Jofrog is Knitfrog!
December 30 2003
I'm playing hookie from work this week, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't post! I had a wonderful Christmas and took many pictures of my cousin in her scarf (which she loved) and my sister in her sweater (which she loved as well). Unfortunately, I can't download the pictures until I go back to work, probably Monday! Ooh, aren't I bad! Really though, tomorrow will be New Years Eve... the next day is New Year's Day... am I really going to go in for that? I don't think so! I hope that everyone else's gifts were well recieved. As for gifts that I recieved... Mike, wonderful guy that he is, signed me up for the sock of the month club at Joslyn's Fiber Farm! I got my first one in the mail already and started on it that day. It's the November package... (so December should come soon, right?). I LOVE the yarn, it's so soft, and I love the pattern, it's so pretty, but I'm not sure that the verigated yarn is right for the lace pattern. I'm going to go a bit further on it and then decide if I'll rip it out, use the yarn for plain socks and a single color sock yarn for the lace socks, or continue on... Happy New Year's to all! Have a great and safe time tomorrow night and start off the new year right!Playing Hookie
December 23 2003
Alice's Sweater is Done!
I re-knit the neck last night and now it is perfect enough to give to
Alice! This was the best picture that I could get of it, but I am
borrowing the work digital camera for the holidays, so there will be a
modeled picture soon.
Much like how Sandy's mother in law rocks, my sister is a superstar!
I only stopped into work to post today so now I'm off to finish wrapping presents, bake some bread, and wait for Santa!
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!
December 22 2003
Christmas is Getting Closer!
I've shown you our tree, and we've decked our halls,
Now we're ready for Santa!
I've finished Christmas knitting; Alice's sweater is swen together but
I want to re-do the neck before I photograph it. Hopefully pics
tomorrow, if not then after Christmas because I'll be away from the
blogging world until after Christmas.
Have a great one, from my friend Allison and me!
December 19 2003
Christmas is Coming!
...and we're ready! We decorated our Christmas tree and our home
over a week ago, and it's so nice to come home and turn on the
lights. It really makes it feel like Christmas. Every year,
since I was born, my mom has gotten me a Christmas ornament, and it's
so much fun to bring them all out every year.
You can just barely see my absolute favorite ornament on the front of
the tree. The neon green is Kermit the Frog, wearing a santa hat
and sitting on a sled! He is the one that started my love of
frogs. I should count some time, but there are at least five frog
christmas ornaments on our little tree! You can see a skiing frog
popping out of the tree on the left too!
We finally started recieving our Christmas cards in the mail. By
last Friday we had only gotten one, but Monday brought a whole
shipment, including this one for Naomi.
Have a great pre-Christmas weekend and happy first night of Chanukah, (we celebrate in our house too!).
December 18 2003
Somebody Stop Me!
I am banning myself from Ebay! As many of you know, I love sock
yarn! I also love ebay, but very sporatically. I'll forget
about ebay for six months or so and then re-discover it, bid on and win
too many things, and then forget about ebay again for another six
months!
Recently I went on looking for good deals on sock yarn and look at what I ended up with...
Whoops! Definitely more than I needed, (I do have a decent sized
sock yarn stash already). Lets also explore the fact that I don't
even like the one on the left! I really hope that it knits up
nicer than the skein looks! I don't know the number off hand, but
does anyone have any experience with this yarn? Is it really
going to produce ugly socks or can I go with the "Opal yarn can't
produce ugly socks, it's too special for that". I'm really hoping
it's the latter! I'm officially banned from ebay for a long long
time now!
Happy bidding to the rest of you.
December 17 2003
Lush is Plush
I went to my LYS yesterday to exchange some yarn and in hope of them carying Classic Elite Lush yarn that is called for in the Nakiska pattern
in the new Knitty. Although the store's website did not list
Classic Elite as a brand that they carried I was still hopeful.
After looking for a long time (it was on the price list, so I knew it
was there) I finally asked and after two people helped me we finally
found it! I was so excited until I had it in my hand. This
50/50 angora/wool mix is not incredibly soft and wonderful. What
a let down. I got it anyways and wow, the difference between the
ball in the skein and the yarn knitted up. It is night and day,
blah versus ahh. It is wonderfully soft and as any angora garment
should be!
The cable pattern was fun to do and came out so pretty. See...
I had to lighten up the picture a lot to see the pattern but the yarn
is a very nice black. It will match my jacket perfectly. Of
course, now that I'm ready for cold, it is the one day that it is going
to hit 50 in Boston! Oh the irony!
December 16 2003
YAWN!
I've had the sleves to my Purple Ox sweater on the needles for ages
now, working on a row or two and then putting them down. They are
so boring! Although I do think that doing both at once was a good
idea, especially because I'm not going by a pattern, this "magic loop"
technique takes so long and it is just not smooth knitting. It
feels like it's so broken up... probably because it is! Despite
this, I trudge on... I can't wait to get to the yoke part of the
sweater so these sleeves are kind of like eating your vegies so you can
have dessert!
Here they are so far:
Enjoy your knitting today more than I am!
December 15 2003
Two Socks do not Make a Pair
After a week off from knitting and preparing for my party (which went
incredibly well) I finally got back to knitting yesterday. Look
at what I finished...
Don't the pink ones match my pink pants wonderfully? I need to get going on their mates.
These will be the first pairs of socks that I've made for myself and
I'll get two pairs at once! Yeah! I can't wait to wear them.
Today is my friend Miranda's birthday and I gave her the first pair of
socks that I ever knit. I've been keeping them secret until now
because she reads this site and she was so surprised! We took a
picture with her wearing them but I'm still waiting for her to send it
to me. I'll post it as soon as I get it though. It's so
much fun to knit for others!
That said, Christmas knitting is all done except for that darn sweater that I MUST SEAM!!! Wish me will-power.
December 12 2003
Love at First Sight
I was checking out all of my daily reads the other day, and on one of my absolute favorites "Everybody Loves Saturday Night"
she had posted a picture of a sweater I just had to have! I felt
this way about the Poetry in Stitches Leaf Cardigan, and there it was
again that instant love! It was beautiful. I didn't want to
go and steal the picture from her site without her permission so go
check it out, it's in her Dec 8th post.
That sweater is so beautiful! After sending out a quick email to
my Knitsmith buddies, I got four responses in less than an hour and am
now in possession of the pattern!
I so
do not have any money to be buying this yarn right now, I haven't
actually checked out how much it is, and I've never heard of it, so
maybe it will be more reasonable than I thought, but I've learned by
now that knitting nice sweaters is never cheap! Maybe family will
be very friendly this holiday season and I'll actually spend some
holiday money on me rather than throwing it in the bank, like I'm so
prone to doing. So, if anyone knows of a place to get Wool Pak
Yarns NZ/Baabajoe's Wool Co. 8-ply at a discount I'd love to hear about
it.
Have a great weekend, I know I will with a holiday party tonight! Definitely some Christmas tree pictures next week!
December 11 2003
Welcome
Welcome to Johanna's beading blog. Johanna has forgotten about
the yarn and dove into the wonderful world of beads... if only the bead
store was as close to her house as the yarn store is. Le sigh!
One more Christmas present done late last night after the second
terrine was made and dozens of Fillo triangles were assembled. At
the moment it will be a miracle if I'm awake for my own party.
This present is for my friend Jessica who, in the last few months, has
talked me through some huge, life altering decisions. I don't
think that she knows how thankful I am, but I hope that this will give
her some clue.
She is an entomologist who did her thesis work on butterflies.
She's also thinking about opening a Bug Store that would sell all sorts
of buggy things from metamorphosis kits for kids to large bug
statues! Who knows, maybe she'll commission me to make some of
these for the store!
Don't let the bead bugs bite!
December 10 2003
Go Speed Go!
Every year Mike and I throw a holiday party for our closest
friends. This year it will be on Friday and it has
grown! We'll have about twenty people in our little
apartment so I've been very busy preparing our home and preparing
food. That said, you can understand how there has veen very
little, if any, knitting done every day.
As tired as I was last night, I decided to start making a bracelet from
the beads I got on Monday. Thirty minutes later I had this:
I love it, but it doesn't fit right. It was meant to be a present
for a friend, but I'm going to make something else for her. (Back
to the bead store at lunch.) I have very tini wrists and I made
it for her normal sized hands, hence the not fitting right. I
think that I'm going to make it into a necklace but for now enjoy the
pic as a bracelet!
Nothing wrong with instant gratification, breaks from knitting can be very rewarding!
December 8 2003
More Christmas Presents!
I did a lot of not knitting this weekend, so rather than showing you my
beaded sock with half of the foot done, I'll show you some non-knitted
Christmas presents I made.
My friend Miranda gave me the kit to make these ornaments and a book for my birthday. We are off to the bead store today to buy supplies for some other projects as well.
I hope that everyone in the northeast is digging out okay. I
might dig my car out today... maybe. Two feet of snow sure is a
lot!
December 5 2003
A Quickie Project
This is the project that I started Tuesday night during 24
(the best show on television!). My friend had a baby six weeks
ago and I made her a little hat for him. When I gave it to her
she told me of a hideous hat that her husband has had since she's known him that
had ear flaps too and thought that it would be great if I could make a
matching hat for him and hopefully it would replace the
horrible one! It's supposed to be a Christmas present and early
this week I realized that although I had the yarn already, I needed to
get started on the knitting. Two days later...
I can't wait for her to give it to him so that I can get matching
baby/daddy hat pictures! Hopefully I'll get to post them here.
Have a great weekend and don't forget that holiday knitting! (I'm
actually in suprisingly good shape with that and all of my holiday
shopping. Sorry Sandy!)
December 4 2003
Beading Continues
I'm all done with the beaded portion of the sock, now it just needs to
be finished so that I can start on the beading in sock #2! I
turned the heel at my dad's over the Thanksgiving weekend, but I
haven't been knitting alone where I could concentrate on picking
up the stitches for the rest of the foot, so it's been sitting
patiently like this.
I'm starting to feel like I need to concentrate on one project at a
time so that I feel like I'm making any progress at all. That
said, I started on something else Tuesday night and had lots of time to
work on it in doctors' waiting rooms yesterday so I hope to show a FO
tomorrow!
See you then.
December 3 2003
Knitting Bloggers Stash Redistribution Project
Go check out what Amy's planning. What a great idea!
December 2 2003
NYC Yarn Shopping
My mom and I always go into the city the day after thanksgiving.
She usually gets me Broadway tix for my bday (this year it was Nine)
and we get dinner at one of our favorite places... these days either 69
Mott St in Chinatown or one of the Korean resturaunts off
Broadway. The early part of the day is up for grabs; sometimes a
museum, this year it was yarn shopping!
We started at "The Yarn Connection" which was very small. They had a lot of Noro and Rowan (with some of each on sale) but overall it was uninspiring.
From there we went down to School Products
which was so exciting. My mom spent the time looking for patterns
and finally settled on a beautiful Karabella pattern whose designer was
working that day. She was going home sick so we didn't get to
talk with her but very neat to be so close to the source.
After fondeling yarns for an hour or so and resigning to the fact that I was going home empty handed I found this.
It's a cashmere, marino, silk blend and the yarn is soft, but the
knitted and washed product is luxurious. I hope that my socks
become as soft as their swatch was. They had another blend that
had some nylon in it also that probably would have been more durable
for socks but the colors in the other blend were so much nicer.
I'm thinking about carying some nylon thread along with it for the
heels and toes... any thoughts or tips? I've never done that
before. Can I use regular nylon sewing thread? Tips are
always welcome. :-)
December 1 2003
Family
I had a very nice Thansgiving vacation with my family. My mom and
I are very close and it was great to be able to spend some quality time
together. For years and years we have gone into NYC together the
day after thansgiving, and this year was no different. I'll fill
you in on that one tomorrow though; today will be dedicated to other
women in my family.
Saturday evening I went over to my dad's house to see him and his
family. I brought out my Princess socks becase I knew my nine
year old sister would love them, and was hoping she'd love them enogh
to ask me to make her a pair also... well, she did one better than
that. She said with a sigh, "I wish I knew how to knit".
Wow, Really? I'll teach you!
Our great aunts had given me tons of acrylic yarn and the overflow was
stored in my dad's attic so up we went to find her a good color.
Then we went into a bag that was found at my grandfather's house.
This bag had an almost finished sweater that our great-grandmother had
given to our grandmother to seam. Saddly she died before she was
able to finish it, but inside with the sweater (which I must
photograph) was a pair of needles.
Needles and yarn in hand we sat down to knit and my brilliant sister
picked it up in a flash, and even better, she loved it! She knit
for the rest of the evening and when I woke up in the morning she told
me that she'd already knit on row that morning by herself. She
was planning to bring it to school today to show her teacher and
so that she could knit during recess and wants me to show her how to
bind off on Christmas day. (She is planning on her scarf being
done by then, she actually thinks that she'll have to pace herself so
that it doesn't get done too early!)
It's so wonderful to keep things like this in the family and I can't
wait to see our great grandmother's pride when she sees both me and my
sister knitting together.
One other thing that I found at my dad's house is my great
grandmother's spinning wheel. Her father made it for her when she
was growing up in Austria. When she was sixteen she boarded a
boat for the US and settled in NYC. After she was settled her
wheel was sent over to her; again I wish I had a camera with me at my
dad's house. It is the most precious thing I've ever seen.
It is in beautiful shape and delicately small. My great
grandmother still crochets, but no longer spins and her daughters were
going to throw it out on trash day. Thankfully it was saved by my
dad and they are hoping to teach my sister to spin, but if she has no
interst I'll be sure it makes it my way.
I hope that your family time was as enjoyable and fiber filled as mine.
