gleek.net

need some yarn?

gleek — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:38:09 +0000

in an effort to downsize the stash because we are reorganizing the house, i am offering up some yarn from my stash for free + shipping! yep, you only pay shipping,

if you’re interested, head on over to the 2010 destash page and see what’s left.

happy new year!

gleek — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:25:26 +0000

wow, it’s really 2010! it’s the future, right? i find it funny looking back on all the old movies and how we all thought there’d be flying cars and spaceflight for everyone in 2010. i guess technology is not advanced as we thought it would be. regardless, i think that 2010 is going to be a great year. 2009 was fun but i felt like it ended a little on a down note. i kept meaning to update here more often but a lot of things got in my way. but here i am! let’s quickly recap my knits in 2009, all ten of them.

1. 365.199 (365.015:2009) – darkside cowl complete, 2. koigu knee highs (contrasting heels, toes, & top ribbing), 3. zig-zag cowl, 4. ishbel complete!, 5. 365.339 (365.155:2009) – lido west wrap, 6. milkweed shawl, 7. muir on melani, 8. muir on melani, 9. monday morning cardigan, 10. 365.342:2009 (#526) – monday morning cardigan, 11. new mittens for C, 12. sideways grande cloche (side detail)

it’s not many but i feel like the quality of my knits got much better this year, especially that wedding shawl i knit for my friend, melani. i think that’s the prettiest thing that i have ever made! i got a burst of energy during december and finished up two quick knits: one for me and one for C.

new mittens for C were the obvious winter knit (ravelry). she keeps growing and i have to keep knitting her new mittens and hats! a hat is next, obviously.

well, a hat for myself first before a hat for C! i needed something quick to tide me over before knitting another sweater. i chose the sideways grande cloche (ravelry) and quickly grabbed something from the stash for it. it worked out beautifully! i used the same mods that jess/frecklegirl made on hers so that i could do a braid on the side. it was fiddly but i love it!

and if all of that recap of my knitting isn’t enough, here’s the biggest news. i’m pregnant! 13 weeks today and due on july 9th, 2010. i don’t know the sex yet but will find out before the end of february (hopefully if the baby cooperates.) here’s our latest photo of baby #2. unfortunately i haven’t come up with a nickname yet, though i’m strongly considering “walnut”. heh.

hope your new year has started out well!

monday morning cardigan

gleek — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:50:51 +0000

i know i’ve been silent here for some time. it’s been a really rough month around here but i feel like the closer to the holidays we get the better i’m feeling. it’ll be nice to have some time off between christmas and new year’s. while taking it easy the past couple of weeks, i’ve managed to finish a big project! my monday morning cardigan!

all the details are on ravelry, of course.

i found the pattern really enjoyable to knit! this was also the first time i had ever knit a garment from the bottom up, instead of top down. thankfully all of the sizing worked out really well and i was able to make changes in length based on my gauge.

my favorite parts of the cardigan are the side shaping and the way the slipped stitches travel up the back.

laura did a wonderful job with this pattern! it has infinite wearability!

now i’m thinking about what cardigan to knit next. i think that i’ll be working on a coraline, actually. i even have the yarn for it! in the meantime, i’m still working on a vest, a pair of socks for KP, and a new hat. i’ll try to keep you updated on them. i promise.

we’re on vacation

gleek — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:31:52 +0000

this week we’re in charleston, south carolina for a week on vacation! it’s been very restful and fun so far. lots of naps and trips to the beach. THE BEACH! IN NOVEMBER! amazing, right? even the water temperature is pretty nice seeing as tropical storm ida has brought up some warm water to us.

i’m staying offline as much as possible except for updating flickr everyday and checking in on twitter every now and again. i’m getting a lot of knitting done which is exactly what i wanted to be doing on this trip. my parents are here too and they are taking the time to watch C and entertain her so that i get some time off from being the full-time mommy. it’s been super nice.

we’ve also been going out almost every single day and touring what charleston has to offer. yesterday, we went to middleton place plantation and walked the grounds. i bet that place is just gorgeous in the spring! even in november it’s beautiful.

we hope to make it to the aquarium tomorrow since the weather is going to go south on us.

also, if you clicked through from the RSS feed, then you’ll see that gleek.net is redesigned! i moved over to wordpress from movabletype last week. now it’s so much easier for me to write posts and keep the site updated. i plan on writing a post detailing how i made the switch. hopefully all the links on the site work and you won’t have to update any of your bookmarks, RSS feeds, or links because i worked out how to redirect them all. let me know if you see any problems.

yes, i went to rhinebeck

gleek — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:08:52 +0000

you know, i swear that i’m going to do everything in my power to go to rhinebeck (NY sheep and wool festival) every year. it was the most fun i’ve had in ages! and i was kid free too. good times.

i met a lot of people and put my camera to go use taking photos of 95% of the people that i did meet.

1. amy (stashknitrepeat), 2. jess (yarnmonster), 3. tina (misplacedpom), 4. jess and sarah, 5. anne-marie (annie knits!), 6. casey (ravelry code monkey), 7. casey (ravelry code monkey), 8. M-H and pam, 9. caro (splityarn) and pam (flintknits), 10. ysolda, be nice!!, 11. wannett (aka, nettie, lulu c.), 12. kaitlyn (greatwhitewong), 13. chawne (cauchy09), 14. heather (addknitter), 15. maryse (bagntrash, monsteryarn), 16. photographing bob, 17. danielle (aswiminknits), 18. maritza (sotosofties), 19. karen (choochooknits), 20. mai (saomai, maitai113), 21. kim (yarny old kim), 22. emily (therewillbesnacks), 23. amy (limonene), 24. the split-off, 25. jess and bob, 26. melissa (neoknits), 27. maya (mayarn), steve, and miles, 28. cara (january one) and meli, 29. kay gardiner (mason dixon knitting), 30. elspeth (wry punster) and ann (annMT), 31. adam! (adamknits), 32. gudrun, 33. team rav gives out the prizes, 34. illanna, 35. the ravelry meetup on sunday, 36. 365.291:2009 (#475) – best weekend ever

though the trip up there was fraught with wrong turns and missteps (sorry tina!) we made it in one piece and proceeded to have a weekend full of fun despite the cold and dreary weather. i did buy some yarn though not a lot.

4 skeins of brooks farm four play, 2 skeins of socks that rock lightweight for a shawl, 1 skein of socks that rock mediumweight (i’ve already cast on for a pair of socks for KP!), and 2 small shawl pins from moving mud. i love these things. the glass is much more my style than metal.

did you go to rhinebeck? if so, direct me to your photos! i did meet some people who i had never met before and i’m already blanking on names

a tale of three shawls

gleek — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:04:46 +0000

well, really, four shawls if you include the one i knit for popknits but since i already blogged about that i’ll just concentrate on these three. so summer knitting is always a little tough. who wants to be lugging around a sweater’s worth of wool when it’s 90 degrees outside? so smaller projects for the summer!

first up was ishbel. i enjoyed knitting this one a lot. it was simple but the results are stunning. and the fact that you can knit a good sized shawl out of one skein of sock yarn is a definite plus.

i dove into the stash and pulled out a lovely skein of yarn from sunshine yarns for this. i even have some left over for a pair of small socks later.

the second shawl i knit took a long time because it was the shawl that i knit when i didn’t want to work on ANOTHER shawl. ha! but i love this one too and it will make the perfect accessory come fall in NYC.

this is the milkweed shawl and it’s a total winner. it was easy to knit and then set down for long periods of time. i could pick it up and knit one or two rows and be completely satisfied that i made good progress. before i knew it, it was complete!

i loved the yarn that i knit this with. it’s a skein that i picked up at rhinebeck a few years back. i also have some left over from this one too. it seems that my leftover yarn stash is growing just as fast as my regular stash.

now, for the final shawl. this one totally takes the cake. it is probably the most beautiful thing that i have ever knit! i offered to knit a wedding shawl for my very very good friend melani and between us we chose muir.

i knit on this everyday for two months straight and it was the best thing that i could have ever done for melani. she looked gorgeous in it on her wedding day!

i chose classic elite silky alpaca lace for this project and it was a very good choice. plenty of yardage and it wasn’t too hairy. it has a nice, short halo, and beautiful stitch definition for lace. i would definitely use it again.

thankfully, it all worked out beautifully and melani wore it happily.

and hopefully this will not be the last you hear from me! i really am going to try to be better about updating here, and not just about knitting.

what happened to the summer?

gleek — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:04:12 +0000

wow, it’s been a long time, no? i was supposed to come back here and let you know about the last knit i finished, ishbel, but i never checked back in! i have no real excuses except that i really have not felt like blogging. it’s been tough watching a lot of my favorite people give up blogging, and i’ve thought about giving it up too. but i always come back because i really do have stuff to say, i just have to find the time to say it.

in the meantime, i have not given up on my other pursuit, popknits. i changed the format to publish it twice per year instead of four times. i think that this will give me the time to find submissions and advertisers, so i’m glad i made the decision! to start things off, today i published the preview for the fall/winter issue which will be out on september 16th. jump on over and check it out!

popknits and the lido west wrap

gleek — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:02:05 +0000

hi everyone! been a while, no? first thing’s first, if you haven’t already seen it, the summer issue of popknits is online and available now! definitely check it out when you get a chance.

i know that there’s been a lack of knitting on the blog lately and a lot of hooping. well, i’m glad that there’s been hooping because i had been doing a lot of secret knitting. i spent most of my time working on my first real design for popknits and now it’s available and i can finally talk about it! i present, the lido west wrap!

i had this fabulous yarn, blue heron rayon metallic, that i bought at the point several years ago and really wanted to use. for a while, that yarn was in the slinky garter stitch wrap but i frogged that because it was always getting snagged on stuff. so it sat around and i looked at patterns on ravelry but nothing really clicked so i decided to design something to accommodate it.

i fished around in my 1960s vogue knitting magazines for some inspiration and came across a really sweet, little cardigan that used a columnar lace pattern that really appealed to me. after futzing with the numbers for the stitch pattern, i found a complimenting lace pattern in one of my stitch dictionaries to use on the ends. i sandwiched it all between garter stitch and started knitting!

this yarn is so nice! i love slinkyness of the rayon and the subtle sparkle from the metallic thread. it’s really affordable too if you buy just the one skein. it makes a light and cool wrap perfect for the summer.

so that’s what i’ve been up to! i also cast-on and finished an ishbel too which i’ll update you on early this coming week.

3 days of hooping!

gleek — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:21:06 +0000

it’s been how long now since i started hooping? let’s check flickr… ok, i got my hoop on march 5 so that means i’ve been hooping for less than 3 months now. this weekend was the first time that i got more than 2 days in a row to go outside and hoop on grass and not worry about breaking anything.

here’s a video of my 3 days work condensed into a 5 min music video (i love imovie!) music is “my girls” by animal collective which i listened to a lot on my trusty shuffle.

3 days of hooping from gleek on Vimeo.

hooping in central park

gleek — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:17:15 +0000

maybe you’re sick of hooping, but i’m not i actually have very little knitting content to show you right now because i just finished a secret popknits project (not so secret anymore) and just started knitting on ishbel. in the meantime, let me expound on my trip to central park to hoop with some girl friends.

i joined the hoopnotica meetup.com group a while back and i heard that there would be a meeting in central park on the first really HOT day of the “summer”. i packed up a bag, my travel hoop and an extra hoop for tina and set off.

photo courtesy of ms. m

i arrived at the sheep’s meadow in central park to find 1 billion people sunning themselves and a group of people hooping away. my new friend, lindsay, was already in the middle of a lesson so i joined her as quickly as i could. i seemed to be one of the more advanced people in the group so i just hooped along as best i could.

photo courtesy of misplacedpom

then tina arrived and i passed off a hoop to her so that she could join in the fun!

at first, things did not go so well, but then she got right back in the groove of things!

so i gave her the hoop to take home as a gift. there was even a camera crew there from GMTV (britain) to do a segment on hooping’s growing popularity!

eventually, our other friend julie showed up and we all took some time to take silly pictures of ourselves.

photo courtesy of susiejulie

all in all, a spectacularly fun day! i hope we can all do it again soon!