Which-Crafts?

okay, yeah I am feeling a bit smart today . . . I don’t know about any of you, but I like to have a put together “kit” for when I am knitting on the road. I have a zip shut bag for all those little notions and things that one generally needs for knitting. But its too big to pack into my perfect little travel sock knitting thingie (thanks Trope!). I don’t need a lot to knit socks, but I do like to keep all the little DP needles for sock knitting together, and I have been puzzling about a good way to keep them together, but compact and not flying all over the place, and v. important—sorted.

Most of the DPs I have, the numbers on them have worn off pretty quickly and I don’t relish measuring all those needles every time I want one more needle the same size as what I am using. I have been contemplating different methods, knitting a little felted slip-case was at the top of the list. But I was cleaning up in the craft-room when I got (imho) a great idea. To the right you can see a picture of my great idea. They are seed bead tubes. Each one seems to hold 3 sets or so of a single size of DPs (3 of 2s probably more of the smaller sizes.) Right now they 2s tube has 1 set of Britany Birch, 1 set of Chia-goo and 1 set of Crystal Palace. They are just long enough to hold the Crystal Palace ones and close securely. They are compact, labeled, easy to store and travel; pretty much everything I could want. I am pretty pleased with myself.

I have been wanting to have project progress bars here since before I got started.  A few weeks ago Eva at Needle Exchange was offering a wordpress progress bar plugin for anyone who was interested in Beta testing her plugin.

I am pleased to say that so far it works like a dream and now I have nifty progress bars on my side bar WOOT!

This Sunday folks of all genders are welcome to come and be social while working on their favorite portable handcraft. The doors will open around 1pm and will stay open until everyone goes home. Please bring some snack item to share as we all generally sit around and munch.

So I hope to see many of you crafting your brains out in my living room Sunday October 1. I will open the doors as usual at 1 and will probably usher people out after dinner sometime (its a school night after all.) Information for those of you who haven’t come before - we generally order in.

This will be the last crafting event of the year - and we will start up again at the end of February, I will be posting a calendar of next years events sometime soon.

RSVPs requested for planning purposes - I like to have enough space and chairs available.

SO RSVP FOLKS!!!

If you need directions please email me at whichyATwhich-crafts.com

p.s. I live in the Chi-waukee metro area about 1/2 way in between Chi’ and ‘waukee

I am working on my 2nd pair of socks here, I love the yarn (with only one complaint) and the color. The yarn is from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm in a beautiful variagated teal color (i am not sure if the photo does it justice), its really soft and nicely stretchy, but every there are some weird spots in the ply where one of the plys went off and did a dance for a while. But it feels great to knit with, and the socks are working up pretty fast now that I have settled on a style and pattern.

I am knitting them top down, with 66 sts on size 1 needles, with a slip stitch rib pattern, this is considerably less stitches and a smaller needle size than the previous pair I knitted I am hopeing that these fit better. Speaking of needles, I got a few pairs of Chia-goo DP needles and I am loving them, they are very flexible (which does mean that they will bend while you knit) with a reasonably pointy tip, they feel great in my hand and are short enough not to get in the way on the socks—I think they are 5″ long.

If I wasn’t so distracted by getting my replacement laptop up to speed and catching up on work I was supposed to be doing on it I am sure I would be much further along on the socks, but I am hoping that I can catch-up a bit this weekend. I really want to start on the two color socks soon.

I have also joined my first “‘along”! Its a Dye-Spin-Knit-along called Twisted Knitters. I am pretty excited, my mom and I have been talking about trying fiber/yarn dying for a few months now (she does all kinds of fabric dying already) and I have been reading the Twisted Sister Sock Workbook and getting all inspried. I have 2.5lbs Falkland wool and 2lbs BFL that I am deciding between for the event. I really want this to be “designed” or planned, which I have never done for a spinning project before. With this quantity of fiber I could really have a nice final project. So right now I am in the planning/pondering stage.

everyone but me might know this by now -

To help elimnate “ladders” when knitting on Double points, have perl stitches be the last on the needle and knit stitches the first on the next needle. At least for me this seems to make a huge difference.

mostly noted here so I don’t forget

So around here we don’t have a “ton” of spinning stores, but we do have more than none. I took my spinning classes at a lovely cozy store called Wool, Warp & Wheel in Richmond, Illinois (so close to wisconsin that you can smell the cheese).   This last weekend the excellent Heloptrope689 and her friend Katherine and I headed on a field-trip out to the other uh “local” store called The Fold, in Marengo.

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