Busy, Busy with the Gifting

I don't think that I'm the only one who has been inundated with life changes of late. Babies are being born. They are being born faster than I can knit. A good friend of mine from undergrad had an adorable daughter back in August. As my first friend with a baby, I went a little overboard with the knitmaking. Not one, but two February Baby Sweaters--one in worsted weight yarn and one in DK weight. But wait, there's more, I also made my first Saartje's Booties with some leftover sock yarn.

Her name is Alice Amelia.

Pattern: EZ's February Baby Sweater

Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK in Pale Lemon
Buttons: From Windsor Button. Almost like little jelly candies.
Needles: No. 5s

I really like the buttons.

Pattern: EZ's February Baby Sweater
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Tidepool Heather
Buttons: From Windsor Button
Needles: No. 6s

For the two sweaters I made copied the same number of repeats for both of them. This left the sizing (as ad hoc as it was) to the change in yarn weight and needlesize. I have no clue if they fit, or if the arm length is even correct.

Pattern: Saartje's Booties
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Superwash Sock in Foxy Lady
Buttons: From Windsor Button
Needles: No. 2s

I did find these booties a bit fussy on the finishing of sewing the buttons on and creating buttonholes. I followed Ysolda's tutorial for sewn button loops. Even without the pictures on the website, I found the instructions helpful.

Soon after I had finished the sweaters and booties, I received in the mail a baby announcement from one of my cousins whose wife gave birth to an adorable girl named Mary. My baby knits endurance had been tapped with the two sweaters so I opted for a cutesy baby hat.

Pattern: Berry Baby Hat by Michele Sabatier
Yarn: Valley Yarns' Valley Superwash in Grape and Grass
Needles: No. 7s and 8s

The hat turned out great, and I got to work it in the round using Magic Loop. I just may be a Magic Loop convert since you don't have to change from circular needles to dpns when the diameter gets too small.

Another cousin of mine (we have a lot of them: 20+ at least), gave birth to her second boy. After having a good experience with the Berry Baby Hat and lots of the Grass colorway left, I cast on this little hat.

Pattern: Greenleaf Baby Hat by Evelyn Uyemura
Yarn: Valley Yarns' Valley Superwash in Grass
Needles: No. 7s and 8s

This pattern is pretty much the same as the Berry Baby Hat only without the colorwork and with a leaf at the end of the i-cord stem. I found it difficult to find good baby boy patterns but this one fit the bill.

Next, my mom and my grandma just moved into a house together. It seems to be a great move (in more than one sense) for both of them. Grandma is an amazing woman who is quickly approaching 90 years-old and has the most independent and ornery spirit of anyone in the family. Mom has been far away from her rather large family for a very long time and has always wanted to be closer to everyone. In celebration of this, I decided that they need some new housewarming gifts. Namely, some ballband dishcloths and towel. The ballband is usually the territory of Aidan, but as Grandma would say, "tough shit."

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth by Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Co., Inc.
Yarn: Lily Sugar'n Cream in Hot Yellow, Neptune Ombre, Blue Grass and Tropic
Needles: No. 7s

Years ago, on a Hobby Lobby visit in Missouri, high on the craft-store fumes, I bought lots and lots of Lily Sugar'n Cream yarn. I put it to good use with these dishcloths and towel. For the towel, I cast on per the pattern and quickly realized that it was going to be way, way too big to be is dishcloth. I knit on and on until the Neptune Ombre ran out--about 22 repeats of Color B (the Neptune Ombre). For the discloths, I cast on 39 stitches with an extra two stitch for a slip stitch edge to help hide the color changes. I completed 4 pattern repeats for a total of 8 repeats of the Color B.

Most Disgusting Knitting Blog You Will Read Today

Cat yarn! My cat is huge; the Anna Nicole Smith of cats. Her fur is very fine and soft, like cotton balls, since she seems to have fewer guard-hairs than most other cats. Her fur is almost all under-coat consistency, except for directly over her spine. I brush her every other day or so and get an entire brush-full of fur. (Note: that's a library book and a J. Crew catalog that she's sleeping on, for size comparison.)


Earlier this week, her cat brush and my drop spindle were obviously too close together. I blame this on my dad. He was talking about making golden retriever yarn.


I spent a whole 2-minutes on this. I'm not an accomplished spinner, so undoubtedly if I'd taken more time the yarn would've come out thinner and more even. As it is, it was very easy to make a single-ply chunky yarn. It's actually a lot like Lamb's Pride bulky, but very soft, more like Malabrigo.


This cat seems to be super allergenic. I'm more allergic to her than other cats. Considering that some people have to carry epi-pens around due to severe life-threatening cat allergies, a sweater made from cat yarn could be down-right dangerous. An entire skein of cat yarn will not be forthcoming.

FO: February Lady Sweater

To continue in the vein of not-so-original knits, I have my February Lady Sweater to share. I was seduced by this sweater. Maybe it was the popularity. Maybe it was free pattern. After perusing the various projects on Ravelry, I was convinced that I could make a well-fitting sweater. The pattern was well-written and easy to follow-especially for a novice sweater knitter.

Pattern: February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynn
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Spruce
Needles: No. 8s

Many, many of the finished sweaters on Ravelry had sleeves that were loose and baggy like wrinkly elephant legs. This offends some basic knitter pride of mine. One of the fundamentals to knitting is the ability to customize your product to fit to your own body. Is it too big? Make it smaller! Is it too short? Make it longer. As a knitter, you have the ability to change, alter, reject whatever you don't like. If your sleeves come out all loose and baggy, you don't have to accept it.



The major modifications that I made were to the sleeves to avoid all the nasty looseness that all the other knitters were having. I dropped a needle size to no. 7s and decreased in the underarm over one pattern repeat of the lace to get rid of 7 stitches. All in all, I am pleased with the outcome of the sweater. It was my first "every day wear" sweater. I had to get up the courage to wear it, but I didn't get any "did you make take" responses--just "I like your sweater" compliments.

FO: Lace Ribbon Scarf

Ok, so I finished this over a year ago and never got around to snapping any pictures of it. Even worst, I purchased the yarn at a stopover at WEBS on my way to Rhinebeck in 2007. I purchased 5 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca Silk in a very lovely peach. I cast on an extra repeat of the pattern so that the scarf would be wide enough to drape on my shoulders.



And then I started to knit. And knit. And knit. I used up all of the 5 skeins. After binding off, I had a 3 inch tail to weave in and that was the end of the fifth skein. So I blocked and started wearing it. It was so long. I never got around to measuring it, but it was obscenely long. That would not have been such an issue if it would drape and wind around my neck neatly. It didn't. No matter which way I a tied and coiled, it always looked weird and awkward.

Awkward! Right? (Plus too many hand knits!)

Finally, after wearing it all winter, I went to wash it and pack it away with my other seasonal woolens. I came to my senses and ripped out about 1-2 feet of the scarf and then reblocked it with my new lace wires. I stretched the width to compensate for the length.

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca Silk in Peach
Needles: No. 5

The result is a much more graceful scarf.

FO: O W L Sweater

When I saw Kate Davies' Owl Sweater pattern, I knew that I just had to make it. Apparently, so did everyone else who happens to knit.

Pattern: O W L by Kate Davies (I really like her blog, Needled.)
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool in Grey
Needles: Nos. 10 and 10.5

I really enjoyed knitting the pattern. It is easy to follow and quick off the needles. I did run into some trouble with ladders on the sleeves. I knit them in the round on dpns, but I could not eliminate the ladders. I tried all sorts of tricks to no avail. I don't want to reknit them. I think I may try blocking again but this time making a better effort to readjust the slack with a crochet hook.



Just the other day, I finally decided to put some eyes on the poor birdies. Here they are blind and in Stockholm.



Ok, you can barely even see that I'm wearing a sweater. As the heaviest garment I brought with me, it got some use. I even slept in it some nights.

FO: Noro Stripe Scarf

I started this scarf in January and finished it within the week, which was a good thing because the thermometer didn't get above freezing until almost late March. I was just fascinated with the color combinations and transitions. The hardest part was to "trust" the noro stripe and let the colors come together on their own instead of splicing in better combinations. No genetic engineering here.

Pattern: Generic and ubiquitous (craze started here)
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, 2 skeins each of numbers 208 and 234
Needle: No. 6

I cast on 39 stitches with a slipped stitch selvage. Scarf was a good-type of knitting magic when you become completely tickled that you made something fascinating and useful from something so mundane and ordinary.

Playing Catchup

I have a list. It resides on a post-it note that has long since lost its "post-itness." This particular list is of all the FOs that I have finished and have yet to get proper photos of. Additionally, I have not shared them on the blog.

And so after a quick jaunt to Jamaica Pond, I got some decent photos. Natural light! Scenery! However, I didn't get too creative. Photographing yourself in the park wearing sweaters in 80 degree weather is courageous thing to do. Or at least, I felt like I had to be a bit brave to do so.

Between Ravelry, Flickr, and here, there may be some redundancy. I apologize, but I hope to at least expand a bit more on my process (if I can remember it) and my knitting experience with each FO.

Parade of FOs to come. Stay tuned...

Photographic proof

Scout on top of 19 squares of the psychedelic bedspread.

19% done on the psychedelic bedspread!

81% left to go....

Knitting vs. Reading

If only I could execute my two favorite pastimes simultaneously! Instead, the knitting has been losing out to Vol. 1 of Proust, then to (currently) Austen's Mansfield Park.

The knitting has not been happening at all.

I have 16 squares of my psychedelic wool blanket completed. That's 16% done!

I have half a wool sock. I have a complete pair of wool socks minus kitchener-stitching one toe closed. I have a green baby sweater that just needs to be sewn up.

I have a ball of blue-green cotton yarn that I found at Mom's house in Missouri that I didn't notice smelled like mildew until I got it home to California. So I tried to wash the whole thing and dry it on the radiator, but the radiator discolored some of the strands. : (

Where is my copy of Mansfield Park?

Hit Play for Me, Would ya?

Wow! It's been quiet here on the blog, but I will assure you that no one is being left out of new knitting delights. I haven't been knitting at all. No joke. Bar exam season hardly left me with time to sleep, let alone knit. After two states in three days of insanity, my right hand was nearly crippled from writing 16 total essays by hand. This wouldn't have been such an issue if I was a picker, but alas, I still old-school throw.

Anyhow, bar exams are done, and I can resume the knitting. I also have some fabulous vacation time coming so I'll have lots of travel knitting. On August 4, I'm off to the homestead to "clean out my shit" from my mom's house. This has been a rather dramatic development of my mom moving out of our house and in with my grandma in another city about 4 hours away. While I'm happy for my mom to start a new job in a town that much of her family, it comes at a damn inconvenient time. I'm pacifying myself with promises of lovely Missouri summer weather (maybe some awesome thunderstorms, if we're lucky) and fireflies and evenings knitting on the porch with the sister.

After Missouri, I'm home for a few then I'm off to two weeks of Scandinavia! I've very thrilled about this vacation and need to do some more planning. Right now I have just the skeleton: Stockholm to Copenhagen to Oslo to Bergen. I need to flesh it out and get a list of what I want to see/do.

By the time I'm back in the Bean, August will almost be over, and I can focus on becoming employed.

Does anyone need a lawyer-waiting-bar-admission? Anyone? Anyone?

Can't stop knitting squares

I can't wait for my 5-hour plane trip to Boston next week.  What with the waiting in the airport ahead of time, that's at least 6 hours of knitting when I can't be reasonably expected to do anything else.  

Yesterday the 21 skeins of Cascade 220 arrived from Webs.  I completed my first mitered square for the Mason-Dixon Mitered Square Bedspread.  It takes me about 2 hours to knit one square, although I'm sure that will decrease as I learn the pattern by heart.  I only have about 100 of these squares to make in order to cover my queen size bed.  

That means, I can probably get 3 squares done on my flight out, and 3 squares on the flight back.  Plus the square I did yesterday.  The one I'm going to do tonight.  The 1-2 I'll do tomorrow.  That's already 10% of the squares for the bedspread DONE!!!!

Not to mention possible knitting time with Grandma and Emily.  It's OK to knit during a commencement address, right?

Busted, Beverly's, and Basketball

Over the weekend I visited the Beverly's craft store in Alameda, where I purchased 4 skeins of Coats and Clarks' "Creme de la Creme" worsted weight cotton yarn and 2 50g skeins of Red Heart wool sock yarn. How I came to be at the Beverly's in Alameda, and how Alameda is a charming little island of Leave-it-to-Beaver cute houses approximately 4 blocks away from industrial-decay/don't go outside at night Oakland is another story.

It wasn't until last night, while I was sitting on my new-to-me couch and watching the Men's College Basketball Finals, that I noticed the bottom sliding doors on my yarn altar had fallen off. Evidently my recent purchase of yet more cotton yarn had caused enough pressure to bust the doors right out of their little wooden tracks. Hmmm. Some people might take this as a sign that they have too much yarn.

I haven't actually gotten around to putting the doors back on the yarn altar, however, because both of my hands were occupied during the Big Game with knitting on the Baby Blessing Blanket. Some last-minute color changes occurred last week, so I'm just now getting back to where I was before I decided to rip out the white section and replace it with more dark blue. White colors and soon-to-be toddler boys don't harmonize well together anyway.

In the meantime, I've churned out 4 cotton dishrags. My perpetual dream of being able to make enough dishrags to give to all of my relatives for Christmas may come true this year, since I still have 9 months left to go before the holidays. I also have visions of a cotton garter-stitch bath mat. (Basically, the Blessing Blanket done in cotton.)

Corrupted

In the spirit of Palm Sunday, I'm coming clean. I broke my yarn fast. I fell off the yarn wagon. I succumbed to the Siren's yarn song. And when I fell, I fell hard. Think Lucifer's fall from Heaven.

It was the evil temptation of the WEBS sale that did it. Now I'm jitterly waiting for my yarn fix. I've stocked up on Cascade Ecological (6 skeins in two colorways, one for O w l s and one for who-knows-what), Cascade Eco Alpaca (for my Francis revisited because I just wasn't feeling the Fisherman's Wool), and the piece do resistance, Baby Alpaca Grande (10 skeins (!): I'm thinking about EZ's garter stitch blanket).

And, since I don't have and now really need a No. 13 needle tip for my Knit Picks Interchangeables, I staggered over to the KnitPicks website. After checking, out there I found my cart full of 3 balls of Swish DK in Pale Lemon, 4 balls of Swish Worsted in Tidepool Heather, and Mason-Dixon's Outside the Lines. I figured that two baby sweaters for my preggers friend was more economical than a baby blanket. So I'm going with EZ's Baby Sweater on Two Needles. I also refuse to make a pink sweater. I figured pale yellow and a greenish-blue would look smashing on the new one since both my friend and her husband are very, very blonde and blue-eyed.

So...I think I need to get another tub for my yarn...

Spring Break in Review, San Francisco 2009 edition

Yesterday, I got home from my week long break with Aidan in San Francisco, and as always, there was much yarn involved.

First, sorting, detangling and other manners of yarn-wrangling of Aidan's Stash. She has much, much cotton yarn.





Then, setting up the Yarn Altar. Yup, the Yarn Altar. This lovely cabinet has been commandeered to be a knitting shrine. The little sliding doors on the bottom hold all of Aidan's cotton yarns.




Also, we journeyed down to the Mission to eat at scrumptious Delfina's Pizza. At Imagiknits, Aidan found her long lost yarnbaby.


Aidan and I both worked on some of our WiPs. She was knitting a squishy-lovefest of a garter stitch baby blanket. I made some progress on my Hanami, but fell into some trouble on my plane ride back home.

Other exciting things happened, but were not "yarn related" and therefore are not chronicled here. (There was much visiting, and walking, and exploring, and eating. We did a lot of eating.)

What I'm Excited About

I made my way over to knitpicks.com last night and found out that they have started their own line of accessories. The knitpicks option needles are my favorite needles, and I love the prices. The new accessories are also very, very reasonable. These prices on ball winders, stitch markers, etc. are so much lower than what Clover goes for. And, AND, the blocking mats are $19.99 for a set of 9 interlocking squares. Also, the free shipping for orders over $50 is always nice.

It may be needless for me to say this, but I have a package on its way to me.

Knowing When to Throw in the Towel

This afternoon and evening after my adventure in the blizzard to go to court I sat at home and knitted. Nothing new there, really. I was enjoying myself, drinking some earl grey, eating some mac and cheese, and knitting away. (I was also watching Jekyll on netflix.com. It's a good one.) Anyway, I was thinking to myself: "I have three big projects that are coming to an end." Man, I was so very pleased with myself. I was contemplating blocking my newly finished projects: Lacy Chunky Throw, FLS, and Gma's Cowl. I was also thinking of what else I could cast on. My thoughts were a little premature. As I was seeing how big my Lacy Chunky Throw was, I found this:

Look about half way up. One ridge in from the garter stitch edge. Follow the columns of yarn overs. You should see a new ridge magically appear in the middle of a yarn over column. Yeah. Oops.

This is a close-up. Definitely. A. Mistake.

The problem: I think this mistake is big enough to rip out half my throw. It's not just a "oops, I knit a stitch instead of purling" mistake. This is "my throw is going to be a trapezoid instead of a rectangle" mistake.

In my disgust, I put the throw in time-out and decided to finish my Grandma's Christmas cowl (yes, Christmas was a long time ago, and yes, it's almost spring). All that remained to do was kitchener stitch the two halves together. I ate some dinner and got to it. About ten stitches in I notice the two patterns weren't meeting up exactly. I was frustrated and disappointed at the error but thought that it was a mistake I could live with. I stitched and grafted, grafted and stitched until I was almost to the end. That's when I had another, "Oh crap" moment.

See the blue needle with the green stitch marker? There are ten stitched to the right of the stitch marker and ten stitches to the left of the stitch marker. See the pink needle? It has ten stitches on it.

Yes, I knitted an extra lace repeat on one of the halves of the cowl. I guess I get to frog at least half of the cowl and reknit AND regraft.

I sat there staring at my pile of fails and contemplated fixing my FLS. FLS has been on hold while I've been recovering from ripping out a whole sleeve and reknitting it. It know needs the sleeve's cuff to be ripped out because I didn't release that there is a problem with knitting garter in the round: you get a funky seam kinda like the jog you get when knitting stripes in the round.

Here's a pic.

So after I pick myself up off the floor, I'll tackle the frogging and then the reknitting. I know that ripping it out as soon as you can and just pretending it didn't happen in the first place is the best thing to do, but it can be so hard to actually do it.

Spring Break Itinerary (Suggested)

Monday:
Eat Dim Sum (no seafood)
Visit Imagiknit

Tuesday:
Eat Burritos in the Mission
Visit Atelier Yarns

Wednesday:
Northbeach for coffee, tiramisu, roast lamb
Knit in the park

Thursday:
French cafe--stock up on Apple Chaussons
Kool-Aid dying of wool yarn

Little feet

Here are some baby booties that I made. The only problem is that the baby is now too big for the booties. I'm always a baby behind on my baby projects...

I Met Someone at the Dog Show....

She was holding my left hand.

And, she was wearing a star-crossed beret perfectly matched to her scarf.

Thanks, Emily.

Elderly British Lady

For the past two weekends (or so), I've been holed up at home working on my knitting while drinking tea and watching BBC while the weather was snowy and very, very cold. I've been hooked on the Dorothy L. Sayers Miniseries from the late 80s. So many hours of mystery and clever British witticisms.

Anyway, I've been making head way on my February Lady Sweater. Right now I'm about 7" into the lace section of the bodice. I've also been perusing the billions of FLS projects on Ravelry to get inspiration on how I want the finished product to look. While I have an idea now, it came mostly by way of all the unfortunate projects on Ravelry. Perhaps I'm a horrible person, it could be so, but some of these projects are really atrocious. Now, I support the idea of making something yourself and being really proud of what you have accomplished; however, I also think that you don't have to wear the thing you toiled away on if it makes you look dumpy or frumpy or just doesn't do a damn thing for you. I think there is also the brave spirit who gives the finger to the world and all the critics and says, "Screw you. I made this. I'm wearing it." That's ok too. Those people don't want to be know by what they have knitted but by their attitude in wearing it.

All the perusing put me in a bit of a snit. This was due to the fact that while I start looking at everyone else's Ugly Finished Object I start to fear that mine too is going to be ugly and I'm going to be blind to its ugliness. So, I charge all of you readers (all two of you), to not be afraid to tell me thank my labored over and carefully knitted FO is atrocious and should be frogged without delay. Either that or give me good ideas on how to not make me look frumpy and dumpy as though all I've been doing is eating scones, drinking tea, and knitting while watching the BBC.

Knitting for the Wii?

This was a running joke over Christmas break only we didn't know that it was a real thing.

Check it.

2008 roundup and Xmas Present Revisit

This past year has been a good knitting year. Retrospectively, in 2008, I visited 2 sheep and wool festivals, started 20 projects (more projects than all my other knitting years combined), finished 14 of the 20 projects that I started. I knitted by first sweater in 2008 (Best Friend Cardigan) and was able to give 11 knitted gifts for Christmas.

As for my Christmas gifts, I was able to make 2 Jacques Cousteau hats, 4 Star Crossed Slouchy berets, 2 Crofter Cowls, 1 Holding Hands Feeding Ducks Scarf, 1 Amelia Earhart hat, and 1 Woven Headband. I neglected to take pictures of all of them before gifting but here are several.

Jean's Crofter Cowl

Yarn: Malabrigo Paris Night
Needles: no. 8s

Noelle's Star Crossed Slouchy Beret

Yarn: Manos del Uruguay
Needles: no. 10.5s and no.9s

Dad's Jacques Cousteau Hat
Yarn: Ultra Alpaca
Needles: no. 5s

Darlene's Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks Scarf
Yarn: Atelier Yarn's 50/50 Yarn
Needles: no. 10.5s

Sarah's Star Crossed Slouchy Beret
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay
Needles: no. 11s and no. 10s

Haley's Star Crossed Slouchy Beret
Yarn: Knit and Needlepoint's Merino
Needles: No. 11s and No. 10s

With all of my knitting for others out of the way, I'm really excited to work on some projects for myself. I finally ordered more skeins so that I can finish Twiggy. I have may Noro sitting out for my Noro Stripe scarf. I am swatching for my February Lady Sweater and I have new plans for my cheap, cheap purchase of Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool. I plan to knit Frances with it. I also have a pattern picked out for the Times Remembered Alpaca that I bought at Rhinebeck. I've kinda fallen in love with Charlie by Jordana Paige.

Bring on the 2009 knitting!