Month: December 2007

Merry Christmas..

Posted by zyllah – December 25, 2007

So I figured I’d do a holiday update. My holiday knitting was umm zero so that was nice. It’s not that I have a problem with hand knits as gifts so much that the deadline thing means I’d never knit anything but gifts, and that would be NO fun. However I am taking the NO GIFT CARD pledge for next year. Christmas or hell even giftmas/fill in your choice of holiday gift giving occasion should be about more than exchanging gift cards. Anyway! I have pics and I know thats what we all want to see so without further blathering…

1. Improved Spinning

2. A finished Single Sock…Charade knit in Shibui

I learned that I think an inch of ribbing at the top is more than enough so I came *this* close to ripping but decided not to since no one but me will see that sock top. I’m half way through the foot of the 2nd sock now. I should have it finished in time. Thermal has a finished sleeve so I do have a slight chance of finishing it by the time real life has to resume (jan 6th). I hope you got lots of phat loot and had a good holiday.

Megaupdate….

Posted by zyllah – December 9, 2007

You know I took the following photos so long ago they aren’t really even accurate as to where I am in my projects but what the hell. I did a bit of stash enhancement because I had a gift cert to yarn market and I realized I wanted yarn to make basic black from magknits and the tangled yoke patterns. I decided to go with ultra alpaca light in the following colors. I might make basic black in umm black because I’d wear it a lot.

I’m clearly on a green kick. Anyway I love Ultra Alpaca. It’s just such a good buy. I also got the super snazzy electronic row counter. The deluxe model even. It’s so totally awesome. Like way better than even I thought it would be. The one thing I would change if I could would be for there to be some sort of ‘lock’ feature.

Spinning is going swimmingly. I love Siouxsie. I am getting better at making less bumpy yarn and its even getting fairly thin. Predrafting is my savior here. The other day I decided I had done enough with white and tried my first colored roving. This is subject to change but I think I’m going to stick with more one colored rovings in the future.

The body of thermal is done. I just need to do the sleeves. I did start one but after spending two days knitting the same repeats over and over and over I decided it needed a brief time out. However it is further along than this pic would indicate.

Finally the sock. I’ve actually started the ribbing so it’s almost done. I have to say Shibui is amazing yarn.

My goals this month are to finish my wips. I’m not sure where Vee fits into that. I’ll have to see how much time I have this month. We’re staying home for the holidays so that should help out. Also Justin has 22 days of leave so that means more knitting time for me.

The contest

Posted by zyllah – December 5, 2007

Yeah… Nablowhatever and I parted ways about when I got busy for the holidays. It happens. Anyway, I’ll do a mega update after this post maybe tomorrow. So on to the fun stuff, the contest. We had three people enter and thus three prizes so everyone is a winner. Everyone got a similar prize. There were two gift certs to loopy and one to Knitpicks since I have to say I loathe going to the post office. So now on to what people said.

Sarkasmo wrote:

OK, if money were no object, I’d be more of a process knitter than I am even now. I think I’d get a wheel and a friend who owns sheep so that I could create my own yarn from scratch. If not a wheel, then a wider collection of spindles. Anyway, I’d be happy to dye my own yarn and spin it myself while at the same time sampling other yarns to try to emulate them. Yeah, I’d love to knit a cashmere sweater someday, but it would mean more to me if I’m the one that spun the cashmere. That way it’s more “check me out, I was confident enough to spin cashmere fiber into a yarn for this project” than “check me out, I can afford a sweater’s worth of cashmere”. It’s probably along the lines of that “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime” saying. The money invested in learning to spin that yarn would cost more than a sweater’s worth of cashmere at first, but then I could do a lot more with those skills. And besides, ever since I saw that $90 skein of crap yarn in the LYS that closed after 6 months in Cincinnati, I’ve been less likely to believe that expensive yarn is automatically quality yarn.

This was an awesome question!

Kraftie had this to say:

If money were no limit… there wouldn’t be any acrylic in my stash.
(well… there wouldn’t be since I know what good yarns are now).

Most of my yarn stash would be filled with nice handdyed sock yarns
and rovings. Heck… if money weren’t a limit I’d also probably have
a scary amount of fiber tools as well, like another wheel or two, a
loom and a drum carder… I’d probably also have purchased all sorts
of dyeing supplies so that I could just make the yarn/roving colors I
REALLY want.

Alex Offered:

If money were no object, would it change my knitting? Well, short answer,
yes.

I wouldn’t knit cashmere sweaters per se, because of the bad things I’ve
read about the demand for it. (In fact I haven’t bought any yarn with
even the smallest cashmere content for months, and have been destashing
some of the stuff I already had.) But I think I’d try to knit more
“green,” since organic stuff is almost as costly as the luxury stuff,
though organic prices are coming down, while the luxury yarns are going
up.

I suppose in some cases I would be more relaxed about knitting. If
something wasn’t working, I could destash it for cheap (since I don’t need
the money), and go work on something else that caught my fancy. I don’t
think I would do that often, with the perfectionist in me, but it’s
something to think about.

Now for my answer. I’m not sure it would change how I craft. Oh maybe I’d buy more expensive yarn for certain projects like a sweaters worth of sundara or something but I am not really sure I would. My favorite yarn yet is fairly inexpensive at 7 something for over 200 yards (ultra alpaca by berroco) I hate paying full price, I always have so I would probably be as much a sale shopper as I am now. The one thing I believe in is buying good quality tools. Even if I have to save for them and do without them for the moment I have never regretted buying any of my high end kitchen gear because I know it will last me a lot longer than something that isn’t as well constructed. However I always still try and find a good deal. That’s why even though I wasn’t 100% sure I’d totally be into spinning on the wheel I still got a majacraft. I figured if I didn’t love it I can always resell it and if I did in a year or two I wouldn’t be going but now I want a new wheel, had I bought a babe or something less versatile. As for the cashmere question I actually own a cashmere sweater (11 bucks at tjmaxx) and I never wear it. Its way too warm for this climate. However I wear the hell out of my cheapo thin merino cardis. Even though I consider myself a process knitter, my goals with crafting/knitting are to create items I would buy if I saw them in stores. The only thing I am completely sure would change if I was more flush (actually it would change even if we had a larger home) is that I would have my own studio. For all my crafting pursuits with lots of space, light, a comfy chair, a desk, a sink and heat source for dyeing. Sometimes on the weekend when Justin is playing a game there is nothing I want more than a place where the sound of said game is not permeating the air. So for now I go into the living room but it would be nice to have my own room. Someday I’ll get it. Actually I thought of something else that would change, I would knit more. Instead of feeling guilty about the housework I’d just hire a cleaning service and then I could knit more.