Knitting WOW!

Sometimes a knitter must humble themselves and bow down to a superior talent…  I do so now!  Take a look at this…

WOWSER!

Now if knitting with those bad boys is not mad skillz I sure the heck do not know what is?!?  That my friends is the woman who holds the world record for knitting with the largest needles.  You can read about her on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting_needle#The_Guinness_World_Record_for_Knitting_with_the_Largest_Knitting_Needles.  Ohh, and check out their website.  She’s also done this with 50 strands of wool (YES, you read that right FIFTY): http://www.knitwitspenzance.co.uk/index.php.

Wonder if they let her carry those on a plane?

The December Sock

Very, very, very loudly the sigh drifts from my lips. This is of course after I’ve thrown a full scale temper tantrum that had I not been on a crowded bus would have involved an on the floor screaming, leg kicking, fist pounding best two year old tantrum that anyone has ever seen!  The tantrum did involve some needle throwing and some full fledged rather violent ripping.  I did manage to bite the ever loving crud out out of my cheeks to hold in the many curses that I wished to scream at the top of my lungs!  I only managed to refrain from throwing the full tantrum when I by chance glanced up from mad cheek biting and violent ripping to notice that a very good portion of the bus was staring at me.

My knitting while occasionally frustrating rarely really upsets me.  I accept that as part of knitting there is frogging this is and always will be just something you suck up and you do and you march on. There will always be bad patterns out there and even more often there will be bad pattern readers out there.  There will always be the days where you just didn’t think the rule of creating a gauge swatch really applied to you.  There will always be projects that require modification to fit your actual measurements.  Most of the time I actually try to take frogging as a learning lesson for something to do differently in the future.

But I digress back to the conniption on the bus…  What led to this little round of madness you ask?  THE SOCK or as it is now and shall forever be known as that F’ING SOCK.  I had a plan, I stuck to the plan, the plan worked like a charm!  Eleven long months of sock knitting had produced on time 5 pairs of socks and 1/2 only 1/2 of one pair of socks left to go.  I being the brilliant project manager / planner that I am was on track to finish on time no less!  I had fully planned to save one of the easiest pairs for last.  One that knit up on larger needles so that it would go quickly.

In December it began I started this little project about a week late but I knew how quickly and easily the first sock had gone and thought to myself no problem.  This sock was actually my first attempt at design and it had gone extraordinarily well.  I knew this sock like the back of my hand, no worries… and then it began:

• Frogging round 1 – I started with a larger size of needles by mistake
• Frogging round 2 - Can’t remember why this frogging round occured but I remember that it did occur
• Frogging round 3 - UNFREAKING BELIEVABLE the  F’ing sock has to be knit a very specific way from the heel and who paid no attention that’s right the f’ing planner (hence foreward known as the dumb ass)
• Frogging round 4 – Did something wrong and frogged the heel again
• Frogging round 5 – OMG kill me now this is a sock for heavens sake a SOCK why is a SOCK defeating me!!!!!  This time I finished the heel all is on track and THEN I screwed up the pattern.

This is how a grown 33 year old woman succumbs to wishing like mad that they could act like a two year old and throw a full scale tantrum.

The Finished Half of the Socks

A Room of Her Own

I was in a knitting frenzy. Don’t ask me what had come over me it was just one of those days where I wanted to knit everything in site.  And I went to it.  But then I needed my knitting guage measure; out to the living room I went.  Then I needed a different pair of needles oop those were in my room and off I went.  Then I needed to check on the previous sock that I had made.  Oop that was downstairs where I had left them to take picutres for Ravelry. 

In short I walked up down and around my house trying to get to all of the items that I needed I made so many trips that I quickly became very frustrated.  I am, or at least I thought I was an organized person prior to all of this nonsense.  This was not only frustrating I was WASTING valuable knitting time!  Simply unacceptable!  How was I going to fix this I pondered?  I stared at the accumulation of all those trips and thought to myself of all the other areas in my home upstairs, downstairs,  work bag, and car where items were stashed and <BING> the light went off!  My room yes, yes, this just might work.  I am very fortunate to have a rather large room and since I’m not married (thank you LORD!) my room belongs only to me! 

What if I cleared out a corner, if I brought this chair up?  And brought this in, I could move this around… Quickly the idea emerged and I was off to work.  A few short hours later VOILA!  So the picture below is horrible no matter what I do this room just doesn’t receive enough natural light in the winter to take a good picture.  Alas, I know what it looks like in my head…  Sanctuary, peace, serenity, I don’t get to spend enough time there but when I do; dogs at my right in the sunny spot, generally my teenager taking over my bed I find a place often yearned for, home.

Home is where the heart is.

My, what lovely balls you have

I love it! I love it! I love it!  You know what it’s like when you get a little obsessed with something???  Well having created my own Yarn Swift and then getting the new ball winder I may have gotten a little OCD… I mean just a little itty bitty tiny bit.  Getting the hang of using them took about 3 skeins to accomplish but once I had it down no piece of yarn was safe.  Dear Lord who knew I had so much stash that needed to be wound?  Every piece of leftover yarn that wasn’t in a cake somehow became one. You know you’ve got it bad when you’ve exhausted your own stash and have had to call in your other knitting buddies to bring you their stash so that it can be wound as well.  They needed nice neat pretty wound balls too don’t they?  No, really I’m not kidding… THEY DO: Lette’s Cakes.

All the yarn cakes!!!

And this isn’t even a fraction of the balls that I’ve wound! WEEE!  Anybody, else need to have some skeins wound?

DIY Swift for $18.00

Recently I walked into my LYS; I had two skeins of yarn that I’d been given I was wanting to work with and thought maybe they wouldn’t mind winding them up for me.  Naturally, I assumed there would be payment involved.  I figured I’d get charged $1 or $2 bucks each to have them wound. However, when the LYS owner said $5 a skein I think my jaw may have dropped. Matter of fact I’m almost sure that I stared for awhile like a blundering idiot thinking that this was a joke. Perhaps they thought I was lying and that I’d bought the yarn elsewhere. I wasn’t, I was given this yarn as part of a swap – Forum Post. Who knows what they thought? But the thought of $5 a skein struck me as ludicrous. So I did what any other cheapskate like myself would do. I politely said, “No, thank you I’ll just buy my own.”

Now perhaps at this moment savy LYS owner smirked knowing what the price of a swift and ball winder was and thought that I’d be back with my proverbial tail between my legs to pay for my skeins to be wound.  Sadly though I did at that time know exactly what a swift and ball winder cost and I was determined that I would do this for $50.  Why $50?  Ten just happens to be the number of skeins in my stash that needed to be wound and therefore the break even dollar amount.  If I could do this for $50 it would be the same amount as if I’d paid to have it done but I’d never have to worry about it again.  Now some of you are probably thinking, “oh wind the damn skeins yourself and quit your bitching”.  For most folks I’d agree with you but I ride a train to and from work everyday and this is where I do a ton of my knitting.  Anyone who has ever dropped a ball of yarn knows those bad boys have the incredible tendency of going further and around more things than you would have thought possible.  On a train however it is positively spectacular; trust me I know.  So center pull balls are a MUST!

Now how could I do this on the cheap for $50??? Working the online mojo I found the cheapest but well rated ball winder that I could. There were no acceptable shortcuts that I could find for a ball winder. All in all it’s just worth it to buy that bad boy and be done with it. The ball winder just happened to come from Amazon the cheapest, no tax and free shipping scored the ball winder for $28.99. Step 1 done and over half of the budget gone. As anyone who’s looked into a ball winder and swift knows, the ball winder is the easy part; your average swift will run you anywhere from $55 for a cheapy on up. I started to look at all kinds of swifts; Lacis Umbrella Swift, Table Top Yarn Swift, and even a Goko Yarn Swift.   None of these were going to make the budget so I started looking into DIY swifts. I have to admit I found many more ideas out there than I thought that I would:

• Table top yarn swift
• The coat hanger swift
• A more sophisticated coat hanger swift
• Tinkertoy swift
• Lego swift

I’ll be damned if there aren’t some very creative folks out there who are absolutely brilliant in using things they have on hand. After seeing all of the spectacular ideas I still hadn’t hit on the one that worked for me. Either they required things I didn’t have; be they skills, tools, or toys or they weren’t quite as permanent as I wanted to make mine. AND then after a few hours of hunting I found IT! The Beka Yarn Swift (see it in action). Now this I thought to myself I could do. Even better I knew just how I could do it. I was also, pretty positive I could do it on budget. One trip to the local Home Depot confirmed all of my suspicions. If you own a drill, 1/4 inch drill bit, and a saw you too can make your own swift for about $18.00.

So here you have it directions for an $18.00 homemade swift that works dang nicely if I do say so myself!

DIY Swift

Supplies

1. 8 – 3/4 inch PVC 45 degree slip elbows: .64 x 8 = 5.12
2. 4 – 3/4 inch PVC 90 degree slip elbows: .67 x 4 = 2.68
3. 2 – 3/4 inch PVC cross all slip: 2.05 x 5 = 4.10
4. 2 – 3/4 inch PVC pipes: 1.27 x 2 = 2.54
5. 1 – 1/4 inch wooden dowel: .65 x 1 = .65
6. 1 – Wooden Base: 2.09 x 1 = 2.09
   
7. 1 – Old CD
8. 1 – Drill
9. 1 – 1/4 inch drill bit
10. 1 – Saw
11. Sandpaper
    

**IMPORTANT NOTE – Make sure that you get PVC that is not threaded it should be a slip end for all pieces (in other words the pieces connect by just slipping in, no screwing) (wow all the double entendres in that sentence alone are staggering).   If you’re not sure ask a sales person they’ll be able to help!

Directions

1. Take your handy dandy drill with that 1/4 inch drill bit and grab the two PVC cross slip pieces (Item 4 in the Supplies list) in the very center drill straight through the middle of the cross sections do this to both of the cross sections on the top and bottom (picture below)
2. Take your wooden base (Item 6 in the Supplies list) and drill in the center approximately 1/2 way through the center of the board (picture below)
3. Saw 4 lengths of PVC pipe (Item 4 in the Supplies list) to 5.5 inches long
4. Saw 4 lengths of PVC pipe (Item 4 in the Supplies list) to 15 inches long
5. Saw 4 lengths of PVC pipe (Item 4 in the Supplies list) to 1.25 inches long
6. Saw 4 lengths of PVC pipe (Item 4 in the Supplies list) to 17 inches long
7. Attach pieces from step 3 (5.5 inch lengths of cut PVC pipe) to the PVC cross that you drill through in step 1 (Item 4 in the supplies list)
8. Attach the 45 degree slip elbows (Item 1 in the supplies list)
9. Attach pieces from step 4 (15 inch lengths of cut PVC pipe) to the other side of the 45 degree slip elbows
10. Attach the next 4 45 degree slip elbows to the ends of the PVC cut in step 4
11. Attach the small pieces of PVC cut in step 5 above (1.25 inch lengths of cut PVC pipe)
12. Attach the 90 degree PVC (Item 2 in the Supplies list) elbows to the other side of the PVC from the step above
13. Attach the 4 remaining pieces of PVC (17 inch lengths of cut PVC pipe) to the PVC cross (Item 3 in the supplies list)
14. Then attach to the ends of 90 degree elbows
15. Cut the wooden dowel (Item 5 in the supplies list) into a 17 inch length
16. Cut the remaining wooden dowel into 4 small 2 inch pieces
17. Insert the 17 inch wooden dowel (step 15) through the top of the PVC cross then through the bottom cross
18. Line up the CDs inner open circle with the bottom of the wooden base that you drilled the whole through in step 1 (picture below)
19. Insert the bottom of the wooden dowel into the wooden base
20. Drill small holes in the upper 4 sections of the PVC
21. Insert the small lengths of dowel cut in step 16 into the small drill holes made in step 20
22. Last but not least the PVC on the edges where the yarn rests is slick to give it some surface tension use the sand paper and rough up the arms a bit with a good sanding.  This will help to hold the yarn in place
23. DONE!  Start winding!

Now, I’m sure despite my best effort that my directions suck so hopefully the following pictures will help to better demonstrate what I have tried to describe.  If not please feel free to post your questions and I’ll try to get back to you as quickly as I can.

Step 1

Step 2

Top Leg Angle with Dowel

Bottom of Leg Angle

Center View - Assembled

Top of Swift

Here is the final result with a skein on in full spin!

It's alive I tell you, it's alive!

A year in socks…

Last December my Son and I were chatting and we decided that in ’08 we would like to take a cruise for Christmas.  Well cruises ain’t cheap and I’m a single Mom.  In order to accomplish this we were going to have to do some serious planning and saving.  How could we pull this off?  In order to have enough money to pay for the trip and buy Christmas gifts?

First, and foremost I established a Christmas Savings account at my companies local credit union.  One step down.  That helped garner us at least a little interest on what we saved.  I already knew that I wanted to make knitted gifts for my closest friends but good yarn is not cheap and good knitting takes time.  While at the local Barnes & Noble one night I stumbled across a book about destressing your life it mentioned that major holidays and birthdays are often a very stressful time for most folks because they wait until the last minute to buy everything.  The idea was that instead of waiting until the last minute to start planning in January.  First to make up a list of friends and relatives that you wanted to buy for.  This is the January goal just to make up your list.  Then to divide them evenly by each month and to buy that many gifts each month.  Thereby allowing you to budget more easily and buy most gifts well in advance.  So for example lets say your list came to 11 you would buy one gift each month for one person.  One in February, one in March, and so on.

Thus an idea was born!!  I decided to split up the folks that I wanted to knit a gift for and the folks I wanted to just buy for.  So in January I made up my lists picked out a yarn and commenced.  There were six folks I wanted to make a gift for so I bought one yarn each month for the first six months then knitted just one sock each month for the first six months and then did the second sock in the last six months.  This way I could make my gifts and not have to worry about second sockitis, the money, and the time.  The fabulous news is IT IS WORKING!!!!  It has been hard to stick with the plan at times but it’s August and I am well ahead of schedule!!  I am pleased to present:

January & July

Whitby

February and August

Chunky Monkey

March and September

Thuja

April

Beaded Rib

May

Mini Cable

June

Chevron Sock

It has definitely taken a lot of work to pull this off so far but keep your fingers crossed for me hopefully I will pull this all off!  Only three socks left to go….

Mashed Up

Mashup?  Heard of it?  No, not mashed potatoes (but ummm yummmy those sound good right about now)!  What’s a mashup you ask?  Well for the best description you can of course check out the wonderful Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_%28web_application_hybrid%29 and read up on it.  For eases sake however a mashup is a web app that combines data from more than one site.  So, if you get 5, 10, or some other ungodly amount of RSS feeds you can create a mashup from a variety of different sites (Yahoo Pipes, Microsoft Popfly, and various others) and combine them into one feed.

How in the hell does this apply to knitting you ask???  Simple I made a little knitting mashup that anyone is welcome to use: http://pipes.yahoo.com/vanderbilt/allpurledup.  I took several of my favorite knitting blogs and sites and made a little mashup of them.  Currently, I have it set so that it puts the sources name at the beginning of the post and only brings back the three most recent entries.  The sites included so far are:

• Ravelry
• Yarn Harlot
• Knitters Review
• Lion Brand
• Knit & Tonic
• Vickie Howell
• Crazy Aunt Purl
• Mason-Dixon Knitting

The nice part about this is that you don’t even have to go to Yahoo you can further subscribe to an RSS feed that get’s emailed to you or whatever else you choose.  Anywhoo, if anyone has any suggestions, for adds I’d love to hear your feedback!