This blog is moving…

Elsewhere.

Come on.  www.nicolehindes.com

I know you want to hear about that hot scarf up there…

I’ll be leaving soon…

Once I stop breaking things!

I’m trying to build a wordpress.org site, and move on to bigger and better things… but shoot if all this php, css, htp, cyberduck, etc stuff isn’t really, really confusing!

Anyway. That’s what I’ve been up to – and what you can expect to see sometime soon-ish. Once my life calms down. It’s August, which means that I have no life for a bit while I’m training and while my staffers are in training.

Oh wait. This is a knitting blog. Hmm. Here go:

I have been watching the Rainey Sisters start knitting this and in a really wise snap decision, I rushed out and got enough yarn to start my own.  I’ve knit even more than what you see there – I’m only 5 inches from the point where I get to do an armhole (how did I find the time to get that far, you ask?  I have no idea.) and I love this knit.  The errata makes things a bit confusing, but I’m liking it.

So yay.  Knitting:  Success.  Blogging:  Failure.  Life:  Busy.

I’m a Swatch-lete!

I was going to resist doing the knitting olympics this round… but I decided that a swatch a day should be doable (and easy enough to “work ahead” – which I guess is like I’m doping, but don’t tell!) and so… we’ll have a swatch a day… but probably only occasionally on this blog.  I’ll post them each day to the WTP blog, however.

Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash
Needles: US #8
Gauge: 5 st/inch after blocking
Pattern: Barred Knit Pattern
Stitch Count Repeat: Multiple of 6 stitches
Book: A Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Page: 152

Comments: easy and pretty fun.

Secrets and Obsessions

I finished a blanket!! And, by my deadline! (check out Rav for the details.)

I’d been wanting to make Babette (which is crocheted! ::gasp::) because it’s just so freaking pretty – and it reminded me of the blankets that my grandma used to have – but with a nice new modern feel. But I knew that if I made the blanket for myself, it would take years. Probably even longer than my log cabin did.

So I pitched the idea to my mom (the one with the mad crochet skillz) that we BOTH work on it and present it to my sister as a graduation present. She liked the idea and one awesome yarn-shopping-trip later, we were all set to go. I did crochet some of the squares, though my mom did more than her share. I had the awesome job of seaming, weaving in the ends and making the border. The fun stuff right?

It was worth it. My sister likes it, and as a friend said: It’ll be perfect for those movie nights.

Next up:

I started a new, mindless sock.  I lurve it.  The yarn came from a sock blank swap that we had over on Ravelry and the package totally made my day.

I know that I promised that I was going to design a sock and show you the whole project along the way… but there are a few things stopping me right now, only one of which is that I haven’t yet come up with a stitch pattern that I want to use.  The other thing?

I have an addiction.  An obsession really.

I’ve become a twilight fan.

Luckily, I only started the series 2 weeks ago so I haven’t had to wait that long for the final book to come out (tonight.  Midnight.  Eeek!) – but I’ve re-read all the three books and I can’t stop thinking about it.  I joined a Ravelry group and it’s more than 3/4 of my posts (out of the last 30 days) on Ravelry now.  At knitting night last night, I was yelled at more than once for checking out some of the latest posts on the topic.

As you can imagine, reading about 2,000 pages twice (and daydreaming about irresistible vampires) has seriously cut into the knitting time.

Anyway.  I was ashamed and hiding my addiction, but now I just don’t care – I fully acknowledge that I have an addiction.  Kalani reminded me that this is the first step.  This should all be over in a few days and then I’ll hopefully be back to my knitting self.

And Mom?  You still cannot read these books.  Edward is mine and I don’t want him in your head.  I’m just not comfortable with that. Really, I’m just trying to protect you from this terrible addiction.  Yea.  That’s it.  I’m just looking out for your best interest.

Popsicle! Limesicle!

I’m pleased to be able to announce one of my secret projects!

Yay!

Here we have Popsicle (Rav link), a new sock pattern that features a mirrored patterning across the foot. I designed this for Three Irish Girls yarn company and their Sock Yarnista sock club.

I’m incredibly proud of this design and the way it turned out. It’s pretty easy/simple… and the swooshing off the foot makes me hope that people will be able to avoid some second sock syndrome. Just doing my duty, you know…

One of the design challenges in this sock was that I had to figure out how to do the gusset decreases (since the instep had it’s own party going on, I didn’t want to crowd it with your typical gusset decreases).  I knew that as Cat Bordhi explains, I could place the decreases where ever I wanted in the gusset section, just so long as they existed…  I tried a few options and finally found a perfect solution… along the bottom of the heel.  You can see a photo here that illustrates this.

Um, so yay!  I love this pattern and I hope you do too!

Here are some specifics:

Popsicle, Designed by Nicole Hindes
Gauge: 30 sts over 4 inches (36 rows over 4 inches)
Yarn:  Three Irish Girls Kells Sport Merin
Needles: US 2 (But use what gets YOU gauge)
Download available: at the Three Irish Girls Website ($5.95)
The inspiration:  This sock is an homage to the summers of my childhood. It’s a fairly simple, top-down sock with a heel flap. The interesting element to keep you out of the heat is the way the pattern melts off the top of your foot like a popsicle during the dog days of summer.

My Holiday

What a great weekend! We’re a great, crazy bunch. Here’s how the weekend went:

I at some raspberries. Fresh from my mom’s bushes.

We played some cards and ate some yummy food.

We hung around and waited for the fireworks to start (there were 30 of us watching the fireworks).

They were bright.

And a little crazy.

And beautiful.

All these photos taken by me. On my honor. With help from this tutorial.

There were babies.

Adorable, very photogenic babies.

Such cute babies.

There was some intense cardboard boat building.

Some intense boat racing.

A huge crowd to cheer on the boaters.

We don’t actually know who the people in the real boats are. Apparently they thought racing cardboard boats was an oddity worth watching.

There were some prizes. My team won the titanic award. We literally went down in flames.

There was the charity auction. My sleep mask brought in $55. The bottle of Oliver wine that I donated at the last minute brought in $70! The total donation from the auction? $5,600!!!!

And because we’re not fun enough… we had a pinata too!

Whew. I’m exhausted. Click over to the flickr set for more photos.

My Favorite

If you’ll remember, today is my favorite holiday ever. Hopefully in a few days, I’ll give you some photographic proof of this holiday’s awesomeness in the way that my family celebrates it… but I have to remember to take photos. In the meantime, this holiday involves:

• a smattering of my 50 aunts and uncles (on one side)
• A selection of my 59 cousins (on one side) and 12 second cousins (I think that’s the term I want. Second and third always confuse me).
• Tons of food. Including beef from the cows my parents raise (with no chemicals or gross stuff)
• Raspberries. From my mom’s bushes. That means they’re free and all-I-can-pick.
• A boat regatta. Of the cardboard variety. Yup. We really do that.
• Swimming, boating and general frolicking in the best lake ever.

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a contest winner to announce!

Comment number 32 was….

Blogless Angela Noel! She’s been sent an email!

In other news… please everyone be safe with the big fire-exploding-making. Fireworks are not toys. They are fire. Just thought it was worth a review. Um. Yay!

Quickies! The Best part of life!

NOooo! This is a knitting blog. Silly.

I’ve started on the dishcloths. A few people suggested the colors that I ended up using – but ultimately, it was my mom who called (after reading that blog post – check it out, there’s a contest goin’ on) and told me that the bride’s maid (what a funny word linguistically… why did I never notice that before?) dresses were going to be brown with little pink accents. I like the combination, but there’s a fine line before one gets into neopolitan ice cream territory (which I’d like to avoid). And so I made the following dishcloths:

They’re not my favorite, but I suspect that’s because I’m not a huge fan of the color combos. Oh well. They’ll do.

I’ve also made another Velvet Oblivion. I make tons of these. So much so that I have a system for naming them. This one, for example is VO version 6.08 (month, year). They’re like my stand-by gift because they’re awesome, decently affordable (I can get 3 out of the ball of Touch Me) and SUPER quick since I’ve long since stopped knitting the furry border – a single round of double crochet just goes soooo fast. These are also like the ONE thing, IMO, that I’ve found as “acceptable use” of eyelash yarn.

It’s difficult to take a photo of yourself with a blindfold on. Here’s a few outakes.

I’ve made this version for a family auction that will occur over the holiday weekend. Benefits go to a great cause (you’ll learn about this later) and I’m sure that my auction item will bring in lots of dollars!

Yay!

And I’ve also made something for me!

($20 bucks says my mom leaves a comment asking for one/a collection)

I didn’t use a pattern for this. I was inspired by Annie’s (Ravelry), but after about 4 different attempts at knitting my own in the past few months, I had to give up on the knitted wire idea. Until… I went to a bead store and got some 28 Gauge silver wire. Tried again. Failed.

So then… I tried some crochet! Yay! It worked! Should I write up a “recipe” for this so you can make your own? Keep in mind that I don’t really know much about crochet… or writing crochet patterns (hence, the “recipe” idea).

In other news. It looks like texture wins for the upcoming sock design – for those of you who wanted lace or colorwork, keep in mind that this tutorial/design will definitely be adaptable for your own colorwork/lace – trust me – it’s just that in this case, the finished product will be texture. I’ve got some swatching ideas comin’ up… I’ll post an “intro” post and step one after the holiday.

H’okay. What kind of sock do you want?

(Check out my contest.)

It seems as though people are pretty evenly split with the whole “what should I design for you as a series of tutorials” with a lot of people being intrigued by the quilt-inspired scarf.. and socks.

Now… If I’m going to do socks, that’s going to be a big, long process because at the same time, I’m going to include excel tutorials for those wanting to write their own sock patterns.  Yea.  I’m probably too ambitious.  But what can you do?

So… since the sock will be a series of posts… that may infact stretch a few weeks, I think I’ll do the scarf along the way (I think I too am intrigued by this idea).

But first…

I need to know what kind of socks you want me to design.

So… leave a comment…

Do you want: Colorwork?  Lace?  Or textural?  Let me know and I’ll do some swatching over the holiday.

Secret Projects do not make friends

Or good blogging. (See contest below!)

Man. I have been totally absent lately. There are two big reasons for this. The first is that I’m working on lots of secret stuff. And I can’t do progress shots for various reasons. I’ve got a graduation gift for the sister, a blog reader, in the works. Another present for a friend who also reads this blog. (Actually, both of these can be viewed on Ravelry for those interested). Gifting. Reason number one for boring blog death.

Reason number two? Designing.

First… I’ve got this super, awesome fantastic sock pattern that I’m designing for the Three Irish Girls new and exciting sock club. It’s a really, really great design that I’m super proud of – inspired by some of Cat Bordhi’s ideas… with a twist, of course. Hahaha. That’s funny. Anyway, so that’s a secret for a few more weeks.

And then I’ve got 2 other designs mostly worked up. One is a great anthropologie inspired scarf, and another is a non-sock pattern requiring two skeins of sock yarn (because we all have tons of that around).

Reason number 3 for blog death? Lack of photos. I hate blogging without photographic content. I feel it’s boring. Here’s an arbitrary photo of silliness just to add some visual interest.

And then… Of course, there’s this big project that my knitting group and I are starting to think about… and of course that has to be a secret until we get all the kinks worked out! Oh. And lets not forget that I’m going to be test knitting for both Huan-Hua and Kalani! So many secrets!

I had to get your interest somehow. Photos work. That’s like design 101.

So what can I blog about? Well… I guess two things… and we’ll make it a contest just for fun. Winner gets a custom dyed sock blank in the colors you specify (if you so wish – I can also surprise you) and a copy of my BASKE mitten pattern and maybe a few other exciting things. How can you enter this contest? In the comments below, do one of the two options (or both, in two separate comments for double the chances)!

1. I’ve got to make some dishcloths for a wedding shower present. There is no dishcloth like the Ballband pattern and so that’s going to be the pattern I use (unless you can convince me otherwise). I have no idea about colors though. I feel like I did the rainbow thing really well last year… Name a few color combinations that would work well together.
2. I think it’s about time for a free pattern. But what should it be? Pick one of the following options and explain why you want that one: A). A sock pattern. B). An argyle hat pattern. or C). a quilting inspired scarf pattern. In any case, I’ll document for ya’ll step by step what the design process is so that you can follow along and maybe learn a few things (keep in mind I’m no designing expert – but I do think I’m getting better).

Ps. How cool is this?

Pps.  I’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner on my favorite day of the year.