The Fifth (Seventh) First: Bamboo Yarn
Both for the T.A.R.D.I.Socks and the lace sweater
I’m using a bamboo blend yarn. It’s my first time knitting with any
level of bamboo fibre, though it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a
while. I’ll do proper yarn reviews when I talk about the WIPs or FOs
(whenever I get to them), but suffice to say that I love one of them,
I’m frustrated as hell at the other one, I bought my first set of big
girl circular needles, and I will forever insist on knitting bamboo WITH
bamboo (or at least wood … but preferably bamboo).
And that wraps up my series of post about knitting firsts. Thanks for
reading. Happy knitting. Feel free to share your knitting firsts or any
tips/tricks/experiences with any of my firsts either in the comments or
by sending me an email, Google+, or Twitter message.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Friday, June 13, 2014
Knitting Firsts: Part 4 - Ravelry Competition
Fourth First (although I guess we’ve now established it’s my Sixth First): Ravelry Competition
Unrelated to all of the buying of yarn at festivals and receiving of yarn from swaps, I’ve decided that I need to do my part to decrease the amount of yarn I have. Now, compared to many people I don’t actually have that much yarn, but I also don’t have that much yarn space in my flat and it’s already become incredibly cluttered. Aside from the Kauni, everything I brought into my house from the festival was already DFA (designated for assignment) to a project in my queue, so I felt comfortable with it. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Ravelry trying to match up the oldest yarns in my stash with projects so that when I finish the epic deadline knitting of summer (it’s getting wild around here) I will have clear directions for the older yarns in my stash. Problem was that because of the plan (knit the oldest first) conflicting with reality (knit all these things by these dates and also you need to buy yarn for them) I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Enter the Knit Girllls podcast (which I don’ t listen to yet, but was mentioned on another podcast) and their StashDash 2014. The objective is between May 26 and August 2 (I think) to knit 5km worth of yarn. Which sounds impossible. The catch is … things already on the needles no matter how far they were in progress at the start of the competition, could count their full yardage. So here I was with a sport weight vest, a pair of knee high socks, and an 800yd sweater project already in the works and scheduled to be completed by July 9. So I’m doing it. I don’t think I actually get anything for completing it other than the satisfaction of having FOs and getting yarn used up, but that’s good enough for me. I haven’t really been participating in all the chatter etc. because while I know other people feed off the social energy of these sorts of things I find it draining. I’d rather compete against my personal goals and not constantly compare my progress to that of everyone else who seems to either have all day long to knit or are the fastest knitters on the planet. I’m making progress, I finished one thing, I’ve established a rhythm for finishing the others, I have plans for the future, and I’m going to make it as far as I can and do my best to not buy yarn in the interim.
Unrelated to all of the buying of yarn at festivals and receiving of yarn from swaps, I’ve decided that I need to do my part to decrease the amount of yarn I have. Now, compared to many people I don’t actually have that much yarn, but I also don’t have that much yarn space in my flat and it’s already become incredibly cluttered. Aside from the Kauni, everything I brought into my house from the festival was already DFA (designated for assignment) to a project in my queue, so I felt comfortable with it. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Ravelry trying to match up the oldest yarns in my stash with projects so that when I finish the epic deadline knitting of summer (it’s getting wild around here) I will have clear directions for the older yarns in my stash. Problem was that because of the plan (knit the oldest first) conflicting with reality (knit all these things by these dates and also you need to buy yarn for them) I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Enter the Knit Girllls podcast (which I don’ t listen to yet, but was mentioned on another podcast) and their StashDash 2014. The objective is between May 26 and August 2 (I think) to knit 5km worth of yarn. Which sounds impossible. The catch is … things already on the needles no matter how far they were in progress at the start of the competition, could count their full yardage. So here I was with a sport weight vest, a pair of knee high socks, and an 800yd sweater project already in the works and scheduled to be completed by July 9. So I’m doing it. I don’t think I actually get anything for completing it other than the satisfaction of having FOs and getting yarn used up, but that’s good enough for me. I haven’t really been participating in all the chatter etc. because while I know other people feed off the social energy of these sorts of things I find it draining. I’d rather compete against my personal goals and not constantly compare my progress to that of everyone else who seems to either have all day long to knit or are the fastest knitters on the planet. I’m making progress, I finished one thing, I’ve established a rhythm for finishing the others, I have plans for the future, and I’m going to make it as far as I can and do my best to not buy yarn in the interim.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Knitting Firsts: Part 3 - Yarn Swap
Third First: Yarn Swap
Since I’ve only recently gotten into knitting podcasts and the more social aspects of Ravelry (even then I’m just dipping my toe in the water) it’s only within the last year that I learned that yarn swaps are a thing people do. So, when my first knitting podcast foray rolled around to their second anniversary in May and they decided to do a swap, I knew I wanted to participate. It’s a video podcast so I’d gotten to see them showing the spoils of yarn swaps past and it just seemed like a really great way to potentially experience a new yarn or local goods from places I’d never been and to just connect with some of the people you only communicate with via the internet. I was excited to try to share my local flavour with someone else and have someone share theirs with me.
Interestingly enough, I ended up with one of the hosts of the podcast as the person I was buying for (it was a round robin swap so you weren’t getting the same person who got you), which I thought was pretty great. I’d been watching her progress in knitting and life over the past two years and I felt like I had a good handle on what she liked, so I hoped I could put together the best possible package. I knew also that whenever possible I wanted to give her something uniquely me or uniquely Minneapolis. I got two kinds of tea from my LYS (because they have special tea blends and they are both phenomenal and I enjoy them whenever I’m there knitting or shopping or winding 50 skeins of yarn on their swift/ball winder because I don’t have one), yarn that was the exact colour of green she’s always showing off on the podcast (I conquested hard for it) that I picked up from a local independent dyer at the fibre festival, a pattern I also picked up at the festival, a stitch holder that she had requested, and a reversible project bag I made myself. Which I guess isn’t a knitting first per se, but is a first. I’d never sewn a project bag before (or really a bag of any type … I’m a garment sewer almost exclusively), but it was a quick and mostly painless process and I hope to make many more of them for friends or for myself (though I don’t really use project bags) or to sell on Etsy or anywhere else I might find myself selling things. The best part, I think, was that since mine went to one of the hosts of the podcast I got to watch her open it on the show and see her reactions to everything. It was really special and it’s a bit tense and also a bit exhilarating to wait with anticipation to see if someone halfway across the country likes the things you sent them.
Also amazing was receiving a package in return. We had to fill out a short questionnaire to tell our potential swap partners more about us, and my partner really seemed to have a knack for taking the short info I provided and really putting together something truly special. She sent me two kinds of tea (divine vanilla black tea and the most bergamot-y smelling Earl Grey I’ve ever had) from a local-to-her tea shop, two sachets of lavender (one of my favourite smells) from her bushes in her back yard that made the whole box smell lovely and are now residing in my yarn trunks and hopefully making my yarn smell lovely as well, my first ever real, actual stitch markers (so I guess that’s the Fourth First – up until now I always just tied scrap yarn around the needle to mark the stitches) which are jeweled and beautiful and I can’t wait to get back to a point in a project that needs the stitches marked so I can use them and smile because I feel like a real knitter, a needle size/gauge checker (a really awesome one) because I mentioned that I lost my other one somewhere in my flat and I’m banking on it never returning until I move) and a skein of yarn from an indie dyer that I stalk on Etsy but have never purchased anything from. This yarn is SO VERY EXCITING to me, both because it’s inspired by one of my favourite fandoms (Welcome to Night Vale) but also because it’s even more beautiful in person and it’s not very expensive so it’s telling me I should just buy yarn from this dyer instead of just favouriting all of it and then being moderately sad when it sells out. I’ve found a new dyer and that’s amazing. So I suppose this is my Fifth First—it’s my first fandom-inspired indie yarn. It’s also my Sixth First because it’s 100% Blue-faced Leicester and I’ve never owned any BFL before.
Yarn swap … stressful, but INCREDIBLY FUN. Let’s do more of them!
Since I’ve only recently gotten into knitting podcasts and the more social aspects of Ravelry (even then I’m just dipping my toe in the water) it’s only within the last year that I learned that yarn swaps are a thing people do. So, when my first knitting podcast foray rolled around to their second anniversary in May and they decided to do a swap, I knew I wanted to participate. It’s a video podcast so I’d gotten to see them showing the spoils of yarn swaps past and it just seemed like a really great way to potentially experience a new yarn or local goods from places I’d never been and to just connect with some of the people you only communicate with via the internet. I was excited to try to share my local flavour with someone else and have someone share theirs with me.
Interestingly enough, I ended up with one of the hosts of the podcast as the person I was buying for (it was a round robin swap so you weren’t getting the same person who got you), which I thought was pretty great. I’d been watching her progress in knitting and life over the past two years and I felt like I had a good handle on what she liked, so I hoped I could put together the best possible package. I knew also that whenever possible I wanted to give her something uniquely me or uniquely Minneapolis. I got two kinds of tea from my LYS (because they have special tea blends and they are both phenomenal and I enjoy them whenever I’m there knitting or shopping or winding 50 skeins of yarn on their swift/ball winder because I don’t have one), yarn that was the exact colour of green she’s always showing off on the podcast (I conquested hard for it) that I picked up from a local independent dyer at the fibre festival, a pattern I also picked up at the festival, a stitch holder that she had requested, and a reversible project bag I made myself. Which I guess isn’t a knitting first per se, but is a first. I’d never sewn a project bag before (or really a bag of any type … I’m a garment sewer almost exclusively), but it was a quick and mostly painless process and I hope to make many more of them for friends or for myself (though I don’t really use project bags) or to sell on Etsy or anywhere else I might find myself selling things. The best part, I think, was that since mine went to one of the hosts of the podcast I got to watch her open it on the show and see her reactions to everything. It was really special and it’s a bit tense and also a bit exhilarating to wait with anticipation to see if someone halfway across the country likes the things you sent them.
Also amazing was receiving a package in return. We had to fill out a short questionnaire to tell our potential swap partners more about us, and my partner really seemed to have a knack for taking the short info I provided and really putting together something truly special. She sent me two kinds of tea (divine vanilla black tea and the most bergamot-y smelling Earl Grey I’ve ever had) from a local-to-her tea shop, two sachets of lavender (one of my favourite smells) from her bushes in her back yard that made the whole box smell lovely and are now residing in my yarn trunks and hopefully making my yarn smell lovely as well, my first ever real, actual stitch markers (so I guess that’s the Fourth First – up until now I always just tied scrap yarn around the needle to mark the stitches) which are jeweled and beautiful and I can’t wait to get back to a point in a project that needs the stitches marked so I can use them and smile because I feel like a real knitter, a needle size/gauge checker (a really awesome one) because I mentioned that I lost my other one somewhere in my flat and I’m banking on it never returning until I move) and a skein of yarn from an indie dyer that I stalk on Etsy but have never purchased anything from. This yarn is SO VERY EXCITING to me, both because it’s inspired by one of my favourite fandoms (Welcome to Night Vale) but also because it’s even more beautiful in person and it’s not very expensive so it’s telling me I should just buy yarn from this dyer instead of just favouriting all of it and then being moderately sad when it sells out. I’ve found a new dyer and that’s amazing. So I suppose this is my Fifth First—it’s my first fandom-inspired indie yarn. It’s also my Sixth First because it’s 100% Blue-faced Leicester and I’ve never owned any BFL before.
Yarn swap … stressful, but INCREDIBLY FUN. Let’s do more of them!
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Knitting Firsts: Part 2 - Fibre Festival
The Second First: Fibre Festival
The weekend after my two weekends of knitting classes, I ventured out of the confines of the city to my first ever fibre festival. It was a small one held out in one of the very rural suburbs at the county fair grounds, but I think that was just what I needed for my first time. I hear many horror stories from podcasters about the rush of people waiting to get in to the big festivals and the hordes of people all grabbing at the same yarn from a certain dyer and how people are carrying around armfuls just to make sure no one takes the one they want, and I’m just pretty sure that scene’s not for me. Instead, I went to this small one on the lookout for a select few things for a select few projects and I had a really great time. There were sheepdog trials and spinning demonstrations and many very nice vendors who I still feel bad about not giving money to. In the end I got just what I wanted (yarn to make the aforementioned sweater that I’m laughingly trying to accomplish by July 9, beautiful variegated organic wool yarn in just the right colours to finally make myself the Hobbit dress before the third movie premieres in December, and the perfect colour green yarn for my yarn swap partner (see the Third First)) and I also got some things I’ve been dreaming of for a long time (two skeins of Alisha Goes Around –and let me tell you that (1) Alisha is an AMAZING and LOVELY individual and (2) I wanted to buy the whole damn table, and two skeins of Dansk garn called Kauni that I’ve been loving and wanting and dreaming of for a long time and have never seen in person anywhere in the US). Originally I thought I would make my sweater with Kauni, but then the other yarn turned up and I somehow knew that it had to be the sweater yarn and the Kauni will be turned into something perfect and wonderful. It may linger in my stash for years to come until it meets exactly the right pattern and circumstance and that is okay because I wish nothing but the best for it.
I also got an adorable pattern that SO picked out and a charming skein of wool/bison blend handspun from reasonably local bison (Dakotas) that still has the beautiful smell of lanolin and bison wool. Aside from yarn there was a booth selling all manner of sheep cheese and since I’m intolerant to all cow milk I have to get my cheese fix exclusively from sheep or goat cheese. So … I bought a lot of cheese. My drawers are full of yarn and my freezer is full of cheese and that’s the best possible way I can think of to exist.
In short, I had a blast at the festival and look forward to the next one. Maybe I’ll work my way up to something bigger. Here’s a photo of my yarny take homes (minus one skein because it got pretty much instantly converted to sweater) that caused me to text my best friend and say “I’m yarn envying myself because of all the awesome things I got”.
Fibre festival: A+ would do again.
The weekend after my two weekends of knitting classes, I ventured out of the confines of the city to my first ever fibre festival. It was a small one held out in one of the very rural suburbs at the county fair grounds, but I think that was just what I needed for my first time. I hear many horror stories from podcasters about the rush of people waiting to get in to the big festivals and the hordes of people all grabbing at the same yarn from a certain dyer and how people are carrying around armfuls just to make sure no one takes the one they want, and I’m just pretty sure that scene’s not for me. Instead, I went to this small one on the lookout for a select few things for a select few projects and I had a really great time. There were sheepdog trials and spinning demonstrations and many very nice vendors who I still feel bad about not giving money to. In the end I got just what I wanted (yarn to make the aforementioned sweater that I’m laughingly trying to accomplish by July 9, beautiful variegated organic wool yarn in just the right colours to finally make myself the Hobbit dress before the third movie premieres in December, and the perfect colour green yarn for my yarn swap partner (see the Third First)) and I also got some things I’ve been dreaming of for a long time (two skeins of Alisha Goes Around –and let me tell you that (1) Alisha is an AMAZING and LOVELY individual and (2) I wanted to buy the whole damn table, and two skeins of Dansk garn called Kauni that I’ve been loving and wanting and dreaming of for a long time and have never seen in person anywhere in the US). Originally I thought I would make my sweater with Kauni, but then the other yarn turned up and I somehow knew that it had to be the sweater yarn and the Kauni will be turned into something perfect and wonderful. It may linger in my stash for years to come until it meets exactly the right pattern and circumstance and that is okay because I wish nothing but the best for it.
I also got an adorable pattern that SO picked out and a charming skein of wool/bison blend handspun from reasonably local bison (Dakotas) that still has the beautiful smell of lanolin and bison wool. Aside from yarn there was a booth selling all manner of sheep cheese and since I’m intolerant to all cow milk I have to get my cheese fix exclusively from sheep or goat cheese. So … I bought a lot of cheese. My drawers are full of yarn and my freezer is full of cheese and that’s the best possible way I can think of to exist.
In short, I had a blast at the festival and look forward to the next one. Maybe I’ll work my way up to something bigger. Here’s a photo of my yarny take homes (minus one skein because it got pretty much instantly converted to sweater) that caused me to text my best friend and say “I’m yarn envying myself because of all the awesome things I got”.
Fibre festival: A+ would do again.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Knitting Firsts: Part 1 - Knitting Class
The past month (or so, I’ve been lax in posting all the things) has
been a month of a lot of knitting firsts for me and I thought I’d share
them with you. Because I got long winded, I’m going to do these as a series
of posts.
So…we shall begin with…
The First First: Knitting Class (and tangentially … sock)
Because I’m the sort of person who thinks to herself “but why shouldn’t I do it the most awesome and hard way possible on the first try instead of easing into a thing”, I decided that for the femme Fifth Doctor costume I’m working on for a con upcoming in July (and then another one in August and then office Halloween in October) I should not only knit a vest (which is done and I really need to post photos of it but haven’t) which is easy and I KNOW how to do and will be nbd, and sew a skirt which is using a pattern I’ve already sewn and love and is also nbd, I should also knit myself socks. Knee high socks. Knee high T.A.R.D.I.Socks. I made this decision at the end of April and then told myself that before I could cast on said knee high socks I had to finish the mittens of repeated epic fail (more to come once that situation sorts itself out) and also my SO’s cardigan. Which, as previously discussed, took me until the middle of May. So I somehow decided that between May 15 and July 3 I would finish the half completed vest, sew a skirt, also knit another sweater that I wanted to make for a trip I have on July 9, and knit knee high socks that by all reports take experienced sock knitters months to years to do because they are SO DAMN ENORMOUS. Oh, and did I mention I’ve never knit a sock before in my life and while I conceptually understand that socks have heels and toes and legs and feet I don’t have a clue about how to adjust that to fit my actual heel or toe or leg or foot? Did I also mention that these socks are toe up and leave most of the adjusting to the knitter? They are.
Which brings me to my first first … my first knitting class. In a timely fashion, my LYS sent me an email that they were having a “knit a sock” class for the first two weeks of May. I’d never taken a class there before, but I learned to sew by taking classes so I figured what harm could it do. Granted this was a cuff down sock on two circular needles using worsted weight yarn and not a toe up sock with patterning and self-adjusting on 4 dpns, but at least I could understand the basics of sock mechanics. Hopefully. The short answer was, I found the people in the class not that awesome (much discussion that made me cringe at the levels of fail on various levels) and the teacher was distracted at best and almost no one but me actually made any progress or seemed to understand knitting in the round, but the materials I received and the comprehensive instructions on how to figure out what size your feet were and how the parts of the sock went together accordingly were hugely helpful. And at the end of it all I had a sock. Just one, but a sock no less. I want the cuff to be longer, but I ran out of time, so I’ll probably end up ripping it out and making it taller ( which can wait until closer to winter because worsted weight wool socks in the summer are just … no), but I have a sock.
So there you have it. My first class and my first very plain, very boring, ultimately well fitting sock.
So…we shall begin with…
The First First: Knitting Class (and tangentially … sock)
Because I’m the sort of person who thinks to herself “but why shouldn’t I do it the most awesome and hard way possible on the first try instead of easing into a thing”, I decided that for the femme Fifth Doctor costume I’m working on for a con upcoming in July (and then another one in August and then office Halloween in October) I should not only knit a vest (which is done and I really need to post photos of it but haven’t) which is easy and I KNOW how to do and will be nbd, and sew a skirt which is using a pattern I’ve already sewn and love and is also nbd, I should also knit myself socks. Knee high socks. Knee high T.A.R.D.I.Socks. I made this decision at the end of April and then told myself that before I could cast on said knee high socks I had to finish the mittens of repeated epic fail (more to come once that situation sorts itself out) and also my SO’s cardigan. Which, as previously discussed, took me until the middle of May. So I somehow decided that between May 15 and July 3 I would finish the half completed vest, sew a skirt, also knit another sweater that I wanted to make for a trip I have on July 9, and knit knee high socks that by all reports take experienced sock knitters months to years to do because they are SO DAMN ENORMOUS. Oh, and did I mention I’ve never knit a sock before in my life and while I conceptually understand that socks have heels and toes and legs and feet I don’t have a clue about how to adjust that to fit my actual heel or toe or leg or foot? Did I also mention that these socks are toe up and leave most of the adjusting to the knitter? They are.
Which brings me to my first first … my first knitting class. In a timely fashion, my LYS sent me an email that they were having a “knit a sock” class for the first two weeks of May. I’d never taken a class there before, but I learned to sew by taking classes so I figured what harm could it do. Granted this was a cuff down sock on two circular needles using worsted weight yarn and not a toe up sock with patterning and self-adjusting on 4 dpns, but at least I could understand the basics of sock mechanics. Hopefully. The short answer was, I found the people in the class not that awesome (much discussion that made me cringe at the levels of fail on various levels) and the teacher was distracted at best and almost no one but me actually made any progress or seemed to understand knitting in the round, but the materials I received and the comprehensive instructions on how to figure out what size your feet were and how the parts of the sock went together accordingly were hugely helpful. And at the end of it all I had a sock. Just one, but a sock no less. I want the cuff to be longer, but I ran out of time, so I’ll probably end up ripping it out and making it taller ( which can wait until closer to winter because worsted weight wool socks in the summer are just … no), but I have a sock.
So there you have it. My first class and my first very plain, very boring, ultimately well fitting sock.
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