Jessimuhka Knits

My sock pal was Rachel. She knit me these great Pomatomus socks.

Thanks Rachel! I hope my sock pal likes the socks I knit her as much as I like these. The fit is great! The yarn is solid Koigu, which has great tone on tone varigation, which makes the pattern really stand out. My string of great luck with secret pals and swaps continues!

On my own knitting front, I've finally picked Rogue back up, and finished half the throat/neck/shoulder.

The reason for picking Rogue back up? I really want to knit a pattern from Big Girl Knits, Curvalicious Cardigan. You can see a picture of it here, third picture down. I'm not going to start any new sweaters until I finish Rogue, so it's time to get moving on it. This sweater uses Calmer, so I'm going to scope out Calmer colors in person this weekend, and maybe buy a ball to swatch with.

Speaking of this weekend, Krys and I are going on a mini yarn crawl, checking out Knitting in La Jolla and Common Threads tomorrow. Yay, pretty!

Posted by Jessimuhka at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It's about time I posted some pictures of Rogue. I've been making good progress over the last couple of weeks.

Here's the progress on the body so far. I've finished the main body and the armhole shaping shaping of the upper back. Soon there will be throat cabling! Woo!

Same picture, no flash. A bit shakey, but at least you can see the cables.

And, the detail shot. I was having a hard time getting this picture, until I had an SMRT moment. I was bracing the camera against my couch, but it was still shaking when I pressed the shutter button, so I finally realized I should use the auto timer. Yay, it worked!

I'm also about 1/3 through my lace scarf from last post - pictures of that in the next update.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 05:38 PM | Permalink

Mountain Stream Scarf from Knitting Zone. I’m using handpaintedyarn.com’s lace weight merino, which is a great deal. This picture is 4.5 repeats into the pattern, about 10 inches. I like my scarves at least 60 inches long, so I’m looking at 25-30 repeats, depending on how much length I think blocking will add.

It’s an Orenburg style scarf, and I’m loving the construction. You start by knitting the bottom border, turn the first corner with short rows, pick up along the edge, turn the second corner, and then knit up. There’s more fun construction at the top edge, resulting in an entirely seamless scarf.

Don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned Rogue. I’m 2/3 through the body now, and will post another picture once I split at the arm holes. There wasn’t very good sun this weekend for taking pictures of cables without a flash. I have set Rogue aside for a bit, as the tight gauge was giving me a bit of wrist pain. Always better to take a break to save the joints.

Had some fun knitting this weekend, at the Whistlestop with the San Diego folks. Nancy gave me some fresh rosemary and I made some excellent chicken last night. There was, unfortunately, a camera crew at the bar for some rinky-dink cable channel doing a piece on knitting in a bar. I think their tag line might have been, “Knitting, not just for Grandma’s anymore” as they questioned all the tattooed and pierced folks on not looking like “typical knitters”. It got pretty annoying after a while, as they were probably there for 2-3 hours. The music had to be turned off. They also had us line up outside and file into the bar with our knitting in hand. Boo.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:58 PM | Permalink

This weekend I met up with Kris, Miyon, Krys, Kristin, and Cora at Starbucks for knitting.

Counter clockwise from foreground: Miyon, Krys, Kris, Kristin, and Cora. I had a lot of fun and am glad I ventured out into the crazy weather to join them. I'm ashamed to say that when it was hailing that morning I considered not going out. Southern California has made me weak.

I also watched a lot of sports this weekend, most notably the Syracuse/Pitt game and Duke/Wake Forrest game, as well as the World Baseball Classic. The WBC is much better than I expected. The second round games yesterday were all very good. I also filled out my NCAA Tournament brackets. All the sports watching meant lots of knitting progress.

Mostly I worked on Rogue and got 1/3 through the body.

Overall picture. I'm doing a cardigan version, because I will never wear a wool pullover in SD.

Detail shot. To get a good detail of cables I turn off the flash, and in this case, braced the camera against a chair to get a steady shot. I really should buy a tripod one of these days.

Oh, I also ordered a zipper for my York sweater, since Kris was nice enough to let me look at her Zipperstop color cards. It should be here in a couple days, and I'll take pictures of my adventures in zipper installation.

Edit: Came home to a package today! My Socks that Rock!

From BMFA. I placed my order right when they came out with their sock club and somehow slipped through the cracks. Kaci was very nice when I called to ask about my order and sent me a bonus skein to make up for the wait. I'm very happy with the customer service. Colorways from top to bottom are; Carbon Dating, Red Rock Canyon, and Rare Gems (bonus skein). It's so soft and pretty! I need to finish one of my socks in progress so I can start a new pair with one of these.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:57 PM | Permalink

Rogue is finally back on track.

Halfway through the cable chart! I think I may actually meet all my goals this month, as long as I manage to knit a couple rows of Peacock Feathers. I'm still liking Rogue.

Most of the knitting on it this weekend was actually done on a mini yarn crawl with Spaaz and Crissy. We started out meeting up with Nancy in Oceanside for a knitting and spinning demo at the library. Then parted ways with Nancy and hit up Noble Knits, Black Sheep, Common Threads, and Knitting by the Beach. I had only been to Common Threads before (and they've made some big changes since the last time I was there) so it was great fun. I was pretty good - bought some Supermerino at Noble Knits, nothing at Black Sheep (oof, the mark-up there!), a Dale booklet at Common Threads, and some bulky baby alpaca at Knitting by the Beach. So that's one goal shot, but whatever. It's a hobby, it's supposed to be fun.

Oh, and Becki, the shoes from the Jaywalker post are from ALDO, although I know what Kenneth Cole ones you're talking about. Tried those on too!

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:36 PM | Permalink

I'm still no good as small updates over the course of the week, so here's what I've been up to for the past week.

Tuesday night, while waiting for the police to call me back about a neighbor throwing a can of soup through our window, I turned the heel and finished the gusset of Norwegian Stocking 1

Looking at this picture, I can tell I've really improved my Fair Isle tension over the course of this project. The instructions in the book for the heel didn't make any sense to me, so I used a standard V-heel. I'm not really happy with how the gusset stitches got picked up, which I think has something to do with the heel flap coloring. On the next stocking I'll be sure to twist the colors around each other at the ends of the rows. I did figure out a quicker way, for me, to do the heel flap. I knit back and forth, but I can only knit English style right handed, so on what would have been the purl rows I carried both yarns in my right hand. It was kind of awkward, but less so than trying to strand and purl. I had hoped to finish this stocking by the end of the month, but it's not looking likely right now.

Partially because of this:

A sleeve for Rogue. It only took 3 days to finish (aside from the twisted hem, which I'd done a few days earlier), mostly because the cabling was so much fun. I tried to get a detail shot of the cable without the flash, but the light was coming in at too sharp an angle. It does show a good representation of the color though.

I cast on for the second sleeve last night and got through half the hem. The hem is not fun at all, twisted St st on extra small needles, eww. The yarn I'm using is Rowanspun Aran, which come in enormous hanks. But for my gigantic swatch, I would have gotten an entire sleeve out of one hank! I have a whole bag of this yarn, so I'm expecting some leftovers, although I'm sure the hood uses up more yarn than I think it does.

That's all for now. This week will probably be pretty quiet knitwise, as finals are getting close and my birthday is Saturday, so all my fun time will be used for that.

Posted by Jessimuhka at 03:03 PM | Permalink