One Geek to Craft Them All

Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft – alone or in more social environments, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys. What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette’s baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords. Do you always have snacks to hand, or are you a strictly ‘no crumbs near my yarn!’ kind of knitter.

I seem to have developed two standard knitting environments; while traveling and while drinking. I have a long commute to work.  About 2 hours each way and, I don’t drive. So I start out my commute on the subway and usually have pulled out my needles while still on the platform.

Then starts the second part of my travels into the wilds of  New Jersey.

So I do have plenty of knitting time on my commute, though there are times where I spend that time reading, sleeping, writing, or playing video games.  It just all depends on my mood and what projects  and other distractions I have with me. The same is true if  I am doing something like flying.  I tend to plan what knitting to bring on a flight long before I decide on what clothing to bring.

In all these places I also have my other staple. My iPod. I always have music playing when traveling and knitting and it is something that helps keep me calm and keep me focused.  I find outside sounds distracting and harder to tune out then a play list I have put together.

My other knitting time is spent while drinking. I’d like to say something like I have no idea how that started, but I joined a knitting group that met in a bar. Not just any bar mind you, Burp Castle.

With Beers on tap and murals of Monks gone wild, we would meet here every Weds (we have since become a roving band of wild knitters) drink chat and knit.  We became regulars, it was the bar where everyone (at least weds night) knew our names or our habit.

“There are those knitters again.”
“What are you making this time?”
“Is that a TARDIS?”
“But you knit, in a BAR?”

So with beer, Pommes Frites, and hopefully a light colored yarn in hand, we knit. We chat and we drank.  It was something that I came to look forward to. Wednesday wasn’t hump day, it was Beer and Knitting.  And that made it a good day.  I joined this group, less than a year after I started knitting, and it has gotten me in the habit of knitting in bars with other friends, who either pull out their knitting as well, or shake their heads in amusement.

It’s amusing to see that my other knitting group, while it meets in a yarn store, said store has a bar in the back and it is quite often that you can find me with a bottle of cider, or a glass of Riesling as we knit and chat away.

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY7, beer, Knitting

Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern is one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something you think you will never be bothered to actually make bu can admire the result of those that have.

The one thing that I always have a moment of pause whenever it comes up is color work.  Which is strange as I clearly do color work when I am double knitting but I find that easy and straight forward. Stripes are in that same place as not complicated.

Fair-isle and Intarsia  are two things I have done on occasion but it never comes out quite right, there is puckering and yarn too tight, forgetting to carry yarn, forgetting to wrap. Every time I do a project with a small amount of color work, I worry that I will never be able to work on a more complicated project.

It’s a skill I hope to take on soon as I have quite a few pairs of gloves that I want to make for myself that have color work,  and I think if I just buckle down  and knit I can make my way through it. I have gotten books, yarn and patterns.

Baby steps towards getting through this mental block.

There is always the chance I will get through it the same way I did with lace knitting. I will find a project or a crazy goal (11 shawls in 2011 anyone?) and I will forget what it was that scared me, and be blocking a new project before it occurs that I shouldn’t be able to do this.

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY6, color-work

This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.

Well I’m going totally different for this and blogging not about knitting at all.   This weekend in fact I am planning on working on a different craft project. I plan on building  myself a cyberwoman costume. I’ve mentioned costumes in the past but usually focus on sharing the finished product.

Today let’s see where I’m starting and  what I want my end to look like.

Cyberman Mask that I would have to alter extensively or may just not use at all.

Two yards of silver fabric I have to make look like robotic body parts.

Some stiffer silver Leather like fabric to turn into  straps and piping.

The cheerleader top and boy shorts that make the base of the costume. That happen  to not be the same silver as the fabric. Oh that’s going to be a fun thing to work out.

I still have to get a hold of gloves, shoes and a way  to make the headpiece. This costume is going to take work to get from that pile of miscellaneous  fabric, odds and ends to something that can be recognized as this with a couple modifications.

Especially when one is using an action figure and screen shots as reference material.

Maybe there will be an in progress post once  2KCBW is over.

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costumes 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY5, conventions, Doctor Who, Torchwood

Whatever happened to your __________?

Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

I have so many projects in so many places, both known and unknown.  The Dalek I dropped at some point at Dragon Con, which I like to believe is exterminating with wooly goodness somewhere.

It’s possible,  mostly I hope whoever grabbed it knew what it was and it’s not lamenting in a trash dump somewhere.

Though the project that really comes to mind I know exactly where it is. The WIP box on my desk at home.

The Marvel Scarf.  Oh the  Marvel Scarf.

When it comes to  comics, really I’m a marvel girl at heart. Even if I can argue why Batman is way better then Superman, at the end of the day Spider-man holds my heart in a way they never will.  Don’t get me started on that “Musical”.  X-men, The Hulk, Iron-Man,  the Avengers, all things I’ve been known to geek out about.

But the one thing I will always Give DC over Marvel are the Logos. I designed and knit this scarf in under a month to wear to Comic Con.  Who doesn’t know the bat symbol? Superman’s S (yes yes I know not an S, point still stands).  Wonder Woman, or Aquaman may give you pause but the theme becomes clear.

Justice League Scarf

Its battered, and has seen better days now, but I knit another version for a friend.

This scarf has been knit as potholders, pattern has been put up, it has been knit for the boyfriend by another knitter. This  scarf is going far and wide.

The Marvel scarf on the other hand  is still 2 squares, with some drawings and sketches of what will  come next but it has been in the box for the better part of a year. I stole the needles out of it at one point. Sigh.

Maybe by 3KCBW I will  have another square? A whole Scarf?

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Knitting, WIP 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY4, double knitting, marvel, scarf

Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?

Well now isn’t that the question.  If you look at this:

You might thing oh not bad,  the bins are even sorted,  Top – left overs,  acrylics, and other washables. Middle, lace and sock weight, bottom worsted and bulky.

If pretend there isn’t yarn all over the living room and in other parts of the bed room, I could even pretend to have visual organization system. Its not like I have bags of wayward balls or anything…

But I know where most of my yarn is,  yes there are 3 skeins of Lace I haven’t seen since I opened the package they came in, but they are around, somewhere. Over there.

But honestly my real organization isn’t there its here.

My knitting spreadsheet. I’m an analyst, I spend all day in Excel, yet I could not think of any other place where I would want to keep my information organized.

My first tab, Yarn – catalogs my yarn, the color, brand and yardage, to the best of my ability. There are somethings that I have had so long and lost the tag so long ago I can only guess.  Brown lace weight, worsted that might be Cascade 220, Ella Rae, Lion Brand Wool ease or some thing else entirely.

The second tab  is for new yarn, to compare my output and intake. Not that the tab has influenced me yet but I very quickly went from almost no yarn, to enough to knit a house cozy.

With the yarn sheet I know it the number of skeins I have (168) , yardage (currently my stash is resting at 42,798 yards),  what is planned for it if anything, and what is on my needles.

I find a spreadsheet easy and intuitive, and simple to tailor to my needs.  I can check the yardage on a yarn I have, when looking up a project to gauge if I have the right yarn, or need to make a change.

I know what projects I started when to get a better idea on how much I knit throughout the year.  March seems to be a bad knitting month, but a good one for other crafts.  Did I mention I keep track of  beading and Clay work there too?

I track my spending, hence the knowledge that I needed a yarn diet in January.  I have ideas for projects and their matching yarns,  I know how much Yarn I have been using and  what kind of dent I am making in the 42K. Sometimes it helps with the guilt of buying more.

Even with the yarn there, there, there, and a bit over there, I can know in a glance what I have, and if that red cashmere wool blend  is enough for a shrug without having to hunt down the ball and pray the band hasn’t wandered off. I will know that yes, you do have 2 skeins of that purple, you just have to find the other one.  And alas you did use the last of that yarn in that other project.

Needles on the other hand…

We can talk about that later right?

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY3, organization, stash, yarn

Day Two: 29th March. Skill + 1UP Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

Was I the only one who instantly pictured this little guy and his accompanying sound? Too much Mario as a child/Adult you say?

Looking back on last year is interesting. It helps having a blog, to see where I was without guessing and with visual evidence.  Last march I was in the planning stages of a few projects and had recently finished my Christmas knitting.  I may have stretched too far even for me that year.

Lace was a scary creature that I had to keep a hard handle on with, lots of stitch markers and life lines and very simple pattern repeats.  Something like Batik would have terrified me.

Cables and lace? No way. Now I dive right in and have even started to work on a shawl that thwarted me the first time I started it.  I don’t look away from the massively complex patterns anymore or reading charts.  There was a time where if your pattern was only charted I would put it aside into the someday pile. I mean how was I supposed to know what all this symbols, and grayed out boxes meant?

This past year I did do something I had never done before. I knit socks.

Yes they were Christmas stockings in bulky weight but I turned my first heel, followed by my second all the way through my 16th.  There is still plenty more out there for me to learn, and that I want to learn, but I have  grown as a knitter in the last year.

Other than socks, there are no new skills I picked up.  But the skills I have, have grown.

Much like the power a certain red mushroom gives.   I’m am a taller knitter and I hope that in another year, I’ll find my fire flower and taken something else that I feared to tackle down.  Fair Isle? A Sweater?

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY2, mario

Part of any fiber enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

The first yarn that comes to mind, is from a shawl that I am wearing today.  I have a bad habit,  I love varied yarns, but at the same time, I tend to love patterns  that are all about stitch definition and look best (in my opinion) in a solid colorway.

Take This Madeline Tosh Merino Light.  I saw it, and scooped up two skeins sure I would make some sort of accessory with it.  I looked at patterns for, hats, gloves, scarves, and shawls.  Hats and Gloves were the first to go;  with the scarves and Shawls nothing quite fit.

I wanted something simple, that would show the colors of the yarn to the best effect.  A really simple lace scarf, showed that the concentration of K2Tog and YOs had a strange effect that muted what I loved best about the colors. The slow shift from one to the next.

I frogged and stared at the yarn for a while, working on a few other projects including a lace shawl, with a large bit of garter work.  And  while this shawl was a solid color I was hit with inspiration,  many shawls had a section of St or Garter before going into a lace pattern for the edging, I was working on such a shawl though that particular pattern  I feared would have much the same effect that caused me to frog the scarf.

I searched for patterns until I found one that did exactly what I wanted.

Deirdre a shawl that  jumped at you for the colors with some interesting texture as well.

Meanwhile the second yarn I want to talk about had pretty much the complete opposite reaction from purchase to needle. And it’s the SAME BRAND.

Madeline Tosh Merino in Malachite.

From the moment I picked up the yarn it was destined to be a cabled hat.  Possibly Celtic cables, but this yarn would be a hat. I settle on Habitat rather quickly.

And knit this hat in about a week of bus trips to and from work. This was a feat for two reasons, I did not own a knit hat, I have knit plenty of hats for my father, as  Christmas and Birthday gifts, but somehow had never made one for myself.  So my first hat for myself came together quickly and easily.

Fun fact I  am wearing both the hat and shawl today.

Yarn is an adventure for me, not only because I have the bad habit of saying “ooo pretty, project later” (why yes I have a stash that scares some, why do you ask?) but for the times when all the pieces seem to fall into place and make me put aside other projects just to get it done.

Some yarns nearly shout what they will be when completed, and others are coy.  With both I’m happy to learn what they will be, and enjoy working on them, even as I’m pulling my hair at the yarn, saying  “yes, but which cabled hat,” or  “what are you supposed to be?”

These are just two of my knitting stories.  I look forward to sharing more this week and reading of others. Happy Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Day 1 to all participating and to all reading!  I’m sure I’ll be following a lot of new blogs once the week is out.

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY1, yarn