Category: meta-knitting

A pair of handknit socks with chevron stripes in purple, gray, white, yellow, pink, and tan.

frog pond / sock

In Which the Pirate Makes a Sad Discovery.

This morning I reached into my sock drawer and pulled out a pair of Jaywalkers that I knit a dozen years ago. They haven’t gotten much wear and they still look really good, but… I couldn’t get the sock cuff over my heel. And then I remembered the last time I tried knitting a pair of Jaywalkers. My feet have grown. Dangit. I guess...

Across the top of the picture, four braids of merino fibre in a gradient of colours from a medium pinks/purples to a darker blues/purples. Along the bottom, a coordinating solid in pale pink.

meta-knitting / tally

In Which the Pirate Tallies Up 2022.

Happy happy new year! As usual, this tally is more for myself than anything else, but you may find it interesting as well. If you’re coming from FB/Twitter/other social media, click through to see the full post: INCOMING YARN: 3492 yards I was very good about not buying yarn and then a friend announced that she was expecting, so I had to buy this...

A collection of 20 mini-skeins of yarn in multiple colours, heavy on the blues/greens/purples range, with a few pinks and one soft yellow.

stash

In Which the Pirate Acquires Mini-Skeins.

Mom’s knitting group is doing a skein swap, and I contributed a soft skein of merino singles that I’ve had in my stash forever. Perhaps we all go through that singles phase, I don’t know – but I do know that I didn’t really want this yarn anymore, and I’m happy for it to go to a new home. And “hooray,” I thought, “that’s...

Many skeins of fingering weight yarn, split into two sets. Each set is enough to knit a sweater. Both sets fade from darker to lighter. The first set goes from dark greens and blues and a few pops of oranges and yellows here and there, to a pale green. The second set runs from a dark purple to a lighter purple-pink with hints of orange to a lighter pink.

festivals / meta-knitting / stash

In Which the Pirate Buys a Lot of Yarn.

It’s been some years since I’ve gotten to go to a yarn festival. Mom and I were rained out of MD Sheep and Wool this year, and couldn’t get up to Rhinebeck in October, but this past weekend we went (along with friends Monica and Jen) to the smaller, less frantically crowded, Maryland Alpaca and Fleece festival. The night before we went, Mom and...

A ball of Lang Super Soxx yarn. It looks like it will stripe into a neon rainbow alternating with black.

meta-knitting / stash

In Which the Pirate Buys a Sock Yarn.

My team at work is planning an offsite event on the other side of the country, which I am anticipating with about the same amount of excitement as an impending root canal. It’s in February, which is an ideal time of year to be planning a cross-country flight. As a consolation prize, I went to the yarn shop and bought a ball of sock...

Two hand-wound balls of laceweight yarn in white and purple-gray. One strand of yarn is over a penny to give a sense of scale. The yarn is very fine.

machine knitting / stash / yarn

In Which the Pirate Reclaims Yarn.

Mom and I had planned to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool last weekend, but the sheer volume of rainfall was going to turn it into Muddyland Sheep and Wool instead – so we stayed home. It was a disappointment to miss the festival, but I think we made the right choice. Remember last April when I knit the Puppies wrap and I accidentally...

Closeup of the skulls and crossbones on the cuff of a sock. They are white on a navy blue background, set off by stripes of red and white.

meta-knitting / tally

In Which the Pirate Tallies Up 2021.

Happy happy new year! As usual, this tally is more for myself than anything else, but you may find it interesting as well. If you’re coming from FB/Twitter/other social media, click through to see the full post: INCOMING YARN: 10,661 yards 4 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light (576) 4 skeins of Cascade Heritage Sock (1748) 2 more skeins of Heritage Sock, grr miscalculations...

A swatch of brown knitting with plain stockinette at the bottom and cables plus ribbing at the top.

fibre / spinning / swatching

In Which the Pirate Swatches.

I had so much fun swatching the Unicorn Spit that I decided to wash and swatch one of the skeins of Fleece. Well, really, it was mostly curiosity. The Unicorn Spit was so twisty and knitting up at a gauge much fatter than its WPI would have led me to guess, that I needed to know if the Fleece would do the same. So...

An in-progress knitting swatch. There is a ruler on top of the swatch with the yarn wrapped around it, showing ten wraps per inch.

spinning / swatching

In Which the Pirate Swatches.

Remember the Unicorn Spit? I wound up one skein of it for swatching, because the Pirate Socks are still in time-out and I didn’t want to disturb them. Here’s where things get weird: I’m getting 10-11 wraps per inch on this yarn, so it should be a heavy DK or light worsted weight yarn. But it was a little tight to knit on size...

business / design / meta-knitting

In Which the Pirate is Disappointed.

Bottom line up front: Because I know a number of people simply can’t use Ravelry anymore, I’m now also selling my patterns on Payhip. So, this thing with the Ravelry redesign. It sure is a mess, huh. From the early days of “Surprise! we redid the site! Don’t you love it? …wait, you don’t love it?” to flat-out dismissing people’s health issues, only allowing...