Cool stuff at KP and Amazon

I finished my Vest-uary vest yesterday, so this weekend I’m going to take some pictures and do a nice FO post. In the meantime, here are some exciting material goods I’ve been drooling over.

• Knit Picks has just started selling a $20 ball winder! Wow. I think the best deal on new ball winders used to be a free shipping coupon at Joann.com when they were on sale for around $25–that’s how I got mine, and it seemed like a pretty good deal at the time. They’re selling all kinds of other house-brand accessories, now, too, but the ball winder was the thing that stood out the most. I don’t see a swift (yet), but you can make one pretty easily from Tinker Toys or coat hangers. Personally, if I had to choose, I guess I’d rather have my swift than my ball winder, but in reality the pair has been pretty indispensable. I no longer fear the hank.
• I bought the Knit Picks Options needle set a while back and love love love it (the flexible cables! the shiny nickel coating!) but I have been holding off on getting rid of my other needles because of the Options set’s one fatal flaw (IMHO): its lack of 16-inch cables in the KP set. Then I discovered KnitPro, the European version of KP needles, and their superior product line. You can buy their stuff via European sites like Get Knitted or P2tog UK. I guess the needles are all made by the same manufacturer, as they’re totally interchangeable, but I’m not sure which came first; did Knit Picks invent the interchangeable sets and allow KnitPro to sell the same products in Europe? Or did Knit Picks find the KnitPro products for sale and take on the exclusive licensing rights in the US? Or are they both owned by some sort of shadowy multinational umbrella corporation that specializes in interchangeable knitting needles? I may never know. But in any case, I am now ready to let go of my Denise and Boye sets (leave me a comment if you’re interested in buying them.) Here are some accessories you can get from KnitPro retailers that you can’t get from KnitPicks:
  • the elusive hat-length cable I’ve been longing for! Yes, I could knit my hats Magic Loop with the 40-inch cables, but I really don’t like to. The regular needle tips are too long to create a 16-inch cable–you need to buy a set of shorter needle tips for a real 16-inch cable–but if you buy the short cable and use it on the regular needle tips, it comes out to about 19 inches, which is still a very good length for knitting adult-sized hats.
  • A wider range of interchangeable needle tip sizes: specifically, 3.00 mm (US 2), 3.25 mm (US 3), 7.00 mm (US 10.75, which I’ve never heard of elsewhere) and 15.00 mm (US 19). So you can make the set go down as small as the Boye needles. I didn’t get any of these since I don’t knit often in those sizes, and I already have fixed US 2 and US 3 circs I can use if I need them.
  • Cable connectors, which I guess would be useful if you were knitting a gigantic afghan or something–otherwise, the 60-inch cable seems fine for most large projects.
  • There’s more about all this stuff in the Ravelry forums here. I hope the Knit Picks folks aren’t upset by all these people running out and buying the spare parts internationally; with the addition of a few KnitPro components, the Knit Picks Options needles become the #1 set on the market, in my opinion. (There’s been positive buzz about Addi Clicks
    and KA Switch needles lately, too, but they’re substantially more expensive.)
• I have been saving up my Amazon credit card rewards gift certificates for a while, so I used them all up and placed a big order:
  • The Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Rules!, a deceptively slim little volume that I keep getting from the library for its good basic advice about hats and socks and scarves–I decided it would be good to have it on hand permanently for reference
  • In Sheep’s Clothing: A Handspinner’s Guide to Wool: a guide to the properties of various wool breeds, from a spinner’s perspective. Not sure how much I’ll end up using this one overall, but I’d like to read up on the properties of some wools I’ve been holding off on spinning, like CVM and Icelandic, and the Madison public library didn’t have this book.
  • Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching: OK, the library does have this one, but it’s on hold for the next 6 months or so and it would be nice to be able to cut out the patterns if I decide to. This has gotten really good reviews on Amazon and the previews on Heather Ross’s blog make it look really nice–based on the line drawings, I would totally make every single bag and article of clothing in this book.
  • Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer: A Golden Treasury of Classic Treats, Jane Brocket’s latest, and also not in my local public library system. Reading kids’ books and daydreaming about the luscious foods depicted therein has always been a favorite pastime–and for some reason, especially so when it comes to tiny foods eaten by mice: the descriptions of feasts in Redwall or paintings of tiny tea parties in the Brambly Hedge books always seemed immensely appealing.
  • And last but not least, a Singer spool knitting machine/i-cord mill–you know, the little gadgets where you turn a crank and i-cord comes out like magic. Maybe like magic performed by a not very skilled magician who does his tricks really slowly and gets his sleeves caught on his props… but Techknitter recommends it as the best way to make lots of i-cord, and she seems to know just about everything about knitting.

Another reason to love porcupines

Because they are absolutely adorable when they get the hiccups! while eating bananas! with their tiny! wee! paws! Maybe I should add a link to this video to the fun porcupine facts in the Prickle pattern.

owls!

Lo, owls!

Pattern: o w l s, by Kate Davies (rav project link here)
Size made: Small
Yarn used: Beaverslide McTaggart Tweed, Big Sky Blue, about 3.25 skeins (just under 700 yards)
Needles used: US 10/6.0 mm for most of the sweater; used a US 8/5.0 mm needle for the neck ribbing because I didn’t have the appropriate length US 10 needle handy; bound off with a US 10.5/6.5 mm needle.
Date started: January 26, 2009
Date completed: January 30, 2009
Mods: I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t do the last set of increases soon enough, so the sleeves don’t slope exactly as written.

Knit to about 16 inches before starting short rows. I messed up the stitch marker placement and so the short rows might start/end in bizarre places. This weirdness carried into the yoke decreases, so I couldn’t follow the directions exactly and had to fudge it a bit, but it’s not noticeable.

Notes:

• Knit the sleeves first, two at a time, using Magic Loop. Finished sleeves in two days (it took about 1 skein for the two sleeves).
• I used some buttons and some little glass flower beads (this type) for the owl eyes. WOW, were there ever a lot of buttons to sew on for this sweater. I tried to make each owl different (at least from its immediate neighbors), picking different eye buttons or sewing the thread through the holes in different patterns.
• The Beaverslide is really soft, warm, and nice, but the surface texture is pretty uneven, so the stitch definition isn’t as good as I would have expected. It has sort of a light, spongy consistency to it, with very little drape. It works better for more structured pieces, I think; instead of skimming over lumps and bumps on the body, it tends to kind of bunch up and sit there in unflattering creases. I’m not sure what to make with the remaining 580 yards in my stash.
• The yarn also would probably do better knit at a slightly tighter gauge, though this would make it even less drapey. The stockinette looked a little loose, although it did bloom and fill out a bit on blocking.
• The shaping is interesting–you do waist shaping only in the back, along two dart lines, rather than in the front and back or on the sides. The upper back is kind of baggy on me–not sure if this is a result of putting all the curves into the back of the sweater or if it just doesn’t fit my proportions.
• The sweater was such an instant gratification project. I think people overestimate how much work a bulky-weight sweater project is–this contained far fewer stitches than a pair of socks, or possibly even a single sock, in fingering weight, and it’s about 90% stockinette stitch in the round.
• I have gotten a lot of random compliments on this sweater, mostly starting out with a cry of “oh, my God, they’re owls!” as the cable pattern comes into focus.
• Bottom line, I really love this sweater. It nicely fits a niche in my wardrobe previously filled only by store-bought sweaters: sturdy worsted weight long-sleeved pullover. I have several other handknit pullovers, but they tend to be either made of soft and delicate materials–not the kind of thing you’d wear for washing dishes or taking out the trash–or lighter or heavier weight. The short rows shape the neck nicely so it doesn’t ride up and get all chokey in the front (a big problem with my Leaf Lace pullover). And the fitted sleeves may not be as pretty as bell sleeves, but they’re much more wearable (they don’t flop around and get in the way, or let in cold air) so I prefer them to the sleeves of my Phyllo Yoked Pullover or my Hourglass Pullover.

Closeup of back o w l s where you can see their cute little eyes and the somewhat uneven yarn texture:

You can kind of see the upper back bagginess in this photo:

The Beaverslide holds a blocking beautifully. Those creases just above the front ribbing got put into the sweater during its final blocking and haven’t come out despite lots of wear. I haven’t re-blocked it to fix it yet.

I’ve been really busy with work and other random distractions like the car stuff the past couple of weeks, but I have gotten a little knitting in. I’m trying to knit a vest for the Vest-uary knitalong on Ravelry. I’m designing it myself, in a beautiful dark gray color of Cascade Eco Wool, one of my favorite yarns. The front is a very dense slip-stitch pattern, so it’s taking ages–I’m not sure I’ll finish in time. But I’m going to go and work on it a bit and watch the rest of Hell’s Kitchen. (And about that show, specifically the Feb 19 episode. Why are these supposed food lovers such utter and total babies about what they put in their mouths? Barfing because you’re asked to eat some beef liver? Really? Srsly? What kind of chef are you? That’s good stuff.)

And my beloved Bird in Hand mittens seem to be gone for good and I’m very sad about it. I think they fell out of my pocket when I was loading groceries in a parking lot and someone swiped them. I called the lost and found twice and posted on craigslist with no luck. So I have to finish this vest and make myself some new mittens to keep my hands warm. I’m wearing my Selbuvotter:

which are very beautiful, but they’re a bit too big for me.

It’s balls of ice cream covered in flour

OK, it’s 10 PM and I still have hours of work left to go, I can’t find my FAVORITE Bird in Hand mittens, and I missed my weekly knitting night at the wine store tonight because I was busy sorting through a bunch of messy files, but this fake Trader Joe’s ad totally cheered me up. Hahaha, parsnip chips.

Also, I went to see Nancy Bushat the Madison Knitters’ Guild meeting on Monday. It was very cool. She mainly talked about her new book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, showing a slideshow of photos of Tallinn and Hapsaalu, photos of shawls and lace knitters from Estonia past and present, and talking a bit about how she got into all the Estonian stuff to begin with (while researching an Estonian sock pattern for her book Folk Socks. Folk Knitting in Estonia ensued–this is really an excellent book, by the way–and now the lace book.)

She brought a bunch of sample shawls from the book, and they were beautiful. It was a little disappointing, though, because she asked us not to touch them, but some of them, like the Greta Garbo shawl, were lying in a bunched-up pile on the table so we couldn’t see the lace patterns.

(Did you know that there’s a theory that nupps are popular in Estonian lace because shawls were sold by weight? And that the hundreds of stitches for the edgings on those lace shawls were knit on straight needles, all bunched up together? As Nancy Bush mentioned in her Knitting Daily interview, the traditional way of making the shawls was to knit the whole edging in one crazy long piece, bind it off, and then sew it onto the body of the shawl, and the old Estonian ladies would look very troubled when explaining, with furrowed brow, that some people would pick up stitches to knit the edging but this was Not Proper At All.)

I also signed up to see the Yarn Harlot when she comes to Madison in March, and bought the reissue of the German stitch dictionary Omas Strickgeheimnisse from Susan’s Fiber Shop, one of the vendors at the Guild meeting. (I had been interested in this book since seeing Raveler Saccade’s Red Skies at Night scarf pattern.) All in all, a good time.

Now, back to work. At least I have some freeze-dried mangosteens from Trader Joe’s to snack on.

oh noes!

The lady across the street backed her car into the side of ours this morning! At least our car still runs, but I really hate having to deal with car insurance stuff. Grr.

(Owls tomorrow.)

The Survivalist’s Guide to Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! Still stuck for gift ideas for that special someone in your life? Here are a few suggestions for romantic gift books selected from the oeuvre of acclaimed survivalist Ragnar Benson.

Mantrapping. From the Amazon.com product description: “This is the first book ever published to explain how to capture that most dangerous animal: man. Based on Ragnar’s own mantrapping experiences while on special assignments in Asia, Africa, North and South America and Cuba, this gut-wrenching book covers such mantraps as the Malaysian Hawk, the Andes Mountain Trail Trap, the Sheepeater’s Rock Fall and the Cuban Water Trap. To know how to trap your enemy is to know how to avoid being trapped yourself.”

Homemade Grenade Launchers: Constructing The Ultimate Hobby Weapon. Amazon.com reviewer “A Customer” raves: “I have read this book it is one of the best books I have ever read. Ragnar Benson [the author]is my favorite author”. High praise indeed.

The Greatest Explosions in History. This would make an excellent gift set with the more DIY-oriented title New And Improved C-4: Better-Than-Ever Recipes For Half The Money And Double The Fun.

An oleo

My o w l s sweater is finished and the bajillion owl eyes sewn on–it’s blocking now and I hope to have some photos soon so I can join the parliament.

Aside from that–wow, this weekend has gone by quickly, between watching entirely too much Kitchen Nightmares and catching up on errands.

Here are some interesting links I came across recently:

Did you hear that various areas of Italy have banned all foreign food? (Lucca, Lombardia, and Milano as far as I can tell.) Completely insane.

Here on Flickr is a free version of the Spinner’s Control Card. Cool! It would take a bit of work to make it as sturdy as the fancy plastic card, but it’s certainly more economical.

I really want to make this Monk’s Bag with the Full Moon Forest bunny toile fabric I’ve been hoarding.

The Berroco Spring/Summer 2009 previews are up. My favorites are Flower Child and Pucker, although it’s unlikely I’ll knit either one anytime soon.

The Knit Kit looks like a pretty awesome little gadget.