YOP #49 or Sangerfest tilsvarer en nesten ferdig sokk

This week's title translates (according to Google translate) to Song Fest corresponds to a nearly finished sock which is extremely accurate. The Norwegian Singers Association of America holds a biannual event called Sangerfest. We had the honor of being the host site for the event this year.

This is what 200+ members of Norwegian Glee Clubs look like on stage. Well, at least what the staging looks like. Some of them were putting off taking their seats until the last minute.

This was an event that we went into feeling very prepared and waiting for the other shoe to fall. It ended up being very delightful, especially working with the 200+ singers at the event. There was a memorial service, a parade of choruses and the amazing Grand Concert. Guess what I did during all of those? That's right, I knit. Saturday night, the evening of the Grand Concert, I was sitting in my little hidey-hole and working on one of my socks. Several of the guys stopped by and joked with me that I would have knit while Rome burned (or something similar). They were a wonderful group to work with and the music was really good. They had a guest group from Oslo who were hilarious and amazing. During their rehearsal, they sang "Loch Lomond" and a medley of Elvis Presley songs (both sets very Norwegian, ja?) and it was fantastic. Saturday night I managed to knit a whole inch and a half on the foot of the Vanilla Eyelet socks. Between the work I did on it Thursday night during the memorial service/parade of choruses, Friday night while walking with Husband and a friend and at the Saturday concert, I'm nearly finished with the sock. Extremely close. There's about 8 more rounds before I do the toe. If I hadn't had to do things (like open doors and make sure people were where they were suppose to be), then I might have actually finished the sock.

Nearly finished sock next to second sock still on the needles. I suppose it's not really finished until I weave in the ends.

Since last week, I made it through the heel of the first Mint Twist sock. It's been a while since I've made a heel flap which I think has made it entertaining for me. It still makes me giggle on the inside about how terrified I was when I made my first sock. Now it seems like second nature. I'm loving the Tanis Fiber Arts yarn. It's the purple label cashmere sock yarn and the color is the Cookie A December 2013 called "Julep". Husband keeps calling it "Seafoam". When he first saw it, he wanted to know why I had a bridesmaid dress in the form of yarn. I've struggled with liking the color since then but thankfully a friend of mine loved it so I'm making the socks for her. I'm loving the pattern and may need to make a pair for myself as well.

Lovely Mint Twist Sock. I kind of want the pattern as a hat instead of a pair of socks. Apparently I need more hats...

There are two weeks left of this year's Year of Projects blog-along. I've apparently misnumbered a week somewhere along the line. I'm hoping to at least finish off the Vanilla Eyelet socks (and if anyone seriously has a better name for it, let me know!) before the end of the month. I've got another concert series this weekend, though it is definitely more involved for me.We're also taking a road trip during the last week of June. I'll get to do a lot of knitting. Husband has asked that I start a project that isn't a sock, hat or scarf. He then hinted that I should work on a tank top for myself. If I can get a swatch done before I leave, I might bring that along. Otherwise, it'll be a pattern from the 2014 MN Yarn Shop Hop (I do believe I still need to write about that....) and probably a sock (or two). I have to make sure I don't run out of knitting projects! Otherwise I may end up buying new yarn on the trip, which would break my self-imposed yarn fast.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II 
• Scarfowl
• Here Fishy Fishy II 
• Gilligan
• The Angels Have the Police Box  
• Mini-Socks 
• Grandma's Tam
• Neck Hugger 
• Blood Orange Newtons
• Alpaca Tam 
• Trip 
• Police Box 

Works in Progress

• Vanilla Eyelet Socks
• Lilia Socks
• Mint Twist Socks

YOP #32-34 or is Ravellenic a real word?

It has been a quick three weeks. So quick, in fact, that I thought there had only been two of them but it appears I've missed two weeks instead of the one I thought I'd missed. Oops. One of the goals for myself is to do the weekly update on time. This is not happening for several reasons. The biggest one is that I'm not sitting in front of the computer a lot. To be fair, I've probably spent the last 30 minutes doing anything other than blogging because I needed to get something out of my system before I started writing. I think it was some excess energy about work and I didn't want to go too much into that. The biggest plus side to work is that when there are shows, I get a lot of knitting down.

Earlier in February, the Lunar New Year was celebrated. Every year, the Vietnamese Student group puts together a show. It is always entertaining for several reasons. Another plus is that there's enough down time for me to work on my knitting. This means I made a ton of progress on the Blood Orange Newton sock. I managed to get onto the foot. Of course, I've not touched it since then. For this, I blame the Olympics.

On Ravelry, there is a group that hosts the Ravellenic Games. It's all about personal challenges during the course of the Olympic Games. This is honestly the first time I've cared anything about the Olympic Games since some time in the 1990s. I usually find the theatrics of the opening ceremonies interesting (though never enough to actually watch them; I read about them later and how they did things) but it's hard for me to get into the sports competitions these days. It was a good motivator to finish Husband's socks.

I had started the Angels Have the Police Box socks back in October. I hadn't touched them since.....December 1st.  The next step was to sew up the cuff and then pick up stitches for the leg. I remember this step being amazingly tedious and annoying and I hadn't wanted to do it. I love the look of the cuff but I really don't like picking up stitches along the edge. I don't know if it was because the yarn was wanting to split on me or the color but it wasn't fun to do. Once I got that part started (which I did while helping to navigate to Madison, WI), it was a piece of cake. Picking up stitches and navigating is a talent and a skill though and I don't recommend it lightly. I did manage to finish them though it was a doozy. Husband's feet are large for his frame but they are big feet. That's the part where I get hung up because I want to be done. Part of me also finds is a little sad how much bigger the foot of the sock is when compared with the leg of it. It's a decent leg length though. The best part is that Husband likes the socks. They were finished last night and he wore them today. The cuff is a little tight going over his heel but once they are on, they look beautiful.

Since I last wrote, I've started a new hat. I had hoped to have it finished by the time we got to Madison but I needed larger needles, which weren't in the car. Many years ago (the late 1980s), my mom had a hat business. She made machine knit hats and her mom would make hand knit hats. I'm sure my mom made some of these hats as well but I mostly remember Grandma making them. It's actually one of the reasons I didn't like knitting for the longest time. I've always been one who likes to talk but Grandma would get annoyed if I tried to have a conversation with her (or just talk at her) if she was knitting because I always seemed to pick the moment that she was counting stitches.

This March it will have been 15 years since Grandma passed away. I still have a hat she knit for me but I think wool moths have gotten into it and it needs to be replaced. I wanted to use the same pattern so I asked mom for it. This pattern that I'm using is one that Grandma figured out on her own. I believe it's based on a pattern she saw in a book but she didn't like the way it looked so she changed it. The pattern, which I happened to find over the week of Christmas while organizing mom's needles (she has her needles, Grandma's needles and my Great-Aunt's needles; and I simply sorted them by needle type so it would help her narrow down her search), is written on an old yellow post-it note. There was a modification for the pattern for different yarns on another scarp of paper but that was it. And the directions assume the person making the hat knows what you're doing. For the increase of the crown, it simply says "increase to 119 stitches". I'm use to patterns that tell me exactly where to increase. This increase isn't a simply every other or every third either. I've sat down and figured out where the increases need to go so that it's even and have written it out. I asked mom if I could write it up and put it on Ravelry for others to make and she's okay with it.  I'm in the process of making the hat (just started decreasing) and then I need to write it out and get it tested. In some ways, I think I want to do this so something of Grandma will still exist. It's also a way to thank her for making 100s of these hats and, in some way, to express gratitude that she figured out this pattern. She started to knit again after I was born. Her knitting (and that of my Great-Aunt) got my mom to knit, which has led to me knitting. It's a gift that has managed to be passed on even though I didn't learn until after Grandma had died. I feel like it's a way to reconnect to my past while moving into my future.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II 
• Scarfowl
• Here Fishy Fishy II 
• Gillian
• The Angels Have the Police Box  
• Mini-Socks 

Works in Progress

• Police Box
• Blood Orange Newtons 
• Grandma's Tam

YOP #31 or 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

Yesterday, I finished my fifth project of 2014. I'm ridiculously excited about this. My knitting skills have definitely leveled up. Since last week, I've finished my sister's hat and the knitted dog. Last week I wanted to have both of these finished and I did it! I set a goal and it was actually achievable. There are two more dogs to knit but I'm very excited that I've finished one. It probably helped that I had a big show on Thursday. It was a crazy morning but once the show started (two performances), I literally had nothing to do but sit there and make sure the building didn't fall apart. So I sat there backstage and worked on the hat. I finished the hat within 15 minutes of the second performance.

I then pulled out the Newton socks. Almost a year ago I got this pattern. I remember being completely intimidated by it. It's lacy and there was a chart. How could anyone make these socks? Well, a year later, and less than a week after starting them, I'm already at the heel. And instead of doing the heel flap, I'm using Ann Budd's short row heel. The Sweet Georgia yarn is so soft and lovely. I can't wait to get them onto my feet.

Tomorrow I should have the newest Cookie A yarn and I will definitely have the patterns. I'm excited about getting it. I've been a little "meh" the last few months as I didn't feel very inspired by the patterns. I'm hoping that I'm back on my sock knitting kick though.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II 
• Scarfowl
• Here Fishy Fishy II 
• Gillian 

Works in Progress

• Fruity Tulip Socks (currently in a waiting to be frogged state)
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Blood Orange Newtons

YOP #30 or Insert Clever Title Here

This past week has been ridiculous in it's temperatures. You would think with extra time off from work (it was so cold that the University I work for canceled all classes, so my late night rehearsal wasn't happening) that I would have time to update my blog in a timely manner. Instead, I was trying hard to keep warm. It did mean that I had extra time to work on things. There was progress this past week.

The dog is coming along nicely. All of the parts are made and the sides are sewn together. I need to finish sewing it up and then I can stuff it. I had to buy stuffing as my friend didn't manage to but on the scale of things, that's a little thing. Besides, I was able to buy 20 ounces of stuffing for the same price as a smaller bag. I should have the little guy done by next week. I had hoped to have it done by now but I needed to take a break from it. So many ends to sew in! On top of that, the method to sew things together is frustrating for me. It does make a seamless connection but it's fussy on something so small. Alas, at the moment, I can't seem to remember what it's called but it is on the list of things I don't really like.

My sister's hat is starting it decrease. She was going to leave Montana and move to Texas so I thought she'd get a little more use out of the hat as it's lighter weight than something to wear up north. Then some of her clients (she's a vet) made her an offer she couldn't refuse (not in a creepy way) to get her to stay. So while she may not be able to wear it in sub-zero weather, at least she'll look girly when she can wear it in the fall. My plan is to finish it up before the end of the week as it will mean I will have finished four projects this month! If I manage to finish the dog as well, then it will be a grand total of five projects! When I mentioned my finish rate to Husband last night and asked him to imagine what it would be like if I finished 4 projects every month, he quipped that it would mean I would stay on top of my yarn buying habit.

I did finish the scarfowl, which was another test pattern. The yarn is lovely. I purchased it at StevenBe's back in May. On Saturday, there was an open house, so I of course brought it with me to show off. (Note: I went into the shop and managed to not buy a single thing; the world may be ending.) Now I'll have to go back and show off the finished object. I made mine smaller than the original one so that it will sit up close to my face. I took it to a crafting night on Thursday and there was much ooohing and ahhing over it. Husband asked if I could wear it like a crown (this is how he wears his cowl at times) in hopes that it will replace my troll hat, though that is unlikely.

Monday I started an old Cookie A pattern. It's the second one from last February. I apparently couldn't wait until this coming Monday to start a Cookie A sock. I've been wanting to work on a Cookie A sock for a few weeks now. I'm using the yarn we got in the June shipment so the socks are Blood Orange Newtons. The cuff is almost finished and I'm loving the yarn. It's the second skein of club yarn I've used now. I keep finding other yarn that I want to use on the patterns.

I love how my Finished Objects list is growing. It feels really nice to see it there every week and I love moving an item from the lower list up to the other one. It feels like progress.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II 
• Scarfowl

Works in Progress

• Fruity Tulip Socks (currently in a waiting to be frogged state)
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Here Fishy Fishy II
• Gillian
• Blood Orange Newtons

YOP #25-#29 or Funny How Not Posting for a Month Allows for More FO Pictures

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.

The first mitten

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.

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.

Full scarf

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

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  
• Here Fishy Fishy I
• Gingy
• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Japan Scarf II

Works in Progress

• Fruity Tulip Socks (currently in a waiting to be frogged state)
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Here Fishy Fishy II
• Scarfowl
• Gillian

A year later: Looking back at my knitting

It's now been just over a year since I feel I could truly call myself a knitter instead of someone who would occasionally (and quite randomly) knit something. The mental marker for me is Chicago TARDIS. Last year, I was working on my first pair of socks, which won me a Ponds button for being able to talk about something that isn't cool as though it is cool. I believe Husband was trying to hide his face in embarrassment at that point. I've done a lot since then and feel it would be good to recount it as a way to remind myself that I have actually done a lot.

First Socks

This was the first pair. I had bought this yarn years ago with the purpose of  making arm warmers. That was a thing for me for a while. With how stupid cold it's gotten again, it may become a thing again. October 2012 found me wanting to knit something. Apparently I was bored. I didn't want to make arm warmers though. I pulled out this yarn and decided since it was sock yarn, maybe I should make socks with it. A year later, I see little things that I could have done differently but I'm still happy with how these turned out. They were the gateway into becoming a "serious" knitter. This was one of my last projects made on cheaper yarn. The yarn had been bought at a Jo-Ann Fabrics. When I was first starting, I couldn't tell the difference in how things knit up. I certainly can tell the difference now. And I know it won't be the last project. Some things call for cheaper yarn, like knitted toys.

Purple and Blue Socks

I started these socks at the end of the year with the high ambition of being able to finish them before the year was out. The ball of yarn, which came with a sock knitting kit, wasn't enough to make the pair of socks, so I purchased more yarn (from Jo-Ann Fabrics again; I didn't know any better at the time!) to finish them off. With a bum ankle from some wall running, I wasn't going to be doing much for New Year's Eve. The plan was to stay up all night to finish these socks. It didn't happen. I have learned after these socks, to be much pickier about my yarn choices. Thankfully, my oldest bonus kids bought me some yarn for Christmas and Husband gave me a gift card to a local yarn shop. He also gave me a book on Derby inspired knitting.

Hat Knitting

In January, I went to a local yarn shop to join in with some Minnesota Rollergirl skaters who were making hats for charity. I brought Husband along to get him out of the house. He sat over in a corner and worked on a drawing. I worked on making my first ever hat. I had received a bunch of smaller double pointed needles and interchangeable circular needles for Christmas, so I was very excited to try them out. The skaters had patterns and yarn, so I picked some out and started the hat. This was an amazingly frustrating process. I was trying to figure out gauge and it was a mess. The first hat was enormous! I made another hat with the same pattern, which ended up being toddler sized (no photo of it though I did gift it to friends with a young boy who was going through a phase of loving hats).




I used up more of this gray yarn from Husband (left over from another project) to make another hat that was actually decent sized. An adult could actually wear it. It was also my first time contacting a designer because I didn't understand the pattern. I still managed to drop a few stitches and screw it up a little but I was overall happy with how it turned out.


Derby Leg Socks

Once again casting on with Jo-Ann Fabrics yarn, I knit these leg socks using the magic loop method. It was a fun and quick project and I really enjoyed making them. I loved having all my derby friends ask me about them. This does remind me that I need to get back onto my skates soon....












Cookie A Socks

 Knowing that I had enjoyed my sock knitting experience, my mom signed me up for the Cookie A Sock Club, which she had already joined. I had no idea what I was getting myself into so I was excited. I remember an early post about it on facebook and having friends who have knit for much longer than I have responding in awe that I was going to tackle her patterns. It's probably good that I didn't know what I was getting into. I have learned a lot from these projects though.

Things I've specifically learned from the Sock Club

• How to pick up dropped stitches in a pattern after a needle breaks and you loose a bunch of stitches.
• How to read charts. How to follow a chart when there's also a decrease in the chart.
• How to let a project sit after messing it up instead of continuing to work on it and making it worse.
• How to dye yarn (I wanted to have my Tiberius socks in the "right" color for Kirk).
• How to do a short-row heel.
• How to knit two socks at a time using magic loop.
• How to become addicted to really, really nice yarn.
• How to make all kinds of cookies.

I gifted one pair of socks to my mom. She's made me tons of socks but she's never received socks before, so that was special for her. I entered one pair of socks into the state fair and scored a 94/100. Of the 12 sock patterns we've received this year (though let's be fair, I only just got the last 2 this past Monday), I've completed 3 pairs. I've been distracted with other projects lately. The patterns from August didn't really jump out at me and I wasn't up to the complexity of either of the October patterns. And I had a space suit to make.

Gifts

 I appear to have made quite a few gifts this year. I made, in less than a week, an alpaca scarf to send with my bonus son to Japan as a gift to his host family. It turns out that the father of the family was a ski instructor in Europe... Good thing I (really Husband did it) convinced my bonus son to take the scarf with him...

 My youngest bonus daughter likes things that she can put other things into. Boxes, bags, nut shells.... So back in April, I bought a kit to make a beaded bag for her. This was my first time incorporating beading into a project. The best part was that the kit included the needle to get the beads onto the yarn. They really did think of everything. I then placed an old heart-shaped silver box into it to give to her as well. She does like her containers. She was so happy and surprised by it that she was actually silent when she opened her eyes.

 Last January-ish, I posted a facebook pay-it-forward gift thing. The requirement was that the first 5 commenters would receive something handmade by me during the yarn. I'd tried to do something like this once before and pretty much failed. To be fair, so did the person I had commented on to receive something from. The thing is that if you comment on someone else's status, you then post this on your own wall. This year, I've managed to gift 2 of the 5, which is better than in the past. One was to my mom (her socks) and the other was to a friend who I don't see very often. It was the first time I did a test knit and that I made socks for someone that I didn't have there with me to have them try them on. She loved them when she got them and they fit perfectly! 

My husband asked me to make a pair of socks for a friend of his as he knew she would appreciate them. I pointed out that she was more of a shawl/scarf person and I should make her one of those. We don't get to see her very often these days but earlier in the yarn when she was visiting, I showed off my yarn collection to her. It wasn't very sneaky of me but I managed to find one that she really loved the color and the texture of without giving away what I was doing. She just received the shawl last week and she loves it. She really loves unique things. I told her that this scarf has several unique things to it.

• Every purl stitch and yarnover was done incorrectly but it was off the needles so I wasn't going to redo it, especially since Husband told me I was done. This means it's different than the others out there.
• The yarn is a limited edition color, club member only color from Indigodragonfly.
• The yarn is a merino, seacel blend which I haven't found very often.

Husband asked me to make him a pair of socks to walk on the wire. I made them out of yarn from a yarn exchange and it's an acrylic and wool blend but knowing how hard he's going to be on them, I though that this was the best option. As much grief as he's given me on my sock obsession, he was amazed with how well these socks fit and with how much it improved his wire jumping. He's had classmates notice the socks and ask him about them. I'm sure he beams when he tells them that his wife made them for him.

And his recently finished cowl. I was going to surprise him with it but he saw the supplies in the car one day when I went to bring him a lunch at work. I love that he tells me that I don't have to knit him anything. I know that I don't have to knit him anything. I enjoy making things for him. He takes care of them, appreciates them and tells everyone I made them for him.



The Tally
In the last 12-ish months, I've made:

• 2 pairs of vanilla socks
• 3 hats
• 3 pairs of Cookie A socks
• 1 pair of wire walking socks
• 1 pair of test knit socks
• 1 pair of leg socks
• 1 beaded bag
• 1 scarf
• 1 shawl
• 1 cowl

for a grand total of  15 finished objects. Not too shabby for only getting into this a little over a year ago!

YOP #21-23 or Goodness, is it already that time of year?

It seems I've gone several more weeks without blogging. This whole blogging once a week thing is still as hard as I remember it to be back in college. As it was back in college, this time of year always seems to be busy for me. In college, it was mostly filled with exams and year end concerts. Now, it's mostly filled with year end concerts. Even with all the insanity of the past few weeks, I have managed to finish a project. I didn't get two projects finished by the end of November as I had hoped to but apparently I needed sleep. And to make a spacesuit.

I made everything but the climbing harness, boots and gloves. He picked out the fabric and convinced me to let it be entered in the Masquerade. We won our class!

I will be writing more about the spacesuit in it's own post. I need to take some close-up photos to finish the documentation phase. In case, you know, I want to make another one. And, like any artist I know, I not only can point out all the things that are wrong with but I also have ideas on how to improve it. I am very happy with it though. But first, more knitting things in the post.

I'm still working on the Angels Have the Policebox Socks. I keep redesigning what they are going to look like in my head. While I was at Chicago TARDIS, I pulled them out a lot not only to work on (though not as often as I would have liked) but to show them off to people. There were those who were also knitters, so I was working on introducing them to the awesomeness of Indigodragonfly. The rest were simply Whovians who I knew would understand the humor of the name. These were originally going to be socks for me but with how stretchy they are feeling, I decided that Husband should have them even though he thinks sock knitting is a bit silly. He works from home often and it will be nice for him to have nice, warm socks.Now I just need to finish the second sock. The cuff is mostly done. The horizontal cabling looks really cool but that whole having to seam it together before making the rest of the sock makes me a little angsty.

No real progress on Fuzzy or the TARDIS shawl.

I did finish my first colorwork project ever.

 

It was meant as a Christmas present but Husband as already been given it. It's been stupid, gross cold out for over a week now (we seem to be lucky if we break 10 degrees F right now) and would have had it sooner if I'd not put off weaving in ends and connecting the tube. And there was the ever present spacesuit that needed to be worked on. Of course, Husband likes to wear it as a hat/crown accessory instead of around his neck but he loves it so I'm happy. And I seem to have impressed at least one friend with the fact that I've made it. She's not fond of colorwork but she makes amazing things.

It also looks good on the dog.

 

Finally, I've cast on a hat for my younger sister. She's a vet in the northeastern part of Montana, where it gets even stupider cold than here. She needs/wants a new hat that is girly, so I'm making her one. It's OMG Pony Pink color (in Husband's words) and I'm using a Cookie A sock pattern that someone else had already turned into a hat because I've not been knitting enough Cookie A this half of the year. I've called the hat Here Fishy Fishy because at some point, my sister posted that as a facebook status update and now it comes up every time she calls me. It's quite a stretchy pattern but I will admit that I'm worried that it's going to be too small and I won't know until it's nearly finished.

It looks like it will stretch to about 24", which is larger than my head (I think; I did measure my head but that was last week before a head cold decided my sinuses would be a fun place to vacation). I'm hoping for the best. There was the gauge of the original pattern, which I believe I'm getting, but none on the blog post with the modification. Gauge still makes my head feel funny if I think about it too hard.

I'm hoping that this project will kick me back into knitting Cookie  socks. Of the 12 designs we've received this year, I've made a total of 3 of them. I know it's not a race to complete them and that I shouldn't feel bad if I don't because even the ones I have finished had led me to doing new things which is exciting. Husband also thinks I should finish all my WIPs by the end of the year. We'll see if that happens. Between concerts and being stupid sick (I did a little knitting today on my day off but I've barely touched it because I don't feel like knitting; I may be dying), I'll be happy to finish any project at this point.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag 
• Socks, the Final Frontier
• Ladders to the Sky Socks (Test Pattern)
• Waves of Love 
• Colormatic  

Works in Progress

• Fuzzy, the baby blanket
• Fruity Tulip Socks
• Police Box
• The Angels Have the Police Box 
• Here Fishy Fishy

Finished (almost) and Other Awesomeness

Bigger on the inside

After waiting for over a year, I now have a door, a proper door, for our bedroom. This was my husband's birthday/Christmas/I love you gift to me. I can also be argued that it was really part of an unfinished art project and was going to be made with or without my consent. Luckily for him, I love it. I do need to get better pictures but I wanted to share it today because it started off my week which ended up being filled with Awesomeness. Of course, as the title suggests, this is also a project that is almost finished. The doors are up and they close but they don't latch. There's also some finish work to be done around the door opening (top and bottom and the inside where there would normally be trim masking the gap). This is where my finished project this week is as well. 

Waves of Love, very wavy when unblocked

Here is the Waves of Love shawl, off the needles. I ended up not finishing it correctly because I really wanted to finish it. It still looks lovely and I'll see how well it blocks. This is the most intricate piece I've had to block so far and I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to block it one. The scarf that went to Japan got blocked using cork trivet things but I need a larger something to block this piece. Thankfully it's a birthday present for December, so I'm not horribly worried yet. Hopefully I can  come up with something before then. I also need to weave in the ends. It doesn't seem to matter how many tapestry needles I own, I can never seem to find them when I need them. I've decided that I'm just going to get some more and put them into my Hippo bag as soon as possible as the Hippo bag doesn't seem to cause things to disappear.  It does mean that I can now cast on Bigger on the Inside, which I've been holding off on doing. I'm trying to limit how many projects I have going at once and of those, how many of each type of project I have going at once. I'm still working on Fuzzy, which should hopefully be done soon. After talking with mom, I've decided to take it to about 36" long. They may not use up all the yarn that I intended to (3 skeins has gotten it to 29" long) but it will be a nice length. Does one block blankets as well?

Monday was exciting because I got my Cookie A October sock yarn. I had already peeked at the spoilers thread, so I knew what the color would look like. I think I drove the kids batty (at least the youngest one) because I didn't open it immediately. 

In fact, I just opened it this morning. 

It is definitely my color. While I still claim that green is my favorite color, there is something about rich reds that I adore. Maybe it's all those years of surrounding myself in green that my eyes love deep reds. Who knows.

Monday there was also a package slip for me. At least I knew it was for me as the zip code of the sender is my mom's. Having a husband with a name that shares your initial is sometimes amusing when they only write the first initial and the last name on the package slip. 

I did know what was coming in the package as well since mom had messaged me that she had sent off the package. This one I did immediately open outside of the post office to take a look at it. Mom did the Colorado yarn crawl this year, which I may have introduced her to by taking her to a new yarn shop this past June where they mentioned it. She managed to get to all of the shops and she bought yarn (though she didn't buy yarn at all of the shops) and sent some onto me. I'm not doing too well at this whole knitting more than I'm acquiring but it's so soft and comforting and pretty. Now to just find the perfect project for all of it...

My half of the haul from the Colorado Yarn Crawl.

Note the awesome color for my soon to be made awesome socks.

 I am also now the proud owner of Qiviut sock yarn. Husband can't tell the difference between it and most of the other yarn (he did notice that some is coarser than this yarn) but I can definitely feel the difference. I can't wait to make these into socks. It's also very similar to the Cookie A sock club yarn so I could make both patterns (I love both of them too!) in similar colors.

 The best part of the package wasn't the yarn, but the swift that was also in it. Thirteen years ago this past April, my Great-Aunt CeCe passed away. She was a teacher and I remember she had a million books (and corgis; she's to blame for my love of corgis) whenever we would visit her house. She also had a million things of knitting. Projects, yarn, needles. She convinced a friend of hers to publish a book and this friend is now a well-known knitting author. Mom ended up with all of her knitting supplies after she passed away. Recently mom found Cece's old swift and asked if I wanted it. This was a silly question to ask as she knows I've been wanting a swift for a while as I find winding skeins tedious without one. It's nice having somethings of CeCe's. She was always this mysterious, elegant woman in my mind. She was always dressed well but not necessarily normally and she didn't give a care what anyone thought of her. I'm sure she probably did on some level as she always looked amazing. I think she and my other Great-Aunt helped inspire my love of museums as they were both involved with the ones in Denver. When we would go spend time with either of them, we were usually going to a museum. So a family tradition lives onto another generation through me. My sister has no patience for knitting but that means that I have another person I can gift things to (the hot pink in the yarn haul picture that's in a separate bag is going to become a hat for her; she already knows about it too).

YOP Update #3

Since last week, I've actually managed to make decent progress. I have a really awesome chiropractor who adjusted my neck and arms last Monday so I was able to work on my projects. One even got finished.

Birthday Bag

 Back in April when I went on the yarn shop hop, I purchased a kit to make the above bag. It included everything I needed to finish it. It was mostly completed back in June. I waited until I got home to block it as it would be silly to block it and then to pack it in my luggage. Then I needed to run the string through it. The blocking went smoothly but I kept putting off adding the string. Mostly because I knew it didn't have to be finished until this week. I had purchased it to make and give to my youngest step-daughter who loves not only the color purple but also purses, bags and containers that she can hide things into. It was fairly easy to do once I looked back at the pattern to remember which row was the eyelet row. In the photo above, it's standing so nicely because it has a napkin stuffed inside of it. Without that, it sort of lays limply on its side. It should be fine once it is filled with gifts for a 9 year old.

Baby blanket

Now that I've got the 3rd repeat done of the pattern on the blanket, I'm liking it. I'm glad I didn't get discouraged and rip it out. It's about a fifth of the way done and is just over 2 feet wide. It's currently around 7 inches tall. The nice thing about it is that I can mindlessly work on it while doing other things, such as playing D&D, which is exactly what I did last night. Using much larger needles is speeding the process up so I think I'll actually get through this before the end of the year. I should check with Husband and see when is his cousin's daughter's birthday as it would make a nice birthday gift.

Tiberius Sock

These socks are from the June 2013 Cookie A Sock Club. I made myself finish the socks from the April shipment before starting these. I decided I wanted to make them in yarn the color of Captain Kirk's uniform. My mom happened to have dye that was the "correct" color so we dyed some white yarn that I founded at a local shop while I was at home. I had purchased a skein of "Snow" Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn.

While this yarn felt amazing and took the color beautifully, it's been nothing but a headache. When we went to dye it, neither of us noticed that the skein was only tied off in one place. This meant that as we soaked it before the dying that the yarn became a tangled mess. While we noticed right away, there wasn't much that we could do. After it was dyed, we tried to wind it into a ball. The skein was such a mess that it wouldn't even fit on the swift. Mom ended up winding it into a ball without a winder. When I got home, I rewound the ball. Twice because it kept knotting up. When I finally got to the color change (my choice), the yarn, which I pulled from the center, eventually became horribly tangled. I spent a large amount of time on Friday trying to untangle the mess that it had become. The yarn ended up having to be cut a couple of times as the mess was impossible to untangle. And since I was knitting both socks at the same time, there wasn't a free end that I could use to help. Additionally, I didn't want to rip out what I'd already knit in hopes that the knots could be taken out.

I spent part of Saturday going through my yarn stash. I've pulled out yarn that I know I'll not use. It either has too much acrylic content (yarn I'd bought before I paid attention to fiber content) or is an unknown material or is too small for me to feel I can make anything useful. These will soon be re-homed elsewhere. While I know my step-daughters would love them, they don't actually do anything with the yarn they already have. The younger one wants to learn how to knit but I don't know how to teach her. The eldest makes crocheted chains. That's it. When she makes a "dress" for their dolls, she just makes a chain and then wraps it around the doll. And until they actually make things, I think it's safer that they don't add more to their stash.

Finished Objects

• Japan Scarf
• Birthday Bag

Works in Progress

• Tiberius Socks
• Baby Blanket

International Scarf

 

This scarf if pretty special. Right now, it's on it's way to Japan to be given to my step-son's host family. He's spending 10 days in Japan on an all expenses paid trip. 

This past Tuesday we finally got the information for the trip and there was a mention of gifts for the host family, which didn't surprise me. I had already mentioned it to my husband that something would be needed. On the paperwork, there was a note about something handmade. When I went to visit the college I ended up going to and when I did a home stay in England, my mom sent me with handwoven alpaca (or llama, I don't remember now) scarfs. I wanted to do something for my step-son, to be able to contribute to his experience. So I decided to knit a scarf. 

The last scarf I made took me a long time. You can probably guess why by this picture:

 

That's an 18 foot long scarf. It took months and months to make. I didn't have months and months to make this scarf and my step-son certainly didn't have the room to pack a scarf this massive in his suitcase. I had 5 days.... It was a good thing I was on vacation this last week as I dropped all other (okay, there's only one other project right now) projects to work on this scarf. My husband and I took a trip up north and I knit the entire time in the car, 3 hours each way. I even frogged the scarf at one point because I didn't like the needle size.

I'm mostly happy with the final project. It's not as long as I would have liked and it wider than I had intended but by the time it was giving me a good idea of how it was going to shape up, I didn't want to frog it again. It turns out that the host family live in a "Siberian type" climate so this scarf will make an excellent gift. My step-son was a little reluctant at first to bring it because a scarf is a "weird" gift for July. I'm glad he decided to bring it. I even had time to block it, which gave it a little more length. I can't wait to hear what his host family thinks about it when he gets back.