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Hi Guys,

Here is the first knitted clog from Australia, well at least on MWK! This was an experiment as I substituted the yarn and needle size and must say it has turned out well with only a few minor hiccups!! Even managed to watch TV while knitting them. The felting process was much easier than I expected, even with a front load washer. Took just 25 mins of wash cycle to get the right size. Not much fun getting the door to open when the machine is full of hot water and trying to stop the suds from spewing all over the floor though. I used one end of blue and one of white as they are the favourite colors of my partner, Keith. We have all manner of plates and kitchen stuff in blue & white so we have christened them 'willow clogs'!!

Now that many of you clog boyz are already felting your creations, I've finally found out the sizes I need to make and bought enough yarn to make two pairs.  I came home from work this afternoon and got started on the first inner sole, which I'm doing in one strand of blue and one of light grey (hoping for a blue jeans effect).

I thought I'd pass along something that I found helpful when I made these clogs before.  First, I went through the entire pattern and underlined every occurrence of the center stitch, which is easy to recognize because it mostly occurs between two increases or decreases.  Then I marked the center stitch on my needles with a brightly-colored scrap of yarn so that while I was working I could easily verify that that stitch corresponded to the marked center stitch on the pattern.  I found it reassuring to have a landmark while repeatedly turning my work, rather than finding out further down the line that I'd miscounted and having to rip out several rows.

Hi guys,

The pictures of Jared's scarf reminded me of a project I have on my want-to-do list.

This link is to a site with two scarves that were designed in memory of Mathew Sheppard. The patterns are free and I thought it might be something that the men on this website would be interested in seeing.

Ben 

 If the link doesn't work you can past this into your browser:

http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/scarves/matthewshepard.htm

Well guys it has just been over a week since this clog thing started and we have seen some great stuff so far.  If I can get my dumb ass on a plane (on stand-by) I'll be finishing mine up in California this week.

 Let me know if you would be interested in doing an online chatroom session sometime this week and we can get together and hash out some semi-realtime questions!

As we say in Texas... Arrivederci Y'all!

If anyone dares write and correct my arrivederci... I'll getcha!

It has been so hot in Portlandia and it just pulls it out of me since I work outdoors.  Today is my father's 70th b-day and I've not finished his sweater (oh the guilt!!!!)  I just want to sit and knit today (and pay some bills, eat, work out, play some rugby)... anything but move stones in a garden (horticultural stonework is my career at this point).

What I am currently working on.  A stole or sash made of alpaca (really nice but inexpensive stuff) and blue moon mini-mohair loop in "olive garden".  Extremely lux.  You jus' wanna roll around nekkid on it.  It should be perfect with the kilt that I am sewing for myself.  (Brown merino-linen blend). Now I just have to knit the perfect socks and a tam, sew up a snazzy little shirt in an appropriate color (that hides any shedding of the shawl) and I will be perfectly attired for I don't know, Halloween, or any formal affair?  The ballet?  les Sylphide? White bird dance performance? 

Hello Men! Here's a scarf I recently completed, and am very excited about!  Its the "Forbes Forest" pattern by Kathy Zimmerman from 'Scarf Style' (Interweave Press)

I used 6 balls of KnitPicks 'Merino Style' in the Moss colorway.  Too early for this now, but it will serve me well throughout the NYC autumn and winter months. More here.

I am trying to figure out how to treat the soles of the clogs so that they are not so slippery. I noticed that Chris has a plug for Plasti Dip in his blog. What are other guys doing to unslick their soles?

ben 

Here's the sweater that I started earlier this summer.  It's made from undyed wool from a friend's sheep in a basket weave pattern on circular needles.  It's for the Best Beloved; I'm currently working on one in hand dyed, hand spun yarn for me.  It's been a while since I've actually FINISHED something, so I'm really quite pleased!  Most of this was worked watching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation - in case that's helpful information!!!

After all the  posotive comments and kind words of encouragement I recieved in my last post I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside so decided to crack on with the circular knitting project.

While thinking of designs for my sweater and after knitting a few inches, I thought I would take a step back and have a look at what I had done so far. I'm sure you can appreciate my frustration when I realised that I had got the stitches twisted yet again and was now knitting an impossible sweater!

So out it all comes again for the second time! Oh well, that'll teach me for not paying attention. Im sure it wont be the last time I rip it but I'm determine not to let these circular needles beat me! 

Well got both of my clogs knitted up. The first is complete and the second has almost all the ends woven in. The second one went sooooo much better than the first. No short row and miscounting fiascoes that I could find. (Note: The left one in the pic is the 2nd clog knitted. The right one is the 1st.) Up to this point I haven't seen any pictures of the soles and the seaming there so I posted a pic of one. The pattern says to seam them loosely so I hope I did that right and they don't bunch up. If so, mom will just have to walk to imperfections out.

Now for the questions portion of this pageant...