What I Did Over The Summer, Camp Edition

Okay, it's true, I'm a Joiner. When Sheri at The Loopy Ewe announced they were sponsoring Camp Loopy, I totally joined in. This was, after all, camp without bugs, camp without uncomfortable beds.

Camp Session One: Knit a shawl or scarf that is two-coloured.

I immediately ordered two skeins of Bugga!, ready to camp.

Well, make that 3 skeins. The one on the left, Smiley Face Spider, just leaped into the cart, along with the Autumn Tiger Beetle (centre skein) and Mr. Nancy (on the right).

Autumn Tiger Beetle + Mr. Nancy = Camp Loopy Clockwork!

Clockwork is a steampunk-inspired pattern by Stephen West designed specifically for The Sanguine Gryphon, the dyers of Bugga! yarn.

Camp Session Two: Knit socks, mittens, or gloves with cables.

For this, I returned to a classic favourite dyer, Dream in Color, but a new sock base, Everlasting, colourway Nebula. I knit the Yarnissima pattern Appunto.

(This was my primary project during the Alaska voyage.)

Camp Session Three: Use at least 800 yards of yarn.

With this challenge, I'm embarking on a new project: my first adult-sized garment. I'm using the Kollage yarn Riveting, which is made from recycled blue jeans.

I'm making the pattern Tabitha, designed specifically for this yarn. I purchased the pattern last spring, and this was incentive to finally use the pattern. Session Three officially  started Monday, but I continued struggling with swatching throughout the week.  Last night I cast on 308 stitches, then had to rip them out again. This morning, I cast on 308 stitches again, and I'm working my way steadily through the edging.

I've got a lot to do in the next 3 weeks!!!

Will Knit For Stuff (part 1)

Oooooh la la! I recently completed a trade where I sent handwarmers in exchange for an intricate lovely piece of embroidery. Check out what arrived in the mail!

Such incredible little details! Here's how the whole piece looks:

She has much nicer pictures of it here.

In exchange, I sent her 2 sets of hand warmers, to keep her toasty while stitching and in other occupations on that gloomy west coast.

The first are made of Bugga! in Horseshoe Crab.

And then, because one can never have enough hand warmers, a pair of Dashing made from Malabrigo Rios in Pearl Ten.

I think we are both pleased with the outcome of this exchange.  I've been admiring her extremely detailed intricate work for a while now, and was so very pleased for a chance to have one of my own.

Gothify (Photo heavy post)

Goth-i-fy--verb--to make gothy. To imbue an item with gothy properties. To make yarn like Gothsocks. To take a variegated, solid, or semi-solid skein of yarn, and overdye part of it to create stripes. Origin 2010. Variations gothy, goth, gothing, gothed, gothification.

Sample sentences:

"She is quite the gothify-enthusiast."
"Dude! I would totally gothify my pistazie for your feuerwanze!"
"Love this gothed-up yarn!"
"This would be awesome gothified."

Before/after of WM Frosch, gothing by thestarsandseas on ravelry.

Before/after of WM Pistazie, gothing and before-pic by jakey on ravelry

(These greens look similar in photos, but the upper is a bright green, and the next is a darker, khaki green)


And before/after of a gothhoard, gothed up by theotheramylee on ravelry, The Amy Lee Show on etsy.

Look at these pretties!

Epic Elven Socks of Epicness

The socks with the intricate cable pattern are complete. They took the entire skein of yarn. Only about 6 little grams of yarn remain. I've never knit a pair of socks that took so much yarn! They have been renamed to Epic Socks.

Yarn: Bugga! in the colourway Juniper Hairstreak
Pattern: Aragorn

Also, while wearing these socks and wandering a creek with a girlfriend, he encountered a strange man who told them about the elves that lived in the hollow, showed them the mystical faery tree, and read his past lives and named him brother.

The weekends are for turning heels

I have been turning heels this weekend. Two heels have been successfully turned, the third will hopefully be completed tonight.

The browns socks are for my husband. I did the classic knitter gifting stunt where I gave him the skeins of yarn, and a promise to make them into socks soon. The yarn is Vivace by Sweet Paprika in the colourway Cinnamon Bark. I ordered this yarn on the 21st of Dec from the Loopy Ewe and it arrived--amazingly--on the 23rd.

The green yarn also came from Loopy in that same order. It is Bugga! in the colourway Juniper Hairstreak. The pattern is Aragorn. I have long toyed with creating a pattern where the cables twined down the front of the sock and then split in the middle for Bordhi-style sky-sock increases. This pattern did all the designing work for me.

I've been using the Hiya Hiya 9" circulars for this sock. While the tiny needles take some getting used to, I find the knitting quite flies once I've adjusted.  The needles are appropriate for the leg because the pattern controls the number of rows on the leg.  Now that the heel is turned, I will be putting the sock onto a holder until I've knit the second sock to the same point. Then I will knit the feet together on a large circular, in order to ensure both feet are the same length.

Miller's hat, more pictures

Did I mention how very toasty this hat is? I love it!

acquisitions--more yarn than knitting

I recently brought a little more Bugga! into my life. They had a Hallowe'en special, where for a small discount, you could buy two matched skeins designed for striping knee-highs. You could get black-and-orange or black-and-purple. That brilliant orange sucked me in, and I had to buy it.

While I was ordering straight from the source, I decided to bring home one more skein. I didn't notice at all how close it was to the other skein until I had them both in my hands. Both a vivid orange, but different enough to really not work well together. I think the picture is a little too red, it's really very orange.

 It came with a soap sample, so it smells very very good.

How I fixed the hat

After my previous post outlining how I ran out of yarn for the decreases for my miller's hat, I settled down to see what I could do.

I did go ahead and use the leftover Skinny Bugga by holding it double stranded. I alternated rows between the gothling and the Bugga, and I only knit the decrease rows. This made the decreases rather steep, as there's supposed to be a row between each decrease row. Impressively, the Skinny Bugga doesn't show at all.

Next up, I need to find a contrasting colour for the lower band.

Miller's Hat, Stuck.

So, the pattern requirements are 220 yards of worsted yarn. The skein supposedly has 260 yards of worsted yarn. But it's not enough. On the 2nd row of decreases, I have 7 grams of yarn left, and no hope of finishing this hat.

When staging this picture, I also tossed in the little ball of fingering Bugga that was left over from making the herbivore. There's 4 grams of that. If I held it double, it might pass for worsted, but while it's the same colour, it's far more luminous than the worsted yarn.

Not. Happy.

Sparkly completed objects spring forth fully formed from my needles

I have 2 finished objects. They're delightful things, and I'm very happy to have completed them. Looking back, I see that I never blogged any progress, and there's not even progress photos, save one. Looking back further, I see that I didn't even blog the arrival of this lovely stripey yarn.

The yarn is Night, a gilded Gothsocks by Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs. I was so impressed with how perfectly it pairs with  Eurota Purplewing, a Skinny Bugga! yarn, that I had to knit them together. Twice.

It started with some socks, of course. Sparkly socks with no fancy pattern, just a toe-up sock with a ribbed leg. The heels were knit double-stranded for extra strength.

Moments after completing those, I cast on for a pair of gloves. Thus we get the only in-progress photo, and ill-staged shot of the cuffs that start out a pair of top-down gloves.

I wove in the ends to these last night, and would be wearing them now if it weren't so dang hot!

 Here's me, headless but happy with my new sparkly knitwear!

Raven's Wings--a finished object

Yarn: Bugga in Ruby Tailed Wasp

Pattern: Herbivore by Stephen West (ravelry link)

Made for an art show benefiting the Zen Center that is affiliated with our knitting circle.

This is my second herbivore made from a bugga yarn. The yarn is delicious. The pattern is a joy to knit. The finished product is very pleasing.

More herbivore!

I've required some pretty simple knitting lately, aka "mindless knitting". So when I finished the Noro scarf, I immediately cast on my new Bugga! into a new herbivore. The yarn colours are knitting up just gorgeous.

Herbivore, finished object

Yarn: Skinny Bugga in Lubber Grasshopper (mmm-mmm good!)
Needle: Circular size 7
Pattern: Stephen West's Herbivore (ravelry link, if you're interested and aren't a member of ravelry, sign up. it's worth it.)
Notes: The pattern says to knit until the centre spine measures 12".  That was a little too small for me.  I knit until I couldn't get any more pattern repeats out of the yarn.  There were 5 grams left when I bound off.