Tuesday, May 31, 2005
SP5 Questionaire
1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you? Yes. I confess to being a bit of a yarn snob. I prefer natural fibers. Soft wool, superwash, merino, alpaca. I have a skein of camel I love to pet. Any acrylics I own are usually wool blends for children knits.2. Do you spin? Crochet? Neither. I don't crochet but have a baby project in mind that requires some crochet finishing. So I'll try it on that project.
3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.) Yes. Dust mites.
4. How long have you been knitting? Two years.
5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? Yes. BGK Wish List
6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.) Gardenia Flowers. I bought a potted plant of it once but it did not survive. Tea roses also have a nice soft scent.7. Do you have a sweet tooth? Not usually. But I cannot turn down a chocolate truffle when I see it.
8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I dabble in sewing. And minor home improvements. I gave up on cross-stitch since holding the needle for long periods hurts my hands.9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I don't avidly listen to music. But on occassion I'll listen to New wave, Soft Rock. Country and Classical on rare occasion. No Hard Rock. My computer can handle MP3s. But I've never played one on it yet.10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand? Royal Blue and Reds. Summer, Fall and Winter colors. Bright green does not suit me.11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? Two young kids, no walking pets. Just goldfish.
12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know)
Health, Happiness, Well-Being and Contentment. Of course a bit of good fortune would be nice to round out the mix.
13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? Merino superwash of any quality brand. I've got mostly solid colors and am just starting to branch out to variegated yarns.14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? Bargain acrylic yarns. Yarn that knits with a great deal of drag just kills the knitting experience. I was disappointed with a Noro yarn I bought. A variegated silk yarn. I didn't like the knitted texture.15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s? Baby/Toddler knits. Interpreting foreign knit patterns.
16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? Cute (not run of the mill) Baby/Toddler knits.
17. What are you knitting right now? I started swatching a cute Japanese checkered set for my daughter. And I plan on joining in the Knitting.About.com lace shawl knit-along in a couple of weeks.
18. What do you think about ponchos? I'm not into them. Although I have knitted one for my daughter because it is a practical item for her wardrobe. I will not knit one just for the sake of following the trend.
19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Circulars. I have 2 sets of Boye and 1 set of Denise needles. I'm considering getting a bamboo set.
20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I travel with my knitting. And since I snapped a bamboo needle before, I prefer aluminum for natural fibers and plastic for cottons.
21. Are you a sock knitter? Not yet. But have that on my looong list of knitting to do. I'd probably start with a baby sock.22. How did you learn to knit? Grandma taught me the basics at a tender age. Which I soon forgot. I recently took up knitting again and learned mostly from books and animated videos on the internet.
23. How old is your oldest UFO? 1.5 years. A cable sweater.24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird? Totoro. I have the video. And Hello Kitty although I have not seen any short animations of it.25. What is your favorite holiday?
Christmas. Love the positive human spirit during that time of year.
26. Is there anything that you collect? Lately, Japanese baby/toddler patterns. Otherwise, I've been trying to weed out my eclectic collecition of clutter.27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? Vogue Knitting, KnitNet online magazine. Creative Knitting (U.S. version). I'm curious about Rebecca but haven't gotten my hands on one yet. Seems expensive. I unsubscribed from Knit-n-Style. I rarely found anything I would like to knit in the magazine.
28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on? A few books I'm saving up for are EZ's Opinionated Knitter, and Nicky Epstein's two knitting edge books.
BGK
Friday, May 27, 2005
Holding Pattern
Doctor found an injury on my other hand too. Must keep both hands splinted while they heal for the next two weeks. So my knitting waits patiently in my bag.
I'll be joining in Mousepatat's (Knitting.about.com) lace shawl knit-a-long after my hands heal. I can't wait. My first big lace project. I'll check out my stash tonight and see what goody to use.
Thought it would be useful to do a search on lace knitting tips:
http://members.shaw.ca/wool-garden/studio/tips.html
I came across a dozen Vogue
Knitting magazines for cheap. Yippy. More patterns to read.
BGK
BGK
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Translate This Knit
No knitting last night. My car got hit and my hand hurts. So I'll be taking a knitting break for a few days.
The bright side. I was able to get a few more lines of the Japanese pattern written down. And the knitting I had with me in the car survived.
This morning I started on a translation of this cute german finger puppet pattern. http://www.coatsgmbh.de/de/1/strboxlaura3.html . The on-line dictionaries still don't do a great job of it. But here is a wonderful German knitting abbreviations list that is proving to be very helpful.
http://www.grannys-garret.com/knit/how_to/german_to_english_abbr.txt .
Happy knitting,
BGK
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Pattern Challenge
I came across a few Japanese knitting books recently. The baby outfits are so cute. I can't read Japanese. But since the patterns are based mainly on charts it is not impossible to follow.
I have selected one pattern that would look darling on my little girl. My main problem was translating the four colors it uses. On-line dictionaries didn't help since I can't type the characters. Luckily a fellow knit blogger who knows the language kindly helped me translate the colors.
So I carry a copy of the pattern with me everywhere. And when I have a few minutes each day, I jot down a bit of the pattern in English. There are several charts: jacket front , jacket back, pants panels, matching hat, crochet edging and crochet flowers. Umm. Did I mention I don't know how to crochet? But am willing to give it a try.
My other obstacle is that Japanese patterns usually provide one size. So I might need to size up the pattern to fit. A fledgling knitter and a re-designer? I love a bit of a challenge.
BGK
Monday, May 16, 2005
A Fledgling Knitter Returns
I learned to knit at a tender age. And promptly lost interest. It was not until a couple of years ago that I rediscovered knitting. (Basically a self-taught knitter this time around.)
With the information available on the internet and so many fellow knitters a click away, learning new aspects of knitting is a lot less frustrating. Nearly every one of my knitting questions can be answered immediately at the About.Knitting.com forum. What a great resource.
As I gain more experience I see that I am going through common hurdles of a new knitter. Arm and shoulder aches, numerous froggings, dropped stitches, mysterious stitches appearing. And as my experience grows, those unfortunate happenings occur less and less.
Happy Knitting,
BGK
