A blog about knitting, and some other stuff....

Thursday, August 23, 2007

happy summer!

Classes begin again next week. I can’t say I’m ready for them; this summer hasn’t been the most relaxing thing that has ever happened. But so it goes, most of it was lots of fun anyway. My internship was great, I learned so much and made some really great friends, and re-made some really old friends (my best friend from kindergarten worked in the same museum, how odd!). Perhaps most importantly I have realized that if all I did everyday for the rest of my life was conserve art, I would be thrilled.
I got very little of what I wanted to get done this summer finished. I did not finishing reviewing for the GRE, I did not read the 15 articles about paper conservation necessary for this internship, I did not relearn Spanish (I’m going to Peru in January!), and I did not do a complete deep clean room purge that my room so desperately needs. I did knit a fair amount, although not as much as I could have hoped.

First, I finished this dude, Hannah Kaminsky’s Baby Alligator.

Paul was nagging me to make him something or other, and what can say I love you better than a baby alligator? Let’s see here…. nothing.


Very very cute. Great pattern, easy to follow (and I hardly know how to crochet). I can’t tell you about the yarn because it came from the random unmarked acrylic stash. I can’t tell you about the yardage because I wasn’t paying attention. I can tell you that my only modification was to make a tongue out of red felt instead of crocheting one out of red yarn.

In progress, another headgehog!
A coworker’s sister is having a baby, and she saw one of these guy’s in my mom’s office and thought it was great. She requested tan and green – I have never made a two toned one before, and I’m a little worried that he’ll end up looking like he’s balding, but we’ll see.

As you can tell, he’s not felted yet. Once again, the half pattern, not a full sized hog.
Yarn is Patton’s Classic Wool in “Natural Mix,” and the hair is just your generic green fun fur. I used less than a ball of each (maybe only half, in fact).

And for me, Interweave Knits Summertime Tunic.I’m using Knit Picks Shine Sport in “Orchid.” It’s much more…. bright than I thought it would be from looking at it on the computer. I thought it was more purple, while it’s actually more pink. That’s okay, it’s still a very pretty color, and if I end up hating it I can always dye it. This pattern is insanely easy (thus far), it’s pretty much just a tube. Yep, one big tube.

The ribbing gave me problems, that I mentioned in my last post. The solution that I found helped, but it still doesn’t look wonderful, I guess the only way to remedy the issue entirely would be to learn to knit continental style. Alas, maybe next summer….

Monday, August 13, 2007

So I have this problem. Whenever I knit a ribbing, it looks really wonky, like I'm knitting it way too loose or something. Yet this is most certainly not the case, since I consciously knit much more tightly while making a ribbing to adjust for the problem, yet this never seems to help whatsoever. After finally admitting that I had a problem, I began to search for an answer, and I came across this wonderful post at nonaKnits. I thought I'd share it with all you lovely people in case you, too, had a problem with wonky ribbing.