Meet the Mantis

Now that the Knit Picks catalog for March has arrived, I can show you all my favorite recent knit for them, the Praying Mantis, from Amigurumi Knits.

Closer Shot of Mantis on a Wall

Clearly deep in contemplation, she’s a thoughtful one.

Also, being an outdoorsy sort, she can’t resist climbing a nice tree.

Mantis in a Tree

But she didn’t mind hanging out at work with me, either.

Checking out my Cubicle

She found that Piggie, who regularly appears as my Ravatar image, is a very good listener.

Mantis and Piggy

But then she seemed to be getting just a little bit too close for comfort, so it was time to send her off to Washington for her professional photo shoot.

Mantis and Piggy

Knit from Wool of the Andes in Green Tea Heather and Fairy Tale (which is a really nice shade of purple) with two sets of bamboo DPNs.  Chenille stems down the legs and in the thorax keep her upright, and fiberfill in her abdomen and head round her out (so to speak).

I really, really like knitting toys. I’m going to have to knit a Mantis for myself.  With the right colors, I could totally make myself a little N’Grath.

Hey, Look, Knitting!

In my long blog silence, there has been knitting. Last night, I finished off a blankie for Little Miss.

Alphabet Blanket

Specs:
Pattern: Alphabet Blanket
Designer: Debbie Bliss
Source: The Baby Knits Book, courtesy of my library system
Yarn: Patons Grace, hot pink, 9 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbo Lace, sizes US 2 & 3
Comments: Bliss suggests her own (now discontinued) Wool/Cotton Blend for this pattern.  I had this Patons Grace (originally intended for a pair of matching Reid sweaters for my niece and Little Miss) in my stash. Of course, using mercerized cotton for a lace blanket was not the best idea I ever had, but I think it turned out rather pretty, and I’m sure the various joints in my hands will stop aching really soon. I used Russian joins throughout, which are a little bit bulky in the DK weight cotton, but not noticeable unless you’re really looking for them. And since the Patons Grace had at least one knot in almost every skein, I did a LOT of joining.

I really need to make a second blocking board. I had to block the blanket folded in half.

Clearly, I Need A Bigger Blocking Board

I left it overnight and took it off this morning, spreading it over our coffee table, still slightly damp.

To celebrate completing the blanket, I cast on a new blankie, this time an illusion-knit one in Sanguine Gryphon Traveller. I’ve never done illusion knitting before.

Speaking of new-to-me techniques and finished objects, my most recent contribution to Knit Picks was in the May catalog.

Bibs for Knit Picks

The Fruity Bibs were my first go at intarsia in cotton. The Knit Picks Comfy, by the way, is incredibly soft. Just lovely, lovely stuff. The buttons are sweet little shell buttons I bought at Unwind, my fantastic LYS.

And speaking of Knit Picks, I ordered a batch of CotLin for Miss Honeychurch, about which I’ll have more to say on Monday.

One Stitch at a Time

Last week, I knit something.  I can’t show you (yet), but I can tell you this: It’s a test knit for Chrissy Gardiner’s forthcoming book, it was fun and fast, and I think it’s an excellent pattern for people who’ve been wanting to try toe-up socks but have been a little intimidated.

Okay, that’s all I’m going to say about that for today.  In other Secret Knitting News, the Knit Picks sample I knit back in July appeared in the latest catalog and on the Knit Picks site.

I haven’t been doing much knitting of late, since I’ve been trying to make some progress on “Santa’s Journey”, my Christmas stocking.  Here’s what it looks like so far:

Stocking in Progress

Santa is slowly materializing, right before my very eyes. I have realized that by working from the bottom up, I’m going to have a headless Santa at some point. I promise to take a picture.

Not knitting has not stopped me from increasing my stash, though.  I resisted all the new stuff in the latest Loopy Ewe sneak-up, but bought the first three skeins of Sanguine Gryphon’s Kypria series:

Sanguine Gryphon

Left to right, that’s “The Deep-Bosomed Earth” (#1), “Momos” (#2), and “A Fateful Plan” (#3). The three tags with paragraphs of the story are tacked up on the corkboard in my office.

I also scored some Yarntini at long last, courtesy of Sonny & Shear:

Yarntini

Those are “Designated Driver” and “4-8-15-16-23-42”. There are still a few skeins of each (and some others) available for sale, if you’d like a Yarntini fix, too. I’m pondering buying some more of the “Designated Driver” and making a shawl. If I ever get to actually knit again.

Now with Even Less Knitting!

The last several months have been interesting around here. We decided to try to sell our house and move a couple of miles eastward. We found a house we liked, and we had an offer on our house, and then one day into the escrow, the buyer pulled out. Our contract with our realtor expired, we waited a while, and then we went back on the market with a new realtor. We found a house we liked, and we got an offer on our house with a promise that there would be no problem finishing the escrow in 30 days.

Sixty-four days later, we closed the sale. Week after week, we thought we’d be moving in another week or two.  My knitting stuff was among the first stuff packed up (in an effort to keep myself from procrastinating on packing up the rest of the stuff, you see).

Since then, just about the only knitting I’ve been doing has been a sample knit for Knit Picks, which I can’t share until it appears in their catalog.

And, since it’s high summer, what else would I be thinking about but Christmas?  Last week, I started work on another cross-stitch stocking, this time one for me.  It’s a little more complicated than the one I did for Little Miss, with metallic threads and beads and something called couching that I may have done once before… in junior high Home Ec class.

A while back, I signed up for Summer of Socks.  Have I done any socks this summer?  No.  I started one, but I haven’t made much progress.

Soon to come: pictures of that cross-stitch and maybe some progress on the sock.

Ravelry!

I can’t seem to stop playing with Ravelry. I took pictures of a bunch of my yarn today and uploaded them. Over the last few days, I’ve found pictures of projects I completely forgot about… and uploaded them. I’m actually using my Flickr account for the first time in about a year, and I even switched from Safari to Firefox.

I love, love, love this site. The design is slick and classy. Other people’s photos on there put mine to shame, but I don’t care. I’m just having so much fun chucking my stuff up there.

My favorite feature at the moment is that you can look up patterns people have made with a particular yarn. I have a few stashed yarns that I have no idea what to do with.

And then there’s the queue. This is a wonderful and dangerous feature for me.

Speaking of wonderful and dangerous, I learned today that Knit Picks was having a 40% off sale on books. I now have several books on the way. And also some yarn. For a couple of those projects in my queue.