Secret Pal 10 Questionnaire

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I love natural fibers and am an admitted yarn snob. I refuse to work with acrylic, nylon, novelty and other synthetic fibers. I don't even use acrylic yarn to make charity knits, even if it has a 20% wool blend.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
Needle rolls I made.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? Taught myself from a crappy book 3 years ago. Am intermediate.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? Amazon

5. What's your favorite scent? Lavender

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Yes! Dark chocolate is the best! I also like Jelly Bean Sours and fruity candy (no banana or pineapple).

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I am slowly fixing up my house by myself (hubby doesn't like or do DIY). I dabble in many crafty things, but lately it's knitting, sewing and a little beading (stitch markers!). I've been borrowing a friend's wheel to practice spinning.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD). I listen to a variety of stuff. I love 80s alternative/new wave music. Also like Cowboy Junkies, Norah Jones, Manu Chao. Don't know the names of a lot of new stuff, but I like Snow Patrol, Radiohead. Don't listen to rap. Don't like country at all.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? Red, earth tones, blues. Don't like pink.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? Married, 3 felines (one is supersized at 23 lbs; one is an average 11.5 lbs but acts like a dog), no human children

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? scarves

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? Don't have one.

13. What are you knitting right now? lace shawl, entrelac wrap, scarf, baby booties, hat...and lots of other UFOs

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? yes

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? Both straights and circulars have their own purpose. Bamboos, birch and Addis are my favorite needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? I have 2 homemade swifts and a store bought ball winder.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? 3 years

18. What is your favorite holiday? Don't really celebrate any holidays. Used to like Chinese New Year, but now that I'm older and married, I don't get red envelopes and money anymore.

19. Is there anything that you collect? Does yarn and knitting tools count? Actually, I like antique and vintage crafty things. I have antique wooden shuttles and a vintage Sears sewing kit.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? Don't have subscriptions to any crafty zines, except Readymade.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? Shaping when working with lace patterns.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? No.

23. When is your birthday? April 18

Stitches West, Here We Come!

Aubrey and I will be trekking up to SF this weekend for Stitches West. Woohoo! We'll be crashing on the floor of my sister's tiny apartment in SF, then I'll be stealing her car so that we can go down to Santa Clara. I used to live in Santa Clara, so hopefully, the ways of the road will come back to me and I won't get discombobulated and lost. Part of our itinerary includes checking out Craft Gym and meeting up with my friend Christina, who will be going to the Stitches Market with us. And if we have time, maybe revisit some of the SF LYSs.

Now what will I pack? Nah, clothes aren't that important...for a knitting weekend, I think I need LOTs of room to bring back yarn and other goodies that might acquire. I will also need to bring some WIPs. I think I will bring my latest new WIP, an entrelac scarf/wrap made of handspun yarn by Zona and chocolate and rust colored baby alpaca. I think I will bring one of my handpainted yarns for Christina. I should also make some buttons, in case I find people who want to buy some. I've come up with some cute and original button designs. I just need to list and photograph them.

Needle Organization

As I get more involved in this "little" hobby of mine, I have discovered that my needle supplies need better and more efficient organization. When I first started knitting, I made this needle roll below, which was more than suffice and fit all my stuff rather well. It was made of various remants I had from my curtains.


Then when I joined my knitting group, I needed something portable, so I made this green one out of some sari fabric (bought on ebay) and some batik (bought in Indonesia). The white thing in the picture is velcro, so that I can keep little things like cable needles safe, but also be able to take the pouch out.


But as my "little" hobby grew, my needles started falling out of my larger needle roll and my travel one started becoming overflow storage. I also had a problem of always needing to search and search for the right sized needles. Whenever I tried to look for needles, everything would get caught in the circulars and selecting needles was like playing your luck in the lottery. Also, I had to sprawl out to do this so my needle roll took up prime real estate on my sewing tables. I needed something better. The first thing I did to solve that problem was to make a holder for my circulars. This one below is a prototype, but the idea is to hang it on a wall or hanger with the grommets. I need to make a better one.


Well adding the circular needle case to my organization still did not help much, as you can see below. All this obviously does not include all the needles on the many many UFOs any dedicated knitter has.


So, I decided to make a better needle roll for all my straights and DPNs that could be portable, if needed, and save surface real estate. The orange dotted one was the prototype, but I had made the pockets a little snug for the more commonly used sizes, where you're likely to have duplicates. This prototype now belongs to Aubrey, who desperately needed something to help her organize her needles.


So after making some adjustments, here's the final one. Yay! It has pockets low enough to fit both 5" and 7" dpns, and pockets wide enough to fit extra pairs of same-sized straights. The roll accoommodates a full set of needles sizes 000-19, up to 13" in length. Now, all I have to do is make a pattern out of the specs I used for this so that I can make some to give friends and to put up on my etsy shop. Ooh gotta go shopping for more fun fabrics too. Yay!

Here it is hanging on my craft room wall. The little zippered pouch is detachable.

Dye-No-Mite! swap

The swap rules have now been finalized. Check it out here. I'm so looking forward to this; I know it will be fabulous!

Roses are red

I am really not too fond of Valentines Day. I am not opposed to having an extra special day, but those damn marketing ploys really take it over the edge. How many campy stuffed animals and pepto bismol pink things do people really need? I could go on and on.

Hubby and I don't really do anything that most people celebrate, such as Vday. We don't exchange gifts or anything. We're lucky to have everything we could want, and if want anything material, we can get it ourselves. I would not want him to buy yarn for me (he might accidentally buy acrylic for his yarn snob wife), nor would he want me to buy any techie things for him (I used a cell phone held together by a wire and rubber band for 8 months.) Anyways, we do at least do try to do something together, but nothing extraordinary. Well, unlike me, hubby is rather dutiful and sends me beautiful & fragrant roses every year.

This year, since I now have a little more time, I made him two of his favorites: Chicken Marsala and Tiramisu. We kept it simple, as usual -- we ate in the kitchen, had the TV on, and hubby flipped though a magazine while he ate.

Roses are red,
Hubby's socks are blue,
He loves that English actor
By the name of Hugh.

After dinner, we went to see hubby's man-crush, Hugh Grant in Music and Lyrics. Yes, he really wanted to see the movie, as he does for all of Hugh's movies. Hubby thought the movie was flawed: bad script, no good chemistry between the actors, and bad acting/character development for Drew Barrymore's role. However, in true devotion to his idol, hubby declared that Hugh was his usual wonderful self. His loyalty and adoration for Hugh was even part of the best man's speech and many jokes at our wedding. I predict that the combination of hubby's adulaltion and goofy nature will inevitably lead to his spontaneous off-key singing, dancing and hip shaking in imitation of his man-love at home, and worse, in public. Man, I'm doomed.

If I weren't devoted to hubby, I don't know if I 'd be able to endure his public theatrics, nor would I have finished knitting his socks. I highly doubt I would ever make another pair, unless another loved one asks me to.


Project: Hubby's socks
Pattern: Many bad patterns, and several ones I had to reference because of the bad patterns. I used this, which had many errors, checked this, referenced some books, and altered to suit my tastes.
Yarn: MC- KnitPicks Swish in Bare (100% Superwash Wool), which I dyed various shades of blue and seagreen; CC - KnitPicks Swish in Coast Grey
Needles: US #5 and US #6

Oh Baby!

In a previous post, I mentioned that I taught my friend Ann, who was a star student, to knit. She knitted this baby hat for a friend as her very first project!! Bravo, Ann!

While I we were knitting, I managed to make a hat for her pudgy and adorable baby Josh out of yarn that I purchased on a mini yarn crawl at an LYS.


Josh is such an adorable baby!

Project: Josh's Baby Hat
Pattern: My own take on the baby knot hat. I don't recall exactly what I did, but I did about 4-5 rows of 2x2 rib, worked in St st for about 3 rows, then I repeated 1 purl and about 7 St st until it was time to decrease, ending on a purl round before rapidly decreasing to get that gathered look. The knot is an i-cord.
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca

My New Toy

I got a button machine!

Kitty would not go away and insisted on being in the picture.


The thing to the right is a circle cutter.

My first buttons! Making and formatting the images took forever, but I'm really liking the results. I think I'll make more and post them in my etsy shop later.

New Swap

After participating in a couple of swaps, I decided to go ahead and give organizing one a try. I haven't really seen any swaps out there relating to hand-dyed and hand-painted things, so why not start one? (Actually, I believe there was a dye swap a while back, but it no longer seems to be active.)
Swap Name: Dye-No-Mite!
Theme: Secret swap for Hand-dyed and hand-painted things.
Participants: Crafty people -- Knitters, Crocheters, Spinners and other fiber enthusiasts
Coming Soon: I'll post the blog link once I've finalized the details, rules, etc. So, keep your eyes peeled and help spread the word! Thanks!

Mission: Yarn Acquisiion

Today, Zona and I headed went to Laguna Beach on a mission: Clean out a thrift store of it's yarn stash! This is no ordinary smelly craft yarn that you stumble upon at a thrift store. We would not even bother driving down there unless it worthy yarn. This was recycled sari silk yarn from MangoMoon!!! The store had a total of 9 ziploc bags of the yarn (tags removed, but the store said they were MangoMoon). They were $10.50 for yarn in an orderly skein or ball and $5 for yarn barf. More than half were yarn barf, but not unmanageable. Aubrey had wanted some too, but she could not get out of work, so 3 of the 6 bags pictured are actually for her.

After I unbagged the yarn, I felt like a thief for getting this at such a steal. MangoMoon usually retails at around $20 per 150yd skein. The yarn lover and addict in me couldn't help feel a little sad that the store didn't have more!

I've already managed to untangled one of the barfy messes and it wasn't too bad. I haven't counted the yardage, but it seems to be a full skein. I must thank Jan who posted notice on our knitting group message board about the yarn. Thank You Jan!

In spinning news, I finished spinning the remainder of the matted roving. Tomorrow I will try to play with some Brown Sheep mill ends that Zona gave me. If I get insomnia again, I guess I could play with it tonight instead. :)

Spinning Tales

Last night I borrowed Aubrey's Xmas present -- an Ashford Kiwi. I cooked dinner for my friends and after dinner, Zona showed me how to operate the wheel. I had already experimented with a drop spindle, so I already knew the very basics of handling the roving and drafting the wool. (I don't like drop spindles because I find it annoying to have to keep spinning it manually.)

After Zona went home, I played with the wheel for about 3 hours. Look what I did!This is my first yarn. It's some blue-gray roving that I had purchased a long time ago to play with the drop spindle.

I took one of the arms of my homemade swift and used it as a niddy noddy. I'm not sure how many yards I have here. If I don't say so myself, I thik I did a pretty good job of keeping a realtively even yarn. The fuzz was unavoidable since the roving was old and a little beat up to begin with. After running out of this blue roving, I managed to find some more old roving from a felting experiement and embarked on another attempt:
Woohoo! I might just have to hold Aubrey's wheel hostage...

Sock update

Ok, here's a picture of my progress.It wasn't easy getting this far. See, I still have not learned, and was determined to do a different color on the heel, which was not too hard to figure out and adjust. However, that pattern generator had mistakes in it, and as she said, they weren't meant to replace a knitting pattern. So, I ended up with some problems. I knew there was an error when it came to turning the heel since I've made more than a couple pairs of baby booties. I ended up consulting the sock knitting tutorial and many online basic sock patterns before things made sense.

I had another problem: my beautiful bamboo dpns and my fingers turned blue. Boooohooo! I don't think you can tell from the photo, but the needles look like I washed my needles in blue milkpaint. I have never had problems with color coming off my yarn. I actually had a lot of difficulty dyeing this yarn -- it took forever. I don't think it's because it's 100% superwash wool, but rather just the KnitPicks yarn. Blues usually dye the fastest, but I finished painting 2 skeins of red/magenta/fuschia/orange yarn before this one finished. Actually, I got tired of waiting and took out the yarn when there was still a very faint blue tint in the water. I guess I should've either waited longer or rinsed the yarn better. Again, I should've known better.

Should've Known Better: Socks

Inevitably, I always take on a project or idea that ends up being far more complicated than I had intended. Thus, I should've known better and paid better attention before embarking on this sock challenge.

I've always sworn that I would never knit socks. I don't have the same attraction as other knitters to hand-knitted socks. They look beautiful and great, but I can't seem to picture me or someone wearing a time-consuming handknit item I made in a sweaty shoe. That imagery gives me wrinkles around my face that I don't need or want. Yep, I would never knit socks. I should have known better than to say "never" because I'm eating those words now. Hubby, who has never asked me to knit or sew him something, asked for knitted socks to wear at home to insulate him from the cold hardwood floors. How could I say no?

I researched some patterns and liked the look of the Boot Sock pattern from KnitPicks, so I bought the yarns recommended -- a skein of Swish superwash wool in gray and 1 skein of the bare, which I dyed fantastic marine colors (pictured left). I realized then that the pattern called for knitting 2 socks on 2 circulars at the same time. Ok, no sweat, right? I've knitted with 2 circulars many times and didn't think it'd be too much of a departure. Plus, I know how to double knit pretty decently and with more than 2 colors. I was DEAD wrong. I started the pattern at my knitting group and I ended up with a weird tangled mess, even after reading and dissecting the pattern more than 10 times. I even consulted some of the fabulous knitters in my group, who know practically everything in knitting. They couldn't understand the weird and hard to understand written instructions either. It was unclear and confusing and there weren't any photos showing some of the more complicated set up. After fumbling for over an hour, I managed to do half a round of each sock. Then I got stuck and more tangled. Determined, I then tried to follow the pattern but while doing one sock at a time, but the instructions weren't meant for that. *sigh* I frogged for the 7th or 8th time. Argh, I should've know better!

Determined to get something done before I go to bed, I rifled through my books and found the Cozy Sock pattern in Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. After checking gauge, I figured that this would work. I cast on and worked the cuff to my liking. All the mental work, testing, frogging and knitting finally ended at 3 a.m., when I started to question the seamed heel in the instructions. Again, I should have known better and thought about it more carefully.

After confirming with Aubrey that most socks don't have a seamed heel, I search for some more patterns online. I decided to go with the sock pattern generator by Elizabeth Bennett. I hope that this tutorial will be of help if I get stuck. I'm more worried that after all this, hubby might end up with just one sock!

Etsy Upcycling Contest

I recently entered the Etsy Upycling contest. I know it's a long shot, especially since I was out of town during the holidays and barely had time to meet the deadline. But hey, I can say I tried. The contest requires people to make stuff out of recycled materials to be posted on their shops with a maximum of 3 entries per person. Here are my entries:

"SHELLY"Shelly is a giant turtle floor pillow that I conceived for Uncommon Threads. This Shelly was made from leftover felted recycled sweater scraps we had for the show. Every inch of Shelly is recycled, except for the thread used to sew her together. Shelly is stuffed with fabric and more sweater scraps. Making Shelly is quite labor intensive and dusty (all the felt fuzz!) with all the cutting and sewing, especially wiht her size! I wasn't sure how to price her, but I settled for $80 due to all the labor involved.

"FLOWER"

Flower is a clutch made of a sleeve of a holey cashmere sweater that I embellished with scrap yarn and strips cut from a potato chip bag. Yep. I felted it, added a magnetic clasp and lined it with my hubby's logo shirt form a former employer (logo cut out of course). The flower on the flap is from bad CD. Again, the labor on this was quite a bit because of all the hand sewn and felted details, even if I didn't knit it up, so I settled at $44 as a price. I know some people may still think it's too much, but oh well, it's still way less than what it would be if I actually charged for hourly labor.

"SWIRLS"

Swirl is made of the same holey cashmere sweater as Flower. It is also embellished it with swirls and dots using scrap yarn and strips cut from a potato chip bag. The shinier dots and swirls are from a defective CD. I also lined it with my hubby's logo shirt form a former employer (logo cut out of course), but I utilized the pocket and button hole on the front of the shirt. The floral band on in the lining was a scrap from a project that was in my crafting trash pile. Again, the labor on this was quite a bit. I priced this one at $54 because the bag is a little bigger and took more time to put together.

I'm not sure when Etsy will be making their contest decision, but I really don't think that I will win. I just wanted to try and sumbit something, even with the limited time that I had. There are many really good and super creative entries out there (and a few crap ones, IMO) so I am sure that the judging committee will be having a challenging and difficult time!