Improving Your Skillset

Day 6: April 28, 2012. Improving Your Skillset
How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.

Phew! After the amount of work that was Day 5, Day 6 should be comparatively easy. I mean, I don’t have to hunch over my photo setup, making minute adjustments – I shot at least 1400 frames, plus a few still, plus all that time music editing – so I ‘just’ have to take a few pictures, and write. I first thought that blogging really takes a lot of time, particularly blogging about a specific topic. I tend to take a lot of time taking photographs and crafting my posts… but this, this has been the most challenging part of any blog post that I’ve put up since I’ve had this blog (granted, this blog is just over a year old, but still)…

So, today talks about skills. I kind of talked about skills I’d like to acquire in last year’s post, so lets review how my goals measure up to my actual achievements. Hmmmm…..

I definitely want to want to try my hand at colorwork (I’m thinking of Spillyjane’s Swedish socks here), improve my sweater fitting skills, try beaded lace knitting, and maybe even dare to tackle my first steek (yikes!).

Well, I have certainly knit  a whole bunch of projects since last year – 39 to be exact. That includes 11 hats, 8 shawls, 4 pairs of baby booties and 5 different children’s toys. There are three items of clothing in there:

• a cardigan for a little girl,
  
• a dress for another little girl,
  

  

• and a cardigan for a baby. 

  

Yup, all three items of clothing are for kids. Not a one for an adult. But apart from the cardigan for a girl, they were already in the planning last year – I had already ordered the buttons and showed them off in last year Knitting and Crochet Blog Week’s embellishment’s post. I did make a few modifications to the dress and the baby cardigan – you’ll find more information on those on the individual pattern pages.

See? I did do some shaping work! I’m planning to knit a cardigan for my Mom, and for my sister (both Connie Chang Chinchio patterns), so there are two opportunities for garment shaping right there (plus I can knit a matching baby Austin hoodie for my sister’s kiddo!).

As for colorwork – well, I still haven’t knit the Swedish Fish socks – yet. Maybe I’ll knit them during this summer’s Ravelympics. For all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the 2012 Ravelympics games where people knit/crochet simultaneously along to the Olympics, competing in our own categories. Really, it’s lots of fun. Anyway, I’ve seen awesome versions of the Swedish Fish socks where the fish charts are used to make awesome versions as sweaters or vests, too. So that’s on my to do list, but I have made a pair of fingerless mitts that have been well received.

On to the next goal: Beaded lace knitting. Yeah, that hasn’t happened. It’s in the plans, but other wips have been intruding. You know, people having babies. People needing birthday gifts. People getting married. That kind of stuff that interfers with your wip list. Plus the occasional knitalong, and if there’s a pattern that catches your attention and you just HAVE to knit it right then and there yes, Color Affection, I’m looking at you!) I do have beads, and the matching yarn, plus the pattern – Haruni - or maybe Simurgh? – already planned out…

Steeking. Eeek!!!! Yeah, I haven’t yet done that yet. I mean, who would feel good about cutting their knitting? But it’s such a great skill – makes it way easier to knit cardigans, or you can steek armholes and so on and on. It’s a skill I definitely want to acquire, and I think I have a good idea how to acquire it. I came across this awesome Missoni inspired chevron blanket pattern. Well, I’d originally bought Wollmeise Lace in a few different shades of red to create an ombre effect blanket, but now I’m thinking I’ll make the blanket with those different shades of red, plus black and white and grey thrown in too. And to make my life easier, I think I’ll knit the blanket in the round, and then just steek it in the end. That way I’ll hopefully be finished this decade. Now I just have to decide whether to hold the lace single or double….

Given that I have enough on my plate – my queue is 43 pages long – I really don’t need to add other goals. Sooner or later I’ll come across a pattern or design that requires a new skill or a new technique, and I guess I’ll have to decide whether to sink or swim.

So that’s it for today. It’s almost tomorrow, and then I’ll have a post on my crafting balance. And then this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week will be over. Wow, this week has flown by!

A fourth birthday

I’d mentioned before that I had knit this cute little dress for my goddaughter as a present for her second birthday. The straps of the dress were too stretchy, so I decided that I’d frog the dress and knit up something else instead of fixing. Since the birthday party is over it’s now safe to post this. So – meet her new dress:

4th birthday dress

The pattern is Kenna botton top (Ravelry project link) by Nicole Ratliff. Cute, and perfect for a little girl. It’s actually a top, but I made a dress version. I knit the 4/5 year size so it should fit her for a while. I cast on six extra stitches so I could knit together the two button plackets instead of knitting the somewhat skewed version as in the pattern, which would require a sewing together later. I also knit the body for a bit, then knit the two sleeves so I could later knit the body until I used up all my yarn. I added increases every so often to make the bottom of the dress a bit wider. And I finished of the dress by adding k2p2 ribbing at the sleeves and at the bottom, to continue the apple color scheme.

new apple buttons

Remember my post on embellishments during the Knitting and Crochet Blogging week? I’d talked about some custom made buttons that I’d had designed. Since I had an apple theme going, I asked Robin from Buttoms by Robin to design matching buttons. They show a red apple, a green apple, a worm looking ouf of an apple and an apple tree. These are way prettier than the original buttons although I’d been really lucky that those store bought buttons completely matched the dress. But the new dress has 4 buttonholes, so I wouldn’t have been able to use the original maroon buttons anyway.

The dress is too warm for her now, but it’ll last her at least through this year, and possibly the next. The dress can easily be steamblocked wider. Right now it’s a sweater dress that she can wear the dress with leggings, as a short dress, as well as a top over jeans. And later when she’s older she can still wear it as a top.

This turned out way better than fixing the original dress. And she loves it, and her Mom as well. Yay!

I ♥ soccer

I love soccer, especially games at the national level such as the European championship and World Cup soccer. I root for Germany since I have German origins (Bundesliga has started, hooray!). So it’s natural that I have to have a pair of Germany socks – hey, other people have lucky shorts or lucky shirts or paint their nails/faces/bodies in their team colors, so why not lucky socks?

“German” Spice Man socks

I cast on for these socks during the 2010 Fifa World Cup – the men’s World Cup in South Africa. I knit the first sock, and then I developed second sock syndrom – I just couldn’t make myself finish the pair. Part of the problem was that I’d already knit two pairs of socks with the same coloring (not just for me). The yarn is Regia World Ball, in the colorway Germany. Regia released a number of colors, mirroring the flags of different countries, and a version with thin stripes for the county capitals.

Anywho, this was part of my great sock experiment – I tried out different methods of sock construction – toe-up and toe-down, knitting with dpns, two circular needles and with the magic loop method. I now know that toe-up works best for me, with two circular needles. I can do the other versions too, it’s just that they’re not my preference.

I finished up this pair while watching the 2011 Women’s World Cup, during the quarterfinal game Germany vs. Japan. I finished them before the end of the game, and then Germany promptly lost to Japan. Ooops. So hopefully they’re still lucky – I’ll test it during tonight’s friendship soccer match between Germany and Brazil.

The pattern is Yarnissima’s Spice Man – as all Yarnissima designs, this is perfectly shaped and fits like a glove. I’ll definitely be knitting up more of her patterns – with other color selections of course. Then again, I still need to knit up two more adult pairs of socks, and three kid size pairs in these colors – especially since the European championships are next year. That way I have some time, so now I’m on the search of patterns that work well with these wide stripes. I’d preferable knit a somewhat interesting pattern instead of another pair of vanilla socks… If you have any ideas or pattern suggestions, let me know!

So here’s Yarnissima’s Ravelry pattern page, and here’s my project page.  And hey, maybe I’ll knit a pair of socks in the colors of the Brazilian flag for the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil.

Here goes nothing

I’ll be switching my Flickr address (i.e. that thing with the many numbers before the link to the photos) to my own personal Flickr address. I’ve looked through the forums, and it seems that all the existing links should still work. Otherwise this would be a bit of a nightmare – I’d have to fix all the photo links on the blog, on my Ravelry project pages and forum post, and worst of all, all of my stash photographs would have to be relinked. Okay, it wouldn’t be a bit of a nightmare – it would be a total nightmare.

I’m crossing my fingers and toes that everything will work out ok. So bear with me if things are a bit wonky over the next few days. And I’ll maybe try out a new theme for size, or customize the header. If you have any improvement suggestions, please let me know!

When price and value don’t meet

I’m amazed at what some designers on Ravelry charge for their patterns – this is the second time I’ve paid for a pattern that basically consists of yo k2tog or stockingette on a bias. I mean, really? This is what you want $5-6 for? That is just not right, especially if you consider how many lovely and complicated lace patterns there are out there, and where the designer asks for $2. Of course, it’s also my fault, since I’m the fool who paid for that – not once, but twice. If I do that for a third time, I’m going to smack myself.

Surpassing last month

Last month’s knitting was rather pitiful. But this month I’m doing better. So far I’ve knit 329 yards this month. Much better than June. As to my goal of knitting 52 projects in 52 weeks, well, I’ve managed 15 projects so far, and we’re in week 29. I have some catching up to do – but fortunately I have some kiddie knits to whip up, so that should help me catch up.

I still need to blog about a few more knitting and crafts projects: Trillian, Spice Market, Elijah and Flap, Flip, Flop and Mammophant. And of course I’ll be putting up more photography, particularly some of my photography homework.

I still have to fulfill the goal of knitting 11 shawls in 2011 – last year I fell short of the goal of 10 shawls. And since I’m talking about upcoming projects, I might as well record the projects that I’m planning to knit during the second half of this year:

• Baby Moc-a-Sock for my new nephew
• Saartje’s Booties for my new nephew
• Offset Wraplan cardigan for my new nephew
• Angle cardigan for either my nephew or Razili’s baby
• Mohair Bias Loop for me (my current wip)
• Toadstool baby rattle for, you guessed it, my new nephew
• Westknits mystery shawl KAL – not yet sure who’ll get it
• Nightingale Wing stole for Skye
• Kenna Button Top for Leah
• Dream in Color shrug for me
• Pompa scarf for me
• Umaro blanket for my nephew
• Stripe Study Shawl
• 16 cable hat  for my sister
• Hidden Path socks
• Norfolk Island Pine cowl for me
• Kusha Kusha scarf for my sister
• Simurgh stole for Deb
• Burning Stripes socks
• Haruni shawl (with beads!) for me
• Golden Tulip cowl
• baby leggings
• a hat for my brother-in-law
• Christmas gifts

Yikes! That’s 23 projects – plus Christmas gifts. I’d better not slack with my knitting like last month!

Tidy mind, tidy stitches

Alright, let’s move on to Day 3.

Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

I’ll first tackle the part of knitting tool organization, since that’s the part that I’m managing quite well. I have two sets of interchangeable needles – a set of Knitpicks and a set of Addi Click needles (btw, if you know anyone who’s heading to Europe, have them pick up the up a set for you, since they’re significantly cheaper there). And well, neither set of interchangeables comes in a particular practical case (Addi must have figured that out for themselves since the new cases are neat little leather envelopes). Anyway, I got so frustrated by my needles rattling around – both the interchangeables and the circular ones that I decided to invest in a knitting organizers from Sarah Kincheloe:

circular knitting needle organizer

needle roll

interchangeable Knitpicks organizer

I also have a knitting bag from Schroedinger Originals that I love. And in case I don’t have a knitting bag available, there’s always good old Ziploc. And I have a lace knitting bag from 3AM Enchantments for my bigger projects.

cube apples knitting project bag

lace knitting bag

I keep two small bags for my knitting notions – one that I can throw into my project bag and has the notions I always need – scissors, stitch markers, crochet hook, tape measure, gauge measuring thingy, knitting needle gauge, safety  pins, tapestry needles in various sizes, needle binder thingy, cable needle, knitting counter, little notebook, and a bit of string. The bigger bag holds everything else.

small notions bag

large notions bag

As to my stash, well, my organizing skills have been outpaced by my stash acquisition. I originally started out adding my yarn including photographs to my stash on Ravelry, but then it just got too difficult to keep up with the photos and the entries and so on. I do have a Excel master list that is lists most of my stash and is in urgent need of being updated. And the rest of my stash is organized as follows:

Ziploc bags

+

 

IKEA

means:  

Yup, good old IKEA boxes. I have a few other boxes and a bit of underbed storage, but most of it is in Ziploc bags in IKEA boxes. And to be on the safe side, I’ve also included a few cedar blocks in my boxes. Yup, I’m trying to make sure that no moths decide to make a nice meal out of my yarn. The boxes are all labelled and within the boxes, the yarn is organized by dyer – that way I have at least some way of organization and can find what I’m looking for without plowing through my entire stash.

As to projects, I use Ravelry to keep track of my projects. I tend to add projects one I have some decent pictures of the WIP, and sometimes I only add a project once it’s finished. But I really like how you can log your entries in detailed ways, and being able to rate the pattern, yarn and difficulty is incredible convenient.

Even though I don’t like to look at the dimensions of my stash I did manage to tackle this post. Phew! If you’d like to look at my projects, stash, or queue, you can find me on Ravelry, username anji. And if you’re interested in seeing other posts on the topic ‘Tidy mind, tidy stitches’  from other bloggers who’ll be blogging today on this topic, just search on Google (or another search engine) for the tag 2KCBWDAY3.

Hello Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011!!!

Woohoo! I’m excited! So let’s move on to the main event. Today’s topic is:

Day One: 28th March. A Tale of Two Yarns.
Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

First I thought I would post about my love of Wollmeise. I just love the colors. I first got hooked on Wollmeise when I saw the color Rhabarber in someone’s stash. Rhabarber translates into rhubarb, and I love rhubarb – rhubarb pie, rhubarb and strawberry jam, rhubarb compote, and so on. Anyway, I’ve knit some beautiful projects out of that yarn, including one of my favorites, a little shawlette that just pops thanks to it’s color (colorway is Stella Polaris):

Azzuro

But then I decided to post two other favorites of mine – both dyed by indie dyers.

Yarn #1: Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse is her light fingering weight. The colorway is Kelp Beds, self-striping, and boy, these colors just glow. The yarn is soft but holds up well as a sock yarn. She has a number of different bases, and she really dyes up beautiful semisolids, but also gorgeous self-striping yarns.

Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse in Kelp Gardens

What more can I say – gorgeous colors, gorgeous yarn, and I knit super delicious socks out the yarn.

Monterrey socks knit out of Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse

Yarn #2: Sundara sock yarn (also not unknown in the world of knitting, I know)

Sundara sock yarn in Aqua over Limeade

This is another yarn I’ve really enjoyed knitting with. It’s sturdy and works up beautifully. I like this base better than her Aran Silky Merino. The color showed up beautifully in a scarf I knit (and which was immediately claimed by my Mom):

A cool drink (aka Haruha scarf)

Honorable mentions go to Mama Blue yarns (unfortunately she has stopped dyeing), Hedgehog Fibres, and, surprise surprise, a great workhorse yarn for knitted toys – Patons Dk. I know, it might come as a surprise since I’m a bit of a yarn snob, but how can I not mention the yarn that resulted in this mobile for my nephew?

The sheep clan up close

Shaun the Sheep and company, suspended

So, that’s it for today. If you’re interested in more of my knitting shenanigans, you can find me on Ravelry, username anji. And if you’re interested in seeing other posts on the topic ‘A Tale of Two Yarns’ from other bloggers who’ll be blogging today on this topic, just search on Google (or another search engine) for the tag 2KCBWDAY1.

And thanks go to Google Chrome and WordPress for almost eating my post but then allowing for a draft to show up. Phew!

Monterrey

I just wore these again yesterday, and they’re so soft and comfy, yet still durable. The yarn is self-striping and it’s Yarn Chef Bouillabaisse, in the colorway Kelp Beds. Kelp Beds always make think of Monterrey and the sea otters – so it’s easy to see where the socks got their name from.

More info on the Ravelry project page.

Look what I came across!

I guess I started this blog just in time, because I found this: 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

2nd annual Knitting and Crochet Week

This should be fun! I did peek at the daily themes so I can use the lovely weather and get some photography done ahead of time. This will be a pretty neat way to see what other knitters and bloggers have experienced and created in the world of knitting. Kind of like the friend activity page on Ravelry, only even more comprehensive. Speaking of adding friends and seeing friend activity, I tend to add people if I like their projects, their photography or their designs – something that impresses and inspires me. There are so many creative people on Ravelry!