KAL Mystery Project

A week ago, when I got back from my vacation, I've started the KAL - "knit-a-long" - organized by the knitting group Crazy Knitting Ladies.

The project started 4 saturdays ago, and we only know that it will be a pullover plus size (48 here in Brazil). Since I wear size 40 or 42 (medium), and I already had plenty yarn bought and waiting to be knitted, I was not going to join the KAL. But as time passed by, and the starting date came closer, I couldn't hold myself. Therefore, I once again ran to my knitting master (my mom) and started to put our heads together to find a way to take part in the project, without spending too much money.

I was visiting the master when the first part of the project has been published (there will be 10 parts, one each week). So I started knitting samples with yarn my mom already had, and her needles. I got the combination Cristal yarn, which she uses for machine knitting, and needles 4,5 mm. The problem was that, reading the pattern, it looks like you can't do it without circular needles - which was what we were lacking to start.

In the following week, I was going after my vacation trip - it was all decided in the last minute, unfortunately, but it all ended up just fine. So I couldn't buy the needles! I decided to order them online, so they would be home by the time I got back.

And that's what happened! My husband asked me not to take any knitting in the trip - which made me a little anxious in the first days, but I finally got to finish a book I had started a long time ago. So the pause in crafting ended up well. :)

Last Friday I finished the first part of the project, and Saturday had the fourth part published. Look what I got so far:

The needles are from Aslan. It was the first time I used circular needles, and I found they're ok. Only that I thought they were metal needles (the website says they're made of aluminum), but they're wrapped with plastic. The good news is that the yarn slides well on them, so I didn't care much. I just didn't get in touch with the store because the package sat here waiting for me a few days. The only problem I have with the circular needles is that the cables twist too much, and sometimes they get in the way. I wonder if that happens with all circular needles.

To wrap up, when I visited my mom again, she had a present for me: she asked a friend, who went to Germany to visit her daughter, to bring us two Kollage needles! I can't wait to try them out!

I brought home the 6mm and my mom will test the other one - size 5, if I'm not wrong. It's been years since my mom last knitted by hand, and now she's all excited again - she even got some of her old magazines to test some stitches, isn't that cool? :)

And if you want to join the Mystery Project, go to the website www.tricoteiras.com or look for the project in Ravelry. It's sure fun.

Long, long ago... (again?!)

... so much happened!

For instance, now I have lots of time to create - but I don't have money. Funny, because when we have a job it's exactly the opposite, isn't it?

During my absence here in the blog I created a lot. The Drift Scarf has grown a bit, but there still is a long way to knit... I'm still embroidering the first part of the nativity scene... and I got to start and finish a pair of fingerless gloves! I've also made a cover for the new laptop of the house, I'll write a tutorial for that.

Today, however, I write to comment on a case that got to me yesterday. My friend Méri sent me a message regarding the beautiful works of Karen Ruane, because they're being used in a blog here in Brazil, on a slide show on the side bar, without giving the credits to the artist.

For what I know about the internet over here, there are lots of people that create blogs with no updates, to use them as previews - free websites. It seems to be the case, and I also think that the blog owner is not the same person who created it. There's an address and two phone numbers from Rio de Janeiro, but the person did not answer Méri or Karen e-mail messages, and Karen has even sent a text message to the mobile number, with no answer.

In Karen's blog, she seems to be very upset with what's happening. No wonder, right? It's her beautiful work that's out there, with images taken from Flickr, and the quality of Karen's embroidery pieces is undoubtedly much higher than the ones present in that site. Surf around her blog and you'll see what I mean, everything is really tasteful and pretty. The site that's using her images, however, doesn't show anything of note.

I know these things happen all the time, but that's no reason to ignore them. Original work must be credited to the responsible artists, even if they have no interest in earning money from it. Reading the comments on Karen's blog, a suggestion seems to be the simplest one to me: adding her name to the image. It will be some trouble, but I think that, in the lack of an answer from the person who's using the images without authorization, it would solve the problem - and, who knows, it would stop it from happening again.

The only thing that can't happen is the talented people like Karen give up showing us the beautiful things they make, isn't it?

My adventure with The Simplest Socks in the World

Charmed as I was by knitting, I got very interested on a subject: socks. Reading the messages in the Crazy Knitting Ladies group, surfing the web and all, I decided I wanted to learn how they were made. I started by sending a message to the group, and the girls immediately encouraged me to started a pair at once, instead of keep trying to understand how they were made. And they pointed me the pattern for The Simplest Socks in the World, which is available at Tricoteiras.com and also at Ravelry.

Everything really got started when my friend L. lent me her set of double pointed needles and even gave me a ball of Bambino as a gift. With all that encouragement, there I went to start knitting. Right from the start, I found it easy to cast on and divide the points by four. But I didn't find it easy to unite the last stitch to the end, closing the circle. It took me a while until I managed it, knitting a stitch over the other, afraid that everything would fall apart. It doesn't, ok? You just need to keep knitting, the second row will hold everything together. Just hold tight the thread/yarn so it won't leave a space. (Yesterday I watched a video from Superziper, which teaches how to knit in circular needles. The trick it shows seems perfect to finish the first row of the socks!).

Something interesting is that right in the beginning I was confused and, when I got to the end of the first row, I started purling the wrong side, going back. It was when I found out that it was circular knitting, and in it you always work the right side - except for the heel, if you're knitting socks. You don't need to be a genius to find that out - but if I hadn't tried, I wouldn't have made that mistake and wouldn't have learned. Today is obvious day, isn't it? ;-)

Following the pattern, the sock starts by the cuff, with 10 rows in 1 knit, 1 purl. After that you enter auto mode, knitting several rows all in knit stitch, until you get to the heel. I've made 40 rows.

The heel is no problem in the first part - as the pattern says, "(...) work with 26 stitches leaving the other 26 on hold. Every two rows leave one stitch on each side on hold. Repeat 8 times". That's what I did, no problem. But when I started going back, I realized I left holes. I tried to close them in many ways, and each foot came out differently. The first one came out better, contradicting my idea that the more I make, the better results I get. But the next pair of socks will definitely be better.

I got little lumps where the rows joined back together. The first sock came out more uniform, but with bigger holes. Heels are not simple, definitely. But that doesn't stop me from knitting socks, no way!


And that's been my adventure. :) I finished it with great joy, having learned a lot about knitting and myself. And also as someone addicted to socks!