AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

AKC - Hat!

Today is 10 for Tuesday, and while I do have 10 items that make me feel like a grown up (and I might pepper them in here), I really wanted to share a hat.

My best friend has two children, and I wasn't quite as much into knitting when they were born. Part of me feels bad that I didn't make them a cross-stitch project or knit something, but I was just getting into knitting and cross-stitch can take nearly forever. Now, more of my friends are having children, and many of them are getting knitted gifts. Last year it was a sweater set that did not fit longer than a sneeze and a baby blanket.

Baby blankets are my new go to project, because they don't need to be a specific size to be useful. However, one of our friends is having a girl and her "Internet name" is a bit Viking. Thus the hat.

I made this pattern (well, the boy version of it) years ago, before I was active on Ravelry. This time I made the girl version and, well, made the hair red for the red-headed step child of it all. Q was a terrific model!

I made the one year size and used Cascade Pacific in white, gray and orange. I used scrap yarn from a partial skein to make the ties at the ends of the braids.

My husband mailed the hat on Tuesday for the shower, because we just couldn't justify a long trek to Boston, and it was apparently one of the hits of the shower.

So, the pattern is Viking Girl Hat by Sarah Fama, and this is the second time I have bought the pattern (I couldn't find my original purchase or the file). The pattern is great because it includes two separate variants and sizes from newborn to adult. 

However, the pattern sadly references a few things, like embroidery, which are not shown in the pattern. The designer also did not indicate the best way to affix the wings and braids to the hat and just said to sew them on.

I sewed the braids on at the top of the bobble section. The wings I sewed along the front edge and top of the stockinette sections, so the wings would be able to flair out.

And my 10/Tuesday?

1. Seeing my friends build families makes me feel like we are all collectively moving into adulthood.

2. Paying bills, always.

3. Caring for our little boy.

4. Doing things I don't like on a daily basis. Right now, that is the dishes, at least once a day.

5. The day job as much as I love it makes me feel like a grown up.

6. Menu planning. Definitely this, because it is so much more grown up then scavenging from the freezer.

7. My coffee habit. It is bad enough that I need to find time to make more coffee concentrate, so I can save a few pennies making my own.

8. Learning to drive. 

9. Owning a house and all of the requisite maintenance that entails.

10. Having friends scattered all over the place, because it makes getting together and maintaining ties more of an exercise in being thoughtful and taking time in a way that didn't feel as true when we were so close together.

 

Blankets. All the blankets.

And Q.

Camp Loopy is an awesome boost to my knitterly productivity each summer. It proves that when allowed to pick my own projects (pattern and yarn) I can complete blankets and sweaters in under a month. But I need a deadline. Without a deadline the projects tend to linger.

Well, babies are good at creating deadlines. Two babies that are due early next year means that I am on the hunt for different blanket patterns. Why blankets? Well, the first time I knit for a baby, I made Angle, a fun sweater with an accordion style rib that stretches, along with a pair of booties. The sweater fit for maybe a nanosecond as the baby was a great grower. If I had made a blanket, then it might still be in use today. So, blankets, or decorative items like birth samplers are better choices.

The blankets I've made in the past year are the Pinwheel Blanket for Q, Honeycomb Stroller Blanket for Z, and Op Art for A. I don't know if the other recipients are using their blankets, but Q uses the blanket when we are going out to keep him warm in his car seat. I don't want to make these again, even though I had fun making them. There are just so many good options that I don't see a need to repeat.

So, I'm currently in the search for two different blanket patterns that ideally will use a portion of my enormous sock yarn stash. Any suggestions?

Right now I am leaning towards the Sweet William blanket and POP blanket. Of course, POP uses worsted weight yarn, so that might be a little more of a problem to make straight from stash. Of course what I really want to make is this puzzle blanket, but it would definitely take too long to make given how little time I am carving out to knit right now!

It's not the booties, but it is a finish

I have a ton of projects "on the needles" right now that are just done and waiting their blogging moment in the sun, but we are in the middle of packing and I've been too crazy to just get it done!

Now, Camp Loopy project 2 was a project using at least 500 yards that either had more than 1000 projects or was in more than 1000 queues that we hadn't done before. I did the Pinwheel Blanket, which I had admittedly attempted before and failed spectacularly. I did probably 10-20 rounds before I realized that I apparently couldn't keep the increases in my head.

This time I wouldn't say I did better with the increases per se, but I was relatively consistent. There are areas that I am pretty sure I messed up on, but they are either hard to see or hard to fix, so c'est la vie!

I used one ball of Kauni (130 grams) and two out of the three balls of Madeline Tosh DK in Glazed Pecans.

It was awesome, and it is for the baby and is wonderfully unisex!

Of course my blocking boards weren't big enough, so it might look better in the distant future when I buy more blocking boards. Obviously something that won't be happening in the next month or so.

As for the packing, it is going. I did almost all of my clothes except for the stuff for the upcoming week this morning, brought a box of yarn to mail this morning, and have the kitchen about 1/2 way done. We have mugs and glasses left to pack and most of the pots, which isn't too bad for a Wednesday departure (next week!).

My next Camp Loopy Project is Mama Vertebrae (with an extra skein to make a matching baby sweater). If I finish that as expected, I will have finished 4 baby sweaters, a baby blanket, booties and a hat. Obviously there is a bit of room for more projects before I'm due in September. Fire away with any suggestions!

because a rainbow won't make a baby gay

This is the Little Sister's Dress by Tora Frøseth. She is one of my favorite clothing designers for little people (babies, toddlers and small children). I love her pattern, Angle, and will be hopefully finishing that in the next couple of weeks.

This dress is one of her free pattern offerings. It features a familiar welting motif around the bodice before joining in the round and starting the stockinette body. I really wanted to make at least one rainbow themed thing for our baby.

Rainbows. I like them, but I also like how some ultra-conservatives seem to think that rainbows and rainbow patterned things turn people gay. If that was all it took, then the human race would have died out a long time ago.

I figured that if I was going to do a rainbow-striped dress that I needed cloud buttons. I bought these buttons from Etsy seller, Pieceful Design. Shipping was super fast, but it took me a day or two to get around to sewing them on.

All and all, this is a wonderful project. It is super quick. It took me only a week to do all of the knitting, weaving in the ends and blocking. If I had buttons I wanted to use on hand, then I would have finished that same day.

The angle is a little funny, but I wanted a close up of the buttons. The toggles are done with just a little bit of crochet. Nothing to worry about there. I just did the vertical opening for the neck with a bit of single crochet and then made a pair of chain loops. It doesn't really show up with the buttons there, so it doesn't have to be good crochet. Just adequate.

Oh, and this is the 12 month size. We'll see if it will fit our baby (who is currently Schrödinger's gender) at some point close to 12 months or if it will be more like one of my friends whose baby blew past the newborn sizes so fast that the baby clothes I made were put on once and then no more.

Yeah, I'm knitting out in sizes, because I don't believe a lot of it will fit for very long otherwise. Those with children can tell me if I am being sensible or not.

Next time, I hope to have a complete set of baby clothes OR a blanket done. We'll see!

Moore, a sweater in a month

June 27 to July 27 was the allotted time for Camp Loopy project 2. I started Moore, a assymetrical cardigan on June 28th. I was off work the second week in July, theoretically an awesome time for knitting, but it was hot (sweltering really) and I was making ice cream. Suffice to say, not much knitting happened.

Then I knit a shawl for Into the Woods. It wasn't hard to do, but it took time away from the sweater. So, I was thrilled to finish weaving in the ends and blocking on July 27th. I was really thrilled to finish in time.

This is my second sweater with the Loopy Ewe Solid Series, this time in white. The other color is Velvet Port from Dream in Color Smooshy.

This sweater is knit from side to side, then you sew the shoulders, knit the neck edging and then pick up the sleeve and knit them down. The left shoulder is closed with snaps to create an invisible closure. Of course, like many sweaters I've knit in the past year it would benefit from my losing about 10 pounds.

10 pounds means less chocolate. And not replacing chocolate with fruit (healthy) or Doritos (unhealthy). This sweater is currently a tight fit. My tshirt shows up under the fabric (which makes  the other side view bad, becaue the blood drive logo is fairly visible under the sweater).

This sweater could have been a 3 week sweater with a bit more concentration, and I would happily make it again. Though if I were to do it again, I'd pick a heather or a tweed. The white is a nice color, but it is very one note and I prefer the extra color depth. My favorite on Ravelry is this one. I made mine with less length across the back, which I think detracts from the swingy Aline. If I make a second one, I will buy an extra skein to make it bigger. I really did not have enough yarn to make it another 3/4 of an inch wide across the back.

In the Ravellenic Games, I did some more work on Leftie for day 2. For day 3, I worked on one of my WIPs. It is great to see things getting done. Below is a progress picture of Leftie from Saturday. I love it. This project is awesome!

I think it might be time to start weaving in the ends. This is one of the end-iest projects I've made in the past year or so.

Parlez vous Olympics?

I probably used that same blog post name during Beijing, because really I like The Cutting Edge in all its cheesy glory.

Last night despite being sick, but probably because of my long nap, I watched the opening ceremonies while casting on for the 2012 Ravellenic Games (I'm cheesy too). My lovely husband provided a simplle infographic covering many of the important features of the ceremonies from the eyes of a geek.

I loved the opening ceremonies, but I definitely saw this as well as the one ring being forged to bind the other rings. I don't know if this was intended, but it was pretty much how all the geeks I know saw it.

For the Ravellenic Games, I'm competing in two events (hey, feel the cheese): the Shawl Sailing and the WIPs Wrestling. Unsurprisingly, I cast on for the shawl last night, because the new project is always more interesting than the old project much to their detriment. The shawl I'm doing is Leftie, and it is also my Camp Loopy project 3 (I'll post my photos of project 2 tomorrow after it finishes drying). Leftie is intended to use up your leftovers, so here is my quick gloss over that I bought 2 new skeins of yarn for the project. I am still using some leftovers in it from a shawl I made last year.

This was my progress last night (picture from the iPad, so the colors are very off). I am using a skein of Sweet Georgia superwash sock in Lakeshore Drive and one of Lorna's Laces Solemate in Cookies Deep Dark Secret. These are both new to me yarns, though I've been seeing photos of these yarns for months.

I've made a lot more progress than this today and will probably take another photo nearer to the end of the night. Sandi is doing a stitch count and a progress photo to document hers. It is a great idea and a simple thing for trying to get back into more regular blogging. Of course, my stitch numbers change nearly every row, so I am not doing a stitch count. I am too lazy for that.

Also, last night's opening ceremony could have used more corgis.

Even more corgis.

Umm, yeah, more corgis.

What, they were cute! I love most dogs, but the corgis were more adorable than most. I hope that they show more shots of the dogs, because I'm just sick enough that I don't get to walk outside as much (well and it is super rainy). Makes it awefully hard to go out and greet all of the pups in the neighborhood.

4 repeats and a bit...

I'm working on Color Affection, the most recent craze to hit the knitting world. I cast on within moments of sewing on the last button on my new sweater (which also needs its own blog post), and it was my primary project at Squam. Unlike the blanket from last year, this one has a deadline, because it is a Camp Loopy project. 

I'm in short row land, though that is feeling increasingly like a misnomer as my short rows are steadily marching along the rows, eating up the territory in their path. I'm on repeat 7 of 10 (or until it feels done presumably). I'm hoping for this weekend, but as the rows get longer, they also take longer. At the Art Fair, I bought 3 more skeins of yarn for a second one, which I will probably make in late 2012. it was funny seeing how popular this pattern was. I didn't see anyone wearing it at Squam, but at the Art Fair people were buying sock yarns in groups of 3. It was all sorts of hilarious to me even though I was no better than the rest of us knitterly sheep. Garter stitch in 3 colors with short rows keeps this from being a brain numbing project to one that entertains, and worked on largish (for sock yarn) needles means that it is quick! Though don't ask me how quick it is when I am plowing my way through the last rows.

PS. Gosh I miss Squam. I hate that I sound kind of meh in some of my posts, but the entire experience is wonderfully idyllic while being mind bendingly creative and energizing. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it, so I tend to focus on the minutia. Stupid minutia.

block party

I've never actually lived in neighborhoods with block parties, so when I say block parties more accurately I'm talking about blocking.

I am in the interminable stage in a knitting project. First I am weaving in ends. 560 ends, excepting the times when I forgot the pattern and cut the yarn too soon and added additional ends to the mix.

I'm hoping to weave in all the ends and have the squares all blocking by Saturday morning. While I can go to the knitter's brunch on Saturday and weave in more ends, I'll have a bit more fun if I do the slogathon before work, at lunch, and after work and see if I can get them all done. Two (sometimes 3 if I am especially lucky) squares an hour.

Yup. I have finished all of the squares for the Mitred Crosses blanket, and if I were a smart person I would have woven in ends as I went along.

So, needless to say no one was terribly close to the date I'm going to finish the blanket. The closest was my friend, Eeeeka, who is not a knitter and decided she didn't want the prize. So, the next closest date was September 15 from Marsha!

The second winner was randomly selected from all of the remaining entrants (including my mom, who posted on Facebook, and Katrina who commented on another post). That winner is Mrspao.

All of the winners have been emailed, and while the blanket isn't technically done yet I couldn't in good conscience linger over this once the knitting itself was done. Especially as I have actually been a good doobie and started weaving in ends even if it is the least fun part of the project.

the happy finish dance

Oh, it is finished! Finished!

See, the happy face (though it did take more than one picture to get a facial expression that didn't show how much I hate having my picture taken)!

I have been enamored of Oranje since I saw the pattern in the winter Knitty. Of course, I wish I was small enough to have knit one of the smallest sizes rather than the size 40.

My first fairisle project was a baby hat in a class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at SAW in June. I made Elinor's Mittens last month, and they were awesome and gave me to confidence to tackle a much larger project.

Oranje calls for Bugga!, but I just couldn't find 3 skeins I liked with interesting contrast colors. When the Camp Loopy challenge came up, I chose solids from the Loopy Ewe Solid Series (the purple) and Spud and Chloe Fine (the green and white).

These yarns came in the 50 gram putups rather than the 100 grams of Bugga!, so I ordered 6 of the purple and 1 each of the contrast colors.

6! Why did I buy 6 skeins? I did run out of white. I finished it off with some of the white from the blanket I've been working on (Cascade Heritage). I had some green left. And after all of the knitting and finishing was done today I had 2 whole skeins of the purple left and 26 grams. Mary Jane commented that I knit like her, in a way that conserves yarn but I have never seen it quite so clearly before.

2.5 skeins of yarn is two pairs of socks (my socks weigh on average 66 grams). Gosh. What am I making with all of this extra yarn!?

 

My arrows are a little wonky, but I love them anyway.

Things I learned:

Just hand sew the dang steeks. Sew them down by hand 2 or 3 times on each side but still do it by hand. My machine sewn steeks meandered. That made picking up stitches more harrowing than it needed to be. I ended up hand sewing after the rest of the finishing was over the steek edges near the worst areas.

I started this project by accident as a size 44 and simply decreased down to my size. I did not do any waste shaping. The extra fit at the bottom is a good thing, because this sweater is long. Of course, it would still look better with, umm, better foundation garments or losing 5-10 pounds. While the sweater is supposed to be close fitting, this sweater doesn't glide over my lumps and bumps. I love it anyway, and it is super warm!

Lastly, working 3 colors is not that hard. However, the length of my floats or something in the arrows made that a little wonky. I'm not sure if it would still be wonky if I knit it again. The three colored triangles were perfectly fine. I'm not sure I've actually seen a finished piece that does the triangles that way. Even the sample in the Knitty pattern is done in horizontal stripes.

Also, because my steek was a meandering drunken fool, I ate the first column near the patterning at the top for a bit to give me a little more safety in picking up stitches. It was fine, though it does mean that I am missing half a green arrow. While I am often a perfectionist, I left that behind with this project. I'm still learning. I have another sweater in the works from last year that also has colorwork that I've been putting off. I don't think I need to worry about putting it off anymore.

Iron Craft 33: Is Team Hufflepuff anything like Team Smack Bella?

(Apparently last week was supposed to be Iron Craft 32, so I have 2 of them. Not a big deal at all. Whoops!)

This week's iron craft challenge was to finish something that had been lying around.

This was easy. I have a ton of projects lying around.

See the unfinished projects. Heck I have a ton of projects that aren't finished that didn't even make it into Ravelry. It's true! I'm pathetic about the finishing stages. The lure of a new garment doesn't outweigh the annoyance of seaming.

The best projects are the ones that thus do not involve more than about 20 stitches worth of seaming.

So, one of the projects that was not on that list was the sweater for my husband. Team Hufflepuff, which was started at the movie theater (or right before) of movie 7 and was supposed to be finished for opening day of movie 8.

Yup, just over a month ago. The knitting has been done for a few weeks, but I was punting on the blocking and seaming. And it is completely understandable that I was. It took me most of an evening to crochet the shoulder seams (I was having piss poor luck with the other methods there and spent 2 hours seaming and picking apart at Gather Here, but at least I was amongst friends). Saturday evening was spent sewing the sleeves into the arm holes. Sunday evening was sleeve and side seam 1 (2 hours of Mars Attacks. Why did I want to watch that?) and Monday evening was sleeve and side seam 2 (ah, Will Wheaton was a much less painful experience). Tuesday was picking up stitches for the neckline and weaving in ends.

We photographed this last night even though it was late and it loses the full geeky effect. Better pictures later I'm sure.

The pattern is an amalgamation of the sweater from Charmed Knits and the sweater template from Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.

The yarn is Cascade 220. In a stupid turn of events I started this sweater (November 2010) having only bought 3 skeins of the grey Cascade 220. Wow. Mind numbingly dumb. I ended up buying 5 additional skeins in 2 additional dye lots. Thankfully Cascade's dye lots are usually really close.

I have about 1.8 skeins left (somehow I have 2 started skeins and one that is still unwound). Needless to say, this was not my best planned project ever.

This is also a project that could have used outtakes.

My husband has tried on the project at nearly every instance of the seaming. Things I missed with the camera: the Huffle Poncho, Michael Jackson wore one sleeve, right?, and Do you think this neckline is too much? Why did I miss the Huffle Poncho? It was hilarious!

With all of the yarn left, I wonder if I should make an actual HufflePoncho for my husband or if he would disown my sorry arse! As it is, I will be making with the remaining black and gold a Hufflepuff version of the Elinor's Mittens. The cables are happily unisex enough and the pattern sized enough to fit many a person I know.