Adventures in Knitting

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-21T19:56:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends! I'm off to visit my mom in DC, but of course I'll be back 0n Friday.

Knitting ... still working on the shawl, the crazy socks from Knitter's magazine and let's not forget that I just took a fun drop spinning class. Unfortunately, I can't seem to even out my yarn (sigh), but I suppose it comes with time. Craziness ...

Jim has, of course, started decorating for Christmas, but I am not going to be helping other than physical labor and reaching tall places. Little Liza visited last night, and she's talking all the time. I can't image where she gets that from ...

Anyway, Happy Holidays! I really need to get some pictures up here ...

New Class!

2006-08-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

We've started our sweaters! We're doing a top down set-in sleeve. I've even got two students doing cardigans! Hopefully we'll be able to keep up this time, unlike that crazy Shetland Shawl class. I don't know what I was thinking.

We've start our back, with a new cast-on and some crazy short rows at the shoulders. Then it's smooth sailing until we get to the armholes. Next weekend, we'll start the neck line. There are lots of variations here, but I'm only going to teach a crew neck. That just seems easiest without getting bogged down in a lot of shaping.

Third weekend we do the armholes, fourth the shoulder caps for the sleeves, along with sleeve shaping, and finally we'll cover finishing in the last class.

Coming soon will be a baby blanket with 4 shaped sections in garter stitch (for beginners) another set of glove and sock classes, and maybe a surprise lace class.

I am SUCH a bad man!

2006-07-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

I have been neglecting this thing for too long! So to catch up, I'm in the middle of a Design Your Own Shetland Shawl class (I'll post pictures), and I'm getting ready for a top down t-shirt class (with a saddle sleeve and lace in cotton), still working on the Tabi Socks, and I have a lace idea rolling around in the back of my head. On top of all that, I've got an idea for a seaman's (not semen) scarf. So much yarn, and so little time.

To keep me even more busy, I have a very full house. 7 people staying here tonight! Me and Jim, of course. Then there's Connie and Julie, from Alabama, and Bart who's from Wichita Falls. They're here helping Jim with his show. Actually, Connie and Julie are doing their own show, but they've thrown their hat in with Jim. Bart's working for Jim, at least most of the show. So tonight, Caroline and Juli (that's 2 Juli(e)s!!!!), came in to spend the night so they could go to the airport tomorrow. Juli's getting her PhD in bugs, and is going to Panama to do some research, and Caroline is going with her. At any rate, full house is an understatement. Oi veh.

Anyway, I'll keep ya'll posted on future knitting projects! And I really need to start posting pictures ...

Knitting Olympics

2006-02-16T20:41:00.000-06:00

I've started my project for the Knitting Olympics! I'm almost to the heel of the socks in the Winter issue of Interweave Knits This is my project for the Olympics, so I hope it comes out well. And what's more, I'm going to be teaching other people how to do these next month. Of course, I'm knitting as a member of Team Simpatico.

Should be lots of fun!

My Tom Thumb Sweater class is in full swing, too. The ladies are doing a great job, and I look forward to showing them finishing next weekend. We'll do mattress stitch, the three-needle bind off and, of course, sewing in ends properly. Then, I'll cut them loose on a sweater of their very own!

I'm thinking of doing a fair-isle mitten or tam in the next couple of months, and maybe an intarsia project, too! I want to repeat the sweater class, but teach how to convert the flat pattern to a round one. I also would like to do a small Aran, to teach cables and charted patterns.

If you have any class ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Success #1

2006-02-07T22:31:00.000-06:00

I had my first bit of excitement today. I now have a kinda working program! I can enter a two color stitch pattern, and save it to disk and restore it. Exciting, huh!

I've decided to start off doing a stitch designer. In particular, I'm starting with color patterns. Now, I've noticed that the stitch designers I've used (you know who you are) use square stitches!

If you look closely at your knitting, you'll see that you stitches aren't square, so designing with square stitches is just asking for trouble.

My local yarn shop has suggested a Texas-themed Fair Isle sweater. I think it's going to be a lot of fun to design, and of course I'll keep y'all posted on my progress.

Talk at ya soon.

Starting Up

2006-02-03T10:51:00.000-06:00

I'm a guy, and I'm a knitter. What's more, I'm teaching other people to knit, at my local yarn shop. That's at Simpatico Yarns. Come visit us in Bedford, TX! I'm teaching a sweater class for beginning knitters, and also a glove class.

What really chaps me at the moment is the state of knitting software. I've used a couple of programs and have been disappointed with their user friendliness. So, I'm going to do better. And I'm going to use the teaching to help pay for this.

My day job is as a software engineer doing systems software. That means I don't have much experience in user interfaces, but I still think I can do better than these crazy programs I've found.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing.

Stay tuned