Posts in category 'knitting'
Knitting Miscellany
So blanket construction continues unabated. In fact, in the three days I was in Regina for Thanksgiving, I completed another 4 1/2 panels, which brings me to a total of 9… over one third of the way there! On the hex components, anyway. ‘course, I still haven’t blocked them out, but I’m sure I’ll get around to that eventually.
On a separate but related note, quite a while ago, I embarked on a rather ambitious project: to start a knitting wiki. Unfortunately, as often happens with my projects, I made a reasonable amount of progress in secret before life got in the way and it ended up on the back-burner. However, the recent discovery of another knitting wiki project on Wikia (a Wikimedia-powered free wiki-hosting service) has brough the project back to life. For now.
See, apparently someone else had the same bright idea I did… and the same amount of dedication. Thus, the Wikia site had been languishing for about a year, just waiting to be populated. So I’ve decided to try and adopt the project. I’ve already ported all my content over there, boosting the site from a measley 9 pages to a whopping 31, and I’ve started the process of lightly re-organizing things before generating new material. My ultimate goal would be to generate an all-encompassing repository of knitting knowledge. A resource that could rival those found in traditionally expensive (and difficult to find) knitting books. Of course, we’ll see how long it is before I get bored of the whole idea. :)
Of course, by now, you’re probably wondering where it is. Well, feel free to head over to KnitWiki! And in case you’re wondering, yes, those shots with the green yarn are pictures of me knitting. And yes, taking them required some rather odd contortions…
Return Of The Knitting Bug
It’s been quite some time since I’ve worked on a major knitting project. I suppose this isn’t surprising… it’s pretty hard to convince oneself to sit indoors and play with yarn when you’ve got the beautiful sun shining outside and a deck begging to be built or a lawn crying out to be mowed. But, the time has come again for knitting and purling, hence my newest project (yes, another one… and yes, my Squeak project is still ever so slowly rolling along :).
But, before I tell you what it is, I must first warn Jori not to read any further or even glance down the page! Not that she’s likely to be reading my blog, but I’d hate for her to spoil the surprise. See, I needed an excuse to knit something. I mean, Lenore and I only need so many hats and scarves and so forth. And I’m not quite ready to start on a sweater project (or better yet, my Jump Suit). So I wanted a project I could foist on someone else, but something that was complicated enough to be interesting. Hence the Mountain Laurel Crib Counterpane (aka, neato baby blanket).
Pretty nice, eh? It will be a challenge, though. I have to make 25 hex motifs, 6 half hexes and 6 edge triangles, and then sigh sew them all together. Good times! I figure it’ll take me two solid months of work. And my progress? Currently, I have two hex motifs done, one of which you can see below (note, it hasn’t been blocked, yet, thus the details aren’t fully visible and the stitching is a little more cramped than in the final piece):
I think it turned out fairly well. It’s a very fun pattern to work on… lots of variation to keep me focused. :) And the beauty of it is I can work on it while riding the bus, as it’s composed of lots of small pieces that are easily transported.
Mostly Male
So, I was browsing around on Men Who Knit, a community site for male knitters (yes, apparently there are enough of us that a dedicated website is warranted), when I came across a few posts that I absolutely had to share. Someone came across a publication called “Brunswick Mostly Male” and posted some pics from patterns therein. And trust me… the name fits:
I think the jumpsuit is my favourite. I gotta gets me one of those!
Bunny Booties!
For those new to this place, my wife and I share our lives with two pet Rabbits, Herbie and Chloe. Well, the last year has been pretty hard on Chloe: so far she’s developed four Abscesses, three on her back feet and, now, one on her front. It’s been fun. Real fun.
Well, her most recent abscess has required me to come up with some method for protecting her foot. The problem is, it needs to be fairly tightly fit, reasonably durable, and most importantly cheap and easy to replace, since she will destroy them, even with the damned cone on.
So, I decided it was about time I actually used my knitting skills for something useful and came up with this:
Pretty basic, but it works surprisingly well. I can custom fit them, which is really nice, and I can bang one out in around 20 minutes, meaning if she does destroy it, I can just make another. I’ve also experimented with a couple other variations, like using decreases near the top to tighten it up, and I even created one using reinforced heel stitch, to see if would stand up to more of a beating. But, in the end, the basic Stockinette pattern seems to work the best. Maybe next time I’ll throw in a couple cables, etc. ;)
