Girlfriends Knitting

Well, I have not had a chance to post in a while, as I have been traveling and enjoying the holidays, but...I have not slacked up on the knitting! Here are a few knitting updates... Finished a few knitted Christmas goodies: Monster Toy for Rosie She named her Lucy Hermione Hat for Jilli Tonks socks for Stacy Hat for Christen (I love the way John is so seriously looking at it.) Fuzzy Christmas Hat for Miss Elle There were a few more, but I don't have pics yet. I started a few other projects that would have been Christmas presents if I had finished them: Hat for John, the enabler (too small, will probably be for Jake) Size 11 Socks for Dad (Might not knit too many of these!) Even worked on a pair of socks for me! Slant Socks in Haunted Vineyard yarn from Cloudlover Fiber  Then, Christmas rolled around I was bestowed with gorgeous yarn!! SW Merino in the Mae West colorway Baby Alpaca Undye...

I am not a monogamous knitter. I usually have way too many projects on the needles (as you can usually see from the WIP list on the right, now though the Christmas knitting is hidden.) I have tried to have only one project at a time, but there are just too many beautiful yarns and fun-looking patterns for me to be faithful to a single project. Maybe it is my fickle Gemini nature (if you believe that sort of thing), or maybe I just don't have a very long attention span, but as soon as I have gotten a project well underway, I find myself glancing at my stash of yarns, or searching out new patterns on Ravelry, bored with the project on my needles. What then happens is I justify that since I am bored, I should cast on something else. I then happily begin working on my new knitting project until I tire of it. But, instead of going back to the original project and having only two or at most three projects on the needles, I tend to repeat the cycle of finding a new project.   Acknowledgi...

As I am busy with my Christmas knitting and gift buying, it occurred to me that it might be a good (though slightly selfish) idea to post a 'Christmas wish list' for the knitting items I am coveting, but do not currently own. So if any of you out there want to buy me a Christmas present... Signature needles (any size circular, with a long cable) - or the whole collection! (Haha, as if!) Wollmeise yarn (I just bought my first skein....ooooh) Really, any wool blend yarn would make me happy, so check out all the gorgeous yarn on Etsy  and pick me up a skein, or three. Doing that also supports local small businesses, which is nice. Those yarn blends make for some gorgeous socks, which I am in love with knitting right now. So any set of Wendy Johnson patterns, particularly her Socks in a Box , would be awesome. With all that yarn, I will need to be making and blocking final projects, so there are also, blocking wires  and Sock Blockers (women's l...

I am currently in Orlando, FL for a work-related conference. And between conference-related activities and tourist-related activities (it is Orlando, after all), I have gotten up early and fallen in bed exhausted late every day- and have not knit in 2 DAYS! There just hasn't been time! Lately, for me, not having time to knit is crazy talk. I brought 3 projects with me - two socks I need to finish and a Christmas knitting project. I thought - lay around the pool, knit between meetings - all would be right in my world. Wrong. The meetings have been back to back with me taking diligent notes throughout, and the touristing has been non-stop walking, riding, and gawking at the awesomeness that is Disney and Universal. As a matter of fact, this has to be a short blog because I have a taxi waiting downstairs in front of the hotel.  And this while all of my knitter friends are at the Arkansas Fiber Festival. Knitting and spinning without me! Ugh! All I can say is ... ...

Since I was making a hat for Charlotte, several of my other friends/co-workers asked if I would knit them one as well. Always happy to have a new project, I cast on two other hats. Let me note that it was I that suggested the patterns for the hats they got. Melissa - an aqua Dufton hat that went great with her beautiful red hair, and Jenn - a version of Hermione's hat from a Harry Potter movie for the die-hard Potter fan. Both had cables. Did I mention I hate cables? Especially when they form a lattice pattern that requires them ON EVERY ROW!!! No? Didn't mention that? Huh...well, I didn't think about that when I picked these patterns either. I cast the Dufton hat for Melissa on first...then quit...it was terrible. I then cast on the Hermione's hat for Jenn....then quit. It wasn't as bad, but that alternate cable cast on was rough! I then decided to knit some socks. Two weeks later, when I found myself avoiding my friends in the halls, I told myself No...

Things Knitting Taught Me (that contradicts my mathematical logic): Two rights CAN make a wrong. Just because you have beautiful yarn, and a wonderful pattern, does not mean said pattern will look great in that yarn. The combination can actually be a huge mistake. Knitters worldwide know this, but for me, I have to learn things the hard way. And this classic mistake is what I ran into with Charlotte's green hat.  When I was showing off one of my latest baby hat projects to my good friend and boss (is it weird that I am friends with my boss?), she asked if I would make her a hat. I immediately said yes! Not only would I make her a hat, but I would design it myself! (Way too ambitious, but hey, I am a glutton for punishment.) She wanted a lime green (or pink) hat. She wasn't picky, she said. She wanted a rolled, ribbed, or ruffled edge. (She couldn't make up her mind. We have that in common, so I understood completely.) She wanted a flower. She wanted lace work. ...

I DID have in my list of FO's First Sock for Amy. But NOW, thanks to a pack of mongrels I like to call my dogs, I have to REKNIT one of the socks. See, that is the problem with socks...you have to have two. Knitting just one isn't enough. I have been in a war with my precious animals over these socks from the beginning. Shortly after I finished the first of the pair, one of the beasties stole it and ATE the TOE!! If they had eaten the cuff, that wouldn't have been an issue...a little ripping out, a little reknit, problem solved! But no...they are clever little rascals!! I tried to fix it...but I did a poor job. I am still learning myself after all. (Look at the picture on the right closely. I took this one shortly after the first repair job. See the toe on the left is different than the one on the right, with an ugly seam across it.)  With a bad repair job and all, I humbly brought my project to my sock knitting class. My wonderful instructor painstakingly ...

So why did I decide to name my blog "Girlfriends Knitting?" Quite simple...because of Julia Roberts. During the filming of the movie Larry Crown , Tom Hanks (whom I love), played a prank on Julia Roberts (who is known for knitting on the set). He had an assistant and the costume director prepare 50 skeins of yarn with a few rows of knitting, then passed out these knitting projects to 65 men in the crew. When Julia walked in, she began cracking up laughing, and immediately got into the spirit of the prank, talking about knitting with the guys. Here is a small excerpt of that from A ccess Hollywood , but the line I remember most came from another video, that no longer exists on YouTube. (This one is still cute and worth the watch.) In the longer clip, Julia says something to the effect of "All you need to get started is  a girlfriend who knits !" That is how I got started, with my knitting girlfriend after grad school (love ya, Virge!) She patiently show...

I have become fascinated with self-patterning yarns. Sock yarns, baby jacquards...I love them all. I was first introduced to these wonderful yarns when a fellow "yarnie" who crochets but has never sat still long enough for me to teach her to knit, passed along some Bernat Baby Jacquard that she had bought to make the toy bunny pattern that was included on the yarn label. She had loved the yarn and loved making toys, but didn't have the time to learn to knit in order to make this particular bunny. She suggested that I make it and give it to my brother and sister-in-law, who at the time were expecting my baby niece. I eagerly agreed! The bunny came out fabulous! It was a challenge for someone who had never made a toy before, but I enjoyed it. Its recipients loved it as well! I spent longer on it at a given sitting than I normally might, because I wanted to see what the yarn was going to do next. I ended up making a few of these precious bunnies and each one came out...

With two (count them...one...two!) projects begun and finished , I was really on a roll! This is when I decided that I wanted to try my hand at knitting again. (Told you I would get to this part eventually.) A good friend of mine at my first job out of graduate school taught me to knit. (I had been shown before, but it didn't sink in the first time.) I had knit several baby hats and a few scarves, but nothing above a basic beginner level. Most of what I had knit was UFO's (UnFinished Objects for the uninitiated in 'knitter speak') in a large cedar chest in my upstairs office. With the bravery of a stalwart soldier headed into battle, I forged through the tangle of cheap acrylic yarn and sharp metal needles in various sizes, on a mission to sort, separate, and complete the vast array of strange half-finished items in the chest. (Well, at least those that I could remember what they were supposed to have been.) The first thing that I tackled will probably look famili...

Since my first project after my return to the world of yarn had turned out fine (remember the cute little doily?), and it had been soothing, I was onto a more advanced project. I chose another doily, but a larger one, for the center of my dining room table. It involved making 12 small "doilettes" in a flower pattern and then crocheting around them to put them together in a larger flower pattern. I diligently began the pattern as directed, with the indicated hook, and indicated yarn, following obediently the designer's rules as dictated by the pattern. (I am a rule-follower by nature, so that is how I rolled.) Then one day, sitting in my chair on the back porch, sipping iced tea in the hot June sun, it dawned on me. "Who is this person to tell ME what to do? Why must I listen to this designer? Is he/she GOD? Is it the LAW OF CROCHETING? 'Thy must follow all patterns to the letter.'" "NO!" I screamed! "I am a smart, independent woman with ...

I have blogged on and off for a few years, just like I have done knitting and crocheting and other crafts that have tickled my fancy, until recently. Now I am knitting obsessed and on a mission to make all of my friends knitters as well! To that end, I decided to go back to blogging to share my renewed love of all things yarn with you - my girlfriends (or boyfriends...men knit, too)! It all happened over the summer when after a discussion with a few close family members (well, it was more of an intervention where three of them sat me down and told me I needed to seriously take a look at how stressed out and unhappy I was), I decided to crochet a doily. I know that sounds very grandmotherly of me, when in fact I am only 35. However, it was because of my grandmother that I decided to take on that particular project. In my mind, my mother's mother was all things grandmotherly - a clean house with a crackling fire, squishy hugs, freshly baked cookies, and doilies on eve...