After frogging the project, I slowly wound the the yarn on my yarn swift. Fortunately, my yarn swift behaved this time!

Next, I put the yarn in a tepid bath with some Kookaburra Wash.

It looks like spaghetti, doesn’t it? After five to ten minutes, I gently removed the yarn from the tub and placed it in a towel. Rolling the yarn in the towel, I gently squeeze the excess water from the yarn. Then I hang the yarn so that it can dry. Look at how much longer the yarn is now that we have relaxed the curls and kinks!

Now, I know that some people recommend a trip to the washing machine to experience a brief whirl on the spin cycle. While this may be very effective and an efficient method to removing the water from your rescued yarn, however, I have a front loading machine and I am not sure that it would cooperate well for this purpose. Someday, I may conduct an experiment on the efficacy of the front loading style of washing machines versus top loading machines for this purpose!

Ok, one more skein to go!

If you recall my earlier post, NYR: Resolve to Commit, I said the following:

* I will complete every pattern that I start–even if I have to start stashing cases of wine with my yarn to help me get through it!
* I will practice better stash management.
* Lastly, 2010 is going to be the year that I knit and learn about knitting with a fiery passion!

So far, I have done okay with my first goal: I have finished 5 or 6 projects for 2010 already, and I am very, very close to finishing another, my Lightweight Pullover designed by the wonderful Hannah Fettig. Unfortunately, my progress has stalled out on the sleeves…I’ve even had the last 5 days off from work and have knit only 1 row in that span of time! Yikes!

My third goal is also moving along pretty well. I have enhanced my knitting library with phenomenal texts by Clara Parkes, Nancie Wiseman, Montse Stanley, Robin Hansen, and others. Additionally, I enrolled in TKGA Master Hand Knitting Program I and cannot tell you how much I have learned in such a short span of time!

Goal #2 however, had received almost no attention until today. What an undertaking–take a look at Operation Take Control in progress:

It literally makes me a little lightheaded to look at these pics! I can’t believe how much yarn I have accumulated, but on a positive note, I have enough yarn of the same type and dye lot to make a few sweaters! Since storage was a major issue, I did purchase a small cabinet to tuck yarn into as needed. I decided to continue to use my vinyl boxes and basket for other yarns, notions, equipment and roving.
Tada!

Now, I am going to work on rescuing some old projects, frogging others and recycling yarn. If you have never recycled your yarn for new projects, take a look at this tutorial on the Knitter’s Review.

Edit:Pic inserted
It still needs to be blocked…

They are incredibly cozy to slink back into while providing a great deal of support. Hopefully, I will be able to get my hands on a set with the matching ottoman soon!

Woman’s Heart Pierced by Knitting Needle

Happy Knitting–and for goodness sakes, be safe!

When I was 8 years old, my grandmother’s cancer went from bad to worse. At the time, she was still living on St. Croix, an island which is part of the USVI, and had to travel to Puerto Rico for chemo and radiation treatments. At this stage in her fight with cancer, these trips were too much for her body. My Mom decided to move Grandma to Maine to live with us so that she could have better access to care and more support as she battled with the disease.
In the first few weeks after Grandma moved in with us, my Mom arranged for nurses from CHANS ( a home health agency) to visit my Grandma and to help us with her care. Day by day these nurses shuttled in and out; each of them possessed a wonderful, caring personality and were supportive not only to my Grandma, but to my entire family as well. One nurse in particular, Agnes, would come most days around noon to help my Grandma with preparing and eating her lunch. As my Grandma would eat, Agnes would sit next to my Grandma with string and a pair of sticks in her hands, quickly waving the sticks this way and that and wrapping the yarn around the sticks. I sat on the floor next to Agnes completely in awe of what she was doing. My eyes traced the movements of her hands, the sticks and the string. Aware that I was watching her, Agnes would continue to work with a smile on her face. We continued like this for weeks.
Finally, one day, while Agnes was manipulating the string around the sticks, she stopped and looked at me. I stared back at her without saying a word. Agnes asked me, “Do you want to try, honey?” With alacrity, I jumped up to my feet and took a few steps closer to her with my hands crossed behind my back. Quietly, I stared at her hands and listened as she explained every step. Then after a few minutes, she passed everything to me…my fingers awkwardly fumbled with the needles and yarn, but slowly stitches began to form, one after another, as Agnes and Grandma looked on. I was knitting and I loved it! Later that night I begged (and I threw in some tears too!) my mother to take me to Grand City so we could buy some yarn and needles! Each day that Agnes came over to our home, I had my needles and yarn ready so that I could learn more about knitting. We continued our “knit & learn” lunches for the next few months, until, sadly, my sweet Grandma lost her battle with cancer.
Of course, over the years, my interest in knitting has had its ebbs and flows…! It wasn’t until about 3 years ago that I started to seriously knit, project after project, and tried to learn as much about knitting as I possibly could. Occasionally, life happens, and I am forced to put the needles down for a little while…but I always manage to come back to knitting. I’ve even taken up spinning to learn a little bit more about the knitter’s medium, yarn. I am so grateful to that nurse from CHANS for not only her wonderful work with my darling Grandma, but also for turning me on to the great world of knitting! Thank you, Agnes!

I am not sure what I expected when I embarked on this journey. While Hannah Fettig’s Lightweight Pullover is such a sophisticated piece and I look forward to wearing her pattern, I have to admit, I was a little intimidated. There was a real possibility that I was not going to be able to pull this look off–not on the needles anyway–as I have a way of destroying pieces by employing poor finishing practices, or admittedly, none at all. So many projects with ugly, random strands of yarn poking out everywhere, lie at the bottom of the abyss that is my project basket, never to have their loose strands woven in, never to see the light of day. They have fallen into the land of “Never”

That is where Nancie Wiseman’s The Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques comes in. The book is very well written and perfectly organized by types of techniques. Topics range from different types of cast on and corresponding bind off techniques, approaches to seaming, making buttonholes, blocking techniques and so much more. Each technique comes with its own list of advantages and disadvantages of their use, so that the reader knows which technique is appropriate to use for their project and why. As a reference book, it is certainly worth its weight in gold, and I would highly recommend adding this text to your library, if you haven’t already. Additionally, you could enjoy Finishing Techniques as if it were a text book, armed with highlighter in one hand and sticky notes in the other. For me, Finishing Techniques has offered a tremendous amount of insight and knowledge as to why sometimes my knitting pieces work out and on the flip side, why they sometimes don’t work out.

Deeply proud of this project, I am so excited to wear it soon! There was one “tiny” snafu ( I could be in denial here about the size of the snafu): Unfortunately, I had to knit the cowl-style collar back and forth on my circular needles and then join in the round at the body because I don’t own US 6 needles that are small enough to accommodate the circumference of the collar. The end result is a visible seam line. Some people have mentioned that they like the sweater just the same, but a small part of me is bothered by the fact that the seam is showing. I am not sure what is to be done about that just yet…take a look and let me know what you think! Also, please pardon my appearance in this photo. I had just completed a 12 hour overnight shift at the hospital–but I was so excited about the sweater, I just had to hop on the blog before going to bed!

The next step in the process is to start working the sleeves!

Amazon.com Widgets

So this year, I made a commitment to spend more time knitting and spinning, to learn more about the craft, to finish my pieces, and to produce better FOs. Plunging into MHK 1, was one way to accomplish these goals.

Thus far, things are going well. The first thing that I learned is that I don’t know nearly as much as I thought I did! Which is great–because it means that I have so much to learn from this program. My swatches are benefiting from the lessons that I am picking up as well; already, I have learned several great new techniques through reading some great books and doing some research online. In addition, I am learning not only what to do to achieve a certain look, but I am learning why we do things a certain way, or why a particular technique may better serve a purpose than another. Perhaps the best lesson of all,I am learning to be more critical of my work so that I can produce the best swatch possible.

If you have considered doing this program, I strongly urge you to jump in–the water is fine and there are a number of great knitters who are either taking this program or have finished to help you along the way. The gals in the TKGA group on Ravelry are a great support network! I still have so much work left to do, so I am going to get back to it!