in which we cut our losses
July 1, 2012
Pomatomus sock that was never going to get finished + vintage button = cozy Blackberry sleeve!
Maybe this will keep me from pocket dialing Bob all the time, which I did three times in one night while on a trip to Toledo (racking up both long distance AND roaming charges; yikes!). If nothing else, it will single me out as the nerdiest at that moment during every restaurant meal when all the people at the table disengage from conversation and start beeping and booping on their devices.
Specs:
Pattern: Pomatomus socks by Cookie A., from Knitty
Yarn: Trekking XXL, colour 495
Mods: Step one, start the sock, fall in love with the pattern as you knit really quickly to the ankle, get distracted by some other shiny thing and let it sit in a bag somewhere for seven years.
Step two, unravel to the length of your phone, divide the stitches onto two needles and close the bottom with a three-needle bind off.
Step three, pick up a couple of stitches at the cast on edge, knit a wee flap, stick a buttonhole in it. Sew on a button. Slide your phone in, button it shut, congratulate yourself and sally forth, free of expensive and annoying pocket dials.
Posted by jodi on July 1, 2012 at 10.21am
235 squares*
June 7, 2012
are going to be somebody someday.
These little squares have been my go-to travel project for a while now, worked in queues, coffee shops, waiting rooms, at bus stops. For a while I was telling people they were going to be a blanket someday, but oddly people didn’t think my joke about the blanket being big enough to cover my lap by the time I get to the nursing home was very funny. So instead these are going to become cushions for my studio chesterfield. For someday when I have a chesterfield and a renovated attic studio to put it in (I know which dormer window is going to house the chesterfield, so that’s a start). There are enough squares now to make two 20×20 inch square cushions if they have plain fabric on the back.
*since this photo was taken there are more like 242 or so squares. Can’t. Stop. Making. Squares.
Posted by jodi on June 7, 2012 at 7.13pm
durrow cable instructions in written form
January 6, 2012
Working Out Kinks and Fingering Yarn is an online resource for visually impaired knitters. They’ve got a project underway to translate complex charted patterns into written instructions more easily read by those who find it difficult to follow charts. The sleeve cable chart for my Durrow sweater pattern is one of the ones they’ve kindly translated thus far. You can find it, along with a few other translated patterns, at this link.
Links!
Durrow pattern
Durrow cable written instructions (pdf link)
If you’re thinking about starting Durrow, please be aware that there are some problems with the yoke decreases resulting in a neck opening that is much too large (mostly due to my inexperience as a designer at the time). I am planning on knitting another Durrow myself and will work on rewriting that portion of the pattern so that it fits a little better, but in the meantime here are a few useful links to modifications that other knitters have made to the neckline:
1. Ken’s Durrow
3. mollita’s Durrow (rav link)
Posted by jodi on January 6, 2012 at 8.11am
stripes
January 3, 2012
Every once in a while a project does still get finished around here. This shawl’s been off the needles for a year, lying both unreported and unworn on a shelf. It’s a beautiful thing and I love to look at it, but I haven’t quite figured out how to wear it yet.
And of course I only have photos of the back of the thing, where the edges of the garter stitch stripes cross each other and end up looking like double stripes instead. But I like this side, and I understand this thing was one of those “it” patterns for a while so I’m sure everybody knows what it looks like on the other side already.
Specs: the pattern is Veera Välimäki’s Stripe Study Shawl (Rav link). It was quick and fun if perhaps a little boring towards the end with the long, long rows, but I would make it again provided I can ever figure out how to wear the first one.
The green yarn is something really wonderful but the ball band has gone missing in the studio; it was a gift from Hockey Mom when we visited last. The black yarn is remnants of some commercial sock yarn or other that’s been sitting around here for years with no label. There is a plan afoot to rid myself of the bins of sock yarn and this shawl is just the beginning.
Posted by jodi on January 3, 2012 at 7.36am
coming soon
November 7, 2011
Gatsby Girl in blue! Here I am trying it on in the studio right away after getting the buttons on:
First published in Interweave Knits Fall 2006, which is now out of print. In preparation for self publishing the pattern as a downloadable pdf, I’ve made myself a new sample sweater (one that fits me, AND I get to keep it). With the generous modeling help of the lovely Nicole, I managed to take the sweater out for a photoshoot during a brief spell of mild, sunny weather. The pattern should be ready in the next week or so: stay tuned!
Posted by jodi on November 7, 2011 at 8.27pm
unfortunate
August 7, 2011
Opening up your bag and finding one of your sock needles broken, well that’s never good. But finding TWO of your sock needles broken, well, THAT JUST AIN’T RIGHT.
Posted by jodi on August 7, 2011 at 12.09pm
rosaleen’s birthday socks
August 1, 2011
Yarn: Trekking XXL colourway #108, less than one skein.
Pattern: bog standard top down with picot hem, afterthought heel and wedge toe. The simple lace pattern was made up on the fly. I’ll write up a pattern soon but I’m working on an anklet version first, in a simpler colourway so the lace doesn’t get buried so much.
Rosaleen has been waiting patiently for these socks since December, and received them just in time for her 85th birthday and a heat wave that’ll keep her from even being able to try them on for at least a month. Whoops.
Here’s me and Rosaleen at her birthday party last week:
Posted by jodi on August 1, 2011 at 3.34pm
green (sneak peeks)
June 26, 2011
1. Stripe study shawl in green and black. Finished back in early May but still not properly photographed on account of indecision over whether it wants blocking first or whether that’s a waste of time with superwash sock wool. Clearly the indecision has gone on long enough by this time that the answer is: block it. Okay then.
2. Pair the second of loose gauge sock yarn legwarmers, with sporty stripes because we watch a lot of football in our household (American friends, that’s soccer to you lot). “Finished”, but not modeled yet because one needs seaming. So. . . not really finished. But! Close!
Currently on the needles is this, sort of; or rather, a since-ripped and restarted slightly smaller version of this:
Which was going to be, as part of the ongoing effort to rid this house of unused sock yarn without making any of it into socks, legwarmers pair the third. But the cuff made it clear it didn’t want to be just another legwarmer, it wanted to be a cuff on a thigh high green sock (pretty much going against the “no socks” thing, but whatever). One mustn’t go buying more yarn of the exact sort one is trying to use up and be done with (also, the whole thing with knitting legwarmers instead of socks is because I’m tired of all the small-gauge sock knitting yielding lovely socks I put my foot through on the fourth wearing), so this sock has a sporty yet lacy-looking ribbed cuff knit at a loose gauge in sock yarn, and a main body of worsted weight yarn, which knits up much faster! and, more importantly, was available in my studio in a good amount of non-earmarked skeins of the exact colour I wanted. Please don’t say this is going to be disastrous and end in tears, because here at jodi’s weblog we’re already well aware of that and are determined to soldier on regardless. ALSO. Since we like to keep things exciting around here: the green yarn is Knit Picks merino. And these socks will have their FEET knit out of that (I know, okay? I KNOW). Yes, I have a darning egg. And I know how to use it, too.
Posted by jodi on June 26, 2011 at 5.03pm
red on red
May 29, 2011
For Project Spectrum: cozy red legwarmers, completed just as the weather got warm, as is the custom around here (I haven’t even shown y’all the shawl I finished 3 weeks ago, because I’ve got all summer to block it, now). These are knit in a 2×2 rib with two different red sock yarns that change halfway down. So I can wear them two days in a row with my boots and nobody will know!
Probably they won’t actually be worn like this, but rather will be flipped the same way so as to be matchy.
Whoops, I didn’t mean to show off quite than much leg (but hey, check out my strong new thigh! Everybody loves a bonus bare thigh shot, like that time last fall when Sergio Ramos went out on the pitch in the wrong shorts and then had to change them on the sideline. . . oh, oh yeah).
This is finished object #2 in my ongoing project of getting rid of all the sock yarn with which I will never knit socks (and freeing up a whole lot of studio storage in the process); finished object #1 was that shawl you haven’t seen yet (soon!). The semi-solid dark red is something I bought from Mama E years ago, ball band is long disappeared but it feels like merino, soft and a bit pilly. The red/black is “newspaper” from Spritely Goods, which I think might be a discontinued colour. I’d originally planned knee socks with it, and had one sock completed before burning out on the second. These legwarmers, while goofy, will probably see more wear than the socks ever would have.
Come winter, depending on what sort of new home the Brawlers find for skate practices, the legwarmers may also be worn rather frequently like this:
Or rather, similar to this only with knee pads. Safety is sexy, yo.
Bonus bare thigh shot! Not quite as much bum as our broadcast showed, but still, I’ll take it.
Posted by jodi on May 29, 2011 at 4.12pm
red blanket squares
May 23, 2011
Posted by jodi on May 23, 2011 at 3.19pm
