The last month has been....interesting. Not completely an "oh, God, oh God, we're all going to die!" sort of way but there were moments that certainly felt like that. Work, travel and home life all took their toll on my desire to write. I'm going to lay all the blame squarely on the ballet I worked just before Christmas. My last post was just before that headache. (I love ballet and I love the Nutcracker but the company that rented our hall were anything but professional; it made for a difficult week.)
But now, onto my knitting!
First, I finished
Here Fishy, Fishy.
My sister was very excited for it. I brilliantly left all my tapestry needles at home and we were in Colorado visiting family. Mom brought me one of hers and I finished the hat in front of my sister. I tried to be sneaky but I'm about as sneaky as a kitten wiggling it's butt before pouncing. Unfortunately, my sister's head is larger than I realized. So I told her I had enough yarn to make this hat again if she was okay with that. This means I'm making the same hat with the same yarn and have simply added two horizontal repeats of the pattern. I'm even calling it the same thing and have simply added a "II" to the end of it. Of course, now that my sister is moving to Texas (it's sock yarn, so I doubt it would have been warm enough for her in North East Montana) and there is no impending holiday visit, I've slacked on finishing the second one.
Her head is also taller than I realized, so I'm adding a vertical repeat as well. It's a lovely pattern (a Cookie A one) and I love the yarn. Mom gave it to me after the
Yarn Along the Rockies this fall. It's from a shop called Stash and it's simply called Sock Yarn. There is no colorway name but Husband has dubbed it "OMG Pony Pink".
Husband tried to convince me that I shouldn't cast on any new projects before the end of the year. That didn't happen because we were about to have a polar vortex and I had no gloves. I "stole" a pair of Husband's gloves but they didn't fit right. Since I took two weeks off from work (one week in Colorado), I had plenty of time to make myself a pair of mittens. A bigger challenge was to have them be finished before the New Year. I started them on December 29th and finished them, including weaving in ends, on the 31st. My first pair of mittens took months to finish and were also huge.
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| The first mitten |
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I knew nothing about gauge at the time. It was the first project I did in the round. The yarn had originally been bought to make a normal scarf for the guy I was dating at the time for those times when the 18-foot long scarf was just excessive. Shortly after I bought the yarn, I broke up with him so I eventually decided to make something for myself. The pattern was taught to me and had a lot of "about like" steps to it. Kind of like when cooking without a recipe and you just put in a bit of this and some of that. The pair to this mitten was an inverse of the colors. They were a lovely pair and I was very sad to lose the one. I looked everywhere for it. One day, when I had about an hour to kill before work, I learned that there was a yarn shop a block away from where I park. I had driven past
Depth of Field countless times and never realized that it was there as it was just part of the scenery. I stepped inside and wandered around, touching and petting the yarn. Eventually I realized I needed to go to work and I wanted to buy something. Knowing that I didn't have much of a stash at the time, I asked for a suggestion for a good mitten yarn. Not only did the woman help me find some nice bulky yarn, but she also showed me a wonderful pattern by a local designer. It's an amazingly simple pattern though it does involve some math, and the woman told me that she uses the formula on other mitten patterns she likes so that they are a perfect fit. The pattern is called "
Fittin' Mitts: Mitts That Fit". I love these mittens more than my first pair. I could probably have added a little room in the hand so it isn't so tight but I don't mind too much.
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| Gingy |
I had originally called them "Ginger Mitts" as the yarn colorway is called "Spiced Gingerbread" but after watching
Shrek the Musical 2.5 times in the last week (don't judge), I've renamed them "Gingy". Husband insisted I add some sort of loop so I don't lose them, which I did and then made little bows out of the tails. I don't think the bows are going to last much longer. They are starting to fray a little bit. Even during our polar vortex, my hands were getting sweaty in these mitts. Definitely a success!
Next up, after some personal drama, I found I had a lot of time on my hands and that I needed some mindless knitting. In this time, I managed to finish Fuzzy!
The best part was that Husband was going to be seeing his cousin the week after it was finished. I wrote a little card and asked him to take a picture of his cousin's daughter with it. I didn't get a picture. Instead, he took a short video on his phone. The little girl had taken the blanket and draped it on her head and wrapped the ends around her hands. In the video, she is bouncing her hands and herself in a happy little dance. That makes Fuzzy a huge success! I was happy with how it had turned out though I was nervous on how it would be received. You never know with young ones especially young ones that you've never met. My hope is that this blanket becomes worn and treasured for decades. I have a feeling that this might just happen.
This week we have a visiting Japanese student. Part of the deal of my bonus son getting to go to Japan for free was that we would have to host a student ourselves. As it is January and it's going to get stupid cold again while the student is visiting, I offered to make him a scarf as a gift. Husband agreed and said I could make a scarf similar to the one I made back in July. I used the same yarn but didn't cast on as many stitches. It's a little longer than the first one and much narrower. I also slipped each first stitch of all the rows with the yarn in front and then knitted the rest of the row. The edges have this nice look to them.
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| Full scarf |
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| Close up of one edge |
I've recently started a couple of new projects even though there are a few more on needles that need to get finished. I may be waiting for the
Ravellenic Winter Games 2014 to begin...
After I made Husband a cowl, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to have one. I started a test knit to make one. It's a "scarfowl" as it can be a scarf or a cowl. There are 3 possibilities in the pattern: a buttoned cowl, a loop cowl and a scarf. I decided to do the loop cowl.
The yarn is hand painted and suffers from what Husband calls "radio static" where it isn't stripping or showing a pattern. In this pattern, he does like it because there's a consistency with where the colors are landing. It does move as the cowl progresses but it looks lovely. I believe it's the cabling that makes the coloring "acceptable" because the cables are more than just a knitted pattern. The stitches are raised up and give depth to the pattern. A flat pattern would probably disappear in this colorway.
The other new project is long overdue and is for a friend. She asked through facebook if someone would be willing to knit some dogs for her. Payment would be the book the patterns are in and whatever else we could agree on. I messaged her as I'd been eyeing this book and agreed. She bought the supplies and sent them to me through campus mail (we both work at the same University; my co-workers were amused). Last Friday I finally started the first dog, Gillian.
The gauge is completely off and this is going to be a larger dog but my friend doesn't mind at all. I'd read some reviews of the first book saying that it wasn't very clear or easy. So far, I've found this pattern to be both. Husband and I enjoyed a movie while I whipped the legs out. I'm nearly done with half of the body. This is definitely a sit at home and work on project. You can see a little bit of yellow paper sticking out of the bottom of the book. This is my pattern marker. I do wish pattern language was the same universally. The authors are British. I'm use to seeing kfb instead of inc for knitting two stitches in one. It's small things like that which make me grateful that books include abbreviation keys. I hope to have a new progress picture for next week!
Finished Objects
Works in Progress
So many FOs!! I love both mitts, and they are obviously doing the trick. The dog looks like it is coming along nicely and doesn't appear to have too many seams - which appeals to me!!
ReplyDeleteIt has a few more seams than I would like but fewer than it could. Each leg gets a seam up the inside. The two sides are stitched together. The nose is folded in half and stitched and then the belly is attached. That being said, the legs and head are attached to the body so it's been less work than it could have been.
DeleteI do miss my first pair of mitts but I do believe it was an acrylic yarn, something I bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics or Micheal's before I was a yarn snob. The new ones are so much warmer being wool.
Congrats on the many FO's! You're so sweet to make your Japanese guest a scarf, he'll definitely appreciate that! I love the look of it! And I agree, that cowl looks lovely too! I'm sorry to hear the hat didn't fit.. It's always tricky making wearables for others.. But it does sounds that Fuzzy was a success indeed! Great job!!
ReplyDeleteThank you! The plus side of the hat not fitting was there was an extra gift for the youngest bonus daughter who had been watching me make the hat. I think she wanted it because of the color. There was definitely lots of questions about it. Mostly "who is that for" over and over... And Fuzzy was a huge success. I even have enough to make a second blanket for the child of my cousin. I just have to get the desire up to knit another one. I would certainly change some things in the design. There wouldn't be so much purling!
DeleteCongrats on all the FO's you did great. What a sweet idea to knit your guest a scarf, I'm sure he'll be even more delighted when the cold weather hits.
ReplyDeleteThank you. While the guest did bring a scarf, I felt it was fitting to give him a better scarf as well. I had no idea if they would bring a scarf or how warm the scarf would be. This one was made out of double stranded alpaca yarn. :)
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