blackmoondog

Slowly but surely I'm making progess on my crack at "Under The Hoodie" from Stitch 'N Bitch. Over the weekend I nearly finished the front but didn't quite have enough of the main color yarn with me. I polished that off yesterday which marked the completion of the body of the sweater. At The Tech Museum in San Jose, I knitted my way through the exhibits and got about 4 inches of the sleeves done. I'm knitting both sleeves simultaneously on a circular needle. This trick was pointed out by someone on the Knitty forums as being in Stitch 'N Bitch Nation. Definitely handy, as I'm not all that fond of sleeves. I'm about 8 inches up the sleeves now. After that, the hood and assembly will be all that remains. I decided to skip the pocket, mostly out of laziness.

I have currently got 5 knitting projects in progress. I still haven't stitched up my hoodie (after deciding the original sleeves sucked and starting them over). I have run out of Fun Fur for my "Princess Snowball Cat Bed" and haven't gotten back to the yarn shop. I have about half a 2x2 rib scarf in WoolEase woods print that I was hauling around to appointments (or other places that have a lot of waiting). Now I've also got a baby hat and a Cal afghan started. I really need to just finish something. The scary thing is that the baby hat was started last and will probably be finished first.

Here are some pics of my recently completed and current knitting projects.

First we have the "Princess Snowball Cat Bed" from Stitch n' Bitch. Squeak approves. It is made from Red Heart acrylic yarn and Lion Brand Fun Fur.

Next, also from Stitch n' Bitch, is my take on "Under The Hoodie". Since I'm kinda sensitive to wool, I used Schachenmayr Nomotta Aurora (cotton/acrylic) for the main body and the accent stripes and Berroco Uxbridge Tweed for the wide stripe.

While I don't actually have any pics of them, I've also made 3 of the "Umbilical Cord Baby Hat".

As for current projects, I've started making the Lion Brand Microspun Ripple Shawl to go with my red & black Mandarin style dress, and well, any other dressy outfits that may need an extra layer.

I've also started working on my Gryffindor scarf. I'm roughly following the pattern at knit.atypically.net. I didn't really want the full width (9"), so I just cast on half as many stitches and went from there. I'll probably make it full length tho. I do really like working in the round, as my fingers work a lot harder making purl stitches than making knit stitches.

I'm also working on college sports throws for my sister-in-law and her new husband (Cal and Alabama, respectively) tho that is pretty slow going. I expect to start 2 more baby hats (for twins!) to have in time for a July baby shower as well. So many projects!!!!

Oy. After finally finishing off those other projects, my knitting queue has actually increased noticiably.

I'm about half finished with the HP Gryffindor scarf and probably about 20% of the way through my Ripple Shawl. I did finally get some of the yarn for the bro-in-law's Alabama throw.

New projects I've started include: infant pixie hats for a friend's baby shower (and she's having twins!!), a recycled silk shawl, and fuzzy headphone covers (with some leftover fun fur from the cat bed). I also was thinking about making something in purple Patons Allure for my mother-in-law (whose birthday is near the end of June).

Unfortunately, my wrists have been grumpy due to my new laptop so I haven't really been knitting quite as much.

I've polished off much of my knitting queue since the last update. The twin girl baby hats were gifted at the baby shower (Doh! I never took a pic of them!), the recycled silk shawl has been delivered to its new home, my Gryffindor scarf is ready and waiting for cold weather, and my Microspun Ripple Shawl will be accompanying me to a wedding this weekend (the outdoor ceremony will likely be 90F+ but the reception is in the barrel room of a winery).

Current projects include continuing progress on the Cal color block throw and making a KittyVille hat for a friend. I just got some Pachuko Organic Cotton to make a sweater but I've laid down a moratorium on knitting for myself until I can get the sports throws finished for my sis-in-law & her hubby.

Here are pics of the scarf and shawl (with a guest appearance by the blackmoondog herself!):

Woohoo! I finally finished the Cal Throw! Instead of doing intarsia, I decided to take it easy on myself and did the script Cal logo in duplicate stitch. I took the picture then folded it back up and put it in a pillowcase in the back bedroom to keep it as cat-free as possible while it is still in this house.

(pssst ... "FO" is knitspeak for "Finished Object")

This is my first try with knitting a stuffed toy and with doing short rows. It is the Pasha pattern from Knitty's Winter 2004 edition. I'm planning to use this as my new baby gift for a while. This one will be shipped off to our friends that just had a baby girl in November. Can you tell that I'm trying to wrap up the projects that have been sitting around for a while? :)

I'm currently working on the Candy Stripers Laptop Bag from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation. My only other felting experience was with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky (the yarn called for in the pattern) and I wasn't really pleased with the results. I decided (after consulting the forums at knitty.com and craftster.org) to head over to elann.com (this place is doom, I tell ya) and get Peruvian Collection Highland Chunky instead. I'm using "grape heather", "charcoal heather", "mid-indigo", and "light grey heather". It is looking a lot taller than I'd expected. I'm hoping that will scrunch up when felted. If not, I guess I'll just put my laptop in lengthwise. Last night I finished off the front panel and got started on the back panel. The picture shows the front panel, bottom panel, and back panel (left to right). I'll probably work on it again tonight if Mark decides to hole up in his office playing WoW.

After the first run through the Chronicles of Narnia DVD, I know exactly what I'll be working on when I finish bro-in-law's throw blanket. I *must* have Lucy's traveling hat. Oh yes, it will be mine. They're selling replicas on Amazon for $60-$100 but I'm perfectly happy making my own, as I have a bit of a wool allergy (much to my dismay -- there is so much fantastic wool out there!).

So, anyway, this new project should start relatively soon as I'm finally working on knitting up the last piece of the blanket! My goal is to have it finished by the time I head north for Bay To Breakers in May. I still have to get the script 'A' pattern made, knit the remaining 3/4 of the final piece, duplicate stitch the script 'A', and sew the whole shebang together. I'll post pics when I finish! :)

Tonight I finished gift blanket #2, this one for my bro-in-law. It is in Lion Brand Homespun "Antique", one of my favorite of their Homespun colorways. The intarsia Alabama script 'A' logo was done in Lion Brand Chunky.

The final entry in the afghan triumverate is a crochet number for my mother-in-law. I'll probably post more about it when I get it underway.

I finally took some pics of my current crochet/knitting projects.

First up is the third and final installment of the Family Afghan Triumverate (one and two can be seen here and here, respectively). This is the "Stunning Stripes" afghan from Book 3 of Afghans For All Seasons using Red Heart acrylic yarn. It is the Christmas 2005 gift for my mother-in-law (it's not late until Christmas 2006!! :). Socrates kindly made a cameo appearance in this pic.

Next up, we have my Very First Sock! Whenever someone asks what I'm making and I say "a sock", the next thing is always "Oh, are you making baby socks?". No way! Babies lose their socks all the time! I'm making socks for *me*. :) That said, I probably will make some baby socks somewhere along the line. Just not as my first pair. I'm using the free pattern from elann.com for the Sock It To Me toe up plain socks. Toe up sock knitting appeals to me because I don't really know how long I want the socks to be. Here's a pic of the sock as of last night with a cameo by Kira.

You may remember a photo showing my first sock in progress. That sock is no more. I ripped back the entire thing and the yarn is waiting to be chucked on the ball winder. I have not given up on socks, however!

Second Sock has been much more successful, as I have given it more careful attention (especially during the increase phase) and it has made it to the heel point with the correct (even!) number of stitches. I've been kinda nervous about working the heel and since I didn't really remember much about how to do short rows, I decided to do a practice run using plain 'ol worsted weight acrylic and larger needles. I am SO GLAD that I did a practice heel. I now have the hang of doing the short row stuff and am looking into how to keep the gaps at bay (the knit side looks great but the purled side is, um, lacy).

In the meantime, I found a pattern for baby's first sweater. The Baby Yoda Sweater is described as "a simple, quick to knit wrap sweater for babies newborn to six months...knit in soft, machine washable yarn of 100% cotton (Young Jedis prefer natural fibers, you know. Acrylic interferes with the force.)". The original pattern used Mission Falls 1824 Cotton and since I've had mixed results with substituting yarns, I will be using it as well. Rather than the grey of the original, our baby will have the Little Miss Mace Windu version in Lilac. :) The yarn arrived in today's mail and I worked out the gauge this evening so I expect to get started on the sweater some time this weekend.

Oh! I'm also anxiously awaiting the arrival of Natural Knits for Babies and Moms: Beautiful Designs Using Organic Yarns. It may persuade me to use the organic cotton yarn that I purchased almost a year ago.

I've been working on my socks again. Actually, I've become rather obsessed with knitting socks. To the extent that I was actually considering registering for sock classes at the Stitches 2007 conference in February roughly 6 weeks after I'm supposed to give birth. Just a little obsessed...

One of the toe up socks that I've knit on my own from a free pattern for use with the particular sock yarn I have is complete and I'm about half way through the second sock. Making ankle length socks is a great way to thwart Second Sock Syndrome. Here is what the pair currently looks like:

Thankfully, I found a much simpler solution to my desire to take classes at Stitches. On Saturday there was a sock knitting class being given at a local yarn shop (that I hadn't even heard of! How is that possible?!?) and despite other plans in the late afternoon that would have to be pushed back a bit, I managed to make it to the class despite leaving the house 10 minutes before the start time. The class was 4 hours long with an hour break for lunch. My right shoulder blade was burning by the end of it from knitting so fast and for so long without a break. Here is what I came home with:

The instructor taught us her basic sock pattern from the top down. I had been wanting to try top down socks just to figure out which I liked better. Next I want to try knitting socks on 2 circular needles, rather than the usual double points. I'll probably start on a full pair of top down socks before committing to that though. Socks on circulars requires me to go out and buy more needles first. Though now I know where I can get them... >:)

After we found out we were likely having a girl, I got started on making her a Baby Yoda Sweater in Lilac Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. It was a pretty easy knit but I lagged on putting all the pieces together until after Zoe was born. It is supposed to fit newborn to 6 months but it is slightly big on little Miss Windu now at nearly 3 months.

I also finished my first pair of socks before Zoe's birth and thought I took a pic but can't find it. I'll have to take another of the finished socks, the new socks in progress, and the gauge swatch for my "Dollar and a Half" sweater from the Winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am, in fact, knitting boobies. They're for my mother-in-law who will be having a double mastectomy any time now.

The yarn is Valley Yarns Southwick (52% pima cotton/48% bamboo) in "African Violet" and the pattern is Tit Bits from the Fall 2005 Knitty.

I have at least three other projects on the needles but I honestly haven't really been making much time to knit lately. The other projects include the Pacific Waves Shawl in Elann.com Sonata Print in "Rio", Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket using Peaches & Creme cotton in "Fiesta Ombre", Yarn Harlot's Basic Sock Recipe using Elann's Sock It To Me Colori, and the Dollar and a Half Cardigan from the Spring 2007 Interweave Knits using Knit One, Crochet Too Parfait Solids.

I'm reposting this contest button to enter into a drawing on The Knit Witch's blog. She makes some pretty lovely ceramic yarn bowls and has other goodies too.

It is currently 5:45am here in lovely Portland, OR and I've been awake since 3:30am. I'm taking advantage of the hotel business center computer since my iPhone got plugged into a bum outlet last night and wasn't recharging.

My traveling cohorts & I started our journey yesterday at 7am when I picked them up in the Prius to drive us all from SLO to San Jose to catch our flight. The drive was uneventful just like I like and the airport was mostly uneventful, save some shuffling when checking bags due to wine bottles. We had about half a dozen Sock Summiteers on our flight and we all gathered and rode MAX (lightrail) to our various destinations. After checking in at the hotel and ditching our bags, my roomie & I headed back to the convention center to register.

On our way down the hill, lo and behold, there is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee leading a cadre of helpers up the hill carrying boxes (Yes, she had a box too). We moved to the side to let them pass and made our merry way down the street where we promptly saw Tina Newton headed toward the same hill. Then I tweeted a picture of the Sock Summit banner. :)

At registration, I got my class list, a lovely show book, badge materials and various tickets for the extracurricular events and kinneared Tina from my phone while my stuff was being gathered. Next thing I know, there are Jasmin & GiGi walking across the lobby! Next up was a visit to the swag room to collect the Sock Summit souvenirs I pre-ordered.

Most folks parted ways to head for their various dinner plans and my new pal, KiniaCat, and I decided to stay close to the hotels and hit Burgerville for dinner. Where we promptly ran into the Knitmores again. This time we chatted with them a bit while we enjoyed our cheesburgers. Again, pics to come but Burgerville does something I've never seen at a fast food place: They put the nutrition information right on your receipt. Dude. Good thing I hadn't had much else to eat during the day!

After dinner we delivered some cookies for ST-1 & ST-2 (aka the organizing goddesses behind this whole crazy adventure) to the registration booth and then went for a walk to Walgreens to get nail clippers that we both sorely needed. After toodling around the neighborhood a bit more, we headed back to KiniaCat's room and then to the 9pm mini-skein swap at the Red Lion lounge...where the teacher's dinner was just letting out. We saw Lucy Neatby with an awesome chicken purse by the elevator and others inside included Stephanie, Tina, Rachel H., JoAnn D., Cookie A, Abby Franquemont, Denny McMillan, Judith MacKenzie-McCuin, Stephen HizKnits, and probably other folks we didn't recognize. One of the swappers had baked sock shaped cookies for the organizers and we took her picture with the cookies, Stephanie & Rachel before being serenaded by a chorus of "Goodnight Ladies" as Steph & Rachel departed for the ST meeting. I had a short chat with Mark & Zoe on the phone before they headed home from Disneyland where Zoe promptly told me "Mama? I'm hungry." She also went on the Matterhorn for the first time and apparently said "I want to go on the Matterhorn again!" as the ride ended. So they did. That's my girl. :) Not long after I headed back to the hotel where my roomie & I compared notes on the day and plans for tomorrow (aka today). Then I promptly laid awake until about midnight and woke up at the aforemetioned 3:30am. At least I got about 10hrs of sleep the night before I left.

Now it is almost time for breakfast and then a visit to Trader Joe's and probably Voodoo Doughnut (I'm still trying to figure out how to get a Maple Bacon donut back to Mark :). Sayonara!

This all is gonna start sounding gushy soon but damn, it is way cooler than I could have ever imagined. I'm trying to get this down before today mingles with yesterday but it all is such a blur that it may be rather challenging to do so.

Thursday started with a jaunt to Trader Joe's with KiniaCat to pick up some groceries. We rode the MAX down to TJ's, grabbed some breakfast at Panera and then picked up some food and rode back. I'm already drawing a blank on what happened next. I'm going to have to guess that we headed back to the convention center to hang out & knit with folks. I made 3 dozen stitch markers for trading with other people. I call them "beer goggle strawberries" because that's about what it takes to think they actually look like strawberries. It has been fun watching someone call out "Anybody trading stitch markers?" and hearing the Marco Polo-esque replies from the surrounding tables. There are also mini-skein & mini sock swaps going on. One gal was swapping mini Jayne hats. They rocked.

At 1:30 I took my first class, the one hour Hooked On Beads with Sivia Harding. She was super fun to have a class with and we got to play around with putting beads on our knitting using a freaking teeny crochet hook. She was wearing Aphrodite from the current Twist Collective and it was fabulous to see it in person. Abby Franquemont had also given her a handspun beaded shawl to show us. It was truly amazing. I got to see the original Queen of Beads sock too. It had hexagonal beads on it that were really cool.

After class we headed back to the hotel to switch out stuff and hang out until the market preview at 4:30. Despite telling myself I wasn't going to buy any Socks That Rock, I found myself in the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth and the next thing I knew there were 4 skeins in my bag and I felt a little dizzy. :) Next up was a visit to Crown Mountain Farms where I got some Corriedale pencil roving (Merlin) and some BFL roving (As Above, So Below). I picked up my pre-ordered skein of Summit Gnome at the Snicklefritz booth and the Kromski bobbins & mini niddy noddy that John from Village Spinning & Weaving brought up for me. Unfortunately, my jumbo flyer didn't make it to the shop in time for the trip to Portland. The other bummer was that Carolina Homespun had sold out their "J Mac" kates (they hold the bobbins at a 45 degree angle to use gravity for tensioning). I'm going to email Morgaine when I get home to see if she can hold on to one for me so I can pick it up when I'm in the Bay Area. On my second trip through the marketplace, I found the spinning wheel tshirts at A Verb For Keeping Warm and decided the blue one needed to come home with me. The biggest line I saw in the marketplace was for the Sanguine Gryphon. Her Bugga Bugga sock yarn sold out in the first *half hour* of the *preview night*. It blew me away. My roomie said there was a woman with EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS worth of Bugga Bugga in her arms.

After my wallet was lightened, I ran into SloBeachGirl and we went over to the Silent Auction that was raising funds for Doctors Without Borders. We also found KiniaCat there. Next up was heading into the ballroom for the opening night reception. We found a spot to sit, grabbed some munchies, and settled in to chat & knit until everyone filed in and the festivities started.

Stephanie & Tina shared the podium and they started off with Stephanie reading the proclamation by the mayor of Portland that declared it Sock Knitting Week in the city. We then heard the story of the origin of Sock Summit which was highly amusing and had the terribly sleep deprived duo in giggles & tears at various points. There was someone recording it so hopefully it will be available at some point. They announced that in one hour the silent auction raised $5700.

Sorry for the cliffhanger here but I'm gonna have to go get ready to head downtown to grab dinner before tonight's Sock Hop.

Now that it has been a week since I last blogged, I'm finally back to fill in the rest of the story. There won't be nearly as much detail as the first two posts but better fewer details than leaving the ends dangling.

I left off at the beginning of the Opening Reception. All the teachers were introduced and Barbara Walker was given a lovely standing ovation. ST-2 was thanked profusely and Stephanie said "We made this for you. We hope you like it." The thunderous applause gave some indications of how we felt. :) After the presentation part was over, we were left to mingle. Many people left and I'm glad we stuck around to meet teachers, other knitters & the ST folks. The one theme that I'm seeing over and over reading other people's experience mirrors mine: this con was more open & the feeling of connection with others was incredible. We just hung out. There wasn't any separation of the knitterati from the humble students -- and just about *everyone* had someone that they were hyperventilating over meeting. We just wandered up and chatted with Tina & Stephanie (and they were extremely gracious about all the photos) for a while.

I returned to the hotel Thursday night and had less trouble getting to sleep but still woke up at 4am. Since I was not the only one awake, we decided to hop on MAX and hit Voodoo Doughnut. The full moon was lovely and I did indeed get my maple bacon bar. It was full of NOM and then some.

First up on the conference agenda Friday was picking up a ticket for the Guiness World Record Attempt. The previous world record was set in Australia by 256 knitters. The Sock Summit crew had 1600 tickets to give out for our attempt. We had to knit for 15 minutes straight on two straight needles. At noon, I booked it over from my class to get a seat in the ballroom and randomly ended up sitting next to Celeste from Loop and Leaf in Santa Barbara. The Oregonian (Portland's newspaper) reported that we officially had 935 knitters present. In true Canadian form, Stephanie asked that we apologize to the Australian knitters for potentially blowing their record away. :)

Because I was worried about having enough room in my suitcases, I left my books home and skipped the All Authors book signing Friday afternoon. There was a pang of regret there but it was overshadowed by the fear of not having enough space to bring home the yarn & fiber I bought at the marketplace.

Friday night was the Sock Hop and we arrived after a lovely dinner at Pastini's Pastaria. Mmmm... butternut gorgonzola ravioli in brown butter sage sauce. Also, what is it with Portland & hazelnuts?? Two of the three dishes at Pastini's had them and they were offered with my salad at Burgerville. I'm not complaining, as I quite like hazelnuts but I found it a bit odd. Anyhoo, the Sock Hop was a hoot. Complete with ladies in poodle skirts, a hula hoop contest, and a couple of Pink Ladies. I had no problems getting to or staying asleep Friday night. :)

In the interest of not having a huge post here, I'm going to close the curtain on Friday and pick up with Saturday next. I think I will talk about all the classes in a single post. We'll see how it goes. I'm being paged for bed time duties now.

December ate my brain, as usual. This is what I've been up to in order to remain (mostly) sane: