Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Wait! Those aren't knitting needles...

Well, the finger knitting mentioned in the previous post turned out to be a very cool technique. Cool and quick enough to make a long, thin scarf out of some spare yarn in one sitting. The result is nothing extraordinary, but I bet that I get some use out of the scarf once winter hits Madison.



In addition to using my fingers to create fabric, I have recently learned to, gasp, crochet! I've been knitting for over four years now, so it is about time that I learned a thing or two about crochet. Thus far, I can chain and single crochet, which is enough for me. What really inspired me to learn was a pattern for a cute little round clutch in the book One Skein. So I broke out the only crochet hook I own (the one I use to fix my knitting mistakes), a handful of my Kool Aid-dyed yarn, and flipped to the section on crochet in my Stitch 'n Bitch book. After knitting, it was easy to get the hang of crocheting and I am well on my way to having a little round clutch!


Slowly, but surely, I am attacking my stash. Even if it means resorting to crochet!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Vacation = Time To Knit ?

Unfortunately, the above equation did not prove to be very true over my vacation these past two weeks. With my sister's wedding, various sight-seeing excursions, and a long novel, the only knitting I really got done was in San Francisco.

The small amount of vacation knitting was focused on knitting a double-point needle roll. I made it out of this pretty merino-cotton blend that my grandmother gave me. It turned out very nicely, and will be handy once I actually do all of the finishing touches. So, here it is:




I also worked on a variation of this bag before I left for my trip, using up a bunch of blue/green/yellow yarns from my stash. Some of the color combos are a bit weird because I used 3 strands at a time, so we'll see how the bag comes out in the end.

Also still working on the large green wrap. I realized this weekend that I do not have enough yarn to finish it, so sometime I will have to get around to ordering more. Sigh...

In the meantime, I am enjoying the new Knitty that just came out, and contemplating the possible uses for finger-knitting.

PS. Check out the new link for the hilarious crafting blog Threadbared under the Links on the right. Thanks Mom for passing it on!