

First, the minor setbacks of yesterday. I briefly left my Olympic knitting unattended and returned to find it partially off the needles. Hmm. A puzzle. I wonder how that happened. No culprit was in sight.

“Bwah-ha-ha!”

The sweater was easily returned to the needles. However, about 16 rows after changing to a new ball of yarn, I discovered that the extra skeins of yarn I ordered are nowhere near being the same dyelot as my originals. A dark and dramatic line was readily apparent. Argh. So I ripped back to where I’d added the new ball (losing about 2800 stitches in the process) and switched to one of my original skeins.

In the process of removing the sweater from the needles, I learned the source of a mysterious “drag” on the cable of my circular needle – some small nicks, similar to what one would expect from sharp little fangs. Hmm. A bit of work with some buffing emery boards took care of that.

But… Here it is, nearly Day 3 (I’m not even 48 hours into this) and… I’ve reached the armpits of the sweater. I’m about to start knitting the first sleeve. Oh oh. It appears that I’ve radically underestimated the time it would take me to knit this sweater.

Alongs, Festing, Knitting, Those Cats

There was baleful glaring last night…

23 Comments

But only from the Malevolent Bugman… Jeanne swears it’s something I bring out in him. She also swears that he’s warming up to me. Hmm.

“You will submit to my will, puny human. Go get me some Kitty Kaviar and be quick about it.”

First we got comfy in our sweats and readied our cameras.

“Chris, if you post this picture on your blog, I might have to kill you.”

We loaded up on wine and snacks.

I was settled in with a cat on my lap – truly, all the comforts of home.

“Don’t be honored by my presence – it’s because you’re sitting in my chair.”

We watched about three minutes of the opening ceremonies, found ourselves wondering WTF, and switched to Shrek 2, The Princess Bride, and Pitch Black. We did manage to switch back right in time to see the torch lighting extravaganze.

“Let me know when they’re going to light the torch.”

And at the end of the night (around 2 a.m.), we both had respectable progress to show.

Knitting, Those Cats

Neon Muppet Lovechild Scarf

31 Comments

I present you with a hitherto unseen project… the Neon Muppet Lovechild Scarf for Mama Tulip.

As modeled by Chaos:

“Thank you, thank you.”
“Wait, what is this stuff?!”
*sniff sniff*
“I don’t like the looks of this – let me arm the Paw of Death…”
“I will save us, Mom!”
“Whew! I need a nap…”

Enjoy, Mama Tulip! And remember, black cat hair is very insulating and definitely complements the lovely neon colors.Edit: For the knitters, the scarf is made from two skeins of Lana Grosso Tiramisu, 16 stitches – altho I’ve already forgotten what needle size I used! I made it with pointy ends because I hate bottom-of-scarf flare.
Knitting, Those Cats

Some finished objects to report

29 Comments

I didn’t spend the weekend sitting around watching the cat yawn (can you believe he was already closing his mouth when I snapped that picture?!) – I actually got a lot of things done. In knitting news, I knit a bowtie scarf (shamelessly copying Pink Rocket and Irene; pattern here) for a friend’s birthday:

“I hate to break it to you, Mom, but I don’t think your friend here is… normal. I can’t quite put my paw on the problem…”

I used a stray ball of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed (black) from my stash for the scarf. My, what a lot of vegetable matter was in that yarn – I felt like I was knitting with Noro! The Silkroad was kind of scratchy while I was knitting with it (unexpected for a yarn that contains silk and cashmere), but softened up considerably after a good soak and blocking. (Why am I not in the picture? Well, I was celebrating International Pajama Day and was not looking particularly photo worthy.)

I finally finished the NSR Anne Jaywalkers:

But wait… something’s missing from that shot… Oh yeah, there’s no blob! Said blob was otherwise occupied with erstwhile blobby behavior:

(presumed not dead)
Knitting, Those Cats

Rejoining the living (more or less)

18 Comments

Thank you all so much for your well wishes!! Who wouldn’t feel better after reading that? 🙂

I did manage to spend a bit of time upright, working on my Not-So-Red (NSR) Anne Jaywalkers.

(please excuse the amazing clash between my green sweatpants and the NSR Anne socks)

Chaos was apparently feeling a bit camera shy, but possessive of the socks.

“All the Jaywalkers are mine! Mine! Bwah-ha-ha!”

Notice anything missing in this picture? (Besides all the tails I had to rip off the mice in an attempt to make them acceptable, of course.)

“But… where is my SRM??”
Knitting, Those Cats

Goodbye, Rock’n’Roll

31 Comments

…Socks, that is. So named for the colorway – Brown Sheep Wildfoote, color Rock’n’Roll. The yarn was fabulous in the skein, but I didn’t expect them to knit up quite like this… And I swore I would never knit with Wildfoote again, because it was so irregularly spun and had such an unpleasantly stringish feel as I knit. (I will admit that the Wildfoote wears like iron – these socks are sturdy.)

After several years of washing and wearing, I finally had to admit that the socks had become too short and were cramping my toes.

So Jeanne now has a “new” pair of psychedelic socks. Enjoy, Jeanne! (Jeanne is also having some difficulty with blobs in her knitting photos, although she’s encountering a fluffy black and white blob. Very interesting.)

Chaos can’t come to the blog right now, as he’s bathing. If you leave a message, he will get back to you just as soon as he figures out how to type.

Knitting, Those Cats

This isn’t quite what I had in mind for the meaning of “Best Friend”…

38 Comments

Thanks for the great ideas for making yesterday’s unworn sweaters more wearable! I’ll have Chaos get right on that…

Project: Best Friend Jacket from The Knit Stitch, knit in Skacel Ethno
Here’s another sweater that I don’t wear as much as I should. It’s gorgeous. I love how it turned out, but… the asymmetrical front bothers me – I didn’t expect it to. And, um, I got really confused when I was finishing the sweater. The ends are woven in… on the outside. Whoops! (Don’t even ask… really, because I have no good explanation.) Good thing the texture of this yarn camoflages that problem!

“Oh boy, what’s this on the floor?”
“Can I get in it?”
“Why yes..”
“…yes, I can.”
“Hee hee – she’ll never find me now!”

“This is the life. I love this new cat bed!”

So the question of the day… is it Chaos? Or Isadora, visiting from Imbrium’s blog? Or Cricket, visiting from Maeve’s blog? We suspect that there may be numerous black blobs roaming between blogs, similar to the portrait network in Harry Potter… Be alert!
Knitting, Those Cats

The gallery of unworn sweaters (now featuring blobs!)

31 Comments

I have an assortment of handknit sweaters I never wear because of problems that need correcting. My intention was to present them here and solicit suggestions. The intentions of the Cat Chaotic, however, were somewhat different…

Project: Bulky top-down v-neck tunic (#996), knit with Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran
Problem: Bottom edge (several rows of garter stitch) flips up. Mild blocking didn’t seem to fix this. I would prefer not to add more length to the garter stitch bit, as I think it will look odd. Maybe heavier blocking?

Chaos has apparently already started on that.

Project: Sitcom Chic, knit with Lion Brand Cotton-Ease
Problem: Front bands are rolling way too much. Probably can be corrected with serious blocking/acrylic killing?

Chaos is awaiting the verdict before he gets started on this one.

Project: Rosedale, knit with Noro Kureyon that I got several years ago from Anmiryam!
Problem: This was my first bottom-raglan and the sleeves are a wee bit long. Since the corrugated ribbing is stiff, I can’t simply push this up my arms when it gets in my way. I think I need to snip into the cuffs about an inch from the bottom, pick up the stitches, and bind off. Any other ideas? Eunny knows how I am about snipping knits…
Edit: The corrugated rib cuffs are too tightly fitted to fold over, alas. The sleeves were knit from cuff up, then knit into the body of the sweater (to help with stripe matching).

Chaos is flummoxed here, as he does not know how to use scissors… yet.
So he’s just passing the time until we get some feedback.: