I forgot I have a knitting blog

Can't believe I haven't blog in over a year! But I assure you I have been knitting. I suppose it's good that I am knitting more than blogging, although I would still like to do more knitting than reading about knitting...

Did a lot of Christmas and gift knitting but did not take picture of them....

However, I do have picture of Petra that I made. Had Krista from meetup model for the picture:

From 2010 Knitting

Don't think I like bulky yarn that much...

Made Orion a rocket from petitepurls:

From 2010 Knitting

My friend Dayle sent me these yarn and I wanted to make something out of it for her daughter. Neighborly seemed like a good idea for the variegated yarn:

From 2010 Knitting

This is a photo from her. I don't know how often her daughter actually wear it but Dayle's family would always get more knits from me because she takes a picture of her kids using it!

I'll be better at taking photos of knitting and blogging it. Thanks for the three people that seem to be still following this blog. :-)

I haven't been knitting...

I haven't been knitting, because I've been baking. It started with needing to practice baking a cake for my uncle. Then it continued with cookies. I found these savory cookies they were so good I just couldn't get them out of my head.

I couldn't wait to made David Lebovitz's seaweed cookies. He called for this seaweed salt ingredient (fleur de sel aux algues) that's from his local salt person, so it's not something I could easily get. He did give direction on how to make it.

I went to several stores to get the ingredients I need. For some reason I couldn't get "dried dulse" in japanese supermarket but had to get it from wholefoods. Makes me wonder if it's product invented for the westerners. I did not combine the dried seaweed mixture with the salt as suggested because I feel I can control the salt usage and sometimes only add the dried seaweed to cooking too?

So the recipe says to use 2 teaspoon of fleur de sel aux algues mix. I figure using one teaspoon each of the flakey salt and dried seaweed would be enough. Unfortunately it was not salty enough for my taste. I _had_ to make another batch to make it right. The second batched with two teaspoon of the dried seaweed and one teaspoon of the flakey salt plus one teaspoon of the "seaweed salt" i got from japanese store. The taste came out perfect. I just want to write it down somewhere so I can do it again.

I haven't found a baking equivalent of ravelry so I am doing it here. Thanks for putting up with me. I recommend you try this if you like savory cookies. And Ina's parmesan thyme cookies too. Those were great too.

Double Knitting is...

Double knitting is for people who like to do ribbing, with color, A LOT.

Wonderful Amy from the guild taught us double knitting at the last month meeting. We did this cute light bulb motif on big needles to make a potholder. I think I was experimenting with the yarn dominance so you can see the bottom of my potholder doesn't look very good. In fact, you can see some of the background color in the second photo:

My friend Pam later tells me it's a feature of Armenian knitting to have a bit of the color in the back to show through. What created a bit of the color showing through was me using the background on the right side as the dominating yarn so both yarn keeps on crossing each other every other stitch.

I casted on for another one and this was an exciting project because it's the first time my husband wanted me to make something for him. His work uses the light bulb as an indicator on how things are going so I made one with red and green. This time the background area worked out better and the fabric actually separates.

The elf shoes are done

I finally got around to felt the elf shoes. You ready?

Hehe. Aren't they cute? Remember what they look like before felting?

Wow, right?

So gonna make more.

The owlets got eyes!

Presenting O's new "Fire Owlet" sweater:

This was finished last week but didn't have eyes yet:

And since I had 18 owlets, that meant I would need to sew 36 buttons on for the eyes; I was not looking forward to it. Arlene from the meetup suggest that I used a thick yarn to make french knots for it. I gave it a try and it worked out!

How did I end up with 18 owlets? I did not swatch to check the gauge and just blindly followed the biggest baby size (that went to up 36 month) hoping it would be 22 inches wide. After finishing the body, it looked a little small to me but the silly me hoped* it would all work out and continue on. Right after bind/off, I knew it was too small. I let the kid try it to confirm (was only 20.5 inches across chest), measure my gauge and ripped it out. Recalculated how many stitches I would need and cast it on again (did not want to change needle plus I had a lot of yarn left so I could make it bigger).

What did we learn from this?! Hoping is not a good strategy in knitting.

One more note about the french knots: The knot span across two rows so and I wrapped the yarn around the needle eight times before finishing the knot. It seem to work out okay.

Stitches West 2010 report

First, let's get the "cute babies and knits" out of the way.

Isn't this the cutest little hat on the cutest baby?!

And Cheryle made matching cardigan for her little cutie pie!

I had a great time catching up with people and helping out at the Lacy Knitter's Guild booth. I took a class because my friend was not able to take it last minute. It's the Fancy Felted Bag taught by Sharon Castello. Here's a picture of the wool being lay down before wetting it:

Doesn't it look like some furry animal? :-)

Here's everybody working hard, rolling and massaging their bags in bubble wraps and towels:

It's the most aerobic I ever got involving fiber. These are the end results:

The design on the top of this black bag used silk tops and such to decorate:

Here's a picture of the teacher posing with my bag:

I did come home with a few things:

Okay, I know it looks like a lot of yarn, but the upper left hand corner is super chunky's so it doesn't really count because it will get knitted up in no time. The two big balls of tweedy silk-wool (with little red specs) on the lower left hand corner are Pam's fault. I would not have seen it if she did not show me. (Does my guilt show from all these justifications I am coming up with?) I did go into stitches wanting to score some Madelinetosh yarn because it's all the rage in the knitting world and it's hard to get. I was able to score hard-to-get "tart" color way (right hand side of the loot) thought might not be the ideal weight I want (got it in "vintage"). And for some reason (maybe it's freshly coming off chinese new year celebration) I really want some more red yarn, so grabbed a few sock weight yarn which I can make socks or shawlets.

Okay, back to knitting.

A new sweater for O

I've been working hard to finish the sweater for him because he will out grow this size (and the yardage I have for this size) very soon.

Here's the bookworm sweater from Louisa Harding's Miss Bea's Rainy Day (which is so fitting for the weather we've been having lately):


I still haven't felt the elf slippers yet. Can't wait to see when it's felted and all cute.