5th Knit Crochet Blog Week - Bonus Day 8 - Other Blogs

Knit Crochet Blog Week concluded last week, but I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from other blogs.

For Day 4, Bapsi drew an adorable comic related to weaving in ends. Go have a look at her blog. If ever you've used a tapestry needle, this has happened to you.

For Day 5, All She Wants To Do Is Knit has an adorable Bingo game that you can use at a fiber festival. If you are going with a group to somewhere like Rhinebeck, I think that you'd have to do this. Perhaps everyone could chip in for a fiber prize for the first person to bingo.

For Day 6, I liked two different posts quite a bit. Polkadots & Sparkles put up one of those memes about what people think you do. Of course it's about knitting. Go look and have a laugh.

Disorderly Twinings put up a really neat info graphics about traits she likes in bloggers/podcasters as well as a similar graphic on how she sees herself. I didn't know about some of the people she likes, so it was fun to discover some fun new people.

Does anyone else have favorite Knit/Crochet blog week entries? I'd love to hear about them.

Looking Back, Looking Forward - 5KCBWDAY7

Today is the last day of knit/crochet blog week. Here's the prompt: If you took part in last year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, look back on your Day Seven post. Did any of the techniques, ideas and hopes for the last 12 months that you wrote about at that time ever make it onto the hook or needles? 

And there is also time to look forward again: One year from now, when the 6th Knitting & Crochet Blog Week rolls around, where do you hope your crafting will have taken you to? What new skills, projects and experiences do you hope you might have conquered or tried? Do you have any wishes for your blogging that you’d like to follow?

Last year I talked about wishing I felt more confident with grading capped sleeves. Since then I've taken a drafting/sewing class on making sleeve caps. I also am knitting a Pomme de Pin, which has set in sleeves. I know that I wouldn't be very fast at it, but I do feel like I have a better chance at making a successful pattern that has set in sleeves. I still hope to design a sweater that needs set in sleeves at some point although I have yet to think up a sweater where that sleeve style would be the best choice.

Pomme De Pin - It's getting there

As for next year, I feel like there are big changes coming, although I do not know what they are. My goal is not really knitting or blogging oriented. I just hope that I can be brave and embrace whatever comes my way.

View Of Yourself, View Of Others - 5KCBWDAY6

Today's prompt is: Write about another knitter or crocheter that you admire. This could be someone you know or used to know.

Next, think about if anyone has ever told you how they feel about your knitting, positive or negative. 

Like some other people who have done knit/crochet blog week in the past, I noticed there was a similar prompt in 2012. I talked about my Oma. So I will talk about how someone reacted to me knitting in public instead.

Earlier this year I was with my father sorting out an issue with the internet bill at the internet company's nearby location. We drew a ticket and braced ourselves for a long wait. I wasn't worried; I had my knitting. So I pulled out my project and a man asked what I was up to. I told him knitting and he said, "I didn't know anyone did that any more." To which my Dad immediately replied, "Oh yes! There are many knitters." He then educated the man on all the neat things knitters do and how yarn has gotten better. I didn't even have to say a word.

My father with his birthday sweater

For the record, I like knitting in public and am fine with telling people what I'm up to. But I think it's pretty neat how enthusiastic my father got. He is most definitely knitworthy.

Something A Bit Different - 5KCBWDAY5

For Day 5 of knit/crochet blog week the prompt is: It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog.

I've decided to do a yarn binge retrospective. I'm considering a yarn binge any time I've bought a bunch of yarn at the same time for multiple unrelated projects. (It isn't a yarn binge when I go out and buy a bunch of skeins for a single sweater.) I'll be covering all recorded yarn binges since January 2013, starting at the earliest date and moving towards the present day.

Stitches West 2013: Clearly I need to knit and spin up more from this stash enhancement. The blue Cephalopod became Southern Skies and the grey-green BMF yarn became a pair of socks. The green Cephalopod yarn is my current WIP, a Pomme de Pin. As of this writing, I'm starting on the sleeves of the sweater. The braid of Greenwood Fiberworks is also and active spinning WIP. I have one ply to go before spinning up a three ply yarn.

New Zealand yarn day 2013: I'm seeing a trend of me not knitting up my yarn binges really fast. The top step is full of gifts from Wei Siew. I did knit up the grey-blue yarn into a Robin Hoodie that I wear quite often. The bottom two skeins of Knitsch became a pair of Leyburns.

October Yarn Crawl 2013: Oh thank goodness. It looks like I do knit some of the things I buy. The left green skein was put into Beyond The Pines, the blue Tosh became a Deep Sea Wanderer, and the blue and orange skeins became Velomeisters.

Knitting Lab 2013: My excuse for this was the Canon Hand Dyes was at Knitting Lab and it isn't often one gets to choose her skeins in person. The top cake of Knitted Wit became a hat and the bottom four skeins became socks. (The leftmost 2 skeins were knit into the same socks.) Socks 1, Socks 2, and Socks 3.

Stitches West 2014: This is a really doozy. This year was the first year that I went all four days. I only bought things three days because I purposely went as everyone was closing up on the fourth day. (I had to go retrieve some samples.) The pink/purple Canon Hand Dyes is currently being knit by Tyler. I wore socks that he made me on so many knit nights in a row that I managed to convince him that I am knit worthy and deserve new socks. And the black/white skeins of Koigu have been knit up into a currently unreleased pattern.

Anzula Trunk Show: I shouldn't have gone. I knew that if I went to "just look", I'd leave with skeins. The two skeins that are marked are also in a still-to-be-released design.

I started this post as a fun way to see what I've knit up. But now having written everything out... it's a little sobering. The good news is that I have a tremendous amount of self control in all the other aspects of my life. I guess the lack of self control had to emerge somewhere. At least you can make things out of yarn.

If anyone else does a yarn binge retrospective, I'd love to see it. I'm sure I'm not alone... right?

Conversation Between Workers - 5KCBWDAY4

Today is Day 4 of Knit Crochet Blog week and the topic is to write a dialogue between yourself and [a tool you use for your craft]. Rather than follow the topic exactly as written, I'm just going to use it as jumping off point. I'll be writing writing a letter to my favorite crafting tool: yarn.

Dear sock yarn,

I love you more than I ought to. I only wish that I could knit you faster so I could buy more friends to join you in your cubby.

-Audry

P.S. You guys probably already know this, but I can't help myself when it comes to sock yarn. You'll have some new friends joining you shortly.

Experimental Photography - 5KCBWDAY3

Today's topic for Knit Crochet blog week is to Refresh your skills at creating attention-grabbing pictures. Every year this topic shows up, I get a little stumped. Every picture I take I try to make attention grabbing. Knitting isn't the most interesting things to take pictures of (though I love it), so if I can get non knitters interested, I consider it a win.
Anyways, before working on today's post, I was watching Game of Thrones. And, well, I couldn't help it.

Too bad there aren't any knitters on Game of Thrones.

Dating Profile - 5KCBWDAY2

Today's topic for Knit/ Crochet blog week is to write a dating profile for a past finished object. I decided to create a visual profile instead. Enjoy!

A Day In The Life - 5KCBWDAY1

It's that time of year again. It's knit/crochet blog week. I've participated the last few years, so I thought I'd give it a go again. Today's topic is: Talk about the day in the life of a project, completed or still being worked on. Without further ado, I give you the day in the life of my Pomme De Pin from the point of view of the Pomme de Pin.

So there I was, minding my own business whilst being knit upon. I was almost asleep when I vaguely heard something about "checking to see how big I really was". Usually that just means being measured. But not today.

Next thing I know I'm being dragged outside. Things weren't looking so good on the nap front.

I started to shout, "Hey, n- blub blub blub..." Since I was busy drowning, I protested by staining the water green.

After being dragged out of the water, I was shoved roughly into a towel and pressed until my stitches were flattened. This knitter was quite determined not to give me a breath of air.

All that was followed by a good stretching and pinning. If it was information the knitter wanted, I would have given it freely. I already knew that I was 15 inches long. There was no need for all the rough treatment.

Although I will admit that I do look quite attractive now.

Pomme de Pin Will Be Mine. That And Socks.

Now that the Skews are all done, I've cast on for All The Things. Let the record stand that "All the things" means 2 new projects. I had wound up this skein of Canon Hand Dyes Charles in the Fall Leaves color way awhile ago. Somehow a bunch of deadlines got in the way, so the cake of yarn stared at me... until now. It is going to be a pair of vanilla socks. 

Fun fact: this was the first skein of Canon Hand Dyes that I ever bought. We won't talk about how many skeins I have now...

Then I cast on for a Pomme de Pin out of Cephalopod Yarns Bugga! in the Nebraska Conehead color way. I've been knitting and knitting on this, and feels like growth is pretty slow. Don't get me wrong, it is an addictive knit. But I've forgotten how long a sport weight all-over lace sweater can take to knit. Also, it is one of those patterns where it looks much smaller before blocking.

It is really tough to trust a swatch, but in the case of this cardi, I'm going to have to. Once it blocks, it is going to be gorgeous!

I've decided not to cast on anything else until this sweater is done because I want to wear it now! 

Skew

I finished my Skews! I love how the colors pooled along the heels... and the cuffs... actually I love all of it.

The yarn is Handmaiden's Casbah in the Aurora color way. I did make some small modifications. Among them was changing the rib into a 64 stitch 2x2 rib. The details are on my ravelry project page.

Let's just spend some time looking at how pretty these are.

Usually I'm more disciplined with how many pictures I put up of one project. But every angle of these socks make me happy. Now I just need some cold weather so I can wear them.

Has anyone else got a project that has made them just as happy?

Spinning All The Things

My Ravellenic project this year was going to be spinning a 3 ply sock yarn on my spindle. I was making really good time on it, but after having a bit of a design emergency, the project sat. I just wasn't motivated to finish once the Olympics had ended. However, my desire for the yarn grew, so yesterday I finished off the second bump of wool. I only have one more to go before plying! 

Greenwood Fiberworks sock roving in the Enchanted colorway

Unfortunately, after finishing the second bump I tried to slip it off the spindle onto a knitting needle and it didn't go well. I had no problem the first time. I'm not sure what changed. Tyler suggested I wind off all the yarn with my ball winder. It took a couple hours, but I was able to rescue the yarn without having to cut any of it. (I won't lie... I did get close to making fiber confetti.) Now the singles live on toilette paper tubes... because that is all I could think of putting them on after winding them.

I hadn't spun yarn on my wheel in quite some time because I don't feel like I should start another project for the wheel without finishing the epic blanket project I've been working on for the last few years. But you know how that goes: no spinning of any kind has gotten done. I'm too stubborn to break the arbitrary no-new-wheel-projects rule I've made for myself. Having such a big project still sit around really started to bother me, so I spun the singles and plied this beast of a skein in one day.

And now that it is done, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I think I have one more skein beast and one slightly smaller skein to go before I am done with the spinning!