Tag Archives: knitting

13

Jan. ’18

I think I have a problem…

 

Resfeber Socks
Knitting Expat
Wanderlust Sock Club
January, 2018

 

While cleaning my craft table I decided to do my daily task of knitting 5 rounds for my Resfeber socks. And while I was doing that, watched the newest episode of The Crazy Sock Lady on YouTube.  And while I was doing that, she mentioned how she was using her Row One minis for scrappy socks.  You guys… a lightbulb went on in my head and I decided I needed to start one as well.  I’ve got 4 months of these minis.  One is in my cozy memory blanket project bag.  And the other 3 are just hanging out waiting for me to use it.  In addition, I just bought the Addi FlexiFlips and was dying to try them out!  So instead of cleaning my floor, I casted on one sock and did about 3 rounds before I got control of myself again.

The yarn is from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio which I received in my October, 2017 Row One Subscription. I picked this one because the minis are 5 grams and felt that these little minis – mini of the minis if you will – are perfect for scrappy socks.  I’m planning to keep going until I use up the mini and then switching out to another mini but I’m not sure how long 5 grams will go on a sock.  I do want them to be scrappy so if it goes too long I may switch it out after a few rounds.  At this point, I’d like both socks to be different but if I ended up switching the mini out before I use it, I may just put whatever I don’t use on the next sock and it will be a bit more matchy matchy.  On to my next task for the day…

I just made plans with a girlfriend to have dinner at OO-Kook, our favorite Korean BBQ spot in KoreaTown, so now I’ve got to get my sh*t together. 🙂 I’ve got a couple of errands to run and I do need to give my Luna some love. As a reminder, Luna is my beloved sewing machine. The big one that stays at home as opposed to my little Bernina that travels with me or Lola, my featherweight.

Have fun friends!

Melanie

 

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07

Jan. ’18

2018 Crafty Plan – Knitting

…And I continue my crafty plan for 2018 for knitting… I’m off at my quilt guild’s workshop today but I scheduled this yesterday to get my Crafty Plan posts up before it gets too late in the new year…

If you missed the start, see my first post about my quilty plans. This is the second, and the third continues with cross stitching.

  1. SOCKS!
    1. Box of Sox 2018 with Voolenvine – I want to make my 12 pairs for the year.  I was able to do it for 2017 and if I make a pair a month, I can easily do it.  I just need to keep on track and make a pair a month.
    2. Knitting Expat’s sock clubs – I’m part of 2 right now and this feeds into my Box of Sox 2018.  This club will take up 8 pairs for the year.
    3. Knotty Gnome magical maladies pattern – I purchased these in 2017, I think there are 4 or 5 patterns and I’ve started on 2 of them.  These will make up the other 4 pairs.
    4. I also want to do more Mercury socks, a Christmas sock, Hermione’s Every day sock, the blueberry waffle socks.
  2. Hats!
    1. I want to make a bunch of hats to giveaway.  These are easy to make with chunkier yarn.  I plan to make 4 for the year.  I can probably make more but this isn’t high on my list and I do not want to put too much on my plate. Hahaha…
    2. I’ve got a few hat patterns in my queue so we’ll try those in addition to the fornicating deer hat.  I don’t have a hunter in my life but I find that hat hilarious and I think I can find someone in my family who would appreciate the humor.
  3. Mittens!
    1. I want to do Skeindeer Knits Mitten patterns.  She has a set that she put out last year and I didn’t have the desire to do it while she was doing it.  Living in Southern California, there’s not been a need for mittens but these mittens are beautiful and would make wonderful gifts.  I love how they look and I’m inspired by them.  She also has broaden my world to Norwegian or Scandinavian knitting and patterns.  They’re beautiful and I want to try my hand at it.  I can’t commit to a sweater but a mitten is doable.
  4. Sweaters!
    1. I’m currently making a Weasley sweater for my daughter and I’ll be done with that shortly.  I’ve got the front and the back done and I need to put them together and knit the sleeves.  When that’s done, I’ll put something on the needles for me.  I work on this project during my Thursday knit nights.
  5. Cowls, shawls, etc.
    1. I casted on a cowl, a shawl and a poncho while I was on break during the holidays.  I found since returning back to work I haven’t had the time to work on these.  I do not want them to go by the wayside so I have to figure out when I’m going to work on them and put them in a rotation.  It’s only been a few days since I recovered from an illness so I’ll figure something out eventually.

My daily crafting projects consist of my Knitting Expat sock of the month, then my Christmas 2017 sock that I’m almost done with.  When that is done, my second project will be another sock.  I haven’t had a lot of time to do more than that.  To do 5 rounds on my sock it takes about 45 minutes.  I’m not a very fast knitter and I think I’ll be working on speed this year.  Each round is about 8 minutes.  While I was on vacation I really liked having socks at various stages and I’m debating on whether I want to continue that.  I find that the ribbing is the part where I can take it with me on the go wherever I’m at.  The problem is that it’s only 20 rounds and I get through the ribbing pretty quickly.  I don’t like the feeling of having a lot of projects on the needles.  Normally I like to have one sock, one hat, one sweater, and possibly one cowl or poncho or shawl.  It was fine while I was on vacation because I could work on each project every day and see progress.  But now, I just do not have the time.  So I need to figure something out.  Right now, the Resfeber sock (Knitting Expat’s sock for January) and my Christmas sock is it.  Then I’ll figure out what I want to work on when my Christmas sock is done.

~Happy Knitting!

~Happy Crafting!

~Melanie

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10

Oct. ’17

My First Sweater

My First Sweater
10/10/2017

I finally finished my kimono that I’ve been working on these last few months.  This is my first sweater/cardigan/ jacket and I’m really happy with it.  I still have to weave in the ends but I’ll do a bit at a time until it’s all done.  I think I’m about halfway through at this point.  It’s still pretty hot here in Southern California but the mornings are getting chilly and pretty soon I’ll be able to wear this.  My next sweater I’m working on is a Harry Potter sweater for Kayla.  I’m working on the back and I’m about 25 rows in.  I’ll try to take more progress pictures and post them here for you to see.

~ happy crafting

~Melanie

 

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30

Aug. ’17

Central Park Socks

Central Park Socks
8/29/17

Another pair of socks finished for the month!  This is part of Mina Philips of the Knitting Expat Podcast’s New York Sock Club.  The last pattern will be released on 9/1 and I’m happy to have gotten these socks finished and off the needles by the end of the month.  I haven’t chosen the yarn for the next sock yet.  I’ll wait until I see the pattern before I do so.  I learned through this experience that some pattens work with striping sock yarn or speckled yarn or more tonal yarn so when I see the pattern that’s when I’ll figure out the yarn.

Update on the car situation – I was able to connect with the service manager of the shop that needed to “release” my car to the shop that’s actually doing the repair and he said he was going to call the extended warranty after our conversation and do so.  Then the extended warranty is supposed to call the repair shop and authorize the repair.  All in all – I’m not supposed to pay for the repair!  woot!  I called the repair shop to give them an update and that was the last I heard.  Hopefully, everything is being worked on and I will get a call at some point today letting me know that my car is ready.  I have 2 appointments today.  One of which I will definitely not go because it’s just too far.  I’ll just stay home and get some work done.  The other appointment is more reasonable but I’m not sure it will work out time wise.  We’ll see how it all goes.  I’ve got a lot of work to do and I need the time to do it.  Waiting around for a driver to take me around is a waste of time for me.

~Happy knitting and crafting!

~Melanie

 

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20

Aug. ’17

Sunday plans

Yesterday was a very productive day.  I was able to do the first 5 items on my crafty to do list and interspersed other non-crafty tasks within.  Then we had a wonderful dinner catching up with friends we hadn’t seen since the beginning of summer.

Today will be a mixed day of getting ready for the upcoming week, crossing things off my crafty to do list and Game of Thrones.

Here’s today’s crafty list:

#1 – wash and fold new fabric

#2 – A Rainbow Garden – spend some time applique-ing the first set of pieces on.  Here’s a picture from my Sunday stash post earlier today.

A Rainbow Garden
Block 8 – cut the pieces and pressed the paper onto the wool fabric
8/6/17

#3 – Maxwell Bag – I wasn’t able to do this task item yesterday so it’s closer to the top of the list today.  The next steps are to cut the rope to size for the handles, cover it with soft and stable, make the fabric tube and cover the rope with the fabric tube.  I want to get these tasks done before my next bag class this coming Saturday.

The outer and inner parts put together
5/2017

#4 – Starting Point Shawl – Yesterday, I was only able to do one front row.  I’m in the section that does a lot of PTBL and KTBL (purl through the back look and knit through the back loop) and that takes a lot of concentration from me.  I only have 1 row left in this section and then I can move onto the next color which is much easier.  So today I want to do that last row and the next two rows in the new section.  I also need to take a new picture.

Starting Point Shawl
8/9/17

#5 – secret project – hand sew the binding

#6 – Raining Cats and Dogs – spend some time hand quilting this project and apparently take a new picture.  The last picture I have of this project was from last year.

#7 – Kimono – continue working on it. The plan is to do a right side and a wrong side on each sleeve every day.  I hope by the time I make it out to knit night at my LYS, I’ve got the right sleeve done and I can concentrate on the left sleeve.

#8 – Cross Stitch – work more on Mama’s Bukid.

#9 – August socks – do a couple of the 4-row repeats.  Yesterday I finished by 7th repeat so I need 5 repeats to do.  At that point, I’ll try it on and hopefully, I can start on the toes this week.

#10 – And if I have time, pull out my pajama pants and get to the next step.  To be honest, I do not think I’ll have the brain power to do this if I get to task #10.  But I notice that if it’s on my to do list, I will get to it at some point.

 

 

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09

Aug. ’17

Knitting Update, 8/9/17

It’s been awhile since I posted pics of all my knitting WIPs.  For detailed information on my knitting projects, find me on Ravelry.com.  I am Mellies1000Needlz.  But here are the projects I’m actively working on this past week:

  1. St. Patrick’s Day Socks – I pulled this out of hibernation since I had gotten a couple of socks finished last month.

St. Patrick’s Day Socks 
8/9/17

2. Starting Point Shawl – On one-half I’ve finished the first and second clue.  On the second half, I’m almost done with the first clue.

Starting Point Shawl
8/9/17

3. I pulled the Rickke Hat out of hibernation.  I’m not fond of the yarn and I am avoiding this project.  But I want to finish it up and give it to its intended recipient this Christmas.  I think the yarn is fine to wear but not to knit.  I am trying to do a bit each week.  We’ll see how far along I am in October and I’ll probably move this to top of the list until I get it done.

Rickke Hat
8/9/17

4. Since I have extra sock yarn now that I’m knitting up socks, I needed something to do with it.  I started with this cozy memory blanket but at 16 stitches per side, they’re tiny and do not use up much yarn.  I think the next one I’ll do will be doubled in size to use up more yarn.

cozy memory blanket
8/9/17

5. With any extra sock yarn, I’m putting them into a crochet scrappy blanket.  I just chained 200 and I’m doing single chains on the first row.  If I get bored of the single chain I may alternate it with double chain rows.  I’m not sure yet and I’m okay with however it ends up.  Right now, it’s just a crochet worm.

crochet worm
8/9/17

6. I started the St. Patty’s socks back in March and I was knitting socks one at a time then.  Now I knit them 2 at a time.  I felt like I needed to cast on a second sock and put them on the needles to get 2 at a time socks.  I thought it would be perfect to use a sock blank since I can only knit socks from sock blanks one at a time.  Here’s my Secret Mandala socks:

 

Secret Mandala Socks
8/9/17

Here’s how the sock blank looked like before I started knitting:

 

7. And finally, my Central Park Socks by Mina Philipps of the Knitting Expat podcast.

Central Park Socks
8/9/17

~happy crafting!

~Melanie

 

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28

Feb. ’17

Knitting Tuesday, 2/28/17

 

Magenta/Gray socks

Last time –

magenta/gray socks 2/14/17

magenta/gray socks
2/14/17

Now:

magenta/gray socks Done! 2/28/17

magenta/gray socks
Done!
2/28/17

And they’re done!  yay!  I’m so excited.  Here they are pictured but have not yet been blocked.  I can’t help but wear them first.  Anyone else like that?  Just as a reminder, these were knitted with #1’s and I decreased every round.  I’ve since tweaked my personal sock preference and will continue to tweak until I find the perfect fit.

Purple/Gray Socks

Purple/gray socks 2/14/17

Purple/gray socks
2/14/17

Purple/gray socks 2/28/17

Purple/gray socks
2/28/17

Now that the magenta socks are done, I’m working primarily on the purple socks.  Sock #1 – I’m working on the foot.  Sock #2 – I’m working on the heel flap.  I’m using #2 needles, a shorter heel flap and I’m decreasing every other round instead of every round.  So far, I like how these are looking better than the magenta socks.  I hope they fit better as well.  The magenta socks were a bit on the tight end but I believe that once I block them and use them a bit, they’ll loosen up.

Snowberry socks

Snowberry socks 2/7/17

Snowberry socks
2/7/17

Snowberry socks 2/28/17

Snowberry socks
2/28/17

These are for the girl and we are both loving the yarn!  They remind me of birthday cake ice cream from Baskin Robbins.  These are my purse knitting since it’s in the simple stages at the moment.  I’ve been carrying them in my purse and they are officially my “purse knitting”.  I love how far I’ve gotten on them.  The bulk of the work was done in the past week.

 

Kimono Sweater

My first sweater Kimono 2/14/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
2/14/2017

My first sweater Kimono 2/28/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
2/28/2017

That’s about 15″ high now and I need to knit it until it is about 27″.  I’ve got a long way to go especially since I’m doing about 5″ every 2 weeks.  This is a long term project but as long as I keep working on it each week I’m happy.

~Happy Knitting

~Melanie

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14

Feb. ’17

Knitting Tuesday, 2/14/17

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Magenta/Gray socks

Last week –

magenta/gray socks 2/7/17

magenta/gray socks
2/7/17

now:

magenta/gray socks 2/14/17

magenta/gray socks
2/14/17

I am loving the sock knitting right now.  I know last week my hands, wrists, arms, and elbows were hurting so I took a short break.  I still knit every day I just didn’t knit as much as I was knitting.  Even so, I am progressing nicely in all my projects.  For the magenta/gray socks I was able to get the decrease done and now I’m back to easy knitting until the toe.  For this project my decrease was done on every row.  I think it is too abrupt and on my purple socks I am decreasing every other round.  It takes a little more managing as I have to write down which row I’m on and what I’m doing but so far I’m loving it.

Purple/Gray Socks

Purple/gray socks 2/7/17

Purple/gray socks
2/7/17

Purple/gray socks 2/14/17

Purple/gray socks
2/14/17

As you can see, I started the decrease on the left sock and the right sock only has a few more rows before I start the heel flap.

Snowberry socks

Snowberry socks 2/7/17

Snowberry socks
2/7/17

I progressed a little bit by putting a bit more rows on the left sock but it doesn’t look much different than this picture so I didn’t bother taking a new picture.  However I did want to say that the little progress was in no means my fault.  I bought another #2 hiya hiya sharps 9-inch circulars.  I love these for sock knitting and I only have 1 right now.  The sock on the right is on them.  So I bought another one to put the sock on the left.  I like knitting socks concurrently because it helps prevent the second sock syndrome (which is when you finish 1 sock but never the 2nd one because of boredom or just because).  Anyway, I got the set I ordered and started using it.  Within a couple of days I was not happy.  There was something wrong and the yarn kept snagging on the join between the cable and the needle.  I was not pleased.  I contacted the shop I purchased it from and I already sent it back to be returned but that’s another $$ in S&H that I had to spend.  Obviously they recommended sending it regular mail for 46 cents but I wanted to be able to track it.  That’s one reason I should buy my needles at the LYS.  Unfortunately my LYS didn’t have 9 inch circulars the last time I was there and I didn’t want to wait for their next shipment.  I think next time I’ll be more patient.

Regia Socks

Kayla's Regia sock 2/7/17

Kayla’s Regia sock
2/7/17

Kayla's Regia sock 2/14/17

Kayla’s Regia sock
2/14/17

I frogged the first sock from the last picture and with my hiya hiya order came #2 hiya hiya sharps on a 32 inch circular.  I now have 16″ and 24″ which are two needles I’m not sure I’ll be using again.  But we’ll see.  The 32 inch circular works well putting two socks on the needles.  It feels slower than doing one at a time concurrently as there is a lot of yarn managing.  But, I am enjoying the process so far.  We’ll see if it continues.  I’m not entirely sure how I’ll be doing the heel and other stuff on 1 cable at the same time but we’ll see.  I think I may have to take them off and do them on separate needles concurrently.  If that is the case, I’ll need to either get more #2 9 inch circs, or use the 16 and 24 inch circs.  We’ll see. 🙂

 

Kimono Sweater

last week –

My first sweater Kimono 2/7/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
2/7/2017

My first sweater Kimono 2/14/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
2/14/2017

It’s about 10 inches now.  I’m enjoying this.  The color is grayed out above but you can see how much I’ve done from last week.

~Happy Knitting

~Melanie

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07

Feb. ’17

Knitting Tuesday, 2/7/17

 

Magenta/Gray socks

Last week –

magenta/gray socks 1/31/17

magenta/gray socks
1/31/17

Now –

magenta/gray socks 2/7/17

magenta/gray socks
2/7/17

I am progressing pretty nicely on my socks.  I’ve got the heel flap and I turned the heel on sock #2.  Now I just need to do the decrease.  Since that will take a little effort I will work on the foot part of sock #1.  I like how it is looking and I like knitting it.  But I’m knitting so much that my hands, wrists, and elbows are starting to hurt.  So, I need to slow down on my knitting.  I’m hoping I don’t have to stop completely but can just do a bit at a time.  I find that sock knitting is really hard on my hands because I’m gripping the needles so tightly.  So I’m going to try knitting on other projects and see if that helps.

Kimono Sweater

last week –

My first sweater Kimono 1/31/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
1/31/2017

Now –

My first sweater Kimono 2/7/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
2/7/2017

I am supposed to do this stitch for about 5 inches but I am fine with it being at 4 inches.  I started the next part and I’m enjoying this project.

Here are updates on my other sock projects.  It’s been a few weeks since I last posted pictures and I’ve actually been working on them a bit at a time.

Purple/Gray Socks

Purple/gray socks 1/17/17

Purple/gray socks
1/17/17

Purple/gray socks 2/7/17

Purple/gray socks
2/7/17

I turned the heel for sock #1 and I’m working on the leg for sock #2.  Right now sock #2 is my easy knitting that I pull out just to work a bit on each day.  It doesn’t require much thought.

Snowberry socks 1/17/17

Snowberry socks
1/17/17

Snowberry socks 2/7/17

Snowberry socks
2/7/17

I really like this yarn.  It’s so soft and I love knitting on it.  The problem is I only have 1 hiya hiya sharp #2 9inch circulars and the sock on the right is using it.  The sock on the left is using hiya hiya sharp #2 -24inch circs.  It’s not fun knitting on these.  I ordered another 9 inch circ and as soon as it gets here I’ll be replacing the needles on the left.

And I started another sock project.  This one is actually for the girl but I started it so she could just knit and purl to her heart’s content and not worry about getting it started.

Kayla's Regia sock 2/7/17

Kayla’s Regia sock
2/7/17

This is using Regia’s self striping yarn and Kayla and I are loving it.  This is on hiya hiya sharp #2 – 16 inch circs.  Of all the needles I’ve tried, I love hiya hiya sharps #2 on the 9 inch circulars.  I do want to try magic loop at some point so I think I will be able to use the 16 inch and the 24 inch at some point.  I did order myself 32 inch circs also.  I’m not sure if I will like it as I did fingerless mitts on magic loop and I didn’t enjoy knitting those.  But that was a couple of years ago so I’ll try it again and see how it goes.

~Happy Knitting

~Melanie

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31

Jan. ’17

Knitting Tuesday, 1/31/17

Pink/blue socks …

Last week –

1/24/17

1/24/17

Pink/Blue Socks My Second Pair 1/31/17

Pink/Blue Socks
My Second Pair
1/31/17

All the ends are weaved in and I’m wearing them now! woot!  I love them.  These are technically my second pair of socks.  The first were these:

My First Socks 11/2/2016

My First Socks
11/2/2016

I gave them to my mother when she came to visit me last November.  They were practice socks.  The yarn was just some yarn I had lying around.  It’s much bigger than sock yarn and I used  #7 DPNs.  They were bamboo DPNs and I can’t remember the company.  Probably Clover as I didn’t want to spend money on this at that time in case I wouldn’t take to it and just used whatever I had on hand.  Now that I’ve finished my second pair and working on my 3rd, 4th, and 5th at the same time, I’m loving the sock knitting.  I’m just doing plain vanilla socks as taught by Lucy Neatby in her Craftsy class, My First Socks.  I’m learning how to modify the socks so that they fit me best.  Those first purple socks were too big.  The second pink/blue socks I just finished are still a little too big.

Magenta/Gray socks

Last week –

magenta/gray socks 1/24/17

magenta/gray socks
1/24/17

magenta/gray socks 1/31/17

magenta/gray socks
1/31/17

I have about 1.5 inches left on the second sock before I start turning the heel.  I’m a slow sock knitter.  I would love to knit a pair of socks a month.  I hope I get there someday.  But I’m happy to be where I am right now as those first socks took me forever!  I believe 6+  months. I wasn’t really keeping track back then and I didn’t knit as much as I do now so it really isn’t a good comparison.  However I am faster and I hope that I get better as I go along.  I did discover this past week that the yarn I have been using is not Malabrigo.  lol.  I have a few skeins of Malabrigo and this colorway matches closely with one of the Malabrigo skeins I have.  But it is not.  Rather the yarn I’m using here is Crock-O-Dye sock yarn color #224.

My first sweater Kimono 1/31/2017

My first sweater
Kimono
1/31/2017

And I started on my first sweater.  I’m still at the very early stages and I can only knit a couple of rows a day.  I do not have a lot of time so I just do a bit when I can.  My local yarn shop has knit night tonight and every Tuesday. I’m hoping to attend and work on this project each week.

~Happy Knitting

~Melanie

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