auraknits

yarn suprises are always nice!

2007-09-20T09:55:00.000-05:00

even if the yarn you're suprised with is for somebody else. got this tastycake of a ball of yarn in the mail yesterday. it's rowan classic baby alpaca dk, i think it's in either the thistle or zinc colorway (i didn't check).... a really pretty greyish-blue. the yarn is going to get itself made into a pair of knucks for melissa. she ordered the yarn from jimmy bean's wool, which is a rad yarn company for a lot of reasons, the least of which that they send goodies with every package! this time i got two pineapple candies and two little buttons with fish blowing bubbles on them. melissa, you can have the candy, i am for sure keeping these buttons! but what to use them for? i'm sure i'll figure something out. i may just sew them onto something as a purely decorative touch, because they're f-ing adorable.

in other, sort-of knitty-related news, i think i've discovered my future husband. aside from being a total cutie, he knits and designed a rad baseball-style raglan shirt (which has an X purled into the sleeve, can he also possibly be straightedge?!!!?) for the new issue of knitty. apparently he lives in berlin :( so i guess i'll just have to wait. is that a tattoo i see peeking out from under the shirt? and plugs in his ears? uh, yes please.

knitty actually has a lot of awesome looking patterns in this season's issue. aside from wanting to make the above-mentioned shirt (i just need to find a nice boy to make it for!) i'm already considering frogging that alpaca shawl i'm working on and re-working the yarn as the muir wrap. ooh, and the roam hoodie looks delicious (even though the yarn for it is like thirty dollars a skein! jesus christ!) as does the foliage beanie (i already have the malabrigo it calls for! excellent!). it's going to be a busy fall.

i haven't even begun to think about christmas knitting yet.....

sweet book score (and a WIP)

2007-09-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

i was killing time in baton rouge yesterday evening, waiting for a friend to get off work so we could get something to eat. i was perusing around barnes & noble and picked up these delightful tomes:

i'd just like to point out what you may/may not have missed:

nice! both of the nicky epstein books were half off. amazing! all i need now is knitting beyond the edge and i'll have all three of her finishings books. i haven't had a chance to look that closely at them but a cursory glance suggests lots of inspiring patterns and stitches. i picked up the knitters handbook for reference more than anything, it was only like six or seven dollars and i figured it would be nice to have a halfway-decent stitch guide around. all in all, i made out pretty well.

this is what i've been working on all weekend:

i frogged the original nautie that i was working on (switching yarns every other row was basically a huge pain in the ass) and started another one. this one is for my friend steve. i think it looks a lot better with just one color. this is pretty much a quick knit, as what you see in the picture was done in maybe three hours. em's working on one in a variegated yarn and i'm interested in how that's going to look. probably awesome. the only thing that i really don't like about this pattern is that it's stuffed as it's knit. that means stopping every four rows to add a little bit more fluff. hella annoying. overall, it's awesome and i plan on making myself a matching one when i'm done with this pattern. what more could you want than matching cephalopods! i have an overabundance of malabrigo yarn in this colorway (emerald blue), i might make the second one out of that and have a luxury sea snail, as the yarn is a buttery soft merino. i'm putting the cart just a little bit before the horse on that one though, so we'll see.

melissa is demanding a pair of knucks, she's ordered the yarn and is having it shipped to my house so i'll be starting on those soon. i don't know what kind of yarn she ordered, nor do i know the colorway, so that will be a fun suprise. photos of all that to come!

!!!FFO (First Finished Object)!!!

2007-09-12T16:34:00.000-05:00

i can proudly say that i am posting my first FO on this blog. and i've had it for what, a year? i've finished other things since i started this little site up but nothing i've mentioned on here or that's worth mentioning in general. i completed this guy last week but this is the first chance i've had to put it up.

without further ado, the sock!

i have pretty gross feet/ankles but you get the general idea. the fabric created by this yarn is way thicker than what i generally like when i wear socks (which isn't often - i'm a barefoot kinda girl) and made my foot get kinda sweaty in the time it took for me to snap a few photos.

will you look at that delicious striping? i love it.! the grey/green parts almost look like faux intarsia. overall the yarn is heathery in nature which looks really nice close up.

now that i've completed this sock and feel confident enough in my sockmaking abilities i'm going to forego this guy's mate and get right to making the real pair of socks one of my friends requested. though he has a size 13 foot (mine are a 7.5 in guy's sizes) so i'm going to have to be creative in altering the pattern....

what i've been working on lately

2007-09-02T13:33:00.000-05:00

...lots of things, actually. and i'm not finishing any of them. i guess i've been in a mood lately where i kind of just need to be working on something, it doesn't really matter if i finish what i'm working on or not. i guess in that sense i'm a process knitter... don't get me wrong, i like finishing projects just as much as the next yarn-obsessed person. i just sometimes get into a funk where i pretty much just need something to do with my hands. idle hands do the devil's work, or something.

and now some lovely pictures of some delightful WIPs:

aww.... its my first sock pattern! ann norling's play on ribs pattern. not the most attractive but i figure if i'm going to foray into the wide world of sock knitting i might as well try something easy to start. i guess it doesn't get much more easier than this... the majority of the sock is just a K3, P1 pattern which creates a pretty tight but still stretchy fabric. i was a bit intimidated about picking up stitches around the heel but i don't think i f'ed it up too badly. i have maybe another inch or two to do on the actual foot part of the sock and then i'll start on the toe decreases/kitchener stitch finishing. i will admit, i definitely understand the phenomenon found in sock knitting known as "Lone Sock Syndrome." i'm not even done with this first sock and already i don't want to make the second one. knitting this has made me question the evolutionary design of having two feet. it would be so much easier to just have one for the purposes of quick knitting. it would certainly result in less bitching on my part.

i'm using moda dea sassy stripes in the polo colorway. this is also the first project that i've ever used self-striping yarn for it's intended purpose and i must, it's so awesome! i'm using size 3 DPNs which is a size smaller than what the pattern called for but it seems to be working out well. the fabric is more dense and i like that.

i decided to undertake two rather frustrating projects in addition to the socks. the first is the candle flames shawl pattern from knitpicks. this is the biggest lace project i've ever worked on, as i am generally impatient and prefer the relative instant gratification i receive from smaller projects. i have all of this delicious alpaca yarn that i have nothing to do with, however, so i figured i might as well try my hand at a responsible, classy project.

let me tell you about this yarn. hoo boy. it's arucania yarn's atacama, colorway 502. an absolutely gorgeous, hand dyed, variegated alpaca in shades of blue ranging from pale, almost grey, sky blue to a deep turquoise. i love this yarn. it's probably one of my favorite yarns of all time. i really wish it wasn't DK weight because i hate knitting with thin yarns (takes too long, i'm always afraid i'm going to snap it from pulling it too tight) but i love it anyway. my one complaint is that since it's hand dyed, the color tends to bleed onto my fingers after i've been knitting for a while. i don't mind too much, though, since everything else about this yarn rules.

the picture above shows only about a third of the width of the whole thing. my circular needles are super curly so it's difficult to straighten them out long enough to show the project. the picture to the left is a detail of one of the lace repeats. i think i'm about twenty rows in, which is a bit more than halfway through the repeat. i'm not looking forward to the 15 or so repeats i think i'm going to need to do to make this a decent shawl. this one is probably going to be finished in a year at the rate i'm going.

another thing i'm not looking forward to is blocking this beast. which is something that i'm not gonna be able to get out of doing as it's lace and lace always needs blocking. i'm worried because i live in a studio apartment and i don't really have much room to block projects as big as this. i think i may just pin it to my bed before i leave for work one day and hope that it's set by the time i get home. that's kind of far ahead up the road so i'm not really going to worry about it for the time being.

last but not least is another tryout pattern. my friend steve is a big fan of cephalopods (and is also a knitter! how awesome is that!) and i am a big fan of steve (not in that way! minds out of the gutter!) so i' decided i wanted to make him one. knitty's nautie has provided me with the perfect pattern. the directions are relatively straightforward, however, i've never knit a stuffed animal that's required stuffing while being knit. there's no way of getting around this, either, as you're basically knitting a long cone that's wrapped around itself as it's knit. this is done by means of picking up an already-knit stitch from the body every four rows and knitting it with one of the new stitches. it's kind of hard to explain but actually pretty easy. i like the stripey effect of switching yarn every other row (i'm using hideous red heart yarn because it's good for stuffed animals and that's about it) but i also hate it. because i'm switching yarn every other row. add to that constant increases, stuffing, and coiling and it all results in kind of a headache. now that i have the hang of this pattern i'm considering frogging it and just making the real deal for steve. in one, solid color.

what a long post! congrats if you've made it this far! i think if i were to update this more often the posts would be shorter... i should probably get on that.

hey, i'm still here.

2007-07-16T10:22:00.000-05:00

suprise suprise. it's been a very busy last couple of months over here at camp auralee and i have not been enjoying my acute lack of knitting time. i went on tour, i worked a lot, i played a bunch of other shows, i worked even more, i'm still working a whole lot and it's amusing to me that the less i knit the more stressed-out i get.

i have been knitting again in the last few weeks but haven't gotten around to taking any pictures. maybe i'll do that sometime this week. no promises.

to tide you (and by you i mean the ones of people who actually read this thing) i submit to you two photos of my most recent FO's. i drove to austin, tx a bit ago for a show with some of my bandmates (we weren't playing, sadly) and decided that i was going to knit hats in the car on the way there. well, 7 hours of driving there and 7 hours of driving back produced the following:

of course the pictures are blurry, they were taken with my camera phone. i'll get better pictures at some point. both hats are made from the same pattern, some pattern that i randomly found online. once i find the link to it, i'll put it up. the one on miguel (resident cute boy) is knit from manos del uruguay and the one on me is patons SWS. i knit mine first (it took me about three hours, on and off) and migs (the bass player of my band, coincedentally) decided he wanted one just like it! i had the manos with me and he really liked that yarn so i knit him a hat on the way back. that time it took me about five hours but i think that was mostly because i was car sick.

you'll note in the second picture (if you can tear your eyes away from that dashing guatemalan to my left, i don't blame you if you can't) that there is a crochet border to the hat... this is a first for me! i have no idea what stitches i was actually doing but it made the hat a little bit longer and doesn't look like complete crap. i'm pretty pleased.

current WIPs that i'm going through:

a wrist band for my friend chris so he doesn't get 'rock rash' (his words) when he plays guitar
a felted entrelac wallet for miguel (he asks for things and i can't help but make them)
an argyle iPod cozy for yet another friend
a nautie for my friend steve (this is at the bottom of the list as he lives in north carolina and i won't be seeing him for a while)

meme meme meme meme meme

2007-05-16T09:08:00.000-05:00

em tagged me, and so i must post!

1)list 7 random fact about yourself in your blog
2)tag 7 more blogs to do the same

1) i have a kind-of obsession with religious art of all sorts, even though i'm not particularly religious

2) i eat hummus for lunch just about every day

3) i own at least thirty cookbooks

4) when i was in early high school i read a line from the bhagavad-gita that said "learn to live your life like a lotus, untouched by the filthy water it grows in" and that's why i've always lived a straight edge-like lifestyle

5) if there's a motto that i live by it would be 'sing your life despite the spite it may bring'

6) i'm afraid of the dark

7) i posess an embarrassing amount of records

these things are way harder than i always think they're going to be.

i'd tag other people, but emily, you're about the only one i know who has a blog, that would do a thing like this.

oh, and i've been knitting like a fiend lately, but haven't gotten around to taking any pictures. maybe i'll do that soon!

new layout, kind of.

2007-04-10T13:00:00.001-05:00

so i kinda (sorta) was playing around on blogger a day or two ago and figured out how to use their layout-mod page. i guess that's what it's called? computers and i generally don't get along so be very surprised that i was able to add things to the sidebar without making my laptop explode.

i still have a bunch of links to put up yet but that's tedious so i'll finish it later. and if i get into a mood where i'm feeling a little frisky i might add more stuff. who knows.

i have a confession to make

2007-04-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

allright, so i realize that the title of this blog is 'auraknits.' it's a knitting blog. about knitting. and knitting-related things. this being duly stated and understood, i have a confession to make. i've been cheating on the love of my life of the last eleven years (picked up the sticks when i was 11) on and off for the last few months.

i blame emily for turning me on to a new thing.

that's right, i've been CROCHETING. which is a thing i've never been able to do. ever. my grandmother crocheted cozies for just about everything you could think of (why does toilet paper need a cozy? why???) but this was never a skill i inherited from her.

em instilled the knowledge of the granny square in me last summer when she visited here. it's the only thing i know how to do with a single hook and i am unsure at this point over whether or not i'm going to increase my skills.

i wanted to make an afghan that matched the bedspread/sheets i bought when i got this bed. i tried knitting an afghan a couple of years ago and it was frustratingly slow... not wanting to finish this thing when i was in my 80's, i opted to make it out of crocheted squares as i can turn one out in a sitcom and a half (forty-five minutes).

the yarn is lion brand homespun and i think i'm using a J hook. the colors i am going with are the light and darker blue but i had thought about maybe adding a square or two of the blue/greyish black combo. i've decided against this for a couple of reasons. primarily because it simply doesn't look good, but also because the black homespun (while still being homespun brand yarn) has a bigger gauge than the other stuff. i'm not sure why. while all of the squares are essentially the same, i'm mixing the color patterns up to add a little bit of variety.

at the rate i'm going i'll finish making all squares by the end of the summer. i am not looking forward to piecing it all together.

redeemed..... somewhat (?)

2007-02-27T19:08:00.000-06:00

i figured i'd give this SWS yarn another chance, so to show off its self-stripeyness i've been working it up into a multidirectional scarf. scarves are things i like knitting because they're easy, quick, and relatively mindless... kind of a zen thing for me, i guess. maybe i'm thinking too much into it. or maybe i just need a rational explanation for the twelve scarves i already have (i live in new orleans! why do i need so many!). i'm enjoying the yarn a lot more this go around.... it hasn't split on me once with this scarf which already makes this project better than the shrug.

this is what i've got so far, nevermind the clashing bedsheets/fussed up blankets:

you can't really see it but ichi the killer has the other knitting needle captive. you can sort of notice the needle to the left of the picture, trying to escape her deadly grasp. the scarf is almost the width of my bed, which is a queen. i'm thinking of adding maybe two more triangles and then ending it. the scarf is maybe six inches wide, but i haven't blocked anything yet so it may end up being a little wider. i've noticed that knitting with this yarn makes it fuzzier. haven't quite figured out if that is a good or a bad thing just yet.

here's a closeup of the pattern:

don't quote me on it but i think i'm using size 6 needles. the fabric is pretty dense, but slightly stretchy at the same time. my issues with this scarf are that it seems like every ten or so short rows (so basically twenty 'real' rows as you're basically knitting up to a point and then turning around and knitting back to the end, only to repeat it) i'll get this weird bump where the wrap is. this is probably something i'm doing but i can't really figure out how i'm accomplishing it or how to stop doing it. it's not super noticeable and i'm hoping it will go away once i block it but i still get annoyed by it.

next post: a bit of a cheat.

SWS update

2007-02-25T18:12:00.000-06:00

alright, so i know it's been like a month since my last post but i've been busy. so sue me. i started working on a cowl-neck shrug with the SWS yarn i purchased for hella cheap. i've got one sleeve almost finished but i have a bit of an issue. take a gander:

here's my dilemma: i did a swatch (that's a first for me!) and got my gauge spot-on for this project. however, when i discovered while knitting this that these sleeves are so damned..... bulky. the cuff actually starts at my wrist, maybe about two inches down from where it's currently resting which makes it look even bulkier. i mean, i may have thick arms but that's almost too much. the sleeves don't look that bulky in the picture of the pattern, so what the hell is my problem.

also, i'm not entirely sure that the colorway of this yarn is something that i'm necessarily comfortable wearing. so basically right now i have no idea why i even started this. welcome to the perpetual catch-22 of pretty much every knitting project i take on. i'll see a pattern and be like, "awesome! this will be fun to make!" then i'll get halfway finished and positively hate it.

here's another issue i have with this project. though it's less the projects' fault and more the yarns':

this is the wrong side of the sleeve. do you see all those ties? there's five of them. only one of them (second from right) is the start a new skein of yarn. i've found that while knitting the sws would just split in my hands. i don't knit particularly tight so i'm really not too sure of the reasons for this.

i'm working on a scarf with another skein of this just to see if this yarn is all-around shite. more to come on that.

sweet yarn score!

2007-01-17T12:46:00.000-06:00

i went to michael's last weekend to pick up some homespun yarn to make an irish hiking scarf for my best friends' upcoming trip to the UK. while perusing the yarn aisles (something i always have to do, regardless of how little i need to buy yarn or how ugly the yarn may actually be) i walked past the clearance section and what to my wondering eyes should i see?

guess how much it was on sale for? just guess. it's ridiculous.

TWO DOLLARS A SKEIN!!!

mah che cazzo!

that's the cheapest i've ever seen it as michael's usually sells it for at least six dollars. this isn't my favorite colorway but i just had to have all of them. so i bought all six skeins for twelve dollars and merrily made my way home. i'm making it into a shrug and i can't wait til i'm finished with it. i have some issues with the yarn but i'll write about that in my post on the shrug. which will hopefully be coming in a few days after i take pictures of the shrug-in-progress.

back to the daily grind. sometimes the yarny powers-that-be smile upon me.

this is from another life.

2007-01-05T07:47:00.000-06:00

not knitting related, but i had to put this up online somewhere and photobucket is blocked at my work. nobody reads this blog anyways.

the kids in the picture are me, eric, and dave. this photo was taken probably around 2001? we were at stephanie's house fooling around as usual and steph took this picture. these were my best friends when i was in high school and we had a stupid falling out and i haven't spoken to either of them in years.

dave passed away on wednesday as a result of something i will never understand. he will be missed intensely by so many people.

christmas has come early for me!

2006-12-20T12:41:00.000-06:00

still alive! it's been quite a while since the last post but i've been busy dealing with lots and lots of stupid bullshit. i got my november package from my secret LJ pal a couple of weeks ago and i'm just getting around to posting it.

that's mason-dixon knitting, some (what appears t0 be handmade) wooden DPNs in size 10.5, and a skein of patons SWS yarn in the 'natural' colorway. that's patons new yarn that's 30% soy, 70% wool, and 100% soft and delicious as far as i'm concerned. I think that it's going to become some sort of a hat but i'm not too sure of that yet. my secret pal rules! i can't wait to see what's in the next package!

i also got a christmas present from one of my coworkers today, it's a small box called the "winter knits kit" and it contains a bunch of dk weight pink yarn, red circular needles, a yarn needle, two stitch markers, a short 'how-to' book and 25 cards with patterns for winter-related things on them. how awesome is that??! those are three of the pattern cards, on the left is a gorgeous table runner with a lacy leaf pattern up the center, in the middle is a beaded ornament pattern and on the right are some angora socks. this is probably the best preseent i've received so far and definitely is going to be one of the best i'll get for christmas, i know. and it's not even christmas yet!!

awesome!

CAZZO!

2006-11-19T19:19:00.001-06:00

last night i was working on that scarf and my denise needle cord snapped apart. right at the place where the black connector joins the blue plastic cord. not having another size eleven circular needle i went to walmart today to see if i could pick something up for cheap. no dice.... plenty of 10.5's and 13's, but no 11's! what the hell?? i'd like to finish this before my mom gets here on wednesday so i don't have to mail this back to her but it's looking like that's not going to happen.

curses. this is the second time i've had a denise needle cord break on me. i'm thinking of maybe getting a new set of interchangeables... that knitpicks options set seems sorta pricey but pretty appealing. i think i might get their needle set with my christmas money.

currently i'm working on a heart sachet from the IK 2006 holiday gifts issue. the yarn is from one of the many balls of koigu i have kind of floating around and i think if i get my ass in line i'd be able to make a bunch of these as christmas ornaments.

working on something with size two bamboo needles is a lesson in gentility, i'm finding it to be less of an exciting knitting experience and more of a lets-not-break-the-ten-dollar-needles sort of game.

current WIP - potato chip scarf

2006-11-18T19:26:00.000-06:00

this is my current work in progress, a variation of the potato chip scarf from knitpicks. this is also my first comissioned piece in the 11+ years i've been knitting. my mom is having me make this for one of her coworkers. the yarn is louisa hardings' "flotsam" and is kind of neat. it's like three strands of varying materials all intertwined. the fiber content is 40% cotton, 45% polyester, 10% viscose and 5% acrylic. this yarn is in colorway 9 which is a pink/teal/red combination. personally if i had to choose this yarn i would have chosen one of the other, less-pink colorways but this isn't my scarf so i really can't have an opinion of it.

i initially cast on way more stitches than the recommended 90, i thought the scarf would be too short and i really like long, drapey scarves. i got about four rows in when i realized that there was no way i was going to make a substantial scarf out of the yarn that i had. so i frogged a good two hours' worth of knitting (knitting horizontally instead of vertically, all while doubling the number of stitches every other row takes f-ing forever) and started over. i also upped the needle size to 11's (i had initially worked it on 9's, bad idea because the stitches were too small to be of any use as ruffles) and have been coming along swimmingly.

scarf as of last night:

closeup of the yarn/scarf:

if i did something with this yarn again i think i would like to make a shawl or a poncho. perhaps some sort of a loose pullover. something breezy and simple for spring/summer as this isn't a yarn whose fabric would hold any substantial heat.

felting extravaganza

2006-11-02T20:30:00.000-06:00

these two bags were done for two different coworkers who had birthdays two days apart. that's a two-tacular sentance right there.

the green bag is some fisherman's wool that i dyed myself, it was like my second dye experience and i had intended on turning the yarn into a zip-up cardigan. then i moved to new orleans and that was the end of that dream. the red yarn is manos del uruguay, and is an amazing color.

closeup of the green bag

closeup of the red bag. that colorway is gorgeous.

after felting. notice the size difference and how they've shaped up quite nicely.

closeup of the green bag after felting. goodbye decent stitch definition!

i wasn't able to get a good picture of the red bag after it had been felted, but i can tell you that if you've seen a felted bag you've already got a good idea of what it looked like.

fun with dyeing yarn.

2006-10-29T16:13:00.000-06:00

i did this about a month or two ago but am just getting around to putting it up. procrastination is the thief of time, apparently.

the yarn is malabrigo worsted (100% merino) and pretty much the softest thing i've ever felt. i used wilton icing dye in royal blue, sky blue, and a little bit of violet thrown in for good measure. i dyed it to make a scarf for one of my coworkers for christmas. she picked out the colors.

soaking the yarn in a vinegar/water mix before dyeing to prepare it. xavier the bonsai tree is watching over it.

i set up the dye station in my bathroom. i put down some plastic wrap on the floor of my bathtub and lay the hank of yarn out, spreading out the yarn so it was all pretty much laying flat and exposed. i put each color of dye and a bit of water into a seperate squeeze bottle and shook it all up to mix it, then pretty much just squirted it all over the yarn, trying not to mix the colors too much.

i let the yarn sit in the dye for a few minutes, then blotted out the excess dye, wrapped it up all snake-like in the plastic wrap, then nuked it in my microwave at two minute intervals. it was steaming hot by the time it was done! xavier the bonsai is tired of yarn dyeing, by this time it is dark out and i've been at it for a few hours.

rinsing out the yarn in my shower.

it took a while for the water to run completely clear but when it was finished and dry and done up it looked like this:

i haven't actually gotten around to knitting a swatch of it yet but i would imagine it to look kind of like a monet painting. that was sort of the idea i was going for.

and, because no project is fun without a disaster pic, here's one of my hands after i finished all the dyework:

don't even ask how i managed that shot.

hmm

2006-10-10T08:26:00.000-05:00

i've had this thing for a year and some months and haven't updated it yet. it's not that i haven't been knitting, nay, that's something that never really stops. perhaps soon i'll put up some pictures of my recent projects.