New Website!!

Posted in Ramblings on February 18, 2008 by whorledandpurled

So as some of you may have gathered from my fiance’s post below, I am the proud new owner of my very own website now, and I’m moving my blog there :) You can continue to check this one, but you’d be reading the old posts over and over and wondering why it wasn’t being updated, and that wouldn’t be as much fun… :P

It looks kind of crappy right now, but I’ll put some time into it once I’m not sick, and it’ll be pretty :P

Yarrrrrnnnnnn

Posted in Knitting, Ramblings on February 17, 2008 by whorledandpurled

So on Saturday I went to two of the coolest yarn stores in the world – The Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS, and The Studio in KC – and I got some awesome yarn! It’s too bad I didn’t have much fun since my stomach/IBS has been acting up pretty badly lately, which pretty much makes going anywhere no fun, but at least I got some awesome yarn!

Sock yarns:

Two big skeins of laceweight, and the other two are stuff my sister picked out (which I will at some point turn into finished objects, hopefully):

Oh and I also finished my sister’s socks (toe up, two at a time on magic loop)…I don’t like the way the heel turned out, I think I’ll stick to my not-as-easy-but-tighter Japanese short-row method:

Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted in 1 on February 17, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Click for your present…

I have two toes!

Posted in Dyeing, Knitting, Ramblings, Spinning on February 12, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Look! Look! I have two socks going at once…on one circular!

I don’t think I’ll ever do one sock at a time again…this is awesome!

Excellent tutorial here, in case you want to learn…

Oh and I dyed this yarn (Knit Picks Bare DK weight merino) the other night:

And I spun and dyed this one – it’s a single, about light fingering weight:

So. Freaking. Evil…but cute!

Posted in Dyeing, Knitting on February 11, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Okay, so I finished my second MJ Pithy Hat, and I actually did it right this time…I didn’t ignore the TBLs. I almost wish I had…they made me want to kill someone the entire time I was knitting the damn hat! My fingers still hurt! If I ever choose another project with them, please kick me in the shins…

Anyway, it’s cute! I only knit 6″ this time, and dampened and stretched it a little.

Oh and I dyed my hair today and it looks black in the pictures…it’s really just dark auburn.

and the Best Friend in the World award goes to…

Posted in Knitting, Ramblings on February 9, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Dani, for bringing me groceries so I’d have something to eat! I’m kind of in shock…I can honestly say I’ve never had a friend who cared enough about me starving to death to bring me ramen and spaghetti and…holy crap, Nestle Crunch Hearts!

MmMMMmmmMMmmmmm!!!!!

And as a side note, I feel like a short-row failure! Laura just started knitting socks and her short rows ROCK. To be fair, I guess I haven’t been knitting socks for that long, but damnit I just suck ass at short rows :(

Yarrrnnnn…and socks that are finally done.

Posted in Dyeing, Knitting on February 7, 2008 by whorledandpurled

I dyed over some tan Knit Picks wool that Dani gave me…

Alaska

Alaska

I also, with the help of my new swift that just came tonight, finally wound my orangey sock yarn I spun a while back:

Sunrise

Sunrise

And last but not least, I finished knitting my mom’s socks so I can take them with me when I go visit…her birthday was the 2nd, but hey she’s getting hand-knit socks, so I’m sure the lateness won’t matter :P

mom socks

Apparently I have fat hands.

Posted in Knitting on February 5, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Or so says whoever wrote this pattern! I made the small size because the guy in the picture was supposedly wearing the medium…and now that I have one whole glove done, I realize I should have either gone up a needle size or made the medium. They’re so tight and uncomfortable! Hopefully they’ll stretch a little if I get them wet. I really don’t want to rip them out and redo them…besides the fact that we all know that that SUCKS to have to do, I’ll waste all the yarn I used on the fingers.

At least it’s pretty! I guess I’ll try to stretch it and if that doesn’t work I’ll suck it up and re-knit it in the medium…

Cigar

Cigar

ETA:

Stretching didn’t really work.  I made another glove but added five rows of plain stockinette after the end of the cuff ribbing, before the thumb gusset shaping…voila!

Cigar Redo

It isn’t too tight since I went up a needle size this time, and the extra rows keep the ribbing/cuff from riding up onto my palm, which was driving me nuts.  Now I just have to rip out the other one down to the end of the cuff and redo it…

Something low fat that actually tastes good?!

Posted in Dyeing, Knitting, Ramblings on February 1, 2008 by whorledandpurled

Okay so I was a little skeptical when I saw that there’s a new, lower-fat version of everyone’s favorite cheap meal, ramen…but I bought a few to try. I’m eating the chicken one right now, and lemme tell you, it’s just as good as the regular, full (and I do mean FULL) fat version, but it only has 2g of fat instead of…I think it’s something like 14g?

The only downfall is that, like most lower-fat foods, it’s not as cheap…two for a dollar instead of 15-20 cents. I really do think there’s a conspiracy to make America fat, seeing as all the fattening foods are cheap as dirt and the lower-fat ones are more expensive.

In other news, I’m working on the MJ Pithy Hat. I noticed, however, that I’ve been knitting my k2tog’s through the front loop, instead of TBL like I’m supposed to. Now that I’m half-done, I’m not sure I want to rip back and start over…and I don’t really know what the resulting difference is in the stitch pattern, it looks good to me…

MJ Pithy Hat

MJ Pithy Hat

ETA: All done! What a quick knit! I made it a little shorter than the pattern calls for though – about 7.5 inches.

MJ Pithy Hat

EATA: I was a retard and I (barely!) blocked the damn thing, and now it’s way too floppy and too much hat for my no-hair. It does look great on Christa though so I gave it to her.  I still have half the ball of yarn left, so I’m just going to make another one for myself and NOT block it :P

The Japanese really know what they’re doing!

Posted in Knitting, Ramblings on January 30, 2008 by whorledandpurled

I finally got my heel done…I went back to the only short-row method that has ever (kind of) worked for me, which is this one.

I hate putting all the pins in, but it’s the only method where I can actually tell where the damn gap is!