ERIC'S NON-FELTED SLIPPERS

Remember PHENTEX SLIPPERS I've made for Eric in 2011?  After over a year of daily use those beauties slowly died and by the end of 2012 they looked more like slipper tops then whole slippers.  It was time to look for a new pattern and get crafty.

I chose several interesting free patterns on Ravelry and asked Eric which one he liked the best. He preferred Yuko Nakamura's NON-FELTED SLIPPERS (Ravelry link) and I was happy with his choice - the pattern was easy but not boring.

I used Phentex yarn since it's more durable than wool but I'll be honest - it's not as fun to work with.  I had to modify the pattern ever-so-slightly: casting on 44 stitches instead of 50.  I also added a couple of extra rows on top to ensure that slippers won't slip (no pun intended).

Eric has been wearing them for almost two months now and he really likes his new slippers.  He says that they are as comfortable as he thought they would be.  Let see how long they will last.

_____
A year ago: LONG STITCH BINDING TUTORIAL part2
Two years ago: WEEKLY KALEIDOSCOPE

Bernat cable hat

Yet another knitting post.  (I promise to have some recipes on here sooooon).

This chunky warm hat was a blast to knit.  THE PATTERN had everything I like: a little bit of challanging cable knitting (believe me it is not as challanging as it seems), just enough of repetition to make me feel comfortable with the pattern, and it was a fast and fun knit.

I used BERNAT ROVING yarn instead of recommended BERNAT ALPACA so my hat is not slouchy.

Next time I knit one I will add a couple of extra rows.

BTW I made a chunky cowl with the second ball of yarn

Happy knitting!!!

P.S. You need to register on Bernat website to be able to browse through their patterns.

Why do I like the new Debbie Bliss magazine?

First of all, because it features a gorgeous collection of knits in grey:

Secondly, because of this jacket:

And finally, because of an adorable section of child knits, specifically blankets:

In reality, the first issue of Debbie Bliss has more than these three highlights; it has a beautiful collection of “romantic” cardigans, a selection of knitted men wear, as well as knitted objects for home and for children. It also features 2 illustrated lessons of lace-knitting, clean and clear design, and great photography. More previews are available on their website. Overall, it is a very nice first issue – I am looking forward to the next one.

Discovering

I really like finding out new things and the past several days were filled with happy discoveries.

Here is the first one:



Hemingway's "Super Stitches Knitting"- a gift from my non-knitting coworker. I have been looking at stitchionaries available at the bookstores and on Amazon for a while. I am not ready to design my own sweaters yet, but I would like to try my creativity and knit a scarf or a headband using different stitches. "Super stitches knitting" seems to be perfect for that. The book is divided into sections including: "knit and purl", "lace", "fair isle", and so on. It also has a section with tips and instructions on casting on, binding off, colour-work, and fixing errors (that one will be useful). I can not wait to create my own project using some of the stitches from the book and I think I know what it might be.

The second discovery was a long awaited first issue of Debbie Bliss magazine.


There are several interesting items in this magazine and overall presentation and design are very beautiful. I think Debbie Bliss magazine will be one of my favorites.

The last 2 discoveries were online magazines. The Inside Loop - UK based knitting magazine and Knotions. Both look very interesting and I will be spending some time reading the articles and choosing patterns I like.

There was actually another discovery or should I say an acquisition (yet another gift) but I will dedicate a separate post to it once I take proper pictures.

Slooooooow

I have told you before that I am not the fastest one at times. Couple of hours ago I got yet another prove: after blogging for less than 6 months I FINALLY figured out how to reply to the comments via email. All Blogger users can laugh at me while I will be doing my 3 needle bind-off (Knitting Help has a great collection of all the different bind off techniques over here).

P.S. I tend to blame the heat for me being slow once in a while.
P.P.S. Have a great knitting weekend!

What I will be knitting tonight.

Do you have those days when a certain word, item, or a song keeps popping up everywhere? Today was one of those days for me. It started with Esya (aka Urwen) sending me these images she found on one of LiveJournal communities:

They are all part of Luisa Cerano's collection
"Look how cool these bracelets are" said she.
And indeed knitted bangles are pretty impressive. I have seen pictures of bangles made simply by wrapping the yarn around the wooden/plastic base but it was the first time I saw knitted ones. And considering the popularity of the fabric bangles these will get popular soon.

I had just enough time to finish the conversation with Esya when Gabes (aka SweetP) posted this picture on her blog:


Not only prooving my theory about knitted bangles being "cool", not only explaining that this could be a very neat way of trying new stitches or making swatches, but providing us all with a link to instructions of how to make them!

If you want to have the latest "it" object for Fall, hurry up over to See Mi Knit, pick up some leftover yarn, and get to work. You have four days left until the First of September.

P.S. Do not forget to say "Thank you" to Gabes.

Knitters'

No knitting pictures today. I am a very very slow knitter these days. However I picked up a copy of Knitters' magazine couple of days ago.

They have shawl patterns as well as an article by my favorite Cat Bordhi about sock knitting (what else). The issue also features several nice summer tops and since I am too chicken to knit a big sweater, a nice top or cardigan could be a fun project.
Here are some of my favorite designs. I will appreciate any suggestion and colour changes:





To see all the designs from this issue of Knitters' click here. You can also browse through past issues to find a model you like.

And I can not not show you a beautiful sock pattern by Cat Bordhi:

They are called "Spring Thaw Socks" and it seems like they are made of snow, first spring leaves, and snowdrops.

It is quite obvious that all the images in this post are taken from Knitters' website.

Don't you wish your slipperS WERE hot like mine?

I finally have a finished project to share with you. Now I have 2 sexy slippers – “woot woot woot” - like my sister would say.


It took me a while to finish the second slipper, probably because I was dreading the knitting of ties. Remember, I made a mistake when knitting the ties of the first slipper and it made my knitting life so much more difficult. I did not want the second slipper look any different so I purposefully knitted the ties in a wrong fashion. But now, all of this is behind and I am enjoying my super-warm Twinkletoes.


There are a couple of mistakes (they are all on the sole so it would not be noticeable), also the second slipper is slightly looser at the back – this is what happens when you wait too long before completing the project.


And what would look nice with these slippers? A pair of matching socks. Here is a beginning of “Cablenet” in Regia #5769. I am very excited to attempt this rather difficult pattern. I would not stress myself with knitting it fast – it would be one of those “knit a bit when feel like it” projects.


Since I am sharing my progress here is how the felted purse looks like:


It is growing pretty fast and I am excited about felting it. By the way, is it me or felting is super popular today? While in Toronto I saw Toronto Outdoors Art Expo and was amazed to see several stands with felted purses. I also noticed felted items in different clothes/accessories stores. I better hurry up to learn this technique if I want to stay “cool”.

Ravelry and errata

I discovered Ravelry. After giving it just a quick glance I understand why most of the knitting (and as it turns out not only knitting) people are using it. I will try to dedicate a separate blog post to Ravelry, for now I just want to share a piece of important information I found. Remember my Reverse Psockology socks?
It turns out there is an errata for the pattern. As Anne Pattigrew, the creator of this pattern, mentions on her blog:

it is difficult to get the holes formed by the yarn-overs the same size
because of the transition between knit and purl stitches

I remember noticing it when working on my pair but I did not know if it was "normal" or if it happened because of my uneven knitting style, after all it was my first pair of socks.
For those of you who are working on these, here you can find a different version of the lacy pattern.

In my defense ....

Members of the court,

it is not a defense that I present to you. I am not in any way seeking to escape the reprisals of the knitting society in general and lace knitting society in particular for the mistake that I had made. I wish merely to give you an explanation of my acts and to tell you how I was led to perform it.

I have been a lace knitter for a very short period of time. I started knitting lace on the 28th day of June, 2008. Since that day, my life had changed dramatically. Everywhere I went, I saw lace patterns emerging in front of my eyes, I dreamed about lace, researched on lace-knitting, and spend every free minute of my time knitting lace. I would like to point your attention to the fact that lace knitting is addictive and that I was never warned about it. In fact, to prevent further incidents, I think that all products related to lace-knitting should bear a warning about it's addictive properties (similar to the warnings on the cigarette packages). As a previous smoker, I can also assure you that knitting is highly more addictive than smoking, which in turn is more addictive than such drugs as cocaine and heroine.

My previous statement informed you about an unhappy experience with lacy shawl, that took place on the 2nd day of July, 2008. This incident did not diminish my enthusiasm for the lace-knitting and I began a new lace project: the Print O' The Wave Stole on the same day.
Previously, I had purchased 2 skeins of Alpaca yarn and this small fact can not be neglected. The presence of the second skein is the sole reason to why I did not rip out the swatch for the shawl, and kept looking at it, while working on the stole. I would like you to take in consideration the fact that the purchase of 2 skeins was not premeditative, thus I could not be held responsible for keeping the first swatch.

At this point I was completely impaired by the addictive properties of the lace-knitting. The image of the pattern haunted me, I had visions of the lacy pattern not only in my sleep but in the middle of day. My inability to see the resemblance between the swatch and the original picture caused even more distress. Here is Exhibit A, the blocked shawl swatch that caused me so much distress:


Although I was intoxicated by the lace-knitting, I was able to recognize my mistakes. The recognition happened at the moment of scrolling through the lace-knitting tutorial by Eunny. I fully understood the wrongness of committed lace blocking when I saw the following diagram (Exhibit B, diagram of trinagular-shaped shawl knitting, as depicted in the tutorial):

When I looked at the star and followed directions of the arrows I felt very very stupid. I would like you to take in consideration the fact that I realized my mistake of not blocking the swatch correctly. The shawl pattern started with 5-stitch row which I assumed to be the bottom of the triangular. I also earlier confessed to attributing "shawl is knitted from top down" instructions as a typo, and hope that it would diminish my punishment.

Here is a side-by-side look at the same swatch, blocked differently (Exhibit C):















I hope that this comparison will make you understand the frustration I experienced throughout this whole process. As it could be seen, the incorrectly-blocked swatch (depicted on the right) has a slight hint of the pattern, which causes a great trouble to the novice lace-knitter. Moreover, the horizontal position of the needles makes it counterintuitive to block the swatch in any other way.

In conclusion, I would like to say that several outlined reasons (my inexperience, addictive nature of the lace-knitting, possession of the second skein, and the needles themselves) should definitely be considered when determining my future fate as a lace-knitter. Meanwhile, I would keep this shawl swatch as a constant reminder of the foolish mistakes I made:

Lacy links

For those of you who are learning to knit lace, here are 4 tutorials from Eunny:

Introduction to majoring in lace
Yarn and needle choices
The structure of lace
Cast ons for lace knitting

Happy lace knitting!

Defeated

There are no knitting news today. I slightly advanced on my second slipper and a bit on my new project but I did not even take pictures of the progress. Reason?

LACE

I started knitting lace and the last 2 days have been spend decoding ssk, k2sp, and k2tog(s). Inspired by my own post about the alpaca yarn, I decided to get back to my shawl, ripped down whatever I had knitted earlier, and started fresh with a 5-stitch chain.

- After the first 13 rows I had a light suspicion that the shawl did not look like what it should be

- After the 30th row, the annoying voice in my head told me to stop but I convinced it that I should keep going and that the pattern will miraculously emerge (I believe in miracles, I really do, even after last night!)

- After the 64th row I started panicking, wet the swatch, tried to pin it down, failed miserably, stretched it and looked at it from every possible angle to see the glimpses of the design.

- After yet another hour spend meditating on my swatch I said:
(I don’t think I should write down what I said, because there might be children reading this) and began looking for another …. lace pattern (did I mention before that I am very stubborn? Wait a minute; let me put it in my profile description).

- By 2 AM I learned how to do invisible cast on (KnittingHelp video), did it 2 times (again, I’ll omit everything I was saying and mumbling at that time) and knitted first 3 rows of this gorgeous stole, by Eunny.

Oh wait, there was also an incident with scissors but do not worry, everyone is alive and in good health.

Today’s plan for the evening: knit the first rows of the stole. G-d, give me strength and patience.



Meanwhile, I would have to admire the work of others, like this gorgeous Turquoise Lace made by The Daily Purl (click on the image to see the original post):


If you like knitting, weaving, and beautiful photography - visiting her blog is a must!

Don't you wish your slipper was hot like mine?

Do you remember a little secret project I started a while ago? I think it is time to share some of my progress with you. The little blue swatch turned into a wonderful sexy slipper (I have been a slow knitter recently and the second slipper is still in progress).

For those of you who do not know me or my taste in shoes, here is a picture of the sexiest shoes ever, according to Anna. And yes, I owe a pair exactly like this:

Now you can see why I use the word “sexy” when describing my new slipper. The pattern comes from one of back issues of “Knitty” and it is called: “Twinkletoes”. I slightly modified the original pattern: by mistake, I did not knit the strings same way as described on the pattern. I also did not knit the 1k1p border, since it was making slippers a bit bulky-looking. Because of this modification I am afraid that the back of the Sexy Slipper would slip off my foot (no pun intended). A loop in the back of the shoe that would hold the slipper and the straps would prevent slipping. I will definitely post pictures if this modification will be made.

When my dad saw the Sexy Slipper he asked with terror in his voice whether I was planning on wearing it outside! Sometimes I wonder what others think about me.

The new technique I learned from this patter was a "Lifted Increase/Decrease". Although the pattern provided explanations and instructions I searched some detailed instructions and videos and here are links to the most useful ones:

Wonder How To has links to every possible "How to" video. Here is the one for Lifted Increase/Decrease

Stich Diva Studio has some useful instructions with step-by-step photographs. Here is her version of LI/D. I really like the way she uses yarn of 2 different colors to make explanations easier.

Out with the old ....

As I write this on a grayish summer day my feet are happy. Happy and warm …..They are also pretty, stripped, and soft. Well technically it is not my feet; it is Mr. Socks that are pretty, stripped, and soft. Nine days after the birth of Mr. Sock, Mr. Sock II came to this world on June 19^th at exactly the same time as his older brother 3:18PM. Weird coincidence!!!

I definitely enjoyed knitting socks. Enjoyed so much that my next project would be “Fluke” (click on the link to get the pdf pattern and see where the picture comes from), for my sister, made from the wonderful German “Fortissima Socka” (color #2048).

What would I have done differently? I definitely made first sock too loose. Socks in general should be knit tighter than other garments. Also I had to adjust the first sock (decrease and increase) and be careful when knitting the second one – I wanted the color-pattern to be identical. I would also follow the PDF pattern, because it has calculations, rather then casting on 60 sts without considering the tightness of my knitting and the circumference of my calves – I find that design on the back could benefit from a tighter fit.

While I was working on the second sock I crocheted yet another dishcloth. Now I have a set of 3 and still lots of yarn left – expect more dishcloth pictures in near future.

And finally, here is a sneak preview of my next project. I already have socks and some slippers, to go with, would be nice. I picked up bright blue yarn yesterday and started my knitting.

The color of yarn is much brighter and livelier in real life. It's "Galway" Irish worsted knitting wool in color # 5050 Oh, the pattern … I'll keep it a surprise for now!

Books, books, books

I am still working on Mr. Sock II. As some of knitters mention, there comes a point in any project when you just can not wait to finish it, and that point came yesterday. Unfortunately my Ikebana class (what, you thought knitting is the only unusual thing I am into???) took longer then expected and I did not have time to finish the sock. I got to the heel part, but hey, it is all downhill after heel, right?
I also did not get a chance to take pictures - BAD blogger, Anna, BAD!

I do have something to share with you today: I place my first knitting Amazon order! I exercised great self-restrain and discipline while ordering. Those of you who know me in real life can imagine how hard it was. I first narrowed my choice to 30, then to 17, finally I picked 8 ... only 3 books made it to the "shopping cart" but I believe I made the right choice.
Here are the top 3, as chosen by yours truly

3rd place:
I am yet to share my full story of shawl knitting with you. For now I'll just say that I did not give up the Knit1 shawl. I actually got some awesome yarn and special needles (it's a blogworthy story on its' own), and I even started it. I also looked at tones of lace knitting sites and I feel that after socks-addiction it would be shawls. Oberle's book is PERFECT for that.


2nd place goes to:


I had to get a crochet book, I am a Crazy Crocheter after all. To tell you the truth my last trip to the bookstore left me disappointed; for some reason there were no good crochet books there. It seems like people knit but do not crochet, anymore. However, Crochemealong blog proves the opposite. This is the blog, where people share their progress on the objects they make from "Crochet me". After looking at all the gorgeous projects I could not resist ordering the book.


And the winner iiiiiiiiis:


It had to be about socks. Even if I already have 20 patterns waiting to be knitted, another 70 are more then welcome. I also heard great reviews about Rowley's book - can not wait too flip through all the designs.

P.S. the order of books does not reflect my personal preferences. I like all of them equally, just like mothers love their children.