Knitting Factor

Knitting Factor has moved!

2008-01-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

And is now MARYTOWN. Come on over and say hello!

Comfort Shawl

2007-11-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

I made this simple garter stitch shawl for brother-in-law's mother, who is undergoing chemo for pancreatic cancer. It's so comfy and cozy, and she can carry it in her bag to use any time she gets a chill. Hope she likes it!

I used three different yarns, which I will document more fully later, but one was a deep blue mohair, one a variegated wool, and the other a coppery eyelashy yarn.

These pics really don't do it justice. It's much more blue than it appears here.

I have been knitting

2007-11-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

My first sweater!
Pattern: 'Holly' from Naturally Noro by Jane Ellison
Yarn: Noro Transitions shade 4
Needles: Addi Turbos US 10.5

Front and back panels look alike:

Sleeves:
It doesn't look exactly like the picture in the pattern book but I'm very happy with it so far. Just the sleeves and turtle neck to go...I'm getting excited!

How NOT to mail a camera

2007-07-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

I left my digital camera in San Francisco on my last trip up there so I called my brother-in-law to ask him to send it to me. Unfortunately, I didn't tell him how to package it or that perhaps he should take it to someplace like Mail Boxes, Etc. and have them package it for shipment. Nope, didn't do either of those things.

He sent it back to me in a padded manilla envelope, so you can imagine my surprise when it actually turned on when I checked it. Unfortunately, I didn't check to see if it could take a picture because when I tried to take one today, this is what I saw through the viewfinder:

Nice!

Wild About Harry

2007-07-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Zimmerman

2007-06-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Surfed upon this gorgeous Baby Surprise Jacket and have been looking online for an hour for the Art Yarns Supermerino he used with no luck. Please excuse the horrible sentence structure by I'm exhausted for no good reason.

This fringe has been a headache

2007-06-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

So I'm making this poncho for my 4-year-old niece. I saw a photo of a great one in The Yarn Girls' Guide to Knits for Older Kids - the little girl was twirling, making the fringe fly. That was it. I had to make that poncho. Had to make it. For some reason the pattern seemed big or was made out of mohair and was cost prohibitive so I made a revised version. Unfortunately, my poncho also looks like it is for an older kid...like...six years older...ugh! Math! I should have consulted my 11-year-old nephew regarding the math!

The good news is that the Knitting Answer Book is very useful for measuring out 10" pieces of fringe.

At first I just had the 'Stained Glass' fringe on but the black thread against the pink seemed too dark once I had it all on.

Fringe 1:

Fringe 2 was so hideous I won't scare you with the details but suffice it to say
it involved variegated pink mohair. When I folded it up and put it in my knitting bag, it looked like Barbie's dead pink dog. I'll say no more.

Fringe 3:

OK I couldn't take a good pic of the Fringe #3 but I'll take one of the kid wearing it.

A cloud in my hand

2007-06-06T19:20:00.001-07:00

I cast on the Mason Dixon Moderne Log Cabin blanket and have to say I LOVE it. It seemed like it would take forever at first but it's going faster than I anticipated.

Then I cast on the 'Lily of the Valley' shawl from the Wrap Style book:

It looks like a mess on the needle now but feels like a cloud in my hand. I'm not sure how it will turn out but I'm having fun learning something new and looking forward to seeing what it turns into.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I finished the Feather and Fan baby blanket! Will post a picture after it's blocked (which will be another first for me).

Both sides of the poncho are finished...now I just have to figure out how to do that stitch that makes the seams disappear...can't remember what it's called...and then attach the colorful fringe. Can't wait to see my 4-year-old niece twirl in it!

Hey I made a hat!

2007-05-31T20:35:00.001-07:00

Pattern: Cabled Beanie from Stitch Cafe.
Yarn: Misti Alpaca's 100% Baby Alpaca - Chunky - color 1321
Needles: addi TURBO circulars size US 10

This is the first hat I've ever made and also my first attempt at cabling, which wasn't as hard as it looked. OK OK...I admit I ripped it out once or twice...OK I ripped it out six times before I put it away for a month. Then I ripped it out two more times but once I got the hang of it, cabling was fun. I wish this blog had Feelovision...because this hat is so soft I just want to keep touching it. Oh! and I made it in ONE day. That's speed knitting for me.

Google Ad Nonsense

2007-05-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

I added Google Adsense to my blog about a week ago, maybe more. Why hasn't it kicked in yet? Andrea added it to hers and it's working just fine. Has this happened to anyone else?

2007-05-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

My new favorite place to spend at least an hour dreaming and planning:

Knot Another Hat

In the queue

2007-05-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

must.knit.this.

The joy of a new project

2007-05-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

It's always more fun to start a new project rather than work on one of my WIPs. Why is that? So rather than continue working on the baby blanket (it's not due till June!) I started a Yard Girls-inspired poncho for my nearly 4-year-old niece.

It's just stockinette so it's great for knitting in front of the television - no pattern!

Uh...what are you doing?

2007-05-09T18:42:00.001-07:00

Picture this: I'm sitting on the couch happily knitting the baby blanket. My 3 1/2 year old niece is sitting on the other end of the couch watching (Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?) Spongebob Squarepants. I turn my head to see what she is doing and see my ball of yarn sitting there between us, patiently waiting to be made a part of this beautiful blanket, and next to it I see this:

...my niece holding this tangled web of yarn. "Uh...what are you doing?" I ask calmly. "I'm knitting" she replies simply. Oh.

Meanwhile... The Sublime scarf is finished! "Mary has a finished object?" the crowd asks. Why yes, yes I do!

Megan taught me to bind off, Alyssa showed me how to make the fringe, and presto! It's a beautiful, luxurious, heavely scarf. LOVE it.

It's official: I'm the slowest knitter in Knitdom

2007-05-09T18:40:00.002-07:00

The luxurious Sublime scarf is nearly finished:

And the Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino Feather and Fan baby blanket is coming along well:

About half way up the blanket you can see I start making fewer mistakes...but that's what learning is about, right? It's my first pattern and I love the old-fashioned look of it. At first I was hesitant to do something so traditional but I think it fits here. Plus, they don't know the sex of the baby yet. So that's old fashioned too!

Help

2007-05-09T18:40:00.001-07:00

I'm looking for a potholder pattern I saw in a book or magazine. Which book? Which magazine, you ask? I don't know! I can't remember! And it's driving me crazy. I wanted to knit them up for Father's Day because they were man-appropriate potholders, know what I mean? Sigh.

Know of any cool knitted potholder patterns?

I'm thinking I found my first sweater to knit

2007-05-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with this sweater from Kim Hargreaves, former Rowan designer:

And it comes in a kit! Plus, the dog is so cute. I want to live in this picture. I want to be as thin as the model in this picture. ;o)

2007-05-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

OK I got the on the needles, finally:

and feel much more confident in fixing my mistakes, but only in Seed stitch.

You may have noticed I changed the theme of my blog. I just couldn't get my pics to look right on the other one. Now I feel like I can s t r e t c h o u t.

A few days ago I got so tired of doing Seed stitch that I decided to start my next project early:

Yarn: Debbie Bliss 'baby cashmerino'.

It's a baby blanket for my cousin who is expecting her first baby in July. So exciting! It's in the 'Feather and Fan Pattern' and is the first time I'm following a pattern (sorry to be repetitive but...yanno...it's a blog). I've made mistakes but I'm trying not to sweat it. Mistakes make it handmade, yes?

It's amazing how my confidence in my knitting has grown this week. Things I've learned are starting to gel and I'm able to fix some of my own mistakes, which just makes me feel so great. Knitters are the nicest people in the world, I'm convinced of it. Thank you to all who have welcomed me to your blogs and who have commented on mine.

2007-05-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

So I was zipping along on my fabulous Sublime scarf when it finally came time to start a new ball of yarn. Simple, yes? NO! I'm new to this, you see...and suddenly I found I didn't have any coordination in my hands. Is there a trick to starting a new ball of the same color in Seed stitch? I knitted about three rows and found I could tell where the new yarn had been added so I tried to unstitch the way Megan at Stitch Cafe had shown me..."...hold the yarn tight in the back and put the right needle tip through the square window just beneath the stitch you want to take out..." (that's not a direct quote, of course, but I think quoting a knitting expert adds a certain something special). I tried doing as she had instructed but sometimes the little window below the offending stitch wasn't always so obvious so I (you did not!) took the scarf off the needles and (gasp) ripped out the three rows myself. Great idea, I thought.

Until I realized my stitches were disappearing each time I put the previous stitch back on the needle. So I'm not kidding: I'm not knitting. What good is it to have a new addiction if you can't even practice it? Sniff.

Hello Knitters

2007-05-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Knitty Me's first post! I really owe my love of knitting to my friend Andrea who encouraged me to learn after I admired a shawl/poncho she was working on...and then wore a couple days later. This knitting thing is a miracle, I thought.

Andrea recommended Stitch Cafe in Studio City as a place to get some pretty yarn. First I walked into the the tailor shop next door and said to the nice man from the old country, "Hi...I'm looking for...yarn?" (he silently pointed to the yarn in the next shop). After finding the correct door (you know...the one with the Stitch Cafe sign next to it...), I was greeted by Stitch Cafe co-owner Lisi who must have recogized the lost look on my face and said, "Hi! Want to learn how to knit?!", I picked out two colors of a super-soft baby Alpaca yarn. And so began my love of knitting. Here's my first project, a scarf:

I have since lost the two darning needles required for making those hanging pieces of yarn disappear...must remember to buy more.

And here is what I am currently working on:

It is a less expensive and smaller version of Sublime's 'wrap':

My Knitting Factor

2007-04-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

I have a blog over at Word Press called Knitty Me but I was unhappy with the fact that I couldn't use Google Ad Sense. Not that I think I'll be trucking in the cash from running Ad Sense on my little knitting blog, but I'd like to have the option, yanno?

Also, I was unable to register as KnittyMe at Knitty so I figured...restart while you are still unknown.

I am new to knitting in the last couple of months and I already wish I could do it fulltime. It seems unreasonable to me that I should have to work when there is so much beautiful yarn in the world just waiting to be cast on. Alas, no one has come forward and offered to support me in my knitting quest. But hope springs eternal. ;o)