Category Archives: Knitting

Aeryn’s “Stealth Geek” Blanket

My husband and I are big on stealth geek. What is that, you say? Well, I’d be breaking the rules to tell you.

Yeah ok, all it means is very geeky things that don’t, at first glance, seem like very geeky things. For example, we named our daughter Aeryn. There’s a lot of different ways to spell Aeryn (Erin, Arin, Aaron, etc.), but we chose that way for a reason.

So when it was time to start making a baby blanket for Aeryn, there was really only one choice. Serenity, a beautiful free pattern on Ravelry. It’s a leaf pattern, and the quote on the page is “Like a leaf on the wind…”

Excellent. Continue reading

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Zombies, War and Sharp Pointy Sticks: Why Men Must Knit

There is a technique, passed down through generations, which has provided for mankind’s survival since ancient times. Long ago, exclusive male-only guilds toiled for years as apprentices to master this art alongside the like of blacksmiths and carpenters, for this skill was used to serve all from the lowest peasant to the highest king. Amazingly, only the very basic sets of implements were required, consisting mostly of sharpened sticks in various sizes. Even today there is much demand for its products, and the most popular stories we tell often include its artisans – giants of men toiling in difficult conditions, for example, or underground efforts to free slaves.

Yet this incredible talent is under attack. Its very tools are banned from air travel, and men daring to learn it often do so in secret – knowing that they will be met with derision and scorn by the very people who benefit from the craft every day. Yet they must continue to work – for if it were to vanish, lives may very well be lost. It has won wars, but the masses ignorantly mock its name.

We call it “knitting”.

And though the above is a little over the top dramatically, it is all true.

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How to Start (or start someone) Knitting

Knitting is one of those social hobbies that most people don’t learn from a book when they’re first starting out. Usually what happens is you see someone else knitting and think “Huh. I wonder if I could do that – it looks kinda fun.” And you either go ask that person to show you a little of what they’re doing or attend some kind of official event and have someone teach you there later.

I knit in public fairly often, so this happens to me a lot. I’ll talk with the person about how anyone can knit and no, it’s not as complicated as you can fool people it is, and hopefully when they leave they head straight to a yarn shop. ::grin:: Sometimes a person even has time to sit down and go through a few stitches with me. But what happens then? How do you actually get started? Here’s a few things to keep in mind when picking out your first project or guiding someone else choosing one. Continue reading

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Progress on the Shawl

I haven’t updated my knitting progress in a while…mostly because I hadn’t made much. I’ve been working like crazy and also buying a house…which means I’m stressed out and should be knitting even more, right? Continue reading

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Starting the Botanica Medallion

Sorry for being absent for so long — I had a huge project at work which ended up with me having to go on a two week business trip. It’s still not over which is frustrating for me, but at least I’m being given a little time to recover now — and finally get some posts up!

I subscribe to Vogue Knitting and when the Spring/Summer issue came out a few weeks ago I immediately fell in love with the cover “summer cardi”, the Botanica Medallion. I’ve been looking for a fun, more complex knit to do when I’m totally bored with the sweater (which is coming along nicely but slowly, I’ll probably put up a post on it next week), so I ran out and bought the materials for it right away so I’d have it for my business trip. As it turned out, it was about the only thing keeping me sane on the trip (that and web cam talks with my hubby) so I’m really glad I did. Continue reading

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Finished front and back of long-forgotten sweater!

At last!  I have been “working” on this sweater for my poor, patient husband since October of 2005.  Yeah…obviously, not very hard working, but I did look at it once in a while.  Well, I recently decided that I needed to get a move on and actually finish this thing, and I’m proud to say that I am now up to the sleeves!  (and working hard — really! — on that)

This is my first venture without an official pattern, so that’s part of why I’ve been hesitant to finish it — I’m worried it’ll be wrong and I’ll have done all that work for nothing.  But so far it looks ok.  I’m doing a few weird things — first, I made the back panel much wider than the front.  I’m planning on doing a reverse seem in the front so there will be two little ridges, which I think will look kinda cool if I do it right.  (I’ll probably also duplicate stitch his initial in the middle, as in Harry Potter, which he’ll like.)

I’m also doing the sleeves all in one piece with the yoke, knit sideways to give it an interesting texture.  At least that’s my plan.  If it doesn’t work I’m not sure how to fix it at this point, so I really hope it works!  I don’t have a great pic yet as there’s not much to see, but here’s one of lots of material knitted up!  Yay!

Front and back done!

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