9 Months

After inspiration from Rachel, I decided to start knitting 9 months ago. I learned from watching you tube. These where my very first creations: More have come and more to follow!

Merry Christmas! (sneak peak)

I know I haven't posted anything that would make people think I am knitting.  But, I AM!  All the time, in all my free time, I am trying to get all my Christmas presents done before the baby comes.  AND I can't really post what I've been working on, since the people I am giving things to read this blog.  :)   So, here's a little sneak peak for the girls presents, I finished the last one this morning!

Wait, this doesn't look right....

The time has come for me to post my first blog. Kaylee and Rachel have been nagging me to start my own blog forever. They seem to think funny things happen to me all the time and that I should be writing them for the world to read. Now that I am apart of this online knit Wits club I figured it was time to make my debut and post my most infamous knitting disaster.

I had decided that I was going to knit Jon and myself Christmas stockings instead of buying a pair. I asked my sister Rachel, if she could come up with a pattern for me. Those of you who knit, know that patterns are written in what seems to be a totally different language and for someone who isn’t familiar with the lingo; it’s easy to make mistakes. Let me just say here, that I don’t have very much experience knitting. My projects are few and far between. I swear I forget how to cast on every time I start a new one and most of them never get finished. So in the beginning I was asking Rachel a million questions just to make sure that I didn’t make some huge mistake and have to rip the whole thing out. As I made my way through the pattern I became more and more confident and dare I say a little too sure of myself……big mistake.

The night of our knit wits group I was sitting next to Rachel and Jessie on the couch knitting and chatting like usual. On this particular night I was planning to finish stocking number one and I was beyond excited. I just wanted to get it done so could have the finished product. As I was nearing the end of the pattern I asked Rachel for help to finish the toe and I held up my stocking to show her where I was. As I held it I noticed that something was drastically wrong. I grabbed the pattern and started scanning it to figure out what had happened. I was just sure that Rachel had messed up the pattern and that was why my stocking looked funny. Then I found it. The step I had missed. In my haste to finish I skipped over the step that was the middle of the foot (40 rows). I had knit the heel and went straight into knitting the toe. My stocking now resembled a Chinese woman’s foot that had been bound. Rachel started laughing hysterically and held up my stocking to show Kaylee and Jessie what I had done. Of course everyone was crying they were laughing so hard and Kaylee thought it would be a great idea to take some pictures to capture my embarrassment forever.

This is what Chinese Foot Binding looks like.

Hat With Earflaps

I don't know what all you other Knit Wits have been up to, but I've been knitting up a storm. Well, sort of. I'm still going, which I am pretty surprised about. I don't know why I haven't burned out yet? I haven't finished the other fingerless gloves, but on top of those I've started a pair of booties and get this! I'm doing them both at the same time. Genius, right Rach? I recently knit up a fabulous hat that was intended for someone else, and I did in fact give it to them, but I really wanted to keep it for myself. Super soft yarn was the key with this hat. I have knit up so many hats that no one would want to wear because they are too scratchy. What is scratchy yarn good for anyway? Felting maybe??

Here's the hat. The pattern came from a book or maybe it's a booklet? Reynolds Lopi: Vol. 22

I Am Loving Ravelry!

Have you guys checked out Ravelry yet? I found a pattern online a couple weeks ago that I really wanted. It was free, but you had to get it through Ravelry....which I was not a part of. Having read many knitting blogs, I had heard of Ravelry, but didn't really know what it was. So without much research I jumped on the waiting list to join.
I just got my invitation yesterday and I've been checking it out. This was a genius idea! If you don't know what it is, basically it is an online community for knitters, crocheters and other fiber fans. There is a whole community that you can be a part of with forums and everyone sharing their projects and free patterns....just like a knitting club :) and kind of like face book....kind of.
Anyway, my favorite thing about it right now, is you can save, organize and store all your knitting information. You can fill out this cool chart and mark the needles you have including dpns and circular AND crochet hooks. And then you just click "print this card" and you can carry it around with you so that you don't accidently buy duplicates when your shopping for a new project!
You can input all the information about all the yarn you have...and you can order more, right online if you want. For example, I have 1.5 skeins of Reynolds Lopi. I input the information and it automatically calculates the grams and yards that I have...so I know if I have enough for a project. If I don't have enough, I can just order more...it will take me to a sight where I can order that specific yarn. It will even tell you where you can get it at a store near you. Also, there is a place to write notes about that yarn, so you can write down the washing instructions for that specific yarn so that when you misplace (which I always do) the label once you've begun a project, you know your stuff. It also automatically gives you the "weight" of the yarn. I always have trouble guessing, is this fingering weight? Worsted weight? etc... I can't tell you how much I wish I would have known about this place a long time ago. I have SO many balls of yarn that don't have their labels anymore. I have no idea what the brand is, how much I have or how to wash it. I'm telling you, this is a genius idea!
Anyway you should check it out!

Matching Socks

I found these socks tonight as I was going through a drawer looking for a silk scarf I knit up last year.  These are the socks I made from the sock yarn Kaylee and I got in our stockings the first Christmas after we started knitting.  You can see from the post below that it took Kaylee 7 years to complete them.  Mine didn't take quite as long to finish and I managed to make them the same size, which might have something to do with finishing one right after the other instead of years apart, just something you might want to think about if you are going to knit up socks.  :)  I still think they are real comfy-cozy.  

-The Yarn Whisperer

The 7 Year Project...Revisited

Many of you have probably already read my 7 Year Project post. If not, find it here. Long story short, it took me 7 years to finish one pair of socks.

Here's the finished product:
Again, if you read the story, you know that I would never be able to wear these colorful socks. I thought I would just store them and look at them every once in a while and be proud of actually finishing the darn things.

But I really need some yarn and I'm lacking in my personal stash. I packed the socks around with me for a couple days and then finally I did this...

I must admit that it was really hard for me to undo this project that has been hanging over my head for so long. However, once they were unraveled I was excited about the possibilities!

I have already made a pair of Mittenettes which I love. (Did you get that? A Pair! That's right, I finished both of them....) I am making another pair right now....just without that crazy rainbow yarn. Found millions of patterns online, but the one I used is here.

Voila! Something new from something old!

The Beginning

Knit Wits began back in Shelton, WA on Monday nights, in Kaylee's living room, with the 3 sisters (Kaylee, Joanna, and me), Jessie, and anybody else we could convince that knitting really was all the rage. We finally got Joanna to move on past itty bitty hats that she intended to fit adults, to knitting a couple Christmas stockings for her and her husband. Kaylee, the master recruiter for the club, lent out a bunch of yarn and needles to newbies that came to learn and somehow never got most of them back. We taught Jessie how to knit, but she often times showed up without her needles (even though she only lived 2 minutes away) and sat around and told us funny stories about her life as a dental hygenist. That seemed to be how most "club meetings" ended up. Not much knitting got done.

Then sadly, life took over. Kaylee and her family moved to Phoenix, AZ. Joanna and I still got together on Monday nights, but it really wasn't the same, we didn't have Kaylee's living room. The next year, my family and I moved to Wichita, KS. That left Joanna. Not much left for a club. Joanna though, has recently started up more "meetings" in Shelton. Kaylee and I are extremely jealous because we want to be part of the club. So we started trying to come up with ideas on how we could be included. Kaylee and her family now live in Pennsylvania, so the 3 of us live in 3 different time zones. Even with our webcams, it's hard to figure out a time with there being a 3 hour difference between Washington and Pennsylvania. So, Kaylee came up with the idea for this blog - it's the new living room. Kaylee, Joanna, and I all consider ourselves blog-stalkers anyway, checking each others blogs multiple times a day, so that we can still feel like we are a part of each other's daily lives, even though we live so far apart. And now, we have a few more friends who love to knit as much as we do, and it's here we want to share all our creations, disasters, and all the fun we're having at any local Knit Wits meeting that we get to be a part of!

WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!!


Rachel - a.k.a The Yarn Whisperer. :)

The pattern for this lovely hair is from knitty.com