Progress

Chris is making great progress on the Silk Slip from Lingerie Style. He has finished the lace that goes under the bust and has one cup almost done. I can't wait to see how it looks put together. He is doing an AMAZING job, especially since hes only been knitting about a week!!! The yarn, by the way, is a brand new one from The Painted Sheep-- "Wild Thing," a Tussah Silk/Merino blend in the color "Sangria"


I am currently working on the Hexagon Bag (pictures coming soon) and a pair of socks in Sushi Socks. The Sushi Socks is a joy to work with -- soo soft. It will be interesting to see how it wears. I'm also using the Sangria colorway.


Of course, Beau isn't making it easy for me to get my socks finished!

Today's Finished Items

Several things came off the needles last night and today. Last night I finished the first of the Fishnet Stockings from Lingerie Style and cast on for the second (its about half finished now). I am really pleased with how they are turning out but have no idea what to wear them with!

I also (FINALLY) finished the Surplice Bodice Cami, also from Lingerie Style. This one had been sitting on the needles almost finished for a month-- I just couldn't get inspired to get it out and finish it. I'm glad I did though, I think I may wear it to work/open knit night tomorrow.


And Chris finished his first real project! And its also from the Lingerie Style book (my current favorite, can you tell?). He made a pair of panties, hehe. It was actually a great beginner project because it required knitting, purling, increasing, decreasing and, a new skill, picking up stitches. And YOs. All the basic skills needed. The next project he has in mind is the Silk Slip from the same book. It is more challenging and involves some beautiful lace. I think he can handle it. We dyed some beautiful red silk/merino yarn for it tonight-- we are calling the color Sangria. I can't wait to see how it looks dry. I think it might be my favorite color so far.

Introducing...Beauregard!

Beau is a 5 month old hound/pit bull mix puppy who needs a home. I am currently fostering him for AARF. He is adorable and super calm and relaxed. He likes to nap and have his belly rubbed. He isn't house broken yet, but we are going to work on that this week. I have him until this Saturday when I will be taking him to an adoption fair (which happens to be held right beside Knit Picky) to see if we can find him a family. I would really like to keep him, he seems like a great dog, but we really don't need another dog right now. Isn't he cute?

Ok, so back to knitting. I am working on lots of projects, as always, but want to talk about 3 in particular. First, I finished the Todos Scarf sample- its beautiful. Maybe thats egotistical of me to say, but honestly, it is. Now I just need to get a good picture of it. I have also put together some kits with the pattern and yarn for the scarf so you don't have to buy a full skein of each yarn.

I am working on the Hexagon bag from the current Knit Simple and it is gorgeous. The yarn-- milli colori-- is one of my favorites. And the bright colors are perfectly framed with the black Noro Cash Iroha (a change from the pattern). Wow. Its going to be a really nice bag. Larger than I expected, though. I am making it as a shop sample and will be offering a class or workshop on it this fall. Its a neat technique- very little seaming required!

Project #3 for today is a pair of the Fishnet stockings from Lingerie Style. I've been wanting to make them and finally decided to cast on today. It calls for Wick, a yarn I love but which doesn't come in many colors that I would use for fishnet stockings. So I decided to use black Ultra Silk instead. Wow is this yarn nice. Its a bit pricey, it is silk (well, a silk blend) after all, but it is just sooo nice to work with. Its a bit bulkier than the Wick, but hopefully that won't affect the finished stockings too much. I am trying to knit tighter than usual and hope that the stretchy pattern will make it work out alright.

More Harry Potter

Just a few more pictures of Harry Potter projects. I finished the second of the House Scarf bookmarks, this one in Hufflepuff colors, and started on the mini-Weasley sweater ornaments. The little sweaters are going to be pretty cute I think. They will have letters (I am doing H for Hufflepuff, G for Gryffindor, etc) duplicate stitched on the fronts. Standing at only 2.5" tall they are very quick knits!

Harry Potter knitting

I brought home some Cascade 220 in gold/yellow, red and black from the shop for a couple of Harry Potter projects from the book Charmed Knitting. While what I really want to make is the slip-stitch bag, I have to wait until the correct colors come in b/c we don't have them at the shop right now. So until then I will have to make do with other projects. So far I have finished two of the House Hats-- one in Gryffindor red/gold and the other in Hufflepuff black/gold and one book scarf (Gryffindor). I have plenty of yarn left over from the hats for another book scarf (Hufflepuff) and some of the tiny sweater Christmas ornaments. These projects are so quick and easy. Yay for instant gratification!

Bonsai Top Finished!!!

I just finished knitting the Bonsai top I've been working on for the last month or so!! I really enjoyed working on it but am glad that its finished because I have so many other projects I want to work on. I just laid it out and sprayed it to block it and am going to let it dry overnight. Tomorrow I am working at the shop so I'm going to take the pieces with me to sew together during slow times. I can't wait to see how it turns out....I am happy with how the knitting turned out, not too many visible mistakes and all that, but am not sure about the style. Its just such a weird style for me. I'm not really a vest person. But we will see! I'll try to post pictures tomorrow but for now its bedtime.

Update: Got the top sewn together this morning at the shop and had AM take pictures. I still need to finish the armholes, but I wanted to take a picture while a) someone was around to take one for me and b) it was sunny out. I'm not sure yet what I think about it...it is a little big. I think its growing on me though.

Felted Hat

Yesterday I knit up Pick Up Sticks' Wavy Flower hat pattern and today I felted it. It was a surprisingly fast knit on size 10 circulars. Right now it is drying. I can't wait to try it on! It might still be a little bit big but I can always felt it a little more. More pictures here.

School is almost over

Only one more day of classes! Ever! I will have a couple of exams next week but nothing I'm too worried about. This means, of course, that I will soon have much more time to knit! Yippee! I haven't been able to get much done lately, but I have finished a couple of small things: a crocheted bobble clutch from One Skein, one sock out of some of my hand painted yarn (the other has about 1/3 done), a shell out of Summer Net (no picture yet, though), and a hat that still needs to be felted...that might be it. I've also been doing some dyeing and working on getting The Painted Sheep ready for business.

Exciting News

Like the title says, I have some exciting news to share. This summer I am going to be starting my own little hand-painted yarn business! It is going to be called The Painted Sheep and the website will eventually be at http://paintedsheepyarn.com (it doesn't exist yet though). This week I have been researching places to buy undyed yarn, getting a website started and beginning to experiment with the dyeing itself. I have dyed yarn before and got a real kick out of dying self-striping yarn, but now I am trying to be more creative and artistic. So far I have dyed one skein in Knit Picky inspired colors and another in greens and pink inspired by a photograph by Bonnie Berlin (the third picture). The green is still wet so the colors will actually end up a lot lighter than this photo shows. More pictures here.

Hand Painted Yarn

free pattern for tiny sock here

New Pictures

This is going to be a busy week at school, unfortunately. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress I've made on Anouk, the Bonsai lace top and the Open/Closed sweater sign for the shop.

Open/Closed Sweater Sign for Shop

I finally started the Open/Closed sweater sign I am making for the shop. Jo gave me 4 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas cotton in blue, lime, red and orange to make a baby-sized sweater that says "Closed" on one side and "Open" on the other that we can hang in the shop window. I have been putting off starting it because I can't decide exactly how I want to arrange the colors and what type of design will look best. My colored pencil sketches just aren't cutting it though, so I am biting the bullet and giving it a try. I have a couple of inches so far. The pictures doesn't show the colors right-- they look kind of faded and gross in the picture. They are actually very bright and cheerful!

Sock Ideas?

Jo gave me a couple balls of SouthWest Trading Company's Craft (cotton & milk fiber) in a cheerful grass green and suggested I make socks out of them. They call for a size 6 needle and are 125m/50g. Any suggestions on pretty sock patterns for this size yarn? I would like to do something summery, lacey, etc...

On the Needles

I thought I had finished the bikini but unfortunately the bottom didn't fit-- too big. So I have ripped it out and casted back on.

In the meantime I have made some progress on my Bonsai lace tanktop from IK. Now if I could only find the pattern (which I lost a week ago). I had the lace repeat memorized so I was fine for a while, but now its time to change to the upper part and I don't know what to do.

I also knit a pair of panties. They are great! They actually fit really well. I used Cascade fixation, which is a wonderful stretchy cotton yarn that you can just throw in the wash; so nice! The pattern is adapted from Sexy Little Knits. I made this pair to go with a nightie that I am knitting out of the same yarn. I even incorporated the same lace pattern into them. Now that I know that this pattern works and it fits well and looks great I am excited to start another pair. I have picked out a different color fixation (lime green and blue), now I just need to decide what lace pattern I want to use, or if I want to use some other type of decorative stitch....hmm