another knitting blog

Back from the Big Easy

Actually, I've been back since Thursday.

Thoughts on New Orleans:

It makes your olfactory sense work overtime--my nose almost got whiplash going back and forth between the overwhelmingly good and bad smells.

Bourbon Street is not my style. I much prefer the French Quarter streets above and below Bourbon. The next time I get to New Orleans, I'm headed right for the antique shops, boutiques, and used bookstores closer to the river. Also, I'm headed back to the flea market and the farmer's market.

There were too many babies on Bourbon street. (!) At least they are too young to ask questions about the strip clubs.

I don't get the point of the beads, especially the beads that also have cartoon characters or body parts on them.

Beignets are yummy.

New Orleans is a seafood lover's paradise.

let's try that again

See this sleeve? Take a good look, because it's already gone. I ripped it out because I wasn't happy with the shape--way too poofy.

I'm going to try again, this time not increasing as many stitches after the ribbing and increasing more gradually under the arm. I hope this doesn't cause me to run out of yarn. Nothing is ever simple, is it?

No time to write any more tonight. I leave tomorrow for a trip to a conference in New Orleans. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to take any knitting with me. If I do, it will probably be socks.

short month syndrome

As if to make up for its brevity, February always manages to cram in the most deadlines.

This year, it's a conference in New Orleans. We leave this weekend and both my boss and I are out with the creeping crud. I stayed home yesterday and would do so today; except, someone has to go in and work on the poster we are supposed to be presenting. I think I'll be OK once I'm sitting at my desk. I'm just going to have to make sure that I don't touch anything and infect someone else.

I've started the sleeve on my Colour Your Own sweater. Pictures before the end of the week.

garter intarsia

To the two of you still out there: I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get to this. I promised it what? two? three weeks ago?

Oh well, let's commence.

First, if you are wondering what intarsia is: a quick Google search on intarsia knitting will get you started. Also, I've added an archive page with all my blog posts that have mentioned intarsia knitting and show some of the projects I've worked on.

That should get you oriented. Now, garter intarsia.

[Note: for a better look, you can click all the photos in this post to open a window with a bigger view.

Also, I've put the rest of the post after the link at the bottom because this is a photo-heavy post].

Here's a swatch I did with three different colors. [Pardon the sloppy cast on].

This is the front and I'm ready to knit across the row from right-to-left. For the sake of argument let's call this the right side

Here is the back side. This will be the wrong side.

Let's go back to the right side and see what happens when it comes time to switch colors.

I'm done with the green and I want to start to knit with the purple. However, I can't just drop the green and pick up the purple to knit...

...and here's why.

This is sort of a funny picture of the situation. Instead of turning the work around to look at it, this picture is meant to represent what you would see if you held onto you knitting and leaned forward to look at the wrong side. This way, the green stays on the right and the purple on the left.

Now, if we look, we can see that if I get pick up the purple and start knitting, there will be a gap between the colors. I'll need to anchor the green before using the purple and I can do this by twisting one strand over the other like this...

Now, the purple comes up from under the green and there will be no gap between the two colors.

OK, I knit to the end of the row and now it's time to come back in the other direction.

Once again, I get to the change between the purple and the green. This time, however, things are a little different. If this were stockinette intarsia, the situation would be similar to the changing yarns on the right side of the work: both the strand I was putting down and the strand I was picking up would be on the same side of the work. In that case, I would be purling and both strands would be on the side facing me and I could just twist them as I had on the right side (the knit side).

But now, because this is garter, I am knitting on both sides. When it comes time to change, the yarn I am putting down is in the back, but the yarn I want to pick up is in the front.

To get them in the correct position, I'm going to have to switch them by first moving the purple yarn between the needles and to the front, and then, moving the green yarn between the needles and to the back. This will lock the purple strand in place and put both the yarns on the correct sides of the needles to continue.

See, it's actually pretty easy. I don't know why it took me so long to write it up.

I hope at least one of the two of you found this helpful.

Lack of discipline

Today is my extra day off. And yet, I am not knitting. I haven't picked up the needles in two days. And it's not as though I don't have good reason to.

This is sitting on the couch, waiting for me.

I'm down to the last cuff of Rain Forest, and there it sits, watching me surf the web and play video games. I could be done with it by the end of today, if I'd just walk over there and work on it.

Then there's this:

which is eventually supposed to turn into this. But not if I don't get started.

Oh well, I think I'll go take a nap and get rested up for the ensuing knit frenzy.

Yeah, right.

Be My Valenfiend

Making Fiends Valentine's Day cards! [Scroll to the bottom of the page].

Just my style!

And a Valentine's episode!

[Still working on the intarsia post].