melroan

I know, I know...I never post. I said right from the beginning that I wouldn't post a lot. But I do post from time to time. usually pics of knitting and stuff...so true to form here we have pics of socks!





These are socks made from Trekking XXL gifted to me by the lovely Zanne. the pattern is Widdershins from knitty.com. The socks are comfortable, and I love the colours, but they are a pain to get on and off. For some reason (probably the cables) they aren't quite as roomy in the ankle area as most of my socks are. When I finally get them on, however, they are uber comfy so it's worth the fight. Gotta worth at least one exercise point, right? :)




Ah! My pride and joy. I love these! The yarn is artsygal handpainted 100% merino wool and is probably the most incredibly sock yarn I've ever worked with. The pattern is pomotamus, again from knitty.com. I kinda think the scales in the pattern look like solar flares in this colour. The evil artsygal has ruined me for other sock yarns and I love her for it. Definitely worth checking out her stuff. She also does lace weight yarns in yummy colours.




The yellow sock is again the sunfire artsy gal sock, the black sock is half of a pair for Rob in the same pattern done in Lanna Grossa sock yarn. Not quite as nice, but still soft. This time the pattern looks a little like black dragon scales.







Yet more artsygal yarn, this time in cinco de maya colourway. The pattern is a toe-up adaptation of the Seduction pattern from Interweave Press. Love these! They've be worn and washed a few times and they actually got softer in the wash! I didn't think it was possible, but wow!

So I've had a few people ask for the pattern for the hat I made for Ilanikhan.



So here it is. It's pretty rough, so if you have any questions at all, feel free to ask.


Mel's Entrelac Hat

Materials:
2 skeins noro silk garden or noro kureyon (100m/50gr)
4.5mm circular needle (40cm long)
Set of 5 4.5mm dpns

Gauge:
20 stitches and 28 rows = 10 cm

Pattern:

Cast on 100 sts using circular needle. Join in round being careful not to twist. Work 5 rounds k2,p2 ribbing.
Begin entrelac:
Base triangles:
row 1: k2tog,k1, turn
row 2: p2, turn
row 3: k3, turn
row 4: p3, turn
row 5: k4, do not turn!
One base triangle worked. Repeat this triangle 19 more times around. 20 base triangles total.

First tier of blocks:
With RS facing, pick up and knit 4 stitches along the selvedge edge of the first base triangle. Turn.
row 1: p3, p2tog, turn
row 2: k4, turn
row 3: p3, p2tog, turn
repeat rows 2 and 3 twice more, but without turning work at the end of the last row. All stitches from the previous tier have been decreased away.

Second block:
With WS facing, pick up and purl 4 stitches along the selvedge edge of the next base triangle. Turn. Work rows 2 and 3 as for previous block 4 times. Repeat until all base triangles have been worked (20 blocks in round.

Second tier of blocks:
With WS facing, pick up and purl 4 stitches from selvedge edge of first block from preceding tier. Turn.
row 1: k3, ssk, turn
row 2: p4, turn
row 3: k3, ssk, turn
Repeat rows 2 and 3 twice more, but without turning work at the end of the last row. All stitches from the previous tier have been decreased away.

Second block:
With RS facing , pick up and k 4 stitches along selvedge of next block in preceding tier. Turn. Work rows 2 and 3 four times as for preceding block. Repeat until all blocks in the round are worked. 20 Blocks total.

Continue working tiers 1 and 2 alternately until 5 repeats of tier 1 have been worked.

First decrease tier:
block 1:
With WS facing, pick up and p 3 stitches from selvedge edge of the first block from preceding tier. Turn.
row 1: k2,ssk,turn
row 2: p3, turn
row 3: k2, ssk, turn
row 4: p3, turn
row 5: k2, sl1, k2tog, psso
All stitches from the previous tier have been decreased away.

With RS facing, pick up and k 3 stitches along selvedge of next block from preceding tier. Turn.
row 1: p3, turn
row 2: k2, ssk, turn
row 3: p3, turn
row 4: k2, ssk, turn
row 5: p3, turn
row 6: k2, sl1, k2tog, psso

Repeat this block until all preceding blocks have been worked (20 blocks in round).

Second decrease tier:
block 1:
With RS facing, pick up and k2 stitches along selvedge of first block in preceding tier. Turn.
row 1: p1, p2tog, turn
row 2: k2, turn
row 3: p1, p3tog
All stitches from the previous tier have been decreased away.

With WS facing, pick up and p2 stitches along the selvedge of the next block from preceding tier. Turn.
row 1: k2, turn
row 2: p1, p2tog, turn
row 3: k2, turn
row 4: p1, p3tog, turn

End entrelac section (yay!)

Switch to set of 5 dpns.
round 1: k2, pick up and knit one stitch between block. Repeat to end of round. 60 stitches
round 2, 4, 6, 8: knit
round 3: [k3, k2tog] to end of round. 48 stitches
round 5: [k2, k2tog] to end of round. 36 stitches
round 7: [k1, k2tog] to end of round. 24 stitches
round 9: k2tog to end of round. 12 stitches
Repeat round 9 until there are 3 stitches left. Transfer these stitches to one needle and work 3 sts I-cord for roughly 3 inches. Cast off, leaving a tail several inches long for securing “button” on top of hat.

Tie cord in a simple knot and arrange it so it lies flat on the top of the hat. Sew it down and secure the end. Weave in ends (all 3 of them!). Voila! You have a hat! Enjoy!

Pictures! Again! Always! But this time instead of knitted stuff you're getting food pics. These are the (few) pics I got of the sotelties cortejo and I put together for the BTBOW 17 feast on saturday. There are way better pics out there, but this is what I have. I apologize for the fact that I'm a terrible photographer.

In no particular order (or rather, in the order they ended up in my photobucket album...):

This is one of the trillium cakes that the populace got. So I might have gotten a little carried away...:




The cake is a pomegranate/honey cake that is perioid. Ish. It's a good cake for this, though, as it's nice and dense, so it cuts well, and it's not really sweet at all, so it's not too much with all the other stuff. The cake was cut into shape and then iced with home made marzipan which was coloured with a little white icing colour. The marzipan on the leaves was painted with food colouring. Again, not really period materials, but I'm sure that if they had modern food colours they would have used them for this. The decorations are home made hard candies that have been coloured with food colouring and then cast. Let's hear it for easter molds when one live in a barony with a bunny as a heraldic device! :) The "jewels" were actually cast using an egg shaped mold...again, let's hear it for easter! :)






Ah, the peacock. The credit for this one goes to Cortejo. I think she did an incredible job on this one. Under all those grapes is a roast chicken, believe it or not. The tail is (obviously) feathers that have been stuck into some foam stuff (I think it's florists foam, but I'm sure I"ll be corrected...) that has been covered in grape halves. The neck is more of the same foam with yet more grapes, and the head (my contribution to all this) is marzipan with a hard candy beak. The eyes are cloves. Use what you've got, rigth?







The Skraeling althing arms done in candy...do you have any idea how hard it is to make a hare in mosaic form and have it actually look like what it's supposed to be? anyway, the shield is marzipan (uncoloured this time) and the mosaic pieces are sugar plate. The red ones have been coloured during the cooking process, and the white pieces were painted after the fact.




This cake is what happens when I'm given time and told to "make it look really over the top". This is the same as the other cake, but it's about 2 inches larger in diameter, and way over decorated for head table.




Cortejo's bouquets...everything in there (except the sticks, obviously) is edible. I think she did an amazing job on these. They were gorgeous, and tasty, too!



I hope everyone who ate feast enjoyed it. There were a couple other sotelties as well, but I didn't get pics of them. The apple eggs were lovely (again, cortejo's doing) and the carved cheese bunnies that she whipped off at the last minute between chasing her daughter and setting out her feast spot were amazing. No pics of them, sadly, but I think Erik got some.

This was probably the most calm feast I've ever been involved in. It simply isn't right that we only had 2 people in the kitchen and spent most of the feast looking for things to do...Siggy rocks!

Because I have all the time in the world to knit...really!

A couple weeks ago I presented ilanikhan with a skein of noro silk garden in a lovely purple colourway and told her I would make something for her. She wanted a hat, so here's what I came up with:







I absolutely love the way the colours behaved themselves! This yarn is a dream to knit with, and is perfect for entrelac. I'm pretty proud of this one since I just sorta sat down and started knitting. I'm particularly please with the little button on the top. :)

Next up are the socks I knit with leftover shawl yarn. They are Straight Laced from Knitty.com knit on 2.75mm needles. They're really cute. They were wonderfully comfortable the one time I wore them. Then there was the dryer incident in which it took me 12 hours to dry a load of clothes. I won't bore you with the details, but long story short, I wasn't thinking about what was in the laundry when we finally got the bloody thing working, and so I dried these. They are 70% merino. Not superwash. I don't think Andrew has taken them off since I gave them to him yesterday morning. I swear he's the only 8 year old out there wearing 70% merino 30% silk handknit socks. On the up side, despite the rather extreme felting they maintained their pattern and are still really great socks. Just 8 yo sized rather than 27yo sized. :( OH well. Lucky kid.




Finally is the shawl for thirstysmurf. It's been done for a while, but needed blocking. Finding some place big enough for blocking this was...interesting. I ended up blocking it in two halves and then reblocking the central bit where it joins to get the points to lie the right way. It worked, though, and I love this shawl.









Knit in KnitPicks Gloss in Woodland Sage on 4mm needles.

You Are Strawberry Cake

Fresh, sassy, and romantic. You're a total flirt, who never would turn down a sugary treat. Occasionally you're a bit moody - but you usually stay sweet!

\

Mmm..strawberries...

I think I might be insane. I am actually trying to figure out a way to get to Toronto every wednesday night to go to the SnB at Lettuce Knit. it's the one the harlot goes to. I know at least one person who attends it. They have beer. And Indian food. The one here in Kingston meets once a month, has no harlot, and has no beer. Imagine, beer and knitting and no holds barred on conversation topics! It woudl be like an SCA post rev populated exclusively with knitters! How can that be bad?

Hmmm....Em, can I stay with you every wednesday night and then bum a ride to the bus station? Maybe get you to pay for the bus ticket every week?

Somehow I don't think it'll work. Damn. Oh well, dreams are good, right?

In other news the neck thing is getting worse again. I suspect I'll be back at the chiro tomorrow. She was saying something about ultrasound...*grumble*

Went to practicum this weekend solo. Rob was up until about 2am friday working on a word puzzle with the ladies on the knitting chat I'm on (!) while I went to bed. So of course when I got up to go to the event he growled at me and decided that he didn't like any of the classes. I'm still convinced he never actually looked at the list...lol

Anyway, I had a lovely day of not teaching (the first year since I moved into the Barony that I didn't teach a class...it was refreshing if a little boring). So instead I took classes and had a lovely relaxing day.

Spending the night at Ilanikhan's without Rob for the first time in a year or so was nice. Kinda like old times. I didn't realize how much I missed spending time with her.

Sadly, the fun relaxing weekend seems to be ending in pain. I woke up this morning with a crick in my neck. It was mostly loosened up by the time I got home to Gan. In fact, I was feelign good enough that I decided to go to archery with the boys. Mental note, when one has a crick in the left side of one's neck and one arches left handed, one should consider not bothering with archery. I can now barely move my head. I've tried heat, I've tried ice, and I've tried naproxin. Thank all that is good that I've got a chiro appt tomorrow!

Ow ow ow!

As promised, knitting pics.

The back story....back in the summer thirstysmurf and I were looking at some patterns and she asked if I'd be willing to knit some stuff for her if she bought the yarn. Of course, being the obsessive stress knitter I am, and being both stressed and broke, I was only too happy to agree. So finally, after much discussion of colous and yarns and patterns I ended up with a box of yarn in my hot little hands. A week or so later I ended up with this:



The yarn is Knitpicks Yarn of the Andes in Arctic Pool Heather and it is wonderful to knit with. The picture doesn't really do the colour justice as it's got some lovely heathering in it with tiny colour variations. It's fantastic! 100% wool, too, so nice and warm I'm sure. The pattern is Amazing Twining Lace frtom Knitter's Magazine. Fun to knit, and it looks fun to wear, too. Gotta love that hat! :D

And because my girl is adorable and I can't resist her...Joxur!

So I'm horrible at updating this journal. I said I would be at the beginning and I'm living up to my word. On the up side, I only seem to post when I've got something finished. Usually pretty pics of knitting and the like.

No pics tonight...just a really bouncy me. Two huge things happened today:

1) I have most of the biggest chapter of my thesis written. it's a rough draft, but it's almost done. Yay!

2) I hit goal weight! I'm officially on maitenance as of about an hour ago. Yay!

So life is good today for all that I'm still fighting off the residuals of the nasty flu I had last week and I'm stressed beyond belief. I'm feeling tonight like I can do it. Go me!

So because there are no knitting pics, I'll leave you with a pic of the flowers Rob got me last week. They showed up in the middle of the day on wednesday (VD) with no card. They're even bigger and more beautiful now that all the flowers are open and the house smells lovely!



I'll have knitting pics just as soon as I find the camera and cord and manage to colocate them...:)

So I've finally managed to get around to blocking some lace...and making christmas gifts for my paretns.







This is the stole I knit with the lovely lace weight merino I traded for with Em (zephyr's in the mail tomorrow...promise!)






This is Mom's Christmas gift...shh! 100% merino singles. I love this stuff! And it's stupid cheap on ebay, which is alwasy a good thing.






And Dad's gift...100% alpaca. The pics doen't really show the colour all that well. It's a lovely chocolate brown colour. I'm hoping Dad likes it.

So I'm finally getting around to posting these. I have no idea who took most of these, but they area fairly good documentary of what was going on in the kitchen at Hare this year. I'm told there was an event going on, and I did get dragged into court a couple times, as did my partner in crime, so there must have been. :)

Okay, here's the final scarf so far. The colour is actually much darker, and the cables don't show up very well in the pic since it's not blocked yet. But you can see the tweeding, which is great.

I'm baaaack! And I have a question. Sort of an opinion poll.





Here's the back story, mostly because I'm still irritated about it and

want to vent. A couple weeks ago Rob and I were at his parents' place

for a bbq and I was wearing my new lace scarf that I had made. His

mother and sister were both commenting on it, so he decided to say that

I could make a bunch for the craft sales they both go to if they're

interested. They both thought this was a smashing idea and could I get

some done for september? He said sure and the committment was made.

Grrrr! So rather than say no, which I think I'm incapable of, I started

designing and knitting. Here's what I've got so far:






The blue and red scarves are both knit in 100% peruvian wool and are

quite long. The periwinkle and gold scarf is knitted in hempath, which

is 34% hemp, 41% cotton, 25% modal and is backed in 100% tussah silk.

You can't really see them, but there are some beads on the gold side

sewn in to hold the two side together. This scarf is a big short, but

would be nice and warm under a jacket in the fall without being bulky.

There's a fourth scarf that I just finished yesterday and have

photographed yet done in a lovely tweeded plum silk that has cables

(sort of a braid) and some lacy bits in it and is mid length.





So the question is this: what is the top price you would be willing to

pay for any of these scarves? Hand knit, original designs, high quality

materials. I'm trying to get a feel for how much I can get away with

asking for.





Thanks!

I finally got around to blocking this one this weekend. The pic doesn't do the colours justice, unfortunately. It's a lovely variegated singles merino that goes from palest pink to deepest maroon. You can see a bit of the colour variation in the center of the pic. It's not as big as I would have liked because I used lace weight instead of the fingering weight the pattern called for. So it's a shoulder shawl rather than a full size. It's really warm, though. Go figure, it's wool! :)

Please ignore my feel and skirt in the pic...d'oh!

This is my latest knitting project. To give an idea of size, the needles are 1mm diameter (the white things are erasers to keep the stitches on). The yarn is 100% wet spun linen and the colour is fairly accurate. For those who know what it means, the linen is 44/2, which means that it is about 6600yds/lb. It's eventually going to be a table cloth for my mother. About 1m diameter circular when it's all finished. The pattern is a vintage one from the 1940's. It's not nearly as terrible to knit as I though it would be, despite the seriously tiny needles. They're called pixie needles, and you can see why!

Well, here it is in all its technicolour glory! The coat of many colours for little Joseph. He was due yesterday, but as of sunday night Elana was still labour-free. He is weighing in at around 8lbs+, so they are seriously considering inducing her soon so he doesn't get much bigger. Yikes! Hopefully the coat fits him! :D

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