FINALLY!

I took some time away from blogging in order to finish my Christmas gift knitting.

Now I can talk about what I made!

My knitting buddy bought this Sublime Chunky Merino Tweed (On clearance!) for me while on a family visit to FL in October. I knit a Tobnoggan hat out of it and wrapped it for our family dice game on Christmas Day.

 

I ordered this periodic table fabric on Etsy to make a project bag for my knitting buddy. It turned out a little smaller than I had planned, but she loved it nonetheless.

 

I made these socks for her husband (my cousin P), who LOVES his hand knit socks. She also bought this Supersocke Walking Color while in FL.

 

He loves his hand knit socks, especially in combo with his Holiday jammie pants.

I knit this Gramps Sweater for their son. He picked out the color and it knit up SO FAST! He couldn't wait to put it on. I think everyone needs a Grandpa Sweater. They are full of snuggly, warm, cable-y goodness. And Love, don't forget the love!

It's pretty big, but anyone with kids will know he won't wear it for long.

The girl that does my hair had Baby #4 in March. He was a big baby, just like his siblings, but I waited to make him something he would wear a few times before growing out of it. Yes, another Grandpa-style sweater. This 12 mo. size took only a few evenings to knit up. And Oh the yarn! I will knit with this Plymouth Select DK Superwash again and again and again and again. 

I made Candy Cane Vodka for my CFO...

And hand painted mugs for the rest of the girls at work. I loaded them with Post-Its (our favorite office supply) and homemade granola and mini banana bread loaves.

And finally, I made these for myself!

This is some Fresh From The Cauldron yarn I bought last September at StevenBe. I finished them up at a marathon, 12 hour wrestling tournament early in December.

In July & August I found myself with an Opal sock yarn obsession. I bought this from a Canadian Etsy seller. I think I have another 6-7 skeins left to play with. Woop woop!

Hoping you all had a wonderful Holiday filled with Love, Hugs, and lots of Family Time.

Later!

M

Oops.

I corrected the link to HDYarns in yesterday's blog post.

M

Stripe Obsessed

I've bought many skeins of self striping yarn in the past 6-8 months.

These skeins of HDYarns are my UBER favorite. I want ALL of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could dye them myself. But I HAVE a full time job and I'm more than happy to support small batch Indie Dyers. Rich & Vanie do great work and I am SURE to buy more when they restock.

I ordered these CupCakes in June, with much anticipation, planning to knit them during our family fishing vacation in July. I had started another pair of cotton socks a few weeks before we left to go "Up North", so I didn't get to these until Monday (or Tuesday) of our vacation week.

 

I snuck in some cast-on time a few days before we left town.

A new 31 bag to carry it with me for the week. I put an "M" on it so that my daughter "C" didn't mistakenly take it back to school.

I can knit a pair of top-down socks in my sleep. These toe-up-with-a-heel-flap socks were dicey.

 

Thank goodness I had several Jack Reacher novels on my kindle. I ripped out the (purple) heel section and re-knit it four times before I got the fit just right.

 

They match my blue toenails! 

 

Finally finished a few days later!

I finally weaved in the ends, washed them up, and laid them out last night

I pay the price for letting things sit.

 I'm pretty lazy and tend to procrastinate. That's how I roll.

Can you see how the sun from my front window bleached out the purple?

 But I love, love, love them!

This is my husband and daughter. Photo taken from another boat on the lake.

I will be linking my Tuesday evening post to Ginny's Knit Along and maybe Tami's blog tomorrow morning.

Later!

M

Willow Cowl

Gah! I love this color!

 On a trip to StevenBe over Labor Day weekend I bought this skein of Miss Babs 2ply fingering in the Perfectly Wreckless colorway.

Knowing full well picot edges are NOT my favorite, I started a Willow Cowl anyway. 

It is jam packed full of pinks, greys, yellows, and a shot of bright green here & there.

I think the next time I knit a picot edge I won't knit the 320 stitches together, I'll wait and slip stitch it together. Much less frustration.

Lovely yarn that knits up so fast!

I don't get much actual reading done, but I DO listen to many audio books. I just started Janet Evanovich's number series, One for the Money. My work commute is 35 miles each way so I can get through a book every few days. I like women in strong leading roles, so this series should be perfect.

Joining Ginny today for the Knit Along!

Later!

M

Disappointed

My great friend D, after listening to me talk about a Color Affection Shawl for the longest time, gifted me three skeins of the most glorious (?) 1 ply , Jilly from Dream In Color.

Or so I thought...

I began with a lovely, pewter gray skein for the beginning of the shawl, falling in love with the subtle color movement, and quickly reached the first color change. This is my first project carrying yarn color changes up the side. I watched a few YouTube videos and was quickly on my way.

 

Then this started...

Not a knot, but a join that is so short, there's no way the yarn could stay together. I thought nothing of it, patched up the separation, and kept knitting. I came across one more true knot in this skein, no big deal, understandable with a 1 ply yarn...right?

You can see on the right of this photo, my first poor join in the orange (Tang) skein.

Which led to a second...

And a third...

A fourth...

  

Fifth...and these were the ones I took pictures of. 

There were several others before I was so pissed I unwound the rest of the skein. I HAD to know what I was in for.

One of these skeins was absolutely fine (Basalt), one skein was ok (Bluefish), but this last skein was crap (Tang). No nice way to say it.

What I found was this; all poor joins of 1.5 cm or less where the manufacturer barely joined the yarn together.

 This patch was a mere 18 inches between "patches".

Aaaaaand this is what I have left to finish my shawl with. Needless to say I am less than happy about it.

Dream In Color has been contacted. I received an apology, and was referred to my LYS for a refund, which I chose not to pursue. Why not? 

1. I'm almost done with the shawl and my LYS is out of this colorway, and 

2. I don't believe this should be the LYS owner's problem. I think the manufacturer/dyer should take responsibility. I feel like she blew me off.

I have a couple questions. 

A.) This isn't my first project with 1ply yarn, but it IS my first experience with this type of "seaming/joining" together within a skein. I have a gorgeous pair of socks knit with a Malbrigio 1 ply that I didn't have one problem with. Is this a frequent problem with 1 ply yarn?

B. Is it common practice now for yarn distributors to pass the buck onto the LYS? I love my LYS. Bobbi is busy enough without me coming into her shop to whine about something she can't control, but then has to follow up with the dyer for my refund?

LAME.

 C. Is this what the carried yarns are suppose to look like?

I'll get over this. I know I will. You know how? I have 472 other skeins of yarn in my stash. I WILL move on. For now, I'm just really disappointed, and I won't be buying any Dream In Color yarn ANY time soon.

I thought the people in the knitting community were better than this.

Later!

M