Last minute crafting

The plans.  Sometimes, they go awry.


I was kind of late to the game for being organized for Christmas this year.  So, I started a hat for my grandmother at the last minute.  As you do.

It was gorgeous, light blue Malabrigo.  Like butter.  Fun to knit.  Would work great with her other recent handknits.

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Then I realized it was hand-wash only.  Not nursing home friendly.

But my cousin has blue eyes and this would look great on her.  And she lives where it snows.  So, once I finished this hat, I took a second look at my yarn options and went for Plymouth Worsted and Cascade Pacific and came up with this.  If I were to do it over, I would have done it differently (helix from the start).




My even more last minute crafting is new stockings.  I realized that no one went to the attic to get the stocking box this year.  So, I bought new ones.  There was not much selection at the big box store at that point.  And then I zipped over to the craft store for dark red perle cotton and sewing needles.  My ambition was to add snowflakes or flowers or something great, but then I started doing their initials and remembered what my actual skill level is.  And I went with slightly wonky, but mostly legible initials.

Elf Shoes for the girls!

On the one cold day we had this winter, the girls realized I had elf shoes and decided (remembered) they needed some of their own.

Mine are from 2008. I still had more of that yarn, including an un-started 2nd skein.  So, using all stash yarn, I made them slippers.

It was pretty straightforward.  But now was the tricky part.  Our old washing machine was great for felting.  But I knew the new one could go awry - after seeing the great elf sock disaster of 2014.



This time, I stuffed the socks with other stuff - dishtowels, socks, etc and put each one in a pillowcase.  And just washed on a regular wash cycle, Hot water.  This time, they did not felt enough and I had to run through it again.



On the 2nd cold day of winter, after the socks were knitted, La was wearing my elf shoes and said she didn't like how the wool felt on her feet.  El feels like hers are too big.  But from a technical standpoint, they were a success.

A hat kick

I have no idea what I've been knitting this semester.  I just know that right now I'm on a hat kick.  Portable, easy, uses stash, haven't made one in a while, short attention span.

First I grabbed a skein of some kind of Donegal tweed that I got from my neighbor who was de-stashing (and wound it).  And I just kind of started knitting a hat on size 7 needles.  

I took a sleeve from an abandoned sweater and worked in a stripe, with the method from Cambria's Missionary Hat pattern.

Finished in a couple of days.  I'm sure it'll find a home at some point.

So, keeping the same needles in my bag, I grabbed a skein of Lamb's Pride Worsted and took it to skate night.  With this hat, I've had some trouble with division and remainders and fitting patterns into factors of the cast on number.  81 is not a great number for a 3x3 pattern.  So then it got reduced to 78.  

It turns out the factors for 78 is 6x13 (or for prime factors - 2x3x13), which was not overly helpful when I tried to figure out the scallop pattern.  So there's a long, oddly shaped scallop at the beginning of the round.



The dark blue is some kind of "regular wool" from the stash.  Probably Paton's Classic or similar.

That hat is on the decreases now and will probably be finished by the end of the week.

What's next?  Probably another hat.

Quick Socks

Quick post for quick socks.

My sister gave me two skeins of Borroco Sox for Christmas.  Here is the first skein in sock form (rav project link).  It's my usual vanilla 64 stitch stockinette socks (64bit socks).  They're longer than I usually make, but these were more about the journey than the destination.

p.s.  Did you see how the stripes match up?  Dude.  I didn't even hope to get them to match when I started.

Finished knitting (from Stash!)

I've been swamped with regular stuff - Girl Scouts, soccer, work, etc.  Here are a few of the things that I finished recently.


1.  Haven't woven in the ends for this yet.  It is Favorite Scarf Ever.It's all with stash.  

I started it with Socks That Rock in Thistle.

My original plan was to make large stripes and use up a bunch of sock yarns.  But I decided to do two row stripes a la the knitting trend from a few years ago, where people were using two contrasting shades of Sock that Rock and working up this magic scarf in a feather and fan pattern.

So, I switched to my leftover Zaurball and a leftover purple Crock O Dyeand let he magic ensue.   It bothered me that the one end was the thistle, so I when I couldn't take it anymore, I used up the rest of the thistle and finished both the scarf and the ball of yarn.

2.  It got pretty cold here in February.  I may have been in a situation where it made sense to give my warm, knit from handspun mittens away.  I have to say that I really had to think twice about it - they're so soft and warm and they go with my hat.  But then I remembered a skein of Noro that I had been saving specifically for mittens for myself.  This is what I did with them - kind of basic long fingerless mitts.  They may be slightly asymetrical in real life too - I was having trouble counting the rows with this yarn.

A quick hat - sometimes I just want to see if it works

I made another hat from my friend Cambria Washington's Missionary Hat pattern.  Again, I probably didn't follow it to the letter.  It's on 80 stitches and has 4x4 rib at the start.

I had the turquoise and yellow-green kicking around near each other and every time I saw them together I liked how they looked - and thought they'd make great stripes.  I think, actually, their values are too close for the transition bands and they would actually work better as stripes.  Then I needed a third color and got some opinions.  The architects in the room all picked orange.  I went ahead and tried it because undo would not be too difficult.  I like how it turned out.

Do you ever notice how your environment influences your color choices?  The blue and green match my daughter's sneakers almost exactly.  The three colors together are very citrusy, and hence, you see them here together a lot.



Here are the details:
Yarn:  Ella Rae Superwash (blue) and Cascade 220 Superwash (quatro and regular)
Needles:  Size 7.
Pattern:  The Missionary Hat
Mods:  CO 80, knit 4x4 ribbing
For:  charity stash

Those 70s socks

These are my current "to-go" socks.  They are my usual "64 bit" socks - I may have needed a break from reading patterns.  The first one knit up pretty fast.  I'm procrastinating casting on the second.  I'm hoping for identical twins, not fraternal.  I've had some good luck in the last few pairs of striped socks.  Hopefully this holds out.  The yarn is Paton's Kroy on 2.5 or 2.25mm needles.  

Red Mittens

It might be because I'm still spending time in the picture book section of the library, but red mittens always kind of remind me of Jan Brett.  And red hats remind me of Snow Day.  These are the same pattern as the finger-less mitts for El.  Only I might have done a better job of following the directions.  They are approximately big kid sized in some red Cascade 220 Superwash that I had in the old stash.  They were really fun to knit and I like how they came out.  They could use a bath to smooth everything out, but....I like them.  They are not destined to anyone in particular - so when a good charity opportunity comes up, they will be in the mail.

Pattern:  Maize
Yarn:  Cascade 220 Superwash
Size Made:  CO 32 sts.

Super Squishy Hat

I made this really pretty hat for a friend from high school.   I wanted to use the yarn and this was the best use for it I could imagine.

It is the Grassroots pattern by Melissa Schaschwary.  I've been knitting these patterns that are much more purly than my usual and it hasn't been so bad.  The lace leaf pattern was kind of fun.  The hat is super squishy and soft and luckily still usable for my friend.

However, if you were making this for a regular winter hat for someone, I would say use a different yarn.  Like a squishy, thick sock yarn would be fab.

Here are the details:
Pattern:  Grassroots by Melissa Schaschwary
Yarn:  MadlineTosh Pashmina
Size:  Made the smallest size and it was still pretty slouchy on my 12 year old.  However, I have gauge issues (in that I usually totally wing the gauge.)
I will totally knit this pattern again in another yarn.  :)

New Socks!

So, in the recent cold snap I was pretty excited to wear my collection of wool knit socks again.  I washed them and then had to squish them a lot to be able to close the drawer.  First world knitter problems, I know.  So, the socks I've been making have been getting longer and longer.  Other than not liking drafty ankles, I'm not sure why that is.

The yarn is Cascade Heritage Yarns Quatro.  Aside from the yarn being kind of high maintenance from a splitting perspective, the socks feel super soft when knit up.
The pattern is Sunday Swing Socks by Kristel Nyberg.

I am ready for another cold snap.

I finished my sweater!  Well, OK, it still needs 2 buttons, but it's so close to being done!

The book report:
The pattern is Yoked Cardigan by Hannah Fettig.
The yarn is Cascade 220 (not superwash).  The sleeves are a different dye lot than the body, but don't tell.

It is short sleeve and comes not much past my natural waist.  I live in Florida.  I was thinking this could be a good layer over a long sleeve t-shirt when it is cold out, and be a reasonable temperature in the office too.



I was inspired to finish it up when we had a cold snap in November.  Now we are back to short sleeve weather.  Go figure.  

The start of another mitten tear

The last time I made mittens for El, I ended up making three more pairs of the same pattern.  She outgrew her mittens, I made her these:

They are the Maize pattern from TinCanKnits' simple collection.  They are simple, with clear instructions.  Sometimes I have trouble reading and following directions - so any issues are with me and not the pattern.  I knit the child size in Cascade Pacific (size 6 needle, maybe?  not precise is the rule here.)  I will knit more of these and hang on to them for a great donation opportunity.  

New Socks!

After I finished my most recent pair of socks, which I photographed in January, I just haven't felt like making socks.  I've been wearing sneakers to work, not shoes that accommodate knit socks.  I just didn't feel compelled to make socks or even wear the socks I had already made.

All of a sudden the weather turned and October kicked in and I felt like making socks.  It was like magic.  So, I wound up some Cascade Heritage Quatro and started the Sunday Swing Socks that I've been looking at for so long.

They are working up pretty fast - I even went for the three repeats on the leg.  I did one repeat of the pattern across from the gusset and now, the home stretch of stockinette.

As I've been knitting it, I have been not that impressed with how the eyelets look as you knit them, but when you try the socks on, it looks like the picture.  So, these are socks that take faith.  

Three Whistles!

Apparently I started this at the end of July.  Here's the ravelry link.  It doesn't seem like I've been working on this for that long.  It was easy and delightful.  The yarn is Tosh Sock in the Nebula colorway.  It still needs to have the ends woven in and to be washed, etc.

Craft hope.

Knitting can only fix so much.  But, one of the things a knit hat and mittens can fix are cold heads and cold hands.

Craft Hope started a new campaign today - Number 25!  On their list of things was hats and mittens for kids.  I happened to have a hat and mittens that I had been saving up, and so I put them in the mail today.

The hat is Cambria's pattern.  The mittens are Annie's Mittens.  Both patterns were a lot of fun to knit and excellent for using up leftovers.  

the other thing I'm knitting

I thought (because I am completely delusional sometimes) that I would knit Nori from Knitty.  I might have gotten through one repeat when I realized that (a) it is very challenging and (b) the yarn was so dark that it was hard to read the stitches in the best of times.

So, I did the sensible thing and started something new with the same yarn.  Terribly Simple really is super simple.

The rows are really pretty long at this point, and it's become a bit of a slog.  But I like it again (we were on a break while I knit most of my sweater.)  This photo captures the color best of the ones that I took.  My older daughter and I were goofing around with my point and shoot camera and I found some menu choices I didn't know it had (It has filters built in!)

La took this photo - I think it turned out really neat.

Finally - a sweater for me

I am not sure what happened this summer, but I started knitting a sweater for myself.  I've had the yarn for it for a while and have been going back and forth for what to do with it.  Heathery charcoal grey cascade 220 and a few spare skeins of stuff that could be used for contrast.

I settled on Hannah Fettig's Yoked Cardigan.

The pattern picture is of a baby, but the size range goes through adults.  It was totally worth paying for.  I wouldn't have figured out the method on my own and yet, it is so delightful and straightforward to knit.  I have had trouble putting it down.

I decided to use the contrast color as though I made a fancy colorwork sweater, except it is basically just a stripe.  I think you add button bands on later, so I'm not sure how things are really going to look in the finished product, but for now, I love it.



Here it is as of this week.  Even though it is crazy hot out here, it is still soccer knitting.  I have less than an inch left of the body, then it is time for the sleeves.

A summer FO

I can't believe I finished this in July and haven't posted it yet.

I finished it while I was in India this summer.  Here's the skinny:

Pattern:  Graphic Kerchief by Ce Persiano
Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Heritage Paints for the main color and Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk for the contrast.
Mods:  I left out the colorwork part - I realized well into it that I was measuring it wrong and so all of a sudden it was at the "finished size".  Also, I don't think I did the contrast color bind off stuff right - I think I joined on the wrong type of row (wrong side/right side)
Overall:  The pattern was pretty fun in retrospect - the challenge is that you're knitting it from the top left corner as shown in the picture.  The right edge and the left edge increase at different rates - this was kind of hard for me to manage at first, but I got used to it.  

10 on Tuesday: ten patterns that I knit over (and over) again

Let's see if I have 10 repeaters.

1.  Hurricane Hat.


2.  Granny's Dishcloth


3.  The baby blanket based on Granny's dishcloth


4.  My vanilla sock


 5.  Annie's Mittens


 6.  Elf Shoes


7.  Fuzzy Feet


8.  My Flip Top mittens


9.  My Spiral Rib baby hat


 10.  The Eyebrow hat

Soccer Knitting

It has been the usual kind of crazy - end of school festivities - the small ensemble concerts, the big production spring concerts, soccer, scouts (camping, bridging, working on the Bronze Award), figuring out camps and where people will be over the summer.   After finishing the green scarf and ruining the slippers, I needed two new projects.  I started the Graphic Kerchief and will have to photograph that.  Once the rows got too long, it was no longer my to-go knitting.  I needed something simple.  I was feeling scarfy still, but most of the patterns I was looking at were complicated.  There was no particular yarn I felt like using, so leftover sock yarn had a lot of potential.  I started the Favorite Scarf Ever pattern with leftover Socks That Rock.  My initial thinking was that I would use up this yarn, then just switch to another when I ran out.  Also, not planning to follow the pattern directions and knit two half scarves and then sew them together.

1.  STR Thistle (which is the yarn that I cast on for socks for myself while in the hospital when El was born.)
 

2.  I realized later that I seem to have a purple chevron thing going on right now.  This is a project that has been underway for a year.  Also purple and green chevrons.  But complicated enough (two different saw-toothed edges and the chevron increases on one side and is kind of on the bias.)  If I were able to knit it at soccer it would be done by now.




3.  I decided to switch to stripes of this leftover crazyball (pink and green) and leftovers from the sweater I made for my cousin K., who, I believe is 3 now.    Still, purple and green chevrons for now.  But at least it is knittable in real life.  Reminds me also of those 2 row striped feather and fan scarves that were all over the place a few years ago.



4.  Here is what it looks like now.  The green is transitioning to white and then pink.  It is fun to knit and not too tricky.