Posted in Knitting, Pattern on 02/26/2009 10:39 pm by kiriko
Presenting, the Sutro Heights Hat!
Sutro Heights Park is one of my favorite parks in SF. It sits on top of a hill looking down on Ocean Beach, and the park is populated by classical looking statues and what looks like the ruins of a medieval castle – the remains of Adolph Sutro’s estate.
Sutro Heights Park is one of the many places where you can go and forget you’re in a major urban city. And on that topic…remind me to show you Glen Canyon Park sometime.
I’ve finally completed my second test knit for this hat, and since everything seems to work, I’m sharing the pattern as a downloadable and printable PDF.
If you knit it and find any errors or even just something that could have been done better, please let me know! I’ll be happy to fix or improve my pattern if you have a great suggestion.
Download: Sutro Heights Hat
Posted in Spinning on 02/22/2009 04:41 pm by kiriko
I try to be conscious of how much waste and trash I produce. Last year I invested in a few aluminum water bottles so that I could give up the plastic ones. Instead of buying packing paper I started just using paper that has gone though my shredder. This year’s small step was buying a travel coffee mug so I could skip the paper cups, and I’m going to knit several washcloths so that we can stop using sponges in the kitchen.
Fortunately, some ways of reducing waste are much more fun. Every time I spin I always end up with scrap bits of roving. Either little tufts of wool neps that I’ve pulled free, or the scraggly ends of a roving. A short bit of color that I decided I didn’t want where it was, swatches leftover from dyeing, or even small lengths that I predrafted and then forgot about when they hid themselves under something on my desk.
I’ve been collecting all these scraps for several months. I had originally planned to card them together, but then I decided to just spin them as is, without blending or diluting the colors any more than they will naturally through spinning them. I’ve been semi-randomly grabbing these short pieces of fluff and turning them into what might end up being a horrifying yarn. I won’t know until I’ve plied it!
Will you join me in this? For one month, save up your fiber scraps and spin them into a crazy creation…and win some prizes! I’ve started a group on Ravelry specifically for the contest: Spin Your Scraps!
Check it out and I’ll post more info soon!
Posted in Knitting on 02/22/2009 02:07 pm by kiriko
It’s kind of funny how what seems like the easiest sweater ever, knit in a soft well-behaved yarn on big needles just keeps tripping me up. I had to redo one of the front pieces when it was almost halfway finished because it was proving to not be quite large enough to accomodate, despite what the pattern measurements might say.
Even so, I still had two weeks to work on it, and re-knitting the front had only used up two days. All that remained to be knit was the left front, the back, and then the button band and seaming. In another day I was halfway through the back…and then noticed that I had mssed up the pattern and placed two ribs instead of one between two of the lace panels. So I ripped the back out and started over.
I thought I could still possibly maybe just happen to get all finished by the Friday before Stitches West so I could wear it at the convention, but last week proved to be too busy and hectic, and I barely accomplished an inch of the bottom ribbing on the back.
So rather than killing myself to try to knit everything next week, I’m admitting defeat on this one. I will still finish it (maybe at Stitches), and since I’ll be working with Stitch Diva Studios I’ll probably be wearing one of their sample garments as a walking advertisement anyway.
Still, I’m just a little disappointed.
Posted in Knitting, Spinning on 02/11/2009 05:12 am by kiriko
I have a short attention span, and always have several projects going at once. Here are a couple of them…
I’m spinning up a 4oz braid of my own Tidepool roving into a bulky yarn. I’ve been waiting awhile to dive into this one, and I want more practice at spinning heavier yarns. My default is a sport-to-fingering weight. To help with this bulky yarn venture, I’m using a massive 4″ Schacht spindle that I bought mainly to use for plying. It holds a lot of yarn!
I’m also designing a hat pattern, using the King Charles Brocade lace pattern from the Harmony Guides Lace and Eyelets book. I was inspired to make this after starting on my Blue Sky Alpacas Eyelet Cardigan, which features a similar, but simpler, lace and rib pattern.
I knit up a small sized test sample in the leftover Peruvia wool from my Tilted Duster. The patterns looks lovely so far, but I want to experiment with different decreases to make them as smooth as possible.
My second sample is being knit in bulky handspun, and I’m hoping I have enough yarn to make this a longer, slouchy version. If it’s not, I’ll just knit a third sample. Once I have all the kinks worked out I’ll share the pattern! It’s simple and a very fast knit, especially the bulky weight version.
Posted in Uncategorized on 02/02/2009 10:32 pm by kiriko
