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kniteracyIt's been a busy weekend here, mostly because of paperwork and red tape navigation enhancement, but that's a story for those of you who are interested in my life, as opposed to my knitting life. I suppose it's easy to confuse the two, but hey. My life is what it is, my knitting life is what it is, too.
So, um, did you do any knitting this weekend, Harper?
Why, yes; yes I did!
Saturday, the Singapore Knitstitch group met at Pacific Coffee in Citylink Mall, which J informs me had a sign up that they would no longer be open as of Tuesday. I'm sad, because PC is a nice place to hang out, and they have Big Comfy Red Couches, which makes for comfy coffeeshop knitting and chatting.
This was an extra, encore May meeting for the group, because Kimberli was in town for a couple of days, following her trip to HongKong and it looks like other places. I confess I haven't gone back and read her blog to the beginnin', but I may do, because this lady was a lot, a lot, a lot of fun.
I was late to the meeting because we had another leg of the red tape trip to traverse, including the putting-together of a packet of papers to be sent to New York. J was in the process of stressing over shipping from Singapore (he'd already talked to a braindead Fedex employee and not gotten much more help from DHL) when I casually asked Kimberli where home was, after she told me she was flying home on Monday.
"New York, New York," she answered in that way that people who live in New York and would never live anywhere else, evah, do.
And then an idea formed inside my head.
"Reeeeally?" I asked.
She smiled. "What do you want taken to New York?" she asked. So I explained the whole thing and she said it would be no problem, that she'd bring the stuff to NYC with her (her plane left a couple of hours ago, in fact). She checked the address on the packet and laughed. "That's like three blocks from my office." She assured me that she would messenge it over on Tuesday, then email me as soon as it went to let me know. What a wonderful person! I told her I'd buy her something nice, and she let me buy her a bottle of water. Over and above that, I really enjoyed talking with and connecting with K; she is a lot of fun. I admit that I liked her instantly. In retrospect, the total instant 'goshyou'recoolness' may be because she looks a little like my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lothie. It also may be because she is tremendously cool, fun to talk to, and is unafraid to wear orange with lime green. Yum.
We were planning a trip out with friends that evening, but it was cancelled, so J and I accompanied the knitstitch ladies to Golden Dragon, the largest yarn store in Singapore, where we looked at Japanese yarns and observed the latest craft craze here, which is applying cool yarns to plastic net handbags. I actually found myself coveting one, but then again, maybe not. The mesh ends up looking pretty cool with the yarn around it like that, but I'd prefer another kind of canvas to plastic-- and you guys know I like bags I can sling over my shoulder and carry all over London, usually with a couple of live pairs of socks inside. ;-) These bags were pretty, but they were definitely handbags one holds in one's hand, for daintier ladies than I. I know, many of you are going, "But Harper! You are dainty!" Shut up. I ain't dainty, and you can't make me.
Golden Dragon is in People's Park Centre in Chinatown, which is an old-style Singapore shopping centre with lots of tiny shops connected by twisty walkways that make perfect sense if you've lived in Singapore all your life. I have been to Golden Dragon once with Em and a couple of times since then on my own, not counting Saturday. Both times on my own, I not only ended up in the wrong shopping centre first but even when I got to the right one, I had trouble finding Golden Dragon. Anyway, I picked up two skeins of Butterfly Cotton, the same yarn I used to makefolkmew's socks. It's a stranded cotton, so it's very soft and wearable. I found it in an orange-blue-pink-yellow strand, which I'll use for tigerbright's socks, and a black-yellow-blue-pink combination for me.
TB, I promise the orange shows up much better in real life; the flash has washed it out quite a bit.pola_bear, mokatiki, would either of you like some of this stuff for yourselves, as well?
Em and K had a conversation about interpreting Japanese knitting patterns, which I'm sure I could have followed if I'd really been paying attention. I have yet to really see many styles in the various Japanese books available at places like Golden Dragon that actually appeal to me, I suppose. It could be that the models are all so much smaller than me that I can't imagine how such things would look on my body. Maybe I'll give that a think, then go back and look over some of those patterns when I can spend time there by myself.
We had a quiet night at home on Saturday after the yarn store, since our outing was cancelled, and I got most ofbardling's first heel turned.
Last night, I finished the first ofbardling's socks.
(B, if you're still having trouble viewing inline images, the url is: http://www.harpetrator.com/graphics/rikas1.jpg). I love some things about this sock and am not sure about others.
These socks are knitted toe-up following the formula in Mary Ann Beattie/Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes and Heels book, which I got earlier this month. There are a couple of really interesting things about this sock's construction. First of all, they're made with a common wedge toe, like a cuff down sock that's grafted. You can do this because of the cast-on that she teaches that allows you to cast on to both needles at once when working on two circulars (or both ends of one long circular, which is what I did). You increase from the toe to the foot width, then knit the foot around until you reach the place where you start the gusset increases. The gusset increases are very simple, but you have to do a little math first. Now, the bardling took a little time to get her foot measurements to me, and I had already started this sock when I asked her for them. Consequently, I'd increased the sock to 60 stitches around, but it turned out that the bardling's cute little feet only needed 56 stitches around. So I ripped back to 56 stitches, then promptly forgot I'd done that and calculated the gusset increases for the larger number of stitches. It shouldn't have made any difference at all, maybe four stitches total, but I fear that it did and the sock will be slightly too big. What it certainly has done is given more real estate on top than the socks really want, so there may be some wrinkling. A wash in very warm water might shrink them up a bit, or they might turn into Barbie socks, so I'm going to try to hand-shrink them just a bit before I send them off to Her Bardlingness. With a tape measure, the length and circumference seem right, so we'll see. I made the heels intentionally narrow, since she has narrow heels, and one thing I really enjoyed about this formula is that it allows for slip-stitch heels. Slipstitch heels give some padding and extra resilience to hard-working sock heels, and although I am not sure these are going to fit comfortably in shoes, they will certainly do in boots. I love the way the yarn naturally ended up going in sort of a tiger stripe pattern, but I hold to my initial assessment of these socks. The yellow bits are desert, and the blue bits are rivers and lakes in the desert. So these are definitely Oasis Socks. After I finished the heel, I knit about 2" of straight stocking stitch, then did several inches of k2p2 ribbing for ankle-fitting goodness. The crocheted castoff that MAB recommends is wonderful, and I think I'll be using it for socks from here on out, because it's deliciously elastic and you don't have to work at it to make it that way. Basically, it's CO 14, inc to 28 st/needle, work foot until the whole thing is 4.5" long, then start gusset increases, work to 18 gusset stitches, turn heel, take up gussets, then knit cuff any way you like. Easy, lah? :)
As you can see from the photo, I have already begun the second sock; I've done the toe increase and am now ready for some happy mindless round foot knitting 'til I get to those gussets again. I am going to make the gussets identical to the other sock, even if they turn out a little bit big. The yarn I'm using is a New Zealand yarn called "GEMS." That's pretty much all there is on the label, excpet for a fibre content. No address of spinnery, nothin'. I like this yarn because it is not quite as thin as ordinary sock weight yarn, so it knits up nicely on US3/3mm needles, which feel huge in comparison to the US0/2mm needles I've been using for socks lately, and it has a softer feel that some tightly spun sock yarns. It took almost exactly one skein to make this first sock, and the yarn is $3.50Sing/skein, which translates to about £1.20. Considering the price of sock yarns in the UK, or even considering the price of socks, I'd say that £2.50 (appx $5US) for a pair is pretty good! Because my PDA knitcard application isn't working at the moment, I can't remember when I started this sock, but I know it didn't take all that long to knit. And with the toe already started on the second sock, I should have some easy knitting hours ahead.
Before I get started ontigerbright's socks, I want to start working on those silk/wool socks for myself, probably using the Crazy Toes ande Heels formula, so maybe I'll have a toe started for those before mid-week.
There's now a link to Kimberli's blog from my links list. Go check her out; she is a very interesting and dynamic person.
So, um, did you do any knitting this weekend, Harper?
Why, yes; yes I did!
Saturday, the Singapore Knitstitch group met at Pacific Coffee in Citylink Mall, which J informs me had a sign up that they would no longer be open as of Tuesday. I'm sad, because PC is a nice place to hang out, and they have Big Comfy Red Couches, which makes for comfy coffeeshop knitting and chatting.
This was an extra, encore May meeting for the group, because Kimberli was in town for a couple of days, following her trip to HongKong and it looks like other places. I confess I haven't gone back and read her blog to the beginnin', but I may do, because this lady was a lot, a lot, a lot of fun.
I was late to the meeting because we had another leg of the red tape trip to traverse, including the putting-together of a packet of papers to be sent to New York. J was in the process of stressing over shipping from Singapore (he'd already talked to a braindead Fedex employee and not gotten much more help from DHL) when I casually asked Kimberli where home was, after she told me she was flying home on Monday.
"New York, New York," she answered in that way that people who live in New York and would never live anywhere else, evah, do.
And then an idea formed inside my head.
"Reeeeally?" I asked.
She smiled. "What do you want taken to New York?" she asked. So I explained the whole thing and she said it would be no problem, that she'd bring the stuff to NYC with her (her plane left a couple of hours ago, in fact). She checked the address on the packet and laughed. "That's like three blocks from my office." She assured me that she would messenge it over on Tuesday, then email me as soon as it went to let me know. What a wonderful person! I told her I'd buy her something nice, and she let me buy her a bottle of water. Over and above that, I really enjoyed talking with and connecting with K; she is a lot of fun. I admit that I liked her instantly. In retrospect, the total instant 'goshyou'recoolness' may be because she looks a little like my
lothie. It also may be because she is tremendously cool, fun to talk to, and is unafraid to wear orange with lime green. Yum. We were planning a trip out with friends that evening, but it was cancelled, so J and I accompanied the knitstitch ladies to Golden Dragon, the largest yarn store in Singapore, where we looked at Japanese yarns and observed the latest craft craze here, which is applying cool yarns to plastic net handbags. I actually found myself coveting one, but then again, maybe not. The mesh ends up looking pretty cool with the yarn around it like that, but I'd prefer another kind of canvas to plastic-- and you guys know I like bags I can sling over my shoulder and carry all over London, usually with a couple of live pairs of socks inside. ;-) These bags were pretty, but they were definitely handbags one holds in one's hand, for daintier ladies than I. I know, many of you are going, "But Harper! You are dainty!" Shut up. I ain't dainty, and you can't make me.
Golden Dragon is in People's Park Centre in Chinatown, which is an old-style Singapore shopping centre with lots of tiny shops connected by twisty walkways that make perfect sense if you've lived in Singapore all your life. I have been to Golden Dragon once with Em and a couple of times since then on my own, not counting Saturday. Both times on my own, I not only ended up in the wrong shopping centre first but even when I got to the right one, I had trouble finding Golden Dragon. Anyway, I picked up two skeins of Butterfly Cotton, the same yarn I used to make
folkmew's socks. It's a stranded cotton, so it's very soft and wearable. I found it in an orange-blue-pink-yellow strand, which I'll use for tigerbright's socks, and a black-yellow-blue-pink combination for me. TB, I promise the orange shows up much better in real life; the flash has washed it out quite a bit.
pola_bear, mokatiki, would either of you like some of this stuff for yourselves, as well?Em and K had a conversation about interpreting Japanese knitting patterns, which I'm sure I could have followed if I'd really been paying attention. I have yet to really see many styles in the various Japanese books available at places like Golden Dragon that actually appeal to me, I suppose. It could be that the models are all so much smaller than me that I can't imagine how such things would look on my body. Maybe I'll give that a think, then go back and look over some of those patterns when I can spend time there by myself.
We had a quiet night at home on Saturday after the yarn store, since our outing was cancelled, and I got most of
bardling's first heel turned.Last night, I finished the first of
bardling's socks. (B, if you're still having trouble viewing inline images, the url is: http://www.harpetrator.com/graphics/rikas1.jpg). I love some things about this sock and am not sure about others. These socks are knitted toe-up following the formula in Mary Ann Beattie/Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes and Heels book, which I got earlier this month. There are a couple of really interesting things about this sock's construction. First of all, they're made with a common wedge toe, like a cuff down sock that's grafted. You can do this because of the cast-on that she teaches that allows you to cast on to both needles at once when working on two circulars (or both ends of one long circular, which is what I did). You increase from the toe to the foot width, then knit the foot around until you reach the place where you start the gusset increases. The gusset increases are very simple, but you have to do a little math first. Now, the bardling took a little time to get her foot measurements to me, and I had already started this sock when I asked her for them. Consequently, I'd increased the sock to 60 stitches around, but it turned out that the bardling's cute little feet only needed 56 stitches around. So I ripped back to 56 stitches, then promptly forgot I'd done that and calculated the gusset increases for the larger number of stitches. It shouldn't have made any difference at all, maybe four stitches total, but I fear that it did and the sock will be slightly too big. What it certainly has done is given more real estate on top than the socks really want, so there may be some wrinkling. A wash in very warm water might shrink them up a bit, or they might turn into Barbie socks, so I'm going to try to hand-shrink them just a bit before I send them off to Her Bardlingness. With a tape measure, the length and circumference seem right, so we'll see. I made the heels intentionally narrow, since she has narrow heels, and one thing I really enjoyed about this formula is that it allows for slip-stitch heels. Slipstitch heels give some padding and extra resilience to hard-working sock heels, and although I am not sure these are going to fit comfortably in shoes, they will certainly do in boots. I love the way the yarn naturally ended up going in sort of a tiger stripe pattern, but I hold to my initial assessment of these socks. The yellow bits are desert, and the blue bits are rivers and lakes in the desert. So these are definitely Oasis Socks. After I finished the heel, I knit about 2" of straight stocking stitch, then did several inches of k2p2 ribbing for ankle-fitting goodness. The crocheted castoff that MAB recommends is wonderful, and I think I'll be using it for socks from here on out, because it's deliciously elastic and you don't have to work at it to make it that way. Basically, it's CO 14, inc to 28 st/needle, work foot until the whole thing is 4.5" long, then start gusset increases, work to 18 gusset stitches, turn heel, take up gussets, then knit cuff any way you like. Easy, lah? :)
As you can see from the photo, I have already begun the second sock; I've done the toe increase and am now ready for some happy mindless round foot knitting 'til I get to those gussets again. I am going to make the gussets identical to the other sock, even if they turn out a little bit big. The yarn I'm using is a New Zealand yarn called "GEMS." That's pretty much all there is on the label, excpet for a fibre content. No address of spinnery, nothin'. I like this yarn because it is not quite as thin as ordinary sock weight yarn, so it knits up nicely on US3/3mm needles, which feel huge in comparison to the US0/2mm needles I've been using for socks lately, and it has a softer feel that some tightly spun sock yarns. It took almost exactly one skein to make this first sock, and the yarn is $3.50Sing/skein, which translates to about £1.20. Considering the price of sock yarns in the UK, or even considering the price of socks, I'd say that £2.50 (appx $5US) for a pair is pretty good! Because my PDA knitcard application isn't working at the moment, I can't remember when I started this sock, but I know it didn't take all that long to knit. And with the toe already started on the second sock, I should have some easy knitting hours ahead.
Before I get started on
tigerbright's socks, I want to start working on those silk/wool socks for myself, probably using the Crazy Toes ande Heels formula, so maybe I'll have a toe started for those before mid-week. There's now a link to Kimberli's blog from my links list. Go check her out; she is a very interesting and dynamic person.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 06:43 am (UTC)-g
Bardlings socks
Date: 2005-05-23 09:41 am (UTC)Teddy
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:20 pm (UTC)But I am amazed I am saying anything beyond 'meh meh meh, meh meh meh-meh' so, y'know...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 05:49 pm (UTC)I just noticed the credo on this page (ah, what you miss, just skimming a friends list thingy) and I like it. Good for you.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 08:19 pm (UTC)