Distraction

Yes. I'm shamelessly attempting to distract you from the lack of knitting content by posting pretty pictures. I hope they work, because really my knitting is not much to be looking at right now.

So, I present to you, stills from the garden:

Something violet:


And a yellow one:


Pinky buds:


And my favourite flowers:


They even appear to glow in real life. The purple centre is surrounded by the faintest bit of white. So gorgeous!

Back to the never-ending baby blanket!

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Got yarn? I do. And I love it. Of course, it's being sent away to my Dye-o-Rama pal.

After another day of dyeing with the fabulously talented Ms Vanessa, I was able to pick up last week's ball o' yarn:


And make a new one for my pal: (Please excuse the lack of colour accuracy in the photo with the greenery above... this photo below was as close as I could get)


Which very nearly was not dry enough... (don't you love Vanessa's shower?)


Of course, the boy and the cat got stuck with the grunt work:


Project Details: (For the orangey yarn, which I am christening "Peach Sunset")
Yarn: Knitpicks' Color-Your-Own Merino Sock Yarn

Dye: Koolaid Orange, Strawberry, Tropical Punch and a wee bit of Crystal Light Tangerine-Grapefruit.

You learn something new every day...

Well, today I had a lovely crafty afternoon with Ginny and the ladies. Ginny and I talked about the seating of my stitches, and it turns out that the method of knitting that I unvented and thought was continental in this post is actually combination knitting!

If you're interested, Annie Modesitt gives a great explanation of it here!

Yes. I love it. And I can purl. Woot!

Project Spectrum

How could I not sign up for something as cool as Project Spectrum?



The colour plan was:
March - Red and Pink
April - Orange and Yellow
May - Green
June - Blue
July - Violet / Purple
August - Neutrals / Black & White

So now I'm all ready for May with my dyeing. Check out the updated LinzKnits banner at the top of the page too. Oooh, greeny loveliness.

I'm rather upset to have missed March and April. But hey, I might do them in a later month!

Kool-aid Power!

Well... yesterday was the great adventure in kool-aid with the fabulous Vanessa, pictured in the photos below!

Want to see what we got up to? I thought you might... there are lots of pics.

Here goes...

We had decided to hand-paint koolaid. We were dyeing for Dye-o-rama, but I think these were practice skeins.

First we made our peg warping boards, inpired by Almost Random:


And set up our dyeing supplies:


Then we wrapped our yarn:


Tangled our yarn:


Watched the yarn:


And got our yarn into a ball. By the lilac tree:


We set out our colours:


(by the Vespa):


and hand-painted our yarn:


All painted:


And ready to be nuked:


Of course, the finished product is drying and not at my house. So pics will be forthcoming.

But really, you should all get out and dye!

There are some great tutorials out there. Two of them are here and here if you are so inclined.

Project Details:
Yarn: Knitpicks Color Your Own (Fingering Weight)

My Dye: Kool-aid in Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade and Lemon-Lime
Vanessa's Dye: Kool-aid in Cherry, Strawberry, Island Punch, Orange and Grape.

I'm a new picker

First, a disclaimer:
There is huge controversy about English/Continental knitting styles in the knitting world. I am presenting only my current thoughts on the matter. A la Annie Modesitt, I think that everyone should just knit in the way that feels best for them. And be flexible.

Ok, now that the disclaimer's out of the way. . . I think I am now a Continental knitter, a.k.a. "a picker" rather than "a thrower".

This happened last night.

I was looking at my knitting (working on the baby blanket that is going to go on for years), and I started watching my hands. I noticed that there was so much wasted movement with the continual wrapping motion from my right hand. I kept taking my right hand off the right needle to wrap my yarn. Thinking of a post I'd read about Norwegian purling at Wendyknits, I really wanted to get more efficiency of movement. (Don't worry, I'm not up for Norwegian purl just yet. . .)

I was watching my hands and realized it would be so much easier to just pull the working yarn through the stitch on the left needle. And that I could keep my right hand in one place and keep the yarn in my left hand. And magically, I re-invented Continental knitting.

Once I'd realized just what I'd done, I turned to my trusty Vogue Knitting and checked it out. Surprise!!! It was Contintental knitting!

So I'm currently struggling to figure out the whole stitch-orientation aspect of this. Because now the stitches look 'backwards' to me, with the right side of the stitch in front. I guess if they're all going the same way, it'll all work out in the end. I just don't want to have twisted stitches all over the place. Of course, this led me to research Combination Knitting... and I'm not ready for that yet.

However, I did come up with some great links if you're interested in Combination Knitting:
Annie Modesitt's How-To
Grumperina's Explanation
Grumperina's Conversion Table
Sara's Explanation

And if you want to read more about the whole Continental/English thing: Fuzzy Galore on Knitting Styles

And something to aspire to: Two-Handed Fair Isle! Good incentive for learning to knit both Continental and English, no?

Next up for me: purling Continental. Ack!

Technical difficulties

Apparently I can't take a decent sock photo, so here is a link to the one my sock pal took.

Really, these are gorgeous socks.

And I can't tell you how soft they are.

OOOOH SockapalOOOOza

Guess what was waiting for me last night when I got home?

A lovely lighthouse box from Nova Scotia:


And what was inside?
Not only some lovely floating candles, a pattern and a postcard... But:


Aren't they gorgeous???? And they fit PERFECTLY!!! See:


And because you want a closeup:


Oh, they are so soft and I am so in love.
I was definitely spoiled by my sockpal, Sheri!!!
THANKS!

Life update

Knitting progress stalled . . .

Three exams tomorrow . . .

Then packing up my entire apartment and moving back to Canada . . .

Good heavens . . .

But don't fret, there will be more knitting (and dyeing!!!) soon.

The Baby Blanket Adventure Continues...

Hmmm... 20% done. I have it all figured out in my nerdly Excel spreadsheet and everything!

Of course, knitting it from the inside-out on circular needles makes for scrunchy-looking photos. It really will be square, I promise!

But this is what it looks like for now:


Although most of the time it looks like this:


And here's a closeup of the current bit:


Yes, it is going well! I'd better knit faster than the baby comes though.