Good Drop, Bad Drop

The Clapotis is coming along very well, as you can see in these blurry photos I took in my office with my camera phone.





I'm not having any kind of drop stitch stress that I've heard can occur. Infact, it appearred I was a bit drop stitch happy. As I glanced at the Clapotis full length last night, I noticed one little stitch head sticking out about 2 inches from the top. BLAST! How did I end up doing that! I got it all picked up and back on needles, but now I'm afraid that it will do terrible damage to the Clapotis, as I'm pretty sure it's the stitch NEXT TOO the drop stitch. I suppose I'll just keep on going and hope for the best.

I'm really really itching to keep knitting the Clapotis. It's very close to unbearable to be at work, not able to knit more. Luckily today is my short day, so only a few more hours and I'll be off to wait for the bus home, and I can knit then!

I got to knit good bit of Clapotis this morning while I pricked my finger 8 times for a research study. It's so wonderful how it works out. I get 2 hours to knit (in amoungst the finger pricking) and I earn $50 to buy more yarn with! I can put up with a bruised fingertip or two (or three) for a couple of days for that!

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The weather outside is frightful, but the knitting is so delightful

It's the second weekend with a Saturday SnB group meeting, and the second weekend with ice and snow forecast for Saturday. I made the trek into Tyler's for the meeting anyway, but it wasn't the weather that stopped the group from meeting (well maybe for some it was), it was Tyler's yearly staff meeting. The place was closed! I was really looking forward to showing off my first felted project, the skull bag from Helloyarn.com.

So back home we went (after some errands). And glory of glories I got all my knitting pictures uploaded into my photo album. Slowly but surely, because everything with dialup is slow.

So I'll show it off here first.
In all it's glory, here is my finished skull bag!






Hooray!
It didn't turn out totally wonderful, but I like it anyway. The white and grey yarn didn't want to really felt, they still have their stitch definition. The maroon felted wonderfully though. Odd that.

The skull bag was knit from some recycled 100% wool yarn that I got when I frogged an old sweater I bought in college. I got over 1300 yards of it, so I'm also doing a sweater.



I think if I have enough of the maroon left over I'll make myself the Fuzzy feet from Knitty.com

And just one more WIP to show off. The clapotis I take to class and knit. It's portable because it's small, so very perfect for on the go knitting.



I'm knitting this in 100% alpaca that I picked up last December at the Knitter's Underground in Centre Hall, PA. The yarn first started out as a scarf, but I frogged that pretty quick, because I wanted something really wonderful for this yummy yarn. For a while it was a really fun poncho, but the stitches were so big and open, I kept getting it snagged on things. So I frogged it again, and finally found Clapotis and thought the pattern would suit the alpaca just fine. I'm really liking it so far.

So as the rain and ice come down, I'm off to work on some knitting.

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Do I really look like I know what I'm doing?!

Wouldn't you know it, I went home last night, took many many pictures of my yarns and WIPs, but when I went to the computer to upload the pics to my photo album, the dial up crapped out. And now our entire website is down! It's a conspiracy I tell you! If it's all better tonight I'll surely add some pictures, but who knows!


Now, I take a class three days a week. I make a semi-point to leave a few minutes earlier then really necessary, because then I can sit and knit before the class starts. I take my clapotis with me, and it's coming along, a little at a time. Well today, while I sat there knitting away, one of the girls in the class approached me. She said she had noticed me knitting, and wondered if I could answer a question for her. She was a new knitter, and while working on her scarf noticed it got tighter, pulled in a bit. So, I guess I really do look like a knitter who knows the ins and outs, else she wouldn't have asked me right!? But I don't think of myself as that knowledgeable, or atleast not enough to explain stuff to other people. I offerred my educated guess, gauge issues, and even offered to take a look at it if she wanted to bring it to class. I also told her about the wealth of information on the internet for learning how to knit, and about the local SnB group.

But I'm still just astonished that someone would think I could offer help when it comes to knitting! Oh, my little girl, she is growing up!

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I'm learning!

I'm learning I think. It's slow going, but hopefully this weekend my web designer husband is going to give me a crash course. So next week be on the lookout for even more improvements!

But, now on to something knitty! My pre-felted skull bag. It was supposed to be a knit-a-long with a friend, but she had some problems finding yarn (and needed to finish another project first) so I decided to go ahead with mine. That way when she got stuck, I'd have already been there and could help her.

This is my bag all finished but without the handles prior to any felting:



The felting is all done, well sort of, and I'll be getting pictures of that up tonight. I need to put a lining in it too.

So yea for my first knitting related post with picture!

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Welcome to The Dragon Knits!

A very long time ago, I had a blog, but I never used it.
Let's hope this time around things are different.
This time around I have cool fun stuff to post about.

My adventures in knitting!
I'd consider myself an intermediate knitter. I taught myself to knit about 4 years ago. It was slow going for the first few years, but I seem to have picked it up with a vengence. I'm trying more complicated projects and I'm falling in love with more expensive yarns.

To that end, I have made the decision to guinea pig myself out to pay for my yarn habits.

Now I just need to figure out how this whole blog thing works!

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