Neck Warmers – Ms Lindz – My little corner of the internet

Honeycomb Cowl and Juneberry the 2nd

Posted on January 20, 2011 by mslindz

Last week I spotted this honeycomb stitch in a pattern and had some other ideas for it, but since I lacked the yarn needed for a large project, I tried it out on this cowl. Not sure I’m too fond of the ribbing as it tends to extend out when worn and I’d probably change that if I were to knit it again, but the cowl turned out very squishy, soft and warm.

Honeycomb Cowl

Pattern: Honeycomb Cowl (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: January 13, 2011
Completed: January 14, 2011
Yarn: Malabrigo Chunky, 1 skein in the Butter colorway
Needles: US 10.5 bamboo circular
Notes: See my Ravelry page for more details on what I did. This was my own design that I threw together, but since I’m not 100% happy with it, I think I’ll tweek it some before writing it up properly. Used up an entire skein, with no leftovers! Malabrigo chunky makes as nice of a cowl as it does a scarf and I like the stitch pattern.

I still have plans to use the stitch pattern on something else in the future, but I need to get yarn for it first and I’m still debating on what I want to use for this project I have in mind. More on that at a later time!

After my Bel Air sweater fail, I swatched to figure out what sweater to knit next. Swatches didn’t meet gauge, so I swatched more. Finally settled on Watershed and it’s making slow progress since I started it earlier this week since I’ve been consumed with finishing Juneberry the 2nd.

Last weekend being a 3 day weekend with only dinner plans on Saturday and Sunday, I spent a LOT of time knitting. I was waiting for swatches to dry, so I spent that knitting time working on Juneberry. By Monday I had finished chart B, C, D, and started on the edging! I’m nearly halfway through the edging now and I’m hoping to get it finished this weekend so I can focus more on sweaters I want to knit.

Juneberry the 2nd

Juneberry the 2nd Edging

One exciting (at least for me) thing I’ve done on the blog is finally get a Completed Projects page up. I’d been meaning to do that since I converted over to a self hosted blog from TypePad. It’s not exactly where I want it to be yet, but it’s getting there. Currently the only year missing is 2010 because I typed it up and left it on another computer. Hopefully I’ll get that up tomorrow. I’d like to add photos on the pages as well, though I’m not sure how I want to do that just yet. Updating everything made me realize that there’s a lot of things I didn’t photograph or didn’t blog! I think I’ve been a lot better about that in the last year or so, but it still surprised me how many smaller items were never blogged.

Snow is falling and piling up faster as the day goes on. If you have snow where you are, stay safe out there if you must go out! Thankfully I’m tucked safely inside the house for the rest of the night. 🙂

Completed Projects, Cooking, Life

Bellona Cowl, New Camera, and New Sock

Posted on September 14, 2009 by mslindz

It’s the month of crazy at work (aka fiscal year end). I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as I’ve wanted to lately, but I’ll get back there once all the crazy ends and I can go back to “normal” work days without quite so much crazy in them! I fully intended to blog about this FO last week, but you know how that goes when things are crazy. So, today I bring you the Bellona Cowl!

Pattern: Bellona Cowl by Didi (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: September 4, 2009
Completed: September 7, 2009
Yarn: Knit Picks City Tweed in Morning Glory (1.5 skeins)
Needles: US 4 bamboo circular
Notes: I did 7.5 chart repeats. I probably could have done more, but I’m really happy with the results. Hoping to get a pair of fingerless mitts out of the leftovers. The yarn is really nice to work with and the cowl ended up soft and drapey. I definitely want to make more things with this yarn at some point. The pattern was great and I love the way it turned out. Simple and interesting enough that I didn’t want to put it down! 🙂

Here it is laid out flat.

Wearing it!

Little more detail of the cables.

This weekend ended up being pretty busy, but the highlight for me was inheriting Matt’s old camera when he purchased a new one. I’m now the proud owner of a Canon Rebel XT. He also gave me the kit lens he got with his new Canon XTi since he already had some better lenses and his old camera bag (same as his new one, just smaller).

Mine!

This weekend, my friends Karen and Lani had a booth full of bags they made at Oktoberfest. I stopped by Saturday and Sunday to help out and support them for a while. Alita had some of her HairWare and Stuff there, too. Matt got better pictures of all of that, but hasn’t uploaded them, so here’s the one I took of their booth.

I managed to cast on a new sock this weekend. I wasn’t going to, but I needed something different. I had a plain sock on the needles and a colorwork sock on the needles. I was bored of the plain sock and the colorwork one really isn’t transportable since I’m also designing it, so I cast on Midsummer Night’s Dream from the new Knitty.

Midsummer Night’s Dream in Wollmeise Twin, Campari Piccolo.

I was going to make myself wait until I was done with Starlight to start anything new, but I’ve decided that’s silly. I’m a process knitter and my knitting usually goes on my whims. If it’s not interesting, I don’t want to knit it. I needed something portable that was also going to capture my interest RIGHT NOW, so new sock it is!

Sadly, I have to report that I lost one of my DPNs under the driver’s seat in Matt’s car. There’s no way it’s coming out unless they remove the seat and I really don’t want to go through all that hassle when I can get another set of Knit Picks nickel plated DPNs for $5. Still, this means that my colorwork socks are stalled because I had to borrow one of the needles. I suppose I could move the 5th needle between these socks and the colorwork ones, but knowing me that would either cause me to loose it or never have it when I need it! More DPNs are on order already. 🙂

Another busy week and weekend ahead, but this weekend is A Wool Gathering!! I’m pretty excited about that this year since I have a great group of knitters to go with. I’ll be there probably wearing my Ravelry shirt (“Daily dose of fiber”) and button with my username (mslindz, of course), so if you see me be sure to say hi! 😀

Completed Projects, Cooking, Current Projects, Sewing

Button-Up Neck Warmer and Liesl FO’s and a New Sweater

Posted on August 21, 2009 by mslindz

It’s time for “FO Fiday!” I have two finished objects to share this week. This week has been rather hectic and I planned to show one of these earlier in the week and the other one yesterday/today, but sometimes time just gets away from me. Anyhow, on with the FO’s!

Pattern: Button-Up Neck Warmer from Spring 2009 Spin-Off (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: July 29, 2009
Completed: August 16, 2009
Yarn: My second skein of handspun, from Zarzuela’s Fibers in Emerald City (I used about 105 of my 210 yards)
Needles: US 8 bamboo circular
Notes: This was a pretty fast and easy knit. Well, it was fast when I actually worked on it! I had about half of it done already when I picked it back up on August 16th and was able to finish it that day. This is soft and squishy and it will definitely keep me warm this winter! I absolutely love it and can’t wait to work with more of my handspun in the future.

Un-buttoned

Buttoned

Me, wearing it! 🙂

Pattern: Liesl by Ysolda Teague (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: August 6, 2009
Completed: August 15, 2009
Yarn: Just over 3 skeins of Louet Worsted in Eggplant
Needles: US 10.5 bamboo circulars
Notes: This was a pretty fast and easy knit. The one thing I changed was garter stitch borders. I added 4 rows of garter stitch to the collar, the bottom of the sweater, and the sleeves. Since the button band was in garter stitch, I wanted to keep that element throughout the sweater edges and I’m glad I decided to do that. I did the lower neckline, though I initially started with the higher one. I’m glad I ended up ripping back and changing that. I also started with the 44″ size, but it just seemed like it was going to end up too small and after reading pattern notes in Ravelry, I went up to the 46″ size. I’m really glad I did! I really don’t think it would have fit otherwise. Overall, I’m really pleased with how it turned out and I already have plans to make a second one! 🙂

It’s done! It fits! I love it!

Back

Left Side

Right Side

On Tuesday, I did a swatch for the Vine Yoke cardigan because it was still calling me. I thought “Oh, I’ll just do a swatch.” If you’re anything like me, you know how that goes. First it’s just the swatch, then it’s “Oh, I’ll just knit an inch or two, then put it aside.” The next thing you know, you can’t stop and don’t want to put it down! Wednesday I cast on for this sweater and brought it to the Reds baseball game with me. By the time I got home, I had knit 5 or so inches on it! I’ve been working on it almost non-stop since. The yarn feels fantastic when knitting with it and even softer after it’s washed. I think this is another sweater that’s going to get quite a bit of wear!

Vine Yoke Cardigan progress.

So far there’s been two things I’ve changed: the button holes and how many of them I have. The pattern says to work the button holes 9 times on the button band row. That would have left me with 2 to 3 inches just sort of “hanging” at the bottom. I decided to add an additional button hole and it think that works out well. The way the button holes were supposed to be worked confused me to no end, so I changed it to bind off 3 stitches (sl 1, sl 1, psso, sl 1, psso, sl 1, psso), backwards loop cast on 4 stitches, knit 1, psso (the stitch passed over is the last backwards loop cast on stitch) then continued to the next button hole. This worked out to about the same results as what the pattern said to do without all the turning and fussing and confusion.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really glad it’s Friday. Anything fun going on for you this weekend? I’m ready for a weekend of not doing a whole lot since we have no plans for this weekend at all and for once I’m keeping it that way! Tonight we’re going to dinner with Matt’s family for his brother’s birthday. Should be fun! I think this weekend will be spent relaxing, knitting, maybe a little bit of housework, probably playing more Viva Pinata on the Xbox 360 (for me, Matt will probably spend time playing one Infamous on PS3), and some quality time with our new surround sound system that was set up earlier this week. Have a good weekend, everyone! 🙂

Completed Projects, Current Projects, Life

How to: PVC Niddy Noddy, Grill, and Project Updates

Posted on August 17, 2009 by mslindz

This weekend I made myself a niddy noddy for under $2! I’ve been needing one for a while now, but I didn’t really want to spend a whole lot of money on one right now. I looked up some instructions on what I’d need to make a PVC one. It seemed simple enough, so when we were at Lowe’s this weekend, I picked up what I needed to make one. Directions said to get a 4 to 5 foot 1/2″ PVC pipe, but they were out in the 5 foot size and I didn’t want over 6 feet of pipe that I didn’t need, so I got a 5 foot 3/4″ pipe instead. There was a pipe cutting station, so I went over and waited for someone to cut my PVC pipe. The guy came over and said “This is only for metal pipes *grumble grumble*” and took my pipe. I was confused and ready to take it back and find whatever tool I needed to cut it, but he went and got some tool and cut it for me anyhow. I had him cut one 18″ piece and four 6″ pieces, which left an additional 19″ piece I have no idea what I’ll do with. After that I found two “T” pieces that fit the pipe. The pipe was $1.23 and the “T” pieces were $0.33 each for a total of $1.89 to make the niddy noddy!

Niddy noddy pieces, pre-assembly.

I got home and pieced it all together, which hardly took any time at all. There’s no need to glue anything in place since you want it to be able to twist. It’s easy to assemble or disassemble for storage. I still need to sandpaper the ends, but I need to find some sandpaper first (we probably have some, I just haven’t looked). Pretty easy project and cheap, too!

Niddy noddy, assembled.

We really went to Lowe’s to look at and possibly buy a grill. We did manage to find one we liked in our price range. We got it home, but weren’t able to put it together right away because we had a birthday party to go to. After that, Matt’s brother came over and they put the grill together. The instructions said it would take 50 minutes, but it took 3 hours. I don’t know how anyone could have put the thing together in 50 minutes!

Matt and his brother putting the grill together.

By the time it was put together, it was dark out and we found that we didn’t have a metal spatula to use the grill with! Instead of making the burgers on the grill, we ended up making them in the kitchen. The next morning, though, we made breakfast on the grill: turkey bacon, eggs (in a skillet on the side burner), and toast. It was pretty good! For lunch/early dinner, we invited Karen and Than over and made salmon, thyme marinated asparagus, and wild rice. I think it turned out pretty good!

Matt making lunch.

Saturday, while at the birthday party, I finished Liesl. I don’t have pictures yet. I still need to get some buttons and block it. I love how it turned out, though! I’m already itching to make another one. 🙂

I was all jazzed that I finished something and pulled out my Button Up Neck Warmer hoping I could finish that, too. Sunday, I did! I need to wash and block it and add buttons, but I love how it turned out. It’s going to be nice and warm this winter!

Button-Up Neck Warmer, finished!

Looks like I’ll have two FO’s to show you a little later this week! 🙂

Since I finished Liesl, I’ve brought Starlight back out. I have 2 months before Rhinebeck and my goal is to get this done by then! Think I can do it? I’m nearly to the arm shaping of the first front piece, then I have to knit the other front piece and the sleeves.

Starlight

Still working on the 4th clue for the Secret Garden shawl. I have 2 more repeats before I move on to clue 5 (final clue), which will make the shawl jump from about 400 stitches now to almost 800! If I think that each row takes a while now, I’m a little scared to see how long THOSE rows will take!

Another week and almost through August. I can hardly believe it. This year has really flown by, but it’s been a good one. This week will probably be slightly busy. Tonight my sister is coming over to hang out and Wednesday night Matt and I are going to a Reds baseball game (which means no knit night this week). I think Friday we’re having dinner with Matt’s family. This weekend, as far as I can remember, we don’t have anything going on. Just house stuff. We’ll be moving things around since we’re getting a surround sound system and we’ll probably do some housewarming/birthday party planning since we’ve finally decided on a date for that! I can’t believe we haven’t done it and that the date we picked is kind of far from now, but I think it will be a lot of fun since we’re also planning to combine our October birthdays with it. Time files when you’re having fun! 🙂

Current Projects, Spinning

Designing, Neck Warmer, Spinning, and New Projects

Posted on August 7, 2009 by mslindz

Not long ago, I came across the Knitting Purls/Knit-a-While Cuff-Down Smack-Down. Right away I knew I wanted to design something. Didn’t take long for me to start having some ideas. I wound up some yarn and kept it near my desk as a reminder. I let the ideas simmer in the background until yesterday when I finally charted up the pattern I had in my head.

Lorna’s Laces in Old Rose

Tuesday I cast on and knit the cuff of the sock and Wednesday I began the pattern. I’ve done a little over one chart repeat so far and I like how it’s turning out!

What do you think of it? I’m already trying to think up names. Plenty of time to decide on that, though.

I’ve been working on my Button Up neck warmer, too. It’s moving right along and it’s been growing pretty quickly when I actually work on it.

Guessing that I’m about 1/3 of the way done.

After a few days of not spinning, I started the second bobbin of the Scarlet Macaw fiber last night.

Didn’t do a whole lot, but that’s because something new was calling me. I decided I wanted to knit Liesl and I had 4 skeins of Louet Gems worsted in my stash without a project in mind. I love the color of the Louet Gems and I’ve been wanting to make this sweater for a while, so yesterday it was all I could think about after I’d decided I wanted to make it. I knit a swatch and while it was blocking, I went ahead and cast on.

Louet Gems worsted in Eggplant (the color is fairly accurate in the photo)

Might have been a dangerous thing to do, but this morning I found that my swatch was dry and the gauge was perfect. I’m using US 10.5 needles, so it’s going pretty quickly. Few more rows and I’m already to the sleeves!

Yesterday I received the August shipment from The Yarn Bearer’s Sock Club. This is the Nightmares Club and this month’s theme was Blood & Gore. It’s semi-solid red and I love it! Another project I’ve been looking at is the Ishbel shawl, so immediately I thought this would be perfect for it. I have 500 yards to work with, which should give me a decent sized shawl.

The Yarn Bearer’s Uber Sock, Blood & Gore

As if I didn’t have enough projects going on or ones that I’m planning, I’ve also ordered yarn for the Little Birds cardigan, the Shipwreck shawl, and the Aeolian shawl! I also have beads coming for the two shawls. What about socks? Ummm… but I am knitting socks! See the ones above? I’m still knitting socks. I don’t think that will ever change, but I knit other stuff sometimes, too 😉

The weekend is nearly upon us! It’s been a busy week. Tomorrow I’m going to head down to MainStrasse in the afternoon for the World’s Longest Yardsale with some knitter friends. I’ll probably be looking for shelving or other furniture for our house. Should be fun! It will probably be hot, too, since it’s supposed to get up to 90 degrees tomorrow, which hasn’t happened since JUNE! It’s been a fairly cool and rainy summer this year. Any fun plans this weekend?

Current Projects, Gardening, Spinning

Garden, Matt Knits, Neck Warmer, and Hey Teach

Posted on July 31, 2009 by mslindz

I fully intended to blog on Wednesday and Thursday, but ended up not having time. I wanted to blog yesterday evening and planned to… then I ended up helping Matt with his school’s website which took up most of the evening. Ah well, that’s how life goes sometimes!

On the house (garden) front, we had some bushes that were by the deck cut down. We need to dig up the roots but haven’t had the time (or desire, really!) to do that yet.

More flowers are coming up in the garden, too!

Pink flowers in the back yard.

Not sure what kind of bug is on there, but I found it interestingly shiny, so I took a picture to share.

I posted about these before… still not sure what they are, but they’re some kind of flower. Matt and I walked around the neighborhood yesterday and found a few other people have them in their yards. Rose (one of my knitting friends) also has some on the side of her porch and said that many people in her neighborhood have them. I’m anxious to see them bloom!

I’m not really sure what’s all growing in here, though I’m sure a number of weeds are present.

This is the end of our driveway – no idea what’s all here!

On knit night this past Wednesday, Matt came with me and showed us what a good knitter he is and how to knit with just one needle…

While we were at knit night, I dropped my needle and it somehow disappeared under the table. Yes, a US 8 straight needle, fell to the floor, we heard it hit, but it could NOT be found. Thursday, Karen (who I sat next to) let me know it had somehow transported itself into the bottom of her knitting bag somehow! Mystery solved, but this left me with only one needle to work on my new project (I’ll get to that), so Matt decided to take over my project for me. 🙂

Wednesday, I started a new project for the SAL/KAL in the Zarzuela’s Fiber group on Ravelry. I’m working on the Button-Up Neck Warmer. I have to say, I really LOVE knitting with yarn I spun!!

Button-Up Neck Warmer in Emerald City merino.

When I got home Wednesday, I realized that Hey Teach was dry, so Thursday I started seaming it up…

Side seams on Hey Teach

… and it wasn’t long before it was all seamed up!

Hey Teach is finished being seamed!

The best news?!? IT FITS!! I’m beyond thrilled by this after my last horribly failed attempt. If it didn’t fit, there was not a chance that I’d be knitting it a THIRD time, so I’m really glad it fits. I’ve knit the neckband on already and just have the button bands left to do. I’ll probably work on that this weekend if I don’t get too distracted by Clue 4 of the Secret Garden Shawl that I just received.

I’ve found a bit of time this week to fit in some spinning, though I admit not a whole lot. My hip has been bothering me since it’s been raining, so I don’t think I’ll be able to finish this up this week like I had hoped. I’m really loving spinning this, though, so I’m not exactly bummed it’s not done yet! I can really see how far I’ve come since I “got serious” about spinning this month for the Tour de Fleece.

My so-called Scarlet Macaw superwhash merino from All Spun Up.

Have anything going on this weekend? We’re taking it pretty easy since it feels like we’ve been pretty busy every weekend this month. We’re going to dinner with my family tomorrow and have invited some people over on Sunday for a small get together since we’ve been wanting to have people over for a while now, but not quite up to the “big housewarming” thing yet. Happy Friday everyone! 🙂

Completed Projects, Current Projects

Crofter’s Cowl – keeping my neck warm

Posted on October 29, 2008 by mslindz

Today I have an FO for you! I love, love, love this thing and I’ll definitely be making another one soon.

Pattern: Crofter’s Cowl by Gudrun Johnston (Ravelry link, only available for download there)
Started: October 23, 2008
Completed: October 26, 2008
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky in Teal Feather
Needles: US 8 bamboo circular and DPNs
Notes: I knit a total of 5 repeats on the first half and 4 repeats on the second half because I wanted to use up as much of the yarn as possible. I only have a tiny bit left! Yes, I actually grafted the whole thing together and it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it was. It went by pretty quick. I’ll admit, though, that I watched that video on KnittingHelp.com a ton of times, so I have the whole thing memorized ;o)

Here’s the whole thing, laid flat (no, I didn’t and won’t be blocking it):

Here it is on me:

The only other interesting thing so far this week is that my odometer in my car hit 99,000 miles. I have a 2004 Matrix XR, so I’m averaging about 25,000 miles/year. Not too bad. The average according to my insurance agent is about 20,000 miles/year, so I’m only slightly above average!

As for the Gable sweater… it’s coming along. I got some help at knit night last night and pretty much just continued on faking it like I did the yoke. I wrote down lots of notes for the yoke and now the neck shaping, so if anyone else is knitting the large size, I’ll be happy to share them (they’ll also be in my FO post for it). I’m a few rows into the hood now and I’m hoping it will continue to go well. I’m hoping to finish it up tonight!

We leave for vacation to Charleston, South Carolina on Saturday. I am excited to go and ready for a break!

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