Fresh off the Needles: Walden on a Boat Socks

I'm not even sure why it happened, who can ever know why anything happens with me. But when I saw the picture below of Bobby Darin I decided I NEEDED a pair of socks loosely based off of that picture. And since his given name is Walden, I decided to call them Walden On a Boat Socks. Honestly, not even I can ever be sure where I'll draw inspiration from.

For awhile now, I've wanted to knit something using a color scheme based off of a picture, but I was hung up on knitting a stranded sweater and just haven't had it in me to design one. And then it finally occurred to me that a pair of socks with contrast heels would work just fine. I even have some more ideas floating around in my little head for more socks.

I'll be honest though, I was expecting to be more inspired by a beautiful photo of a landscape like the ones my mom is always taking. Not a picture of a guy, who reminds me of a cartoon bird, wearing a tiny yellow swimsuit, denim jacket and some ridiculous hat. But again, I'm unpredictable.

As for everything else about the socks they're pretty standard. Just a plain ole toe-up vanilla sock using German Short Row toes and heels, and a simple 3x1 rib for the legs. I used the same pattern I used for my Sick Socks as a base. I was also constantly rewatching the videos from Very Pink. I'll get all of these techniques down and not have to refer back to those videos one of these days, I swear. Until then, I'm sure Staci from Very Pink won't mind the page views I'm giving her.

With these socks, I did decide that I wanted to do a few more short rows so that I had a narrower toe. In the original pattern you knit the toe the same as the heel. Due to my child sized feet, the toe was just too big and loose for me. So, a few more short rows and that fixed the problem. Although, I'm not crazy with the way the toes look. If you want more details about my construction, you can check out my Ravelry project page.

They were knit with some Cascade Heritage solid in the Marine (haha fitting right?) colorway for the blue and the Lemon colorway for the yellow. I enjoyed working with the yarn, and I love it because it's really hard, at least for me, to find a sock yarn in a variety of solid colors.

Originally, I had wanted to have some sort of nautical stitch pattern, like a lace stitch that looked like a lifesaver, but couldn't find anything quick enough. I wanted them ASAP!! But I do have enough yarn leftover for another pair. So, if I find an appropriate stitch pattern I'll definitely be making another pair.

German Short Rows close up. Plus you can see how much too big they are!

I truly love these socks. Since they did turn our too big I'd either cast on less stitches, right now I'm at 56 stitches. Or use a smaller needle size, I used a US1 (2.25mm). Possibly both. I'm also curious if this would fix my wide toe problem. Hmm... There will be plenty more themed socks in my future, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment. If you want to follow along with my sock knitting adventure follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Now, my question for you guys is where do you draw your sock knitting inspiration from? Let me know in the comments.

This Gal's Monthly Guitar Progress report: A note on positivity

Quite some time ago, I wrote about my first guitar practice and how well it went and how much I loved it. Not long after that post I realized the guitar I had was unplayable. I eventually got a new one at a very deep discount. So, for the past year I've been practicing off and on. More off than on, if I'm being totally honest with ya'll. I don't think I ever went more than two days in a row of practicing. About two months ago, I decided that I wanted to get serious about learning.

My old guitar that was unplayable because the bridge was coming off!

In my efforts of being more consistent with my practicing, I started a guitar journal. Immediately after practicing, I do a quick free write about how I feel about that particular session.

Honestly, the month of August has been pretty disappointing on the guitar practice front. I just haven't been practicing, and I have no real excuse. It highly contrasts the month of July when I was highly motivated and inspired. Honestly, I think I just became discouraged because I'm not great, I'm not even good at playing. I'm not even to the point that you'd call playing. (It's ridiculous, I know. Just keep reading.)

In hopes of finding that motivation I started rereading some of my old journal entries. I found one that basically just put my ridiculousness into perspective. Hopefully, it will keep me grounded to finish off August strong and keep plugging away through September. Below is the journal entry that helped me.

Disclaimer: I took this directly from my guitar journal. I just wrote out my feelings with very little thought to cohesiveness and structure. So, it'll be repetitive, rambley, unrefined and a grammatical mess. So, you've been warned. 

My guitar journal

July 8, 2015

I didn't feel like I made as much progress today as I did yesterday but they say that's to be expected. I'm guessing my hand just got tired quicker. Which will only get better with time and practice. I'm trying to practice a solid 20 minutes everyday.

Things I worked on: I just worked on changing from D to G and vice versa with a little bit of A to E and vice versa. I'm sure there's a better way to practice this. But this is what's working for me now. I'm going to try to do a little practice schedule. But I'm really not sure what to look for. Everything I find is still super advanced for me at this point.

Things to remember: I'm kind of bummed out about not getting the G chord to ring out clearly. But I just have to remember I've done it before. I mostly just think it's that my hand is getting tired more quickly because I've practiced multiple days in a row. It doesn't seem like that would make sense but it's got to be like exercising/working out. You work out for the first time in a long while one day and it's hard but you can get it done. Then the next day, when you're doing that same work out it's harder to finish because your body and muscles are sore. 

I'm assuming it's the same basic principle with guitar. And this is probably the point where a lot of people give up. Or why I personally give up practicing for weeks, sometimes months on end. This is why I think it's oh-so-important for me to practice tomorrow.

I'm thinking about a reward system for myself somehow. Like, maybe after every 30 days of daily practice I get myself something. A new tuner, 20 or 30 dollars toward a new guitar. I don't know. I'll figure something out. 

A mess, I know, but I'm glad I wrote it. It doesn't explicitly say that I've been being ridiculous in the past, but I think that's what I was getting at.

I've had these idiotic ideas that I'm going to see how to do a certain thing and just magically be able to do it. Like, watch a video on how to play the G chord and then go and play it perfectly the first time I try it. That's ridiculous. Sitting back and thinking critically about this is helping me check my preconceived notions at the door and has allowed me to just figure out what I need to figure out.

The thing I have to remember is that if I can consistently keep this mindset, I WILL see progress. If I were being honest with myself, I'd say that I HAVE seen progress. It's just really easy to forget after 20 minutes of feeling like nothing is going right. So, I'm here today to declare that I won't let myself get discouraged so easily. I'm going to channel the July version of myself and just power through.

My new guitar, Guitarri.

Apart from my journal, I'm going to start posting monthly progress reports here on This Gal Knows. I hope it'll be one more thing to keep me motivated to practice and improve. Until then you can always track my progress on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. I think I might even do daily updates, sort of like proof of practice, on either Tumblr or Twitter. Maybe even both.

What do you guys think? Anyone use a journal to track your progress when learning guitar (or anything else new to you)? Did you find that it's helped? Let me know in the comment section.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_NuuPz16ABzW4qtmbEUog-7E9UxZb_jetnLFHzsTO_U?feat=directlink

This Gal's knitting quick tip: The Usefulness of KALs

As I've been stepping out of my knitting comfort zone over the past year, knit alongs have been an invaluable source of information. A knit along (KAL) is when a group of people, usually on the internet, picks a pattern and knits it at the same time. Usually a KAL has an organizer who sets deadlines for when each section of the pattern should be done. Then people will post their progress usually on a Ravelry board dedicated to the KAL. A lot of times, the organizer will post how-to guides on their blog for each part of the pattern, this is where you'll find a lot of useful information. Sometimes there are even prizes at the end. But the great thing about these KALs is that you don't have to participate in them to get all the great information they hold.

There are KALs for virtually any type of project you want to work on. Socks, sweaters, hats, dishcloths, you name and I can bet there's a KAL for it. Here are a few that I've recently found useful.

Useful KALs

Hands Occupied is always a great resource for knitting. Right now she has a scarf KAL going on. And in the past she's had some really great and informative sweater KAL. Here's a link to all of her KALs.

Veryshannon.com has an entire page filled with links to her annual KALs. And they are all full of great information.

Beginner's KAL is a Ravelry group that has monthly KALs targeted at beginners with a lot of support through each part of the project. I haven't gotten too far into this group, but from what I can tell it's going to be an invaluable resource for me.

I don't know if the Tasha's fitting series over on By Gum By Golly is technically a knit along, but the information in it has been indispensable for me while knitting my first sweaters. It's very much set up like a knit along so I'm going to include it here.

What are some of your favorite KALs that you've either participated in or have found useful in the past? Link them up in the comments and I'll add them to the list.

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Fresh Off the Needles: Sick Socks

That's it, I throw in the towel. I'm officially obsessed with sock knitting. I finally get what all the fuss is about. Don't ask me what it was about my first pair of hand knit socks, but I wasn't overjoyed about them. Proud, just not overjoyed. They didn't leave me wanting to make more. Now, I already have another pair on the needles and ideas for an entire series of themed socks swirling around my head.

What can I say? I'm so in love with these socks! Sucks I got distracted while knitting the first foot and knit it too long. Oh well. They fit my sister almost perfectly, so they'll be going to a good home. They are however, a bit wide in the toe, something that can easily be fixed by working a couple more short rows on either side.

I really enjoyed knitting this pattern even if they are just a plain old vanilla sock. Maybe next time I'll knit the leg entirely in 2x2 rib just to spice things up. The pattern is very straight forward with row by row instructions at both the toe and the heel. It was perfect for me since, I had never knit socks with short rows. For a matter of fact, I'd never really done much short row knitting prior to this, just the little bit that were used for the heel turn on my first pair of socks. I've also been sold on knitting socks toe-up as well. For me, it's far easier to fit when you're starting at the toe because you can try it on as you go and you know exactly where to start the heel. Also, you can use up every bit of yarn by winding the yarn into two equal balls and then knitting the leg until you don't have any yarn left.

 My favorite part about knitting these socks are the all too simple German short rows used on the toes and heels. I've been on the hunt for a pair of short row heel socks that didn't involve the old wrap and turn. And finally found one from Staci Perry at VeryPink.com. She even included a free how-to video on her website. It seems fitting that I became such a fan of this short row technique since I am mostly German, don'tcha know.

There are still a few tension issues I have to work out while doing the short rows on the wrong side which I still haven't figured out on my second pair. But all I'm hearing is I get to make more socks to practice this technique.

Lets talk about the yarn, shall we? This is some bare Knit Picks Stroll Sport that I dyed myself using Kool Aid. The orange, is first and foremost, nearly impossible to photograph. Look at those babies glow. I dyed it using some left over orange and cherry that I used for practicing some hand painting. For the bluish green I used  a mix of blue raspberry lemonade, lemon lime and McCormick's blue food coloring. Both yarns turned out far more tonal than I had expected, this is because apparently superwash wool sucks up the dye a lot faster than non-superwash wool does. Like really quickly, I could literally watch the water in the pot go clear like magic. I felt like I'd finally lived my dream and was a student at Hogwarts.

I'm pretty sure I've found my favorite way to knit socks that will keep me wanting to knit more and more. When I get more adventurous I plan on giving magic loop a try and then maybe even two at a time. What are some of your favorite ways to knit socks?

Special Skills Needed:

I included three different reference links for each technique. I didn't want to assume everyone learns the way I learn. Click on the numbers to see the different links.
Provisional cast on: 1|2|3
German Short Rows: 1|2|3
Extra stretchy bind off: 1|2|3

Want to see some of the other sock ideas I have swirling around my head? Be sure to follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Ravelry and Pinterest to be the first to see progress photos and the like before they're up on the blog. Also, don't forget to follow me on Bloglovin' so you never miss a post.

Thrifty Finds: Textile Center Garage Sale

Every year for the past 15 years, the Textile Center asks people and companies to donate their unwanted craft supplies. People bring in everything from unwanted sewing machines, fabric, yarn, sewing, knitting and crochet patterns, crochet hooks, knitting needles and needlework supplies. You name it, someone brings it. Two days later these things are sold in a giant garage sale held in a large warehouse. There's a dollar admission fee and all proceeds go to keeping the center up and running.

This past weekend my mom and I went for the second time. Neither one of us had any real idea what we were looking for. We were sort of just hoping we'd come away with as much great stuff as we did last time. While we did find a few great things, we didn't come away with as many treasures as we did last year. Something like this is pretty hit or miss. There's really no way of knowing what people are going to decide to donate. Regardless, we did pick up a few great things.

When I said people donate anything to the Textile Center, I wasn't lying. Something that surprised me most was the amount of people that donated unfinished objects, or UFOs for short. There were several cafeteria style tables full of UFOs. That's where I found this great 1960s sewing pattern (Simplicity 5835), wool (I think) fabric and a zipper. All for just two dollars. As far as UFOs go this is about as unfinished as you can get. The only thing that's been done for the whole project is that the pattern has been cut.

I'm so stupidly excited about this find everything about this screams 60s. I can't wait to get started on even just the muslin. According to a few handwritten notes on the pattern, the original owner was planning on making the blouse and jacket. But personally, I think the fabric (which is as bright in real life) would be much better suited for the skirt.

Mom also nabbed this adorable pink and white synthetic, possibly polyester, fabric. She plans on making a little dress for my baby niece using the Kwik Sew 3035 pattern. Of course, if she doesn't really want to, I'm sure I can find a cute 60s skirt pattern to that would go perfect with this fabric.

Another great find is an old book on pattern drafting and grading, Modern Method of Women's & Children's Garment Design. It was originally published in 1955 by The Master Designer and this is the 1981 edition. It has everything from slacks, to skirts, to shirts to dresses. I've thumbed through it and all of it is going WAY over my head. But I can already tell this is going to be an invaluable resource as I continue to improve my sewing skills. Since I much prefer using vintage patterns over modern patterns, mostly for their simplicity (ha!), I really have no choice but to learn how to resize patterns.

As always if you want to see my progress on these future projects follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Also, if you don't want to miss another blog post, make sure to pop over to Bloglovin' and follow me there as well.

What's on the needles: A whole bunch of projects

Remember when a few weeks ago I said it felt like all I was doing was planning projects and not getting a whole lot done. Well, I finally said to myself to, "Mandi, you need to shut up and put up." If that is indeed how the saying goes. If it's not, then I didn't say that at all.

Since I finished knitting my first pair of socks about a year and a half ago, I've wanted to knit another pair. But I wasn't thrilled with the heel flap and gusset. And I didn't like how the toe decreases were. So, I looked for some toe up socks and found Very Pink's German short rows pattern. I love this pattern because I've been looking for a way to do short rows without the standard wrap&turn and finally found an easy way to do it. Plus, the pattern includes tutorial videos at each part of the sock (ie. the toe, heel and cuff) to help you along the way. I really recommend it.

I finally got to casting on for my purple Rosalie. There's not much to say about it at the moment. Or much to look at for that matter. It's just been some plain old stockinette stitch round after round. Which has been really good to knit while I play the Sims. But it's becoming a bit redundant and I'm getting a tad bit bored with it already. Hopefully, I'll feel differently when I get to the ribbing at the neck line. But I hate to knit ribbing, so I don't know why I would assume that. Maybe this time it'll be different.

This is the fabric I plan to use. Floral of course.

I've also been working on a muslin for a button up shirt I plan to sew sometime in the future. But that one has stalled out. When tracing the pattern I got confused about what certain dots meant,  so I just ignored them all. Turns out those dots were important, who knew. I was noticing this all as I was getting sick the the thousandth time this year. And I didn't really have it in me to figure out where everything lined up. Either way, I'm really excited about this project even if it is only in the muslin stage because it's something that I've done entirely by myself. I'm not saying I haven't asked for help, but there hasn't been anything on it that my mom has done. I'm just going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for that one.

There are few more projects that I've been working on that aren't worth photographing. One of them is another sweater that I've been wanting to be done with for sometime but kind of have run out of steam on it. That's actually happened to me quite a bit. Sometimes I go through a phase where I just want the finished product, but I don't want to go through sewing or knitting it. I just want it to magically appear. Does this happen to you guys? How do you muscle through it?

As always if you want to see my progress follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Open letter to self about gauge

"I don't need to check gauge. It's never been a problem for me." I know you've read that countless times. The almighty knitter who has never had one problem with gauge. I myself have said that many a times. But up until recently I'd only knit things that the gauge wasn't all too important. Then I started knitting sweaters and it became apparent that gauge is in fact important. Below is a letter to myself that I will refer to anytime I knit a new sweater.

Dear this gal,

Honestly, what's one of the first things you learn when you're starting out garment knitting? It's important to knit a gauge swatch before you start knitting your garment. I know you've read this, I was there. But since I also know you need a refresher, I'm going to give it to you, all while debunking the reasons why you have in the past chosen not to do a gauge swatch.

What is gauge and why is it important?

Gauge is the number of stitches and rows a knitter makes per inch using a certain yarn and needles. Most yarn labels have the gauge and a suggested needle size, but it doesn't always mean that you'll get gauge with the same needles they suggest. You might have to go up or down needle sizes to get it. Gauge is important because it determines how your garment is going to fit. If you're just half a stitch off, your sweater won't fit.

Here's an example, remember when you started your Magical Mystery Tour vest? Remember how you guesstimated your gauge to be 6.5 stitches per inch? So, you cast on 216 stitches to get you roughly a 33 inch bust. But then it turned out your gauge was actually 6 stitches per inch, so you actually ended up with a sweater that had a 36 inch bust. Do you remember that? If you had just taken your gauge in the first place you would have known to either cast on fewer stitches, or you could have switched needle sizes to get the gauge you wanted.

But what if I run out of yarn?

I know how concerned you were when you started that vest, but let me remind you how much leftover yarn you had when you finished. Enough to knit a whole new vest at the correct gauge, resulting in a well fitting garment. I'd also like to remind you how much yarn you had left over after knitting your Christmas sweater. You had four skeins of red, one skein of white and one skein of green. Plus, in all honesty, if you think you're going to run out of yarn, buy an extra skein.

But it just takes too much time

Admittedly, it does take some time to knit a gauge swatch. But you have to think of the time it takes to knit an entire vest in the wrong size. Then how long it takes to knit an entire vest in the correct size. You could have knit two really great vests in that time had you taken the time to check to make sure everything was going to work out the way you had calculated. Take the time to save the time.

It's a concept literally as old as time, knitting time anyway. I doubt there's ever been a knitting book written that didn't include at least a small section on gauge/tension.

From Patons 665 from the 1960s

Required reading

Now, for my sake, and my sake alone, please read the following articles on the proper ways to swatch for gauge. I will not allow you to even consider knitting another sweater until you've done so.

Gauge Overview - earthguild.com
How to measure gauge - craftsy.com
Everything you need to know about gauge - knitty.com
How to check gauge - video from verypink.com

Sincerely,

Yourself

PS.
That measly thing above, it does not count as knitting a gauge swatch, nice try though. Why is your ribbing longer than the stitch pattern?



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