Gotta love a busy weekend

I'm getting organized to head out and give my Ravelry 101 talk to the Pinecone Treadlers Guild here in Bracebridge today.  I'm excited to share Ravelry with the amazing ladies in the guild.  I'm a firm believer that anyone can use Ravelry, but I know it can be overwhelming for those folks who aren't as comfortable with web applications as I am.   So I'm hoping today I will be able to give these ladies a few tips and tricks to help make Ravelry work for them.

Ravelry 101 is just one of the talks I have in my ever-growing roster of classes, you can see more about them on my Workshops page.

However, that's not what was keeping me busy this weekend.  I managed to finish off two projects over the weekend.  My Rainbowllenics Socks and a scarf woven on a rigid heddle loom, which I'm calling my Olympics Medal Scarf.

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I did get my Rainbowllenics Socks doing during the Olympics, which I ended up watching more of than expected.  I don't have cable, just internet and AppleTV, so watching the Olympics wasn't super easy, however with the Men's and Women's Hockey games being ubiquitous here in Canada I ended up doing some streaming.

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I'm really quite pleased with these socks, they fit perfectly and I got to do my first afterthought heel.  

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I can't see myself switching over to all afterthought heel, however the fit is good for me so I will probably use it on striped socks to preserve the striping. If you have't done one before and a short-row heel fits you fine, consider an afterthought heel.  I followed the video by The Knit Girlls and found it to be helpful and correct. 

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The other project I started, and finished this past weekend is a woven scarf.  I wove it out of a single skein of fingering weight yarn, and I have to say it is the PERFECT use for those high-contrast multis I just don't like to knit with.

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I ended up screwing up my calculations so my weft ran out well before my warp, but the scarf is still a nice length.

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While I did take nice pictures of it on my lady, the scarf isn't quite finished yet.  I still need to trim and twist the fringe and then do a wet blocking.  When I taught  rigid heddle class back in November the group was shocked, shocked when I said to "block" your scarf after finishing your weaving.  I know there is some disagreement out there around the words, particularly what is involved with blocking.  However, for me, every finished object needs to go for a swim before it is done. 

Think about it.  That project in your hands, the fleece was shorn from a sheep, then cleaned, combed/carded, spun into singles, plyed into yarn and then wound into a skein, where it was wound into a ball and then tied in knots by your needles and hooks or stretched half to death on your loom.  If you had been through that wouldn't you need a bath to get yourself right with the world.  Also, I don't know about you all, but I don't only knit after having washed my hands and always sit in a clean sterile space to work.  I have a cat, he LOVES yarn, my projects are FILTHY by the time they fall off the needles, they need a good washing just so they aren't gross anymore. Even my weaving projects aren't safe from the cat.

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So no matter if your item needs pinning/stretching or not, a bath is a very, very important of finishing every project.  Also, if you ever plan on washing it, you are going to be blocking it, might as well know whats join to happen when you get it wet.

With weaving the project "plumps" up, and all those little gaps you saw in the weave will disappear and I will have a perfect, plain weave scarf.

So block your knits, I remember my terror the first time I wet blocked an item, now I can't imagine not sending my finished objects for a swim.


Project Details:

Rainbowllenics Socks
Pattern: Jaywalker Socks by Grumperina
Yarn: KnitPicks Felici Fingering in Rainbow (sady both the colorway and yarn are discontinued)
Previous Blogged: February 7th, 2014 - Rainbowllenics Socks

Olympics Medal Scarf
Pattern: Plain Weave @ 10dpi  - 9.5" warped
Yarn: Fleece Artist Sea Wool in Fire Opal