Knitting, where have you been?

The surprise stuffed toy, the blanket, the airy scarf and the drop stitch scarf which is awaiting a decision about the stitch pattern and the possibility of frogging for a different pattern, are still in the same stages that they were back in July.

The Icarus Shawl has been going along pretty well and I restarted my toe up socks for tension reasons.

Then I had several projects to knit for the classes, which ended up being this month instead of last month.

The entrelac class went fairly well. No one quit and every one seemed quite happy with my offer of continued assistance if needed.
The MultiDirectional Scarf (pattern by Ann Norling) class started last week and concludes this next Tuesday. This one is going even better, mostly because it is a bit easier of a technique.

I have finished my knitting for classes, but now I have knitting for family. I have a pillow front (in entrelac) and a purse/clutch.

After that I hope to get some Me knitting in, but let us not hold our breath yet. We are coming up on the holiday seasons and I still have a hat to knit to match a scarf I already did. Oh, and a summer weight willy warmer. And I have a stuffed toy to complete.

Good thing colder weather is coming on!

The heat is on

Here it is, just past the middle of July and not a post made.

Currently, my roomie is knitting more than I do.

I am working on a new scarf pattern which I will be teaching at KnitWits Knitting and Yarn Specialty Store in Virginia Beach.
I will be teaching Entrelac, Multi-Directional Knitting and Knitting without Turning in two part classes. The first class is August 4th, 6 p.m. and then the second part and finishing will be August 18th at 6 p.m.

Once I finish blocking my demo, I will be putting it on display at the store (where my Mini Mochi Rainbow Shawl is already on display). After the first class is over I will be posting more information about the new pattern.

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Other than preparing for my first knitting class, I have been working on a hat for a friend's child. I knit this hat once, but that one didn't work. So this time I am taking a teddy bear head pattern and adapting it to be a kid's hat. My roomie says I need to knit the ears too.
Ear issue aside I should have the hat done today.
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I finished knitting a box.
I made it so I would have a place to put my female necessities that was not just a plastic bag or the manufacturers container. The picture isn't the best, but I wanted to get my projects page updated so it will do.

It worked up pretty easy, but not too boring.

Could have been made a bit shorter.
I added a simple crochet edging to the top, to make it cover the box more, after it was done.
Next time I might simply cast on an additional 5 stitches on each side.

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I suppose I have been a bit productive, if you don't look at the surprise stuffed toy or the blanket or the airy scarf or the drop stitch scarf which is awaiting a decision about the stitch pattern and the possibility of frogging for a different pattern.

With warm weather comes slower progress.
The heat and the humidity make working on the blanket out of the question.
The stuff toy is at the larger body section and besides being unwieldy, I am puzzling out shaping again. I don't want to end up tearing back, so I wait for inspiration to come along and provide a solution.
I will be tearing back the scarf, I am not happy with what I have so far. I want it more airy. I want more negative space. The kidsilk needs this.

Thus, if I can finish untangling the lace weight merino yarn I will be casting on for a lace shawl.
Perhaps I will find the lace I am looking for and will get it done too.

A brief update

Some how days have slipped past me again without me keeping up on the posts. Mia culpa.

There are some changes coming up soon.
First:
As of Monday Oct 20th, I will be a full time technical support representative for a cell phone company.
This is will be an evening job and during training I will be getting out at 7pm. After training I will be working until 11pm or Midnight and will have either a Saturday or Sunday every week to work.
The drawback of this is that I will not be able to attend most (or maybe any) of the Yarn for Breakfast events. There will be the two month training which will allow for me to be late to the Norfolk event, and the chance I might make one Portsmouth morning event, but that will be it. After training I shall not have the chance to visit with these fine people.
Frankly I won't have much of a life at all, but I will miss going to these events.

Second:
Once I get paid and get all caught up with my debts, I will be able to buy yarn and patterns again!
Since I won't have much of a life, I expect that I can do a bit more knitting and talking online about knitting. That is the theory at this point, so we will see how that works out. Prior experience with my other blog shows that having a life reduces blogging.

Now for a quick update.
Remember I mentioned teaching a friend how to knit? Well we finally got to spend some time together recently. She came over and we spent the day knitting, followed by a lovely dinner my roommate cooked. (He understands that knitters make him stuff and should be fed.)
While she was over she showed me the blanket she is working on. It has the dropped yarn over that is fairly popular right now. Her pattern varies, so it makes waves and bubbles. I looked at what she had done so far and asked, "Do you know how to purl?"
Why did I have to ask? Because she has been busy knitting on her own and looking techniques up online and has been doing just fine at it, or so she told me on the phone. Therefore it did not cross my mind that I might need to teach her more tricks. I had assumed that she was flying along and teaching herself.
Yes, I taught her to do a knit stitch and a yarn over. Yes, she found a pattern that uses yarn overs and takes it another level by dropping the yarn over. She also had a lovely story about searching online and watching knitting videos to figure things out.
I forget now what video she watched, but I think it was only a how to cast off. She did need to cast of while in Alaska and far from my lessons.
My student did not know how to purl and there were purl rows in her blanket pattern. I asked about how she was handling that part. She tells me she has been wrapping the yarn in the other direction, as she figured that was what a purl was.
Yes, that would be two things I needed to explain and teach her about.
By the way, I want to make this one thing as a gift, but I do not understand this 'round knitting' stuff.
Very well, I happen to have a sock on the needles right now. I can explain what I am doing and show you the process. Easy enough.
Oh! Could you teach me to cable? I so want to learn to cable.
Hmmm, cables you say? Haven't successfully done one yet, but I think I can manage. Let me just go into my knitting library and pull out the 365 Patterns a Day calendar and the Knitting Answer Book. That should do it....

So I had a wonderful time and before you know it I had taught her about Eastern Crossed knitting, how to purl, how to knit backwards (it is what I do after all), showed her knitting on dpns, and handed her some yarn and needles to learn cables on. By the time dinner was served, she was comfortably doing stockinette knitting, 2x2 ribbing, a three stitch cable, Six-Stitch Spiral Cables and the Little Pearl Cable.
I even gave her a brief idea of other increases and the many decreases and how to pick up a dropped stitch, with her promise to come to me for more lessons later on.

She has my copy of One Skein Wonders and now will be reading the Knitting Answer Book to help round out her education. I do feel that these are two fundamentals to knitting. A new knitter must read the Answer Book and needs to understand the potential that is in a single skein of yarn.

WIPS:
The sock is on hold as I have been doing online work at home stuff. Thus my hands are on the keyboard more than they are on yarn.
The laundry soap bag got a few more rows on laundry day, so nothing special to report there.
The Domino case has totally stalled out do to engineering flaws.

That wraps up our post for today.
Tune in next time to learn how I deal with multiple projects that all need the same set of needles.

Stash update

Many stores have sales on Memorial Day.
Many yarn stores have sales too.
But one of our local yarn stores, Ewe Knit Kits and Yarn specifically, had a stash busting sale.

It's over now and I report this having been a witness and participant.

All the yarns in a dedicated and surprisingly large section were available for $40-a-bag.
Which is to say they gave each person a very very roomy plastic bag, which could be stretched for even more room, and anything the customer put in that bag or have barely hanging in the bag (from that section only) could be purchased at a flat rate of $40.
This event was two days only and I honestly missed the first day. While I wonder about what I missed, I do not feel regret as I did do quite well.

When I arrived I had with me a friend who had finally decided she wanted to learn to knit. I explained the sale to her as we got our bags. She started off shyly while I pounded yarn in my bag to make room for more.
Eventually one of the store employees said she wasn't doing it right and went to her aid by dumping the yarn out on to the floor. Then the lady stretched the bag and started putting the small skeins in first, jamming them down and asking for more then finishing off with large 300+ yard skeins of worsted weight Llama.

In the end I scored $321 of yarn for only $40.
My friend managed an amazing $394 of yarn for the same price.

My stash is a happy stash. I will have to figure out how to store skeins on the ceiling, but I am sure I will figure it out.

After that, we did regular shopping. We found her an easy lace shawl pattern and the needles for knitting it up. I got myself a yarn spinning kit, complete with drop spindle, (which I could afford thanks to all that savings) and a $0.99 skien of yarn that had not been snatched up yet from the bargain basket.

There was a table in the back of the store with cookies, cake and candy were we snagged some seats and I taught my friend to knit. She was not the first person I have taught knitting to, but she is my first dedicated pupil. Within short order she was working lace, reading charts and learning to adjust patterns.
I am lucky to find such a gifted student. One of the other store employees said I should teach a class for them. I have to admit being tempted by that idea.

While we were knitting, others were shopping and we got to see the record deal of the whole two day sale. One lady, bag stuffed with some very very nice yarns, scored over $600 worth of yarn for forty bucks.
Wow.

Admittedly all of us felt a little bad, as if we were taking advantage of the deal, but I don't think there is a single one who actually regrets our purchases.
And why should we? The employees were encouraged by the store owner to help us stuff our bags as much as we could. If nothing else, they have more room for new yarn and an amazing amount of word of mouth advertising for their store. Oh, and my friend lives close to that store, so she will be going there for her supplies.

Before we left, I told them they should do this sale again but with a couple of differences. I suggested smaller, large-envelope style bags and the sale be $60 or $80 for selected books, magazines and patterns. I do hope they will do this. My stash is set, but my library could use some padding out.

For now, I have my hands full photographing my new yarn and posting in my Ravelry stash.

I got a lot of yarn.