Fiberphile

Zipped Up

Life has been busy here, but in a good way. Work has been picking up and so my days have felt a little fuller. Accordingly, my knitting has slowed down a little, although I have been hit with a touch of the startitis that's been going around. (Is there a vaccine for that?) I'm still plugging away at the same things I've been working on, but have added a few new things as well.

A couple of weekends ago I sent off a swatch of the yarn I'm using for Rogue to ZipperStop so that they could pick out the most coordinating color for my zipper, and it had arrived after I got home from a conference in Chicago. This is my very first zipper, and I'm pretty please with how it all turned out. I know, the photo doesn't show off the zipper all that well, so you can click here to see a detail of the zipper at the throat. Looking at the photo on the left though, I'm thinking that Rogue would make a mighty fine vest. Maybe with a little more of the applied i-cord around the armholes, no? Not to worry, the sleeves for this Rogue have been knitted and blocked, and they'll get sewn on soon, but it's an interesting thought. Anyway, I remembered having seen several discussions about sewing a zipper into your knitting, and ultimately referred to Stephannie's photos from her adventures with her Eris, which was mighty helpful. 

A small FO

... is an FO nonetheless.  And I finally have one to show today.  I finished my Natalya gauntlets yesterday at work and proceeded to wear them the rest of the day to combat the air-conditioning, despite my technician telling me that they remind her of a homeless person.  I think she just doesn't get it.  I really love them and think they'll be very useful.  The cable pattern gets a little lost in the variegated yarn, but I'm happy that they'll be good companions to  my Clapotis.

Here's the rundown:

Pattern: Savannahchik Jody's Natalya gauntlets.

Yarn:  Mountain Colors Mountain Goat, a 55% mohair, 45% wool blend in the Rimrock colorway (now a discontinued color I think).  Love. this. yarn.  It is so soft and silky to work with, and the colors are great.

Needles:  I knit these on US 6 Addi Turbo's.  Per Jody's suggestion on the pattern I knit them fairly tightly in order to make them more impervious to the outdoors. 

This pattern was well written and fun to knit up.  They were my first attempt at any sort of glove, and it was interesting to see how the finger-lets were formed.  They've made me want to knit up a pair with full fingers now, and I've got my eye on some I've seen in Melanie Falick's Handknit Holidays.  More details on that later...

Meanwhile, Charlotte is growing.  I took this photo yesterday after work, and at that point I was working the next to last section that alternates the 4th and 5th color.  Now I'm up to the last section and think I may finish the knitting tonight.  I'm a little nervous about the crocheted border because I don't feel very comfortable with a crochet hook, but I guess I'll muddle through.  Then all that will be left is the blocking.  I ordered some Zonta blocking wires last Saturday with this project in mind, but I don't know if I'll be able to wait to block it until they get here. 

If I do, that will be two projects put on hold.  The other thing currently waiting for the next step is my Rogue.  The front bands are done and it's been blocked.  Now I need a zipper.  I looked at some of the newrby shops here in Charlotte, but didn't find anything that I thought would do.  So I'm going to knit up a swatch of the yarn and send it off to New York City so that the good people at Zipperstop can match up the color and cut one to size.  I'm still amazed that someone will do that for me and a $3 zipper, what a great service!

So clearly it's time to start thinking again about what's up next.  As I mentioned, I'm going to knit up a pair of gloves, these vintage beaded ones from Handknit Holidays. (That link will send you over to Jody's photo album with pics from the book.)  I'd also like to make this Christmas tree skirt, so I'll be on the lookout for a bunch of Manos shortly.  I've obliged myself to make some socks for a friend too, just have to pick some yarn and a pattern and get started on those.  And (I'm so Happy!) I finally ran across the pattern I swatched for with the yarn I bought at Artfibers from my summer trip in San Francisco, so I think I'll be getting started on that soon too! 

Happy knitting!

Oh, that Charlotte!

I'm really enjoying this new hometown of mine. The house is under control as far as projects I want to accomplish go. The job is going well, and I'm enjoying the people I work with. I'm still not terribly busy seeing patients, but that will take time I know. I have managed to stir up a little cataract business though, and tomorrow I will finally see the inside of an operating room again. That's got me both excited and anxious. And I'm just really having fun here. The restaurants are great, there's a lot going on here culturally, and life in general is good.

However, that's not really what this post is about.

Last weekend we had such a pretty Saturday here in Charlotte that I decided to take a little roadtrip up to Davidson to visit The Needlecraft Center there. It was my first trip to the shop, and I went, not necessarily intending to purchase anything, but just wanting to know what was there, yarn-wise. Well, wouldn't you know, I came away with a small bag. I've admired many of the Koigu Charlotte's Web shawls that I've seen around blog-land, and although I've never been totally convinced that I had to have one, the fact that they had the pattern, a decent selection of Koigu, and a shop sample, and my newly transplanted home put me in a Charlotte mood.

These are the colors that I came away with. From left to right, they are P141L, P121, P106L, P100L, and P131, if you're interested in those specifics. I limited myself to working with the choices at the store, and I'm sure I would have chosen differently had I used an internet source with all colorways to choose from. I didn't have any particular theme in mind either, just picked what looked pretty to me, and what I thought might work.

This weekend has been a rainy, blah weekend, and so has been the perfect time to cast on. Between yesterday and today, I'm nearly ready to join in color 4. Now that the knitting has started, if I had to give this colorway a name I'd call it Rainbow Brite. (Does that link name date me?) I think the colors will be less in-your-face once it is blocked, but I actually really like it so far, and I think it will be a good, casual shawl. It ought to look good with jeans or as a scarf with my denim jacket. I'm not sure how the next color will look, but I've got my fingers crossed that it will blend well.

Here's a cartoon that a friend clipped and gave to me. I thought it was funny and didn't see it being passed around blog-land, so enjoy! (You can click and make it bigger)

Rogue-ing

Here's an almost-finished Rogue cardigan! The body is done, and the sleeves are done and have been blocked. All I have left to do is the attached i-cord, and that has been giving me a little bit of trouble. I used Claudia's formula for picking up stitches along the front edges, but it seemed to pull too much and shortened the edge an inch or two the way I was knitting. So now I'm on to trial and error. I'm close to being happy with my results... my latest attempt was to pick up 4 of every 5 edge stitches, but the two edges aren't quite the same between the top of the pocket and the start of the neck cabling (perhaps this has to do with the fact that I forgot to count the number of stitches I picked up along the first edge, ya think? One of my finer moments of brilliance!) So at least one of the edges will be ripped out again tonight for another attempt. I do really like the way the icord is looking though, such a nice finished edge! You've seen them before, but I'll show mine off once I get it all worked out

Since it seems the customary thing to do, I wanted to show a detail of the hood grafting as well. I was a little nervous before I got started with it, but I think it's turned out very nicely, and I couldn't be any happier with it. After getting the hang of alternating between knit and purl grafting as necessary, the thing that really made it all come together was going back along my work and adjusting the tension of the grafted stitches. I tend to pull my working yarn fairly tightly when I graft, which made the join much more apparent. Once I worked a little slack through the row it all started to disappear, and now looks pretty seamless, I think.

Even though there are plenty of WIPs on my side bar to choose from at any given knitting moment, I've added another small project that I now take to work with me. I've admired Jodi's Natalya gauntlets ever since she posted the pattern for them last year here. I'm finding that NC indoors can be a little overly air-conditioned, and my hands sometimes get very cold when I'm just chillin' (literally and figuratively) in my office. Gauntlets to the rescue! I'm using the same Mountain Colors Mountain Goat that I used for my Clapotis last year.

Well, it's off to work for me now. I've got another new project on the horizon, but it will have to wait for another day!