AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

tiny needles and tiny projects

I've been working on the knitted (and crocheted) ornaments for something like two weeks now.  I only have a week before the bazaar, so something probably going to give.  Hopefully it won't be my tenuous grip on reality.

Here are some of the bases I've been working on.  These are all double knitting.  I wanted to make a square like the garter squares for the Mason-Dixon blanket project only with a double knit center.  Now, this would have come out square if I had done it the way the Hoover Blanket works, but in these cases I was increasing at the beginning of each row (as per the squares) and then at the appropriate location (usually 3 stitches in), I would do the increase that sets up the stitch for double knitting.  Here is the little recipe I used for the best one:

Cast on 3 stitches.
Inc (kfb) in the first stitch of each row.  When you have six stitches on the needles, kfb, k1, kfb, knit to end.  All subsequent rows: kfb, k1, kfb, double knit (k1, s1wyf) for the appropriate # of stitches, knit to end. When it is as wide as you want it to be, k2tog, k1, k2tog, double knit (k1, s1wyf) for the appropriate # of stitches, knit to end.  Eventually you will decrease away the last pair of double knit stitches (you will always decrease a knit stitch with its corresponding slipped purl stitch), and then you can decrease at the beginning of each row until you have 3 stitches then cast off.

This should make the smallest diamond on the right hand side.

It wasn't hard to do once I got into the rhythm of it, but given the differences between the double knit gauge and the garter border these do not come out square.  They are interesting diamond shapes.  I plan to bead these and attach ornament hooks.  They are interesting and fun to do.

I didn't just make double knitted 'squares' yesterday.  I also made a hat.  This hat is tiny!  I wanted to make a stocking cap style ornament (and now I'm working on a little matching sock and mitten).  I love the little sparkly brim made with one strand of leftover Karabella lace mohair (I'm never going to run out) and one strand of sparkly crochet cotton.  I think I'm going to make two different kinds of mitten ornaments.  Ones that are single mittens and ones that are the pair of mittens held together with the "don't lose me" connecting string.  I also have plans to make a couple of bells given some of the other shapes and patterns I've been working with.

I started the sock (there aren't any pictures of the sock right now, because I started it on the train).  The beginning of both are about the same.  I love making these, but part of me is still excited for the bazaar to get here so I can work on other things.  I have a copy of Wisp printed out, a ton of beads I can use, and a single ball of Kidsilk Haze that I never got around to finding a project for.  It will be nice to work on a little bit of lace after all of this small needle work.

Of course, neither the ornaments or Wisp is on my Ravelry listings (well, Wisp is in the queue) and I haven't finished anything that's on my list since the blanket.  Maybe I should wait a bit before starting even a simple lace project.  Maybe?  Maybe I'll at least finish another project of shame before moving onto the lace (I am thinking Fetching, which I started at the beginning of the year or late last year and I only have the thumbs to do).

Better living through modern medicine

I got out of my doctor's appointment, unsurprised at the results.  I managed to do something sad to my back, probably a result of a series of minor neglects (lack of stretching, sitting funny, lifting awkward packages improperly, carrying too much stuff on one shoulder).  The litany of what can cause muscle spasms is pretty huge.  Unlike the last time this happened, I will not spend a week or so suffering needlessly.  Instead I have prescriptions that while they are not miracle cures will leave me with the power to get stuff done (provided I don't take the one that causes drowsiness before going to work).  With a happier heart I went to get some coffee and then head back home where I could knit in peace.

I finished one gift (well it is blocking right now and will have the ends woven in afterwards) this morning.  I wanted to accelerate the blocking process, so I turned on the oven to 200, let it preheat, turned the oven off and put the blocked item on a cookie sheet in the oven.  The item is about half blocked now when I took it out for a quick peek.  I could turn the oven on again (without the item in the oven) and do it again, but I don't care if the item is finished today as long as it won't take more than a day to block.

I also have a few bits and pieces for ornaments to block.  The Regia Silk ornaments don't seem to require a rigorous blocking but the other yarn I'm using will look a lot better after a bath and some pinning.  I had another idea for an ornament, but I'm not sure how well it will work.  I'll have to do some experimenting.  I don't consider myself a designer by any stretch of the imagination, but these things are small enough that it is more like working freeform than design.  But I want to pick A's brain, because he really is the expert at double knitting.  I just am playing around with it.  It's a lot of fun even if I am mostly just using it to make a smooth area (on both sides) in a sea of garter stitch.

Hopefully I'll have time for a few pictures, because I feel good that some of this stuff is done (or very nearly so).

Whoopsie!

I have an impromptu day off tomorrow (doctors appointment).  Hopefully I'll get leave the doctor feeling better, with a clean bill of health and enough energy left to do some dishes, a bit of knitting and my homework (I have an assignment that I'm turning in late, but I don't want it to be really late).

Today, I started another ornament. 

Meant to look similar to the sleigh bells used for horses, I have taken some of my red yarn and I'm currently double knitting a strap.  I'll add my bells when I'm finished (though I could add them like beads as I was working the piece, something to remember for the next one). 

I was thinking of putting jingle bells on each side, but the inspiration only indicates bells on one side.  Not too surprising when you think where the item was used.  I can't imagine it would be good for the horse if it was belled on both sides.

Of course, looking at all of the pictures today, I'm pretty sure that this is also something I can make in black without it being completely inappropriate for the holidays (I got black and white holiday wrapping paper yesterday, which made me happier than it probably should have).

The squares are in the mail

I wish I could say I had finished a ton of stuff.  Thousands upon thousands of knitted objects.  Instead I spent some quality time with a book and a heating pad (for which I must thank my hubby a 100 times over).  While the heating pad didn't fix whatever I did to my back it did make it better.  I'll probably have more quality time with the heating pad when I get home from work.

Today I did a couple of things.  I started a new gift project (it is the tea mug cozy from the Holiday Interweave Knits), and did a little finishing work on one of the wreath ornaments.  One of the ideas I had is going to fall completely through (I bought a bag of silver and one of gold bead caps).  I didn't even think to double check that the hole was big enough for a strand or  three of yarn to go through.  C'est la vie.  I was making good progress last week, but I feel like I'm just falling down on the job this week.  I'm hoping to make more knitted and crocheted ornaments, but the main thrust of that effort will have to be after Wednesday (more homework is due as always).

I mailed my squares, which felt so good to do.  I got to use the skein of Lorna's Laces I got for Socakap000za (last year).  It was a great yarn to work with.  I probably would have made socks with it, but I don't wear many ankle socks (just my running socks).  I'm glad the yarn was used for something worthy.  Of course, that means I sent as part of my unphotographed - yeah, I'm bad - pile of squares 7 bright pink squares.  They can be dyed.  Color, after all, is almost always fixable.

Ooops!

So, I somehow managed to hurt my back yesterday (I think it was getting sore before yesterday, but things have come to a head and a tailbone).  Today I'm gingerly moving about and wishing for something stronger than ibuprofen.  Hopefully it will get better soon.

The pumpkin gnocchi went over pretty well yesterday.  I still need to work on making gnocchi look good (I lose points on presentation all the time), but they tasted good.  The recipe I was working from used a butter thyme sauce, and I decided I wanted to make something else.

Creamy Pumpkin Pasta Sauce

0.25 cups pumpkin puree
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 Tbsp packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp (approximately) fat-free evaporated milk
0.5 cups vegetable stock
1 capful of Ginger Juice

Mix all of the ingredients over the stove on low heat until butter is melted.  The texture changes slightly if brought to a boil, so try to keep it under a boil.  Add extra water or stock until you get the sauce consistency you prefer.

I've been spending most of the last day or so thinking about my stash and what I want to knit when I'm not trying to knit for gifts or the holiday bazaar.  In the past year or two, I've bought a fair amount of yarn with specific projects in mind.  I have yarn for Serrano, Cavern Cardi, and the Traveling Rib Sweater from Loop-d-Loop (which I recently thought of because someone got to my blog by searching Google for that sweater).  That's not an insignificant amount of yarn.  I also have yarn to make Harry Potter sweaters, which I plan to repurpose.  I feel like I need a game plan.  I am not doing a lot of gift knitting this year, so I feel like should start on one of these.  I still like all of the sweaters, though I'm getting a little wiser about the Loop-d-Loop sweaters.  As much as I like them, I am not sure that their styling is flattering to my more womanly curves (as in they would look better if I were 5'7" and 130 pounds).  I'm not fat, but I'm not tiny either.  Some of these are much better for the tiny frame.  I think I will be spending a bit of time on Ravelry trying to see which of these sweaters is most likely to look good on me (aka, which ones look the best on the widest range of body types).  My gut feeling right now is Serrano, because it is lace and should be able to easily be packed in my knitting bag.

Other than dreams of knitting, I've been stringing beads to make more crocheted and knitted ornaments.  I bought some findings on Black Saturday, so I can finish one of the ornaments off, but I haven't gotten around to completing it.  I have about 2 weeks to get as much done as I can.  Obviously I'm not expecting to make a huge amount of items this year, but I did spend a bit of time having fun with my wirejig, which I haven't used probably since I bought it (well over 3 years ago).

Day 23: Still Not King

I feel a little crazy.  It's not a bad crazy.  I just stuffed the pie pumpkin (following one of the recipes in the Spice Cookbook) to make the mashed/pureed pumpkin needed for a homemade pie.  It feels kind of silly to do this, because I have cans of pumpkin available.  This will use up the pumpkin and I will hopefully be able to make both the promised pumpkin pie out of it and this pumpkin gnocchi recipe.  Possibly a little over ambitious, but despite my Grinch-like tendencies I get like this during the holidays, especially about food (sometimes I feel like I have the Yarn Harlot's problem with holiday knitted gifts only with cooking).

A symptom of this: I bought the Martha Stewart Living magazine based purely on the ginger bread cake on the cover.  I want to use the ginger bread cookie recipe (which makes 6 dozen men) to make sandwich cookies with the eggnog frosting I have left over.  I also want to make cuccidatti though I'm not sure if my small almost-galley style kitchen is equipped to become a 400-cookie cookie factory.  Even with cutting the recipe in half that is a generous amount of cookies.  This is about the time of year where I try to decide if I am making food for gifts for Christmas or making knitted objects.  I usually end up going for the knitting even though it takes longer to make most of the gifts.

(I have people coming over for pumpkin foods, so there will be no squares today though I might end up trying one of the beaded crochet things I was thinking about earlier this week.)

OEP*

Earlier this week when I was looking for something else I found a gift card for AC Moore.  I used to love AC Moore.  I lived at two separate times about a 30-40 minute walk away, a distance I found perfectly acceptable distance to travel when I didn't feel up to taking the bus.

The closest AC Moore to me now is in Dedham, and I steadfastly refuse to go there via public transit.  It appears that there are two buses, but they leave from Forest Hills.  I don't want to go from Braintree (the end of the Red Line) to Forest Hills (end of the Orange Line) only to hop on a bus for a craft store, even a good one.  That is what shopping with friends or online is for after all.  So, instead I bribed my hubby to drive out there. 

Of course, the day after Black Friday is no better a day to be out than Black Friday itself.  I wandered through the GameStop, which was bad because I reaffirmed that there were four or five games that I might still want in January.  But first there was AC Moore.

I don't remember going to the AC Moore in Somerville during the holiday season.  Maybe I was brighter then.  But I went into the AC Moore which had more pine and potpourri scents than I could truly stand.  Despite that I managed to mostly ninja my way through the store and find the beads and findings section.  I was looking for bead caps to use on the ends of some of my knitted wreaths as an attractive way to finish them off without doing a 3 hour bail. 

I also managed to find something for the Yankee Swap.  Last year I wanted to get one of the giant remotes for the swap, but there wasn't one in the area when I finally got around to getting the gift.  Of course, I have let too many people know about the remote as a perfect Yankee Swap gift (for when the $ limit is about 10 bucks) to get it this year, so I found something else that with the 40% off coupon was just outside the price limit.

Now I'm going back to squares.  I haven't gotten nearly as far today as I did yesterday.  I blame the nap, because I did about the same amount of stuff each day but I still haven't learned to knit in my sleep.

*This is for my hubby who reads the blog but claims not to understand most of what I write. 

It's a nice day for a

Black Friday.

Most people I know have today off from work (notably not including my hubby).  Watching football yesterday (the national Thanksgiving pastime) peppered me with more than enough ads about this or that holiday sale.  Most of these sales were starting this morning at 4 a.m.  Now I'm an early bird by nature, but I cannot imagine with joy participating in any of these capitalistic love fests.  It just makes me shudder and cringe.

So for my Black Friday, I'm knitting squares (no surprise there), making pumpkin ravioli, drinking coffee and going grocery shopping.  The coffee shop and the grocery store (tasks I've already done) were relatively free of the freakish nature of Black Friday.

In lieu of Black Friday antics, I have also been singing some of That Old Time Religion (filk style).  While most of the verses are probably offensive to somebody, they still manage to tickle my funny bone. The list is constantly being updated, and touches on everything from religions past and present to programming languages, fictional characters and more.  So, excuse me I need to go sing about Gozer, or maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is on my mind because I was winding hanks into balls this morning.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

FSM may be a doodle,
But a God who looks like food'll,
Sure know how to use His Noodle:
to make mountain, midgit, tree.

Nom nom nom

Thanksgiving is here.  I could write a lot about what I'm thankful for, but the T'key (I'm vegetarian) is almost done and the turkey roulade I made for my hubby is out (and a little pink - I don't cook meat very often, so this is par for the course).  I have washed my hands about a google times.  Touching bacon (for the roulade) and turkey just made my skin crawl.  Nothing a heaping pile of mashed potatoes can't fix.

Because this Thanksgiving is just the two of us and maybe some friends over for dessert, I've been enjoying the respite from 4 days of straight cooking.  Other than making the pie and the cornbread last night, this has been pretty calm. 

Squares
I started working on my squares yesterday.  I finished two and started a third.  Of course, I'd like to see how many squares I can get done and now that the cooking is done I will be able to shortly ply my knitting needles.  I love the yarn I'm currently working with, the hand-dyed yarn from the Bakerloo socks.  It's colorful without being too gaudy.  I have a lot of left over sock yarn for this, so I probably won't run out of steam until the end of the weekend. 

More Cooking
I found a pumpkin gnocchi recipe on one of my favorite recipe sites.  Fat Free is a great site for vegan and vegetarian recipes.  Because I'm not following a strict low-fat diet, I do use a little fat for sauteing but despite that the recipes still manage to be healthier than a lot of my other cooking.

Over the edge

Last night I got home late (there were switching problems on the T), fed the cat and then pulled out my copy of Knitting Over the Edge.  Out came a skein of classic sportweight Red Heart.  I swatched a number edgings (notably the holed ruffle and some of the flowers).  I was on a quest of sorts for a good base for a wreath.  I like the braided wreaths I've been making, but they are time consuming and aren't as much fun to embellish.  There is no point in doing this unless it is fun.  The holiday bazaar doesn't really make me money as much as it helps even out the cost of my hobby.

I loved making the holed ruffle (I like making ruffles a lot more than I like wearing ruffles).  I made a large one and tried to bend it into a wreath.  It was then I remembered that taking a flat or mostly flat thing, like knitting, doesn't necessarily yield a flat thing when met on end.  I had the worlds twee-est wrist cuff or the world's briefest knit miniskirt.  It wasn't a completely useless endeavor.  The ruffle when twisted together (or spiraled) makes a pretty nifty looking flower.  It just wasn't quite what I was looking for.

Some of my experiments were useful.  Nothing gave me a wreath, but folding and twisting pieces of knitting made it clear that I could use some of these shapes as a base for a bell.  I have jingle bells, so it would not be difficult to make and embellish.  And it is fun, cute, and doesn't take 5-6 hours.  Score!

Of course, this morning when I woke up hours before dawn I decided to try it.  A cute little fluted bell shape (which I didn't have the brains to photograph) and a game plan for doing the ornaments and my small amount of holiday knitting and my slightly larger amount of charity knitting.

As for charity knitting.  I started squares for Oliver's Blanket.  I also decided to finally frog the Bakerloo socks.  I don't think I can use the yarn from them for anything terribly nice (I still need to see if a bath can save the frogged yarn), but this frees up the wonderful remaining half skeins for the squares.  A good use of a terribly early morning.