I put up yesterday's post, then realized I had forgotten the biggest project that I had just finished. Tonight Smokey and I are going to a baby shower, and this is what I knit for the baby boy who will emerge next month.
Yarn: Berrocco Vintage leftovers from the multicolored socks I made last winter. Colors are Douglas Fir, Chana Dai, Tidepool, and Black Cherry. The yarn is 50% superwash wool / 50% acrylic, so it is warm AND machine washable, not to mention fuzzy and soft. All that seemed important to me in a baby garment. Needle: Addi Turbo US#6. Pattern:Baby Brights, 12 month size.
This is a great pattern for a top-down raglan; I quite like the way she used short rows at the neck. The pattern has a pattern stitch on the lower part of the sweater, but I thought the stripes were busy enough so I did it all in stockinette.
Time to catch you up on my knitting. First, a couple hats:
(left, my last hat for the homeless) Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, Thyme, and some anonymous camel-colored wool worsted. Total 56 grams, 123 yards. Needles: Addi Turbo US#6. Pattern: Generic, worked on 96 st.
(right, for Matthew's new-ish girlfriend Alex) Yarn:Knit Picks Andean Silk, color Allspice, all but about a yard of 3 skeins (~288 yards). Needles: Knit Picks Options w/ Zephyr tips, US#8. Pattern:16-Cable Hat. The pattern gives two sizes, one for head circumference 16 - 19", and one for 18 - 22". Alex's head is 23", so I cast on 182 st to allow for one more 26-st cable repeat. My head is also 23", so I was able to try on the hat as I knit to check the sizing.
Alex had been describing the kind of hat she wanted to Matthew about a month ago on a day when Smokey happened to be present. He immediately piped up to say that he knew someone who would be delighted to knit her a hat. What he later told me she had described sounded to me like a chullo, so I found a few examples in Ravelry and sent her links. She looked at them but, in her own words, got sidetracked to the 16 Cable Hat. So 16 cables is what I knit (although my upsizing resulted in rather more than 16 cables).
Note: this is a very flattering hat. I may make one for myself. Never thought I would want a beret-ish or slouch-ish hat, but I like this one a lot.
This hat has a lot more stitches than a typical hat. But I loved the yarn so much that it was no hardship to knit the equivalent of two hats. Andean Silk is 55% fine alpaca / 23% merino / 22% silk, and knitting it is like petting a very soft kitteh.
Next on my knitting agenda is a pair of Dimorphous Mittens for myself. Right now I am swatching to determine what size needle I need to make my yarn for the inner mitten match the pattern gauge.
Inner mitten: Outer mitten, striped:
The yarn for the inner mitten is Frog Tree Pediboo, a very soft but tightly plied 80% merino / 20% bamboo light fingering weight that will feel lovely on my hands. The yarn for the outer mitt is two colorways of Noro Yuzen, a discontinued 56% wool / 34% silk / 10% mohair DK weight that I will stripe like a Noro striped scarf.
The weather forecast for the immediate future is cold with a side of frigid, so I need to knit like the wind on these.
Yarn: Trekking (XXL) in Clown Barf color 156. Toes and half of one heel reinforced with yellow Lang reinforcing thread, other heel reinforced with blue. My anal self is appalled. Needles: US#0 (foot) and US#1 (leg). Pattern:Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Socks, which is my current go-to sock pattern. I tried a little calf shaping on this pair: about one inch above the last short row of the heel I increased one stitch in the middle of the back, then increased again in that same place about every 3/4 inch until I had increased a total of four stitches. (The leg is 3x1 ribbing, so four stitches made everything work out.) The leg seems slightly more comfortable than the not-increased legs on previous socks, not that they were ever uncomfortable, but I suspect this pair may stay up better. Time will tell.
Two scarves (shown unblocked and blocking) for the Red Scarf Project.
(left/bottom) Yarn: 3 skeins of Berrocco Blackstone Tweed (65% wool/25% mohair/10% angora), which is a single ply, lovely soft yarn (in spite of being tweed). Pattern: La Harlot's One-Row Handspun Scarf, worked on 36 stitches. Size: 63" x 8-1/2". Needles: US#7 Addi Turbo.
(right/top) Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted, <1 skein each of scarlet and red. Pattern: Simple stripes from the book, Knit OneBelow by Elise Duvekot; worked on 19 stitches. I quite love this vertical stripe look, and it knits up very quickly. If you look carefully at the third photo you can see where I reversed the colors halfway through the scarf. This is the technique the author used in the sweater on the cover of the book, but I had enough trouble keeping the two yarn colors in the right place without switching them out every 4 or 6 rows. Once was enough, just for fun. Size: 63" x 6-1/2". Needles: US #6 Addi Turbo.
And then there were some hats.
(1) Yarn: (MC) Knit Picks Andean Silk, color Wallaby, 40 gr (.8 skein); (CC) Louet Gems Worsted left over from my kimono sweater, color Burgundy. What the picture does not show you is how soft the Andean Silk is -- knitting it was like working with soft kitteh fur. I kept stopping to pet it whilst knitting. Pattern: Generic but originally derived from this one, worked on 96 st. Size: M. Needles: US#6 Addi Turbo.
(2) Yarn: (MC)Colorado Yarns Durango in the inventively named "1"; about .8 skein (90 yds); (CC) Plymouth Boku, in the also-inventively named "6"; also about .8 skein (80 yds). Pattern: same as above, worked on 96 st. Size: XL. Needles: US#7 Addi Turbo for ribbing, US#8 Knit Picks Option circ with Zephyr tips for the body of the hat.
(3) Yarn: Paton's Soy Wool Stripes, Natural Earth, slightly less than one skein. Pattern:Clamber, v. 1.0, worked on 96 st, 4 cable crossings before the decreases. Size: S/M Needles: US#7 Addi Turbo. (I think, might have been 6s.)
(4) Yarn: Paton's Soy Wool Stripes, Natural Earth, slightly more than one skein. Pattern:Clamber, v. 1.0, worked on 96 st, 5 cable cr4ossings before the decreases. Size: L Needles: Knit Picks Options, Zephyr tips, US#8s. (I think, might have been 7s.)
The first three hats are destined for a couple hats for the homeless projects, one in Seattle and one in Minneapolis. #s 1 & 3 were originally intended for Shanti's ship hats, but after they were done I reread the requirements and found that they should have been knit from washable wool. Oh, well, the ship's crews' loss is the homeless's gain.
The fourth will be my winter hat, I think. I bought both colors of Soy Wool Stripes late last winter when I picked up a new winter coat on sale; the jacket is dark brown nylon and the hat should go well with it, as do my older Noro striped scarf and Plymouth Boku fingerless gloves (the contrasting stripes in hat #2 are the leftovers from those gloves).
Edited to add: Don't be too impressed with my output. This is 2-1/2 months of knitting. Instead, be appalled at how little I talk about knitting on this purportedly knitting blog.
Did I knit while we were on vacation? Why, yes! Yes, I did. Thanks for asking.
You may remember I planned to knit a Norostripedsweater during the month we were gone.
Didn't happen. Never even took that particular knitting bag out of its cubby in the van. Starting that sweater was contingent upon finishing the multicolor striped raglan that I had been working on since February. When we left home, that (top-down) sweater had a yoke, both sleeves, and three or four inches of the body. I kept sloggingplugging knitting on it all during our trip. Here it is today, rather rumpled from having been stuffed into a traveling knitting bag for the month of June and most of July.
It's nearly done, isn't it? Maybe getting it out of its bag and seeing how close I am will inspire me...
I had started a pair of socks as my carry-along knitting before we left, but I was not enjoying them. The Knit Picks Felici sock yarn, while lovely soft and in nice colors, was also loosely plied and therefore splitty. There was progress made on the socks, but it was s-l-o-w.
They are now [finally!] finished, however.
Somehow, even though I knit them on the same number of stitches (60) and the same size needle (US#0) as always, they don't fit well. See how the end of the toes sticks out from the end of my foot? That is because it is too narrow. Such nonsense is probably the result of my not liking the yarn; disgust made me knit tighter.
So.
If I didn't knit the Noro sweater, and I didn't finish the socks, and I worked on but didn't finish the raglan, what DID I knit?
Baby hats for the PIH hospital in Rwanda! At the last minute I threw my baby hat knitting bag (it's where I keep all the yarn that is good for baby hats) into the van. Good thing I did; otherwise I might have had to finish the sweater and socks. As Dale-Harriet once said, Baby hats are like potato chips. You can't do just one.
My soon-to-be-fifth-grade neighbor helped me do the photo shoot.
She was so cute.
Then I showed her my iTouch and the knitting was forgotten.
Let's examine those hats in detail, shall we? They are being modeled by my trusty ostrich egg sitting in its base of brass and wart hog tusks. (How fitting for hats that will travel to Africa!)
This first five were all done on a US#3 circ from one skein of Socks
That Rock heavyweight, colorway Gay Pride. The striping and pooling are
different because the hats are worked on different numbers of stitches,
from 56 to 68. Babies come in different sizes, so I figured their heads
do, too.
I had a few yards of the STR leftover so I combined it with some green Valley Superwash DK for the hat at the left, once again on a US#3 circ.
I decided before I started the hats that I would not put a cuff on any of the wool ones, hoping to stretch this skein of STR to seven or eight hats. Didn't work. .
.
. .
.
This next group were all knit from Knit Picks Shine Sport in River (blue) and Cherry (red, discontinued) on a US#3 circ.
The second photo shows the slanting jog that results from a new-to-me way of changing colors. (The jog looks a lot better in the socks in the link than in my hat; I don't think there is ANY way to make jogless two-row stripes.) The fourth and fifth photos are of a hat I made to experiment with the knit-one-below stitch (more on that in another post).
Next, three hats from Knit Picks Shine Worsted, knitted on a US#5. Yup, I was using up the last of that particular yarn in the last hat. How can you tell?
The last few.
The first is more KP Shine Sport, this time in Willow and with some one-row stripes of a fuzzy novelty yarn. I got from lisa. The second is Cleckheaton 8-ply County Check superwash wool worsted (discontinued) left over from knitting mittens a couple years ago. Third is KP Comfy in Honeydew, combined with KP Shine worsted in the fourth. That last hat is my favorite of them all.
This frigid image brought to you in consideration of the fact that you may be as bummed as I am by Cookie's and Squish's images of warmth and sunlight and buddin' and bloomin' trees.
The above is the first ice fisherman I have seen on our lake this winter. Usually there are several every weekend, some of whom leave their fish houses on the ice for weeks at a time. Weird, that lack of fisherman/houses. Maybe the fish have migrated to Lake Wapogasset, twenty or so miles closer to the equator.
One more photo to empathize with those of you who also are still suffering through the throes of Endless Winter. My deck, the snow carefully decorated by doggy pawprints:
* * * * *
I made the ball of yarn at left into the chemo hat at right. Hat has been mailed to the requester in hopes that it will complement the efficacy of modern medicine. Damn cancer.
* * * * *
The multicolor striped raglan progresses.
Yes, that is the same pink yarn in the current stripe as in the previous hat. I was, er, over-generous when I ordered the yarn for the stripes.
The Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan pattern is knit neck down. The knitter measures her neck and, using that measurement multiplied by her gauge, figures out how many stitches to cast on. After the neck shaping, the pattern says to increase 8 stitches every other row, two at each raglan seam, as is usual in raglan patterns.
Implicit in this instruction is the assumption that the wearer's body is in perfect proportion to her neck. Ahem.
You can see where this might pose a problem for those of us who: 1, are Amply Endowed, and B, have added more than a few too many pounds over the years. I was knitting away happily according to the stated instructions -- had, in fact, reached the end of the second colored stripe -- when this realization hit me.
Recalculate the rate of increase to allow for my different proportions.
Oops.
Frog back to beginning of first stripe and reknit.
At roughly that same point in the stripe pattern it occurred to me that perhaps my arms, and hence, sleeves, might not follow the exact same formula as The Girls.
Recalculate. Yup. Need a slightly different rate of increase on the sleeve side of the raglan seam.
Frog back to the beginning of first stripe and reknit.
I think I have it right now. (Surely hope so.) The good thing is that both yarns seem to accept frogging and reknitting quite well. The steel blue Phildar is particularly indestructible. It is also a bit scratchy, indestructibility and scratchiness seeming to go hand in hand. The merino in the colored stripes is soft and smooth, and I am hoping that there is enough of that surface in the finished sweater that I don't itch to death in it.
For the curious, the rate of increase for my body is 4 stitches in 6 out of every 10 rows. I made myself a little chart to help me remember that:
The rate of increase for the sleeves is 4 stitches every other row, so I am doing the increases on all even-numbered rows.
As long as I don't lose the row counter -- hanging from the needle in the first photo -- I should be golden.
It's a pair of socks, though, so don't get too excited.
Not impressed? How about this shot:
I was inspired by the colorful socks in Kristin Nicholas's Kristin Knits, of which I tragically have no photo. Suffice to say, hers were far more colorful than mine, but I would have had little use for socks in lime and fuschia and canary yellow. The colors above are more my style.
I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille...
The single row of gold yarn at the cuff kinda got lost when I put them on, darn.
Yarn:Berrocco Vintage (50% acrylic/40% merino/10% nylon worsted weight) in 5182 Black Currant (red), 5185 Tide Pool (teal), 5177 Douglas Fir (green), and 5192 Chana Dal (gold). I bought one skein of each from Webs plus one of 5187 Dungaree (worn denim blue) with the idea to make several pairs of multi-colored socks until I used up the yarn. I was also curious about how an acrylic blend would wear and feel in socks. Today I found that it is not warm as the equivalent weight of wool (Duh.) nor does it breathe quite as well (2xDuh.), but it is still acceptable (Whew.). Needles: US#2 from the toe to the ankle, then increasing one needle size every inch or so until I was using US#4; cast off with US#5. Pattern:Wendy's Generic Toe-Up sock. I love this pattern. For the next sock, though, I am going to make the heel deeper to lessen the stretching over the top of the instep. That has not been a problem with the previous socks I made from this pattern, but the combination of worsted weight yarn and small needles in this pair seems to require it.
All in all, socks that are quick to knit and fun to wear. Stay tuned for the next pair, already OTN...
(Yes, that is the Christmas tree in the first photo. What?)
Yarn: Louet Gems Topaz, 100% superwash merino worsted, 5 or 6 skeins of each color. Needles: Knit Picks Options and Harmony circs, US#7. Pattern: My design, based on the fundamentals of the kimono sweaters in Kimono Knitting by Vicki Square. Easy-peasy, no fitting, everything is a rectangle. I made the sleeves have snug cuffs because standard kimono sleeves would have defeated the idea of a warm sweater -- drafts, people!
The Louet Topaz is a nice enough yarn, rather loosely plied and therefore prone to splitting. I suspect it will pill, too, since it is so soft. But the sweater is done and comfortable and warm and I am happy.
Shawl pin purchased from some unremembered vendor at Yarnover 2009.
Matthew's hat: Yarn: Socks That Rock mediumweight, Raven Clan Corbie, ~209 yds (about half a skein). Needle: Addi Turbo US#2 (2.25mm) Pattern: Generic hat with six lines of decreases, 1" knitted-in hem, 108 st
Knitting something as a surprise for Matthew was a bit of a gamble -- he is VERY particular about what he wears. But I thought the Raven Clan yarn might fit his style, and apparently it did; Maggie said he has worn it every day. Score!
Maggie's Calorimetry: Yarn: Socks That Rock heavyweight, Hot Flash, ~90 yds (about a quarter of a skein). Cast-on plus one row and bind-off plus one row, Socks That Rock heavyweight, Ruby Slippers. Needle: Addi Turbo US#4. Pattern: Calorimetry, 102 st.
She wore it (and the matching socks) all weekend. Score!
Andrew's hat: Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersocke, Moody Blues, a bit more than 1/2 skein Needle: unknown 2.00mm Pattern:Clamber by Laura Wilson-Martos, v.1.0. I had to add four or five extra cable repeats to make the hat long enough to cover his ears; he has a very large head. This is a very nice pattern for a cabled hat, clearly written and easy to knit and to modify.
Andrew is never cold, especially since he left Wisconsin to go to school in NYC. (According to him, it never actually gets cold there.) I knew making him a hat was a gamble but Darn it, I'm a knitter! I have to knit for my family! So I took the chance. He will probably wear it whenever the temperature in NYC is <20˚F. How often is that? Oh, well, I enjoyed knitting it.
* * * * *
Matthew bought himself a Christmas present, a remote control helicopter.
See the little red things underneath the front fusilage? Missiles... which gave me the opportunity to say:
Knitting was primarily of a stealth nature, but did include scientific swatching and the F'ing of a couple of O's that had been OTN for nearly, and over a year, respectively. (I am rather proud of that sentence -- and its punctuation -- awkward though it may be.)
June
June was for knitting and vacation and celebrating that brief magical time that is summer in the north woods.
Lots of knitting.
July.
July was for more vacation -- the rest of the one in Wyoming and another on the North Shore.
I learned the difference between eagles and turkey vultures, and I had surgery to remove some extra/unneeded bits and pieces and repair that torn cartilage in my knee.
Knitknitknit.
September.
In September I had lots of catsontheblog, it was my turn to give the prayer at the beginning of the monthly county board meeting, the county budget process blew up, and the most gloriously gorgeous month of the year was here.
morenew-to-memusic found its way into my iTunes, and we celebrated 35 years together
by not-camping on Lake Superior.
The kneedles continued to fly.
November.
The van that took us on some wonderful vacations met up with an unfortunate bear on the road and was replaced by an older but bigger and more customized van.
Cold weather arrived, and once more I cooked and baked.
Mostly, though, I knitted. Apparently I can crank out hats like other knitters crank out... sweaters
December.
I continued to be thankful (there is a lot to be thankful for).
With the help of Matthew and Maggie, I decorated for Christmas. This decorating thing is never a given.
I showed you my ornaments, y'all showed me yours.
We ate well.
A bit more knitting* for others.
I pretty much finished my Christmas knitting. (Shhh, the Calorimetry is a surprise.) The medical mittens are still OTN -- stay tuned.
*For someone who doesn't like pink, I sure knit a lot of it lately...
A second chemo cap for my sister-in-law. It went into the mailbox earlier this week.
Yarn: Rowan Calmer, a bit less than one skein. Needles: Addi Turbo US#6. Pattern: Cast on 90 st, do a picot knitted-in .75" hem, work even for 5.75", decrease 6 st evenly every other round for a while, then decrease 6 st evenly around every round until there are 6 st left. Break yarn and draw through remaining st.
Cuffs for #1 son's mittens:
These are Cascade Heritage sock yarn, color 5604, 1x1 rib on US#0, 76 st.
I got the charts and instructions for the caduceus today from Colleen, the designer, plus photos of the actual thing.
It.Is.Teh.Awesome.
It occurred to me that I could tell #1 son I am knitting his mittens but not tell him about the caduceus and DNA designs. So I did and got hand measurements from him. Oh, the relief! His hand circumference is 8", exactly what I guessed after measuring my own hand at 7" around. This means that the mittens I am knitting should fit perfectly; I am planning on 1" of positive ease at the knuckles, mittens needing to have a bit of air space for insulation. The cuffs are just the tiniest bit too big for my 7" wrists, so should be perfect for his 8" ones.
The reason I knit both cuffs is because I reached the end of the first cuff at about 10 pm one night earlier this week. I didn't want to quit knitting but I knew it would be pure folly to start a new-to-me and potentially complicated design that late in the day. I knit one round of stockinette on the first mitten, using a US#1 needles and thereby freeing up the US#0 for the second cuff. I reached the end of the second cuff at about that same time of day later in the week, once again knowing enough not to start the design when my brain was not sharp.
Instead, I cast on for a baby hat for Rwanda.
The teal -- which is more saturated in real life -- is Knit Picks Main Line in Harbor. Main Line may be discontinued; I don't see it on their website any more. It is worsted weight, 75/25 cotton/merino blend. Of course it is discontinued -- after knitting with it for a bit I decided it was perfect for a February Lady sweater. Damn. The colorful yarn is a bonus that knitnzu threw into the package when I won her contest last spring. It is perfect for this project, having exactly the same color of deep teal as the main color.
And now it is time to attack the mittens for realz. Do I do the DNA helix or the caduceus first? Decisions, decisions...
I am getting a little bored with knitting hats, although I keep
thinking of other design ideas that will use up oddball skeins. So I am probably not done yet.
Here is
the latest crop.
The black one: Yarn: Plymouth Encore, a little over half a skein (~114 yds.). Needles: Addi Turbo US#5 (I think; might have been #6). Pattern:Clamber (V.1.0) by Laura Wilson-Martos, worked on 108 st.
The red one: Yarn: Colorado Durango (worsted weight; 50%wool/47% acrylic/3% rayon), a little more than one skein (~120 yds.). Needles: Addi Turbo US#5 (I think). Pattern: Pattern? I don' need no stinkin' pattern (for a 2x2 rib)!
The navy blue one: Yarn:
Bernat Lana (worsted weight; label says 100% merino, but it felt like
ordinary wool to me), about half a skein (~110 yds.); stripes are ~20
yds. of some Noro Silk Garden left over from scarves I did a couple
years ago. Needles: Addi Turbo US#5 Pattern: (see above)
One more hat, this one intended for #1 son for Christmas:
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK Moody Blues, about half a skein (~170 yds) Needles: Addi Turbo US#2 Pattern:
Clamber (see above), worked on 132 st. I hope it is big enough for his
large noggin; it fits me, but his head might be a skooshi bit larger. I
didn't weave in the end, and I have the second half of the skein if I
need to make it a bit longer. )Andrew never reads the blog
unless I specifically tell him to, so it should be safe to reveal this
hat here)
I also intended to knit him some sockweight mittens; he requested a pair to keep his hands warm when he runs. I wanted to put this caduceus design on the back, using cables for the staff and snakes and other fancywork
stitches for the wings, but designing turned out to be harder than I thought. It might be doable if I were experienced in lace knitting because then I would know how to conjure up the wings with slanting lines of increases and decreases. I know
I could knit it if someone else wrote the pattern for me -- anybody
interested? I pay in yarn :-)
It must be the cooler weather that portends winter. I have been moved to nesting behavior. Knitting, of course, but also cooking! even baking!
Twice I baked a double batch of pumpkin bread using the Joy of Cooking recipe (2 good-sized loaves each time) and threw in a bag of chocolate chips each time. One of the first loaves went into a CARE package for #1 son, and I ate the other loaf almost entirely by myself. It was sinfully good. One of the second loaves went to #2 son to take back home with him after last weekend, and the other went into the freezer in preparation for having the boys here at Christmas.
On Thursday I made beef stew from this new cookbook I got a few days ago:
Mise en place:
Browning half the chunks of chuck roast:
There was red wine and chicken broth and carrots and onions and potatoes and bay leaves and thyme and garlic involved, too, but I didn't take photos of everything.
Just know that my house smelled really, really good.
There was freshly baked whole wheat bread, too, from this:
This is my third bread baker over about 20 years. The first one made a 1-pound loaf. Great bread, but the loaves were too danged small and therefore had an unsatisfactory crust-to-bread ratio, imnsho. Plus, a loaf was gone after one meal. The second bread baker made a 1.5-pound cylindrical loaf. Much better ratio, plus it had an exhaust fan that cooled the baker when the bread was done so I didn't have to be right! there! to take out the bread when it was done.
When that one died after a long and fruitful life, I bought this Zojirushi, which had been very favorably reviewed somewhere. It makes a 2-pound loaf, which was perfect, especially when the boys were home. Its main flaw is that it seems to knead the bread too much, so much that the bread is has a perfectly smooth texture and not enough tooth, if you know what I mean. I use bread flour and w.w. bread flour, not all-purpose flour, so that is not the problem. Perhaps I need to experiment some more. Fresh-from-the-*oven* bread is soooo good...
Anotherfood thing I recently discovered is the wonderfulness that is oven-roasted root vegetables. Oh, sure, they have been around for years and everyone and their cousin has raved about them, but I just discovered them about a month ago. That first time I had some carrots that had been in the crisper drawer for so long they had started to grow new roots; some semi-soft potatoes that were in roughly the same condition, and some (relatively fresh) onions. I peeled and chunked and tossed them all with olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic, minced fresh rosemary, and a pinch of cayenne. Although we ate them with a marvelous tenderloin from the grill (tenderloin is my favorite!), the vegetables were the star of the meal.
Since that first time I have experimented a bit with other vegies. Found that neither brussels sprouts nor leeks lend themselves to this preparation, or at least not in combination with root vegies. Rutabaga and turnip were my latest experiment, in combination with potatoes and onions (tragically, there were no carrots in the house that day); they received positive votes from both Smokey and I. (Smokey, when I told him what was in the vegetable melange, said that he had never understood why people grew or ate rutabagas because he had never eaten any that deserved a repeat performance; he changed his mind after the first bite.)
* * * * *
More proof of nesting behavior: another Hat for the Homeless.
Yarn: Tahki Lana (old version): 100% merino; 2/3 of the skein, or 86 yards. I got this from lisa as a bonus when I won her contest awhile back. While gray might not be a choice I would make for myself, it was perfect for this project. The yarn is lovely to knit. Needles: Knit Picks Options circ, US#10. Pattern: Made it up: mistake rib worked on 60 st. Work 6” even. Decrease by P2tog every other rib, every other row, until ~30 st
remain. K2tog around every row until ~6 st remain. Break yarn, thread
through remaining st.
* * * * *
Okay, I see in the Feedjit in my sidebar that I have a reader in Durand, Wisconsin, which is 69 miles (111 km)
from where I live. Fess up, please! Who are you, and why do I not know
this already? Oh, and when can we have coffee and knit together? ;^)
Three more wine bottle cozies for Saturday's sale:
Yarn: All Knit Picks Wool of the Andes except the deep red at the left; that is some Panda Wool Bale from Smiley's Yarn Needles: US#8 KP Options circs Pattern:here. Mods: I finally figured out the easiest way to make the tie -- a crochet chain made of three strands of yarn, then felted. Felted I-cord works great but takes 30 minutes to make; the thick chain takes about a minute and a half.
Two identical and reversible Red Scarves:
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK, 3 skeins each (100% superwash merino; 50 gr/123 yd per skein) Needles: US#6 KP Options circs Pattern:La Harlot's One-Row [Handspun] Scarf. Mods: None. I love this pattern stitch, as you can see.
Carole proposed the idea of Thankful Thursdays, which she picked up from Kate -- isn't this a great idea?
Three things I am thankful for:
My health, although far from perfect, is certainly good enough to be thankful for. Hey, any day spent above ground (and not in a wheelchair) is a good one!
Smokey Bear, my life's companion and all-around good guy.
Our boys, who I am proud to say have turned out to be well-adjusted -- albeit crazy, in a good way -- and happy and productive citizens, plus they are just plain fun to have around.
I wrote the above, then read Kate's post, where she said the same thing in almost the same words. I really am thankful for those three things, but I pride myself on being An Original. Hence, I immediately began thinking of other things to be thankful for.
I am thankful for our high-speed internet, recently upgraded (for free!) by the local telecom. Now I can watch stupid YouTube videos right away instead of waiting for them to load first.
I am thankful for the beauty of the fall colors, although they are akin to getting the lollipop and sticker right before the excruciating medical procedure that lasts for six months and involves snow shovels, tow ropes, and jumper cables.
I am thankful for Hannibal's and En Esch's excellent table manners.
Unlike every other cat we have been owned by in the past 35 years, they
do not bolt their food and immediately vomit it up. It's the little things, guys.
* * * *
I forgot a few things in my "Current Knitting" post a few days ago. There were those two squares for Carrie's blanket
Square #1 is some unknown sock yarn held double, knit into a 6" square on US #6 needles using a stitch pattern from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries. Square #2 is another 6" square knit in 8 tints/shades of blue yarn from an afghan kit I bought at an estate sale years ago, knit on an unknown size needle -- maybe a US #4? -- and using a Barbara Walker slipped stitch pattern. It was shown in the BW book using two colors; I used all eight to produce the plaid. It was a PITA to knit, but Carrie says that square in the afghan is little Eddie's favorite, so it was totally worth it.
The three squares in photo #3 are all Knit Picks Wool of the Andes knit on a US #7 in La Harlot's One-Row Handspun Scarf stitch pattern. Lucia told me she had a thing about reversible stitch patterns, so I made sure to use one so her head wouldn't explode :-)
* * * * *
The Friends of the Polk County Libraries have a table at a craft fair on Saturday, and I have been busily knitting some more wine bottle cozies. Here are two lying on the washer so I don't forget to felt them when I do the laundry today.
Here's the third and final one in progress.
I have also made a whack of tissue cozies, but I gave most of them to Colleen, the library director, to sew up, so I don't have a photo. I'll get on on Saturday -- they turned out cute10, if I do say so myself. Here are three I sewed up myself.
Smokey was lying in bed while I got dressed this morning. He asked, "Well, what's new today? Did anyone break in overnight and clean and organize our house?"
"Nah," I replied. "Probably because we forgot to leave the door open. Or forgot to light the beacon. You know, the grail-shaped beacon* on the roof."
We started the day with a laugh.
Which was a good thing because about an hour later I broke the garage door.
* * * * *
Email from Andrew: "Hey mom, mom, guess what I'm learning about."
I email back: "No idea. Give me a hint."
Andrew: "I was watching a lecture I missed for musculoskeletal pathophysiology (that means bone and muscle disease class). I attached my notes for it, and you should have a look, both of you. The lecture is on
seronegative spondyloarthropathies, a disease category that's a lot more familiar to you than it sounds."
(It turns out that psoriatic arthritis is one of those diseases; Smokey suffers from it, although I generally tell people rheumatoid arthritis because the effects are very similar and people have heard of it.)
Anyway.
From Andrew's notes: "...Or also gold salt is a remittive therapy. Q: Why? A: We don’t know why, but macrophages eat the gold, so maybe the gold messes up the macrophages somehow and yeah, kittens."
I love my boy man-child.
* * * * *
Now the knitting.
I really like to make hats. So simple, don't need a pattern, great way to try out color ideas, portable, yada yada; all of which is also true for socks except that I can finish a hat in an evening of concentrated knitting. Try to do THAT with a sock.
Last year I made this hat just because. I knew eventually it would find a good home.
Yarn: Bernat Lana (100% merino, although it doesn't feel as soft as other merino) worsted weight Pattern:Seaman's Cap (Ravelry link; this is my go-to hat pattern) done on 96 st. Needles: US#7 (I think) circ, Magic Loop.
Last weekend I knitted up a couple balls of super bulky yarn leftover from who-knows-when.
Yarn:Lion® Wool-Ease Thick and Quick Pattern: Improvised, based on Cathy-Cate's Casbah Toe Sock. One hat worked on 60 st, one on 56. The latter worked better for the decreases. Needles: US#10 circ, Magic Loop.
Last night I started and very nearly finished another hat, this time in worsted weight again.
Yarn: Colorado Yarns Durango (50% wool, 47% acrylic, 3% rayon) in a brown tweed. Needles: US#6 circ, Magic Loop. Pattern: Improvised. Cast on 96 st, join. K1, p1 for 5.5 - 6". Decrease same as Seaman's Cap, above.
I finished the first Red Scarf. (Color is off in these pictures; it is more of an intense dark red and less dull brown IRL.)
I love that it is so easy and mindless. And reversible.
Red Scarf #2 is nearly 1/3 done. Yay for mindless knitting!
* * * * *
One A couple last chuckle chuckles, this one these from MyLifeisAverage.com:
Today I was walking into the grocery store when I saw a small boy in a
trench coat that was clearly too big for him. Suddenly a tall man in a
ski mask sprinted around the corner, bowed to the little boy, and said
"Master, things are not going as planned. We'll need another one." He
then handed the kid a potato. I've never had so many questions. MLIA
Last night, I was knitting at a bar. A guy came up to me and said,
"I've never seen a hot chick knitting before." I mustered up the
deepest man-voice I could and said "Me, neither." He left very quickly.
MLIA.
* Monty Python & the Holy Grail reference; we also used to have a cat named Zoot, named for one of the eight score young blondes and brunettes who lived in Castle Anthrax, the castle topped with the aforementioned beacon. Yeah, MP nerds here.
I have been seized by a bout of finish-itis, probably because I start back to work next Monday. I'm trying to tidy up loose ends here at home, and having at least five projects OTN was bothering me.
First, I decided to use up the rest of the superwash merino I bought for the co-worker's baby hat. Result: a head start on next year's preemie hat project.
The white one is extremely small. It would fit a tennis ball perfectly. Really, it would be best if it were never, ever needed. But it will be, and it will be ready.
A couple months ago I started a second pair of extra warm socks and got most of the leg done on the first one before my interest skedaddled on to something else. Last night I did the heel and gusset.*
Here it is posing with one of the socks from the first pair. Although you may not be able to tell from the photo, the one on the right is darker and more green.
Both pairs use one strand of Online Supersocke 100
from the Highland
Color group (left) plus one strand of some other sock yarn. The one on the
left pairs color #840 with a strand of MegaBoot stretch in an oatmeal
color. The one in progress on the right pairs #838 with a strand of
Socks That Rock in Falcon's Eye (right). The STR makes that right sock nice and soft. The Online yarn is sturdy, tightly twisted, and should hold up well, thereby compensating for the softness of the 100% merino in the STR.
These will keep my tootsies nice and warm next winter. The first pair did great in that department this winter. These are the kind of socks sometimes referred to as boot socks, extra thick and cushy. An added bonus of double-stranding the yarn is that it goes approximately twice as far, which means I can make at least one more pair using the Online yarn with something else.
* * * * *
Today's kitteh photo. Hannibal is upstairs looking out the window. A strange black cat is outside the window downstairs.
Hannibal, you missed your visitor!
* Edited to add: I wrote this post on Tuesday morning. Finished the sock later that day and cast on for the second. Finishfinishfinish...
To make amends for my little rant yesterday -- oh, and btw, thanks for all the bah-humbuggery appreciation y'all sent me, did my little heart good to know that humor still rules the world (I wish! It could do a better job than certain White (And Other-Colored) Men are doing at present, but that is a rant for another day) -- and did you see that Wendy commented (be still my heart, a celebrity comment! wOOt! (and did you read when Norma (yay! Norma!) blogged that "wOOt" is Webster's Word of the Year, except that they spelled it wrong, all the Kool Kids know it's spelled "w00t," not "wOOt") Thanks, Wendy!) -- I'm putting up this little YouTube number:*
Highlights to watch for:
The sweet knit hat -- intarsia? stranded? -- worn by one of the graffiti artists. Yeah, I later realized it is really a ski mask, but still, it is an objet d'knit, and we all loves us some objets d'knit, doncha know?
The awesomely perfect circles! drawn freehand! by that same artist;
The skyline of NYC looking like something is missing, and we all know what that is, and it saddens us.
That album -- or "alblum," as my dear MIL used to pronounce it, and so did my husband, who argued with me for an amazingly long time that "alblum" was a perfectly valid alternative to "album" and whom I only convinced otherwise when I dragged him, alblumming all the way, to the dictionary -- came to live in my iTunes a week or two ago and I have been listening to it and smearing the music and lyrics all over myself, it is so good.
[ascends soapbox] As much as I love that song, I keep disagreeing with the underlying sentiment, that his generation is waiting on the world to change. The counter-culturalists of the 1960s and 1970s didn't wait. They stormed the bastions of convention helter-skelter and willy-nilly and Nelly-bar-the-door, and nowadays many of those counter-cultural values are mainstream, although sadly not so much universally practiced as universally proclaimed: ecological awareness, recycling, organic food production, planet-friendly practices, multiculturalism, tolerance, diversity, social justice. One cannot simply wait for the world to change into something that better suits one; one must be the change one wishes to see™. [/descends from soapbox]
On the other hand, the sentiments in "Belief" seem to me to express a profound truth that the world would do well to grasp:
But, hey, I'm not all about the lyrics. Listening to his pre-song comments in this video of "I'm Gonna Find Another You" I realized that, Doh, of course I like that song, it's... blues.
Go on, knit her a couple. Quick, easy, stash-busters. You know you want to. Deadline is January 15.
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease (50% cotton/50% acrylic); Lake, Lime, and Berry.
Needles: US#6
Pattern: Basic hat from Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, preemie size.
I was a bit unhappy with the size and shape it turned out to be, thinking that it was too wide for its depth, but an emergency e-mail to Jeanne and I was tactfully informed that 1, babies come in all sizes and shapes (well, within limits), and b, even preemie babies grow and often continue to need little hats. Babies grow? Who knew?
The uneven stitches smoothed out nicely after a quick run through the washer and dryer with the other laundry.
Yesterday's knitting scene:
In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that the New York Public Library mug does not contain coffee, nor even Sleepy Rabbit tea, as it did yesterday. Nope, that is Worcestershire sauce-tinted tap water, concocted to re-create the scene more accurately. Do I have mad food stylist skillz or what?
To remove the taste of the forgoing awfulness, please fondle the virtual cuddliness of the knitting:
#2 son asked me to knit him a pair of socks. Listen! Hear that? Hell freezes over.
He has steadfastly refused any and all of my offers to for him. He's a fashionista in his own way, that boy, and his self-image brooks no mother-produced garments. Oh, except for that Dulaan-destined hat he swiped from me last winter. And that glow-in-the-dark scarf I so laboriously knitted him last year at his request and which he wore about twice. Grrrrr.
But I am A Knitting Mother -- ya know, the ones who want to wrap the world in hand knits? So I immediately agreed to make him a pair of socks.
No wool, he said, Wool is itchy.
Okay, no problem, I said, and showed him a recently-received color card of Knit Picks Shine Worsted (60% Pima cotton/40% Modal®). He picked out the terra cotta and cream shown above. One reason I was able to agree so readily was that I had discovered the extreme speediness with which worsted weight yarn knits up into socks. Wham! Bam! Socks!
He sent me a link to these socks to show how he wanted his to look.
Don't guys have silly-looking legs? Why do they pose like that, so their legs look even sillier than necessary? Why do I care?
I have become addicted to the striped Noro scarf, as you can clearly see above. The one at the left has been seen here before; it is for the Red Scarf Project and was actually knit from Plymouth Boku. The other two are the real thing, both knit from Noro Silk Garden and both intended as Christmas presents. I also have 4 more skeins of Boku lying lightly in my stash, intended for a scarf similar to the first one but with a bit more red, and intended for myself [insert selfish giggle].
I cannot describe in words how much fun it is to make these scarves, to watch the different colors come out of the ball and onto the needle, to see what color falls next to another, to see how they contrast and complement each other. It is sheer magic. I have decided that Noro SG is okay with me. Irregularities in the yarn are were previously annoying are now charming; now it is reminiscent of handspun rather than incompetence. In fact, when I was working on the rightmost scarf above in the car on the yarn crawl a couple weeks ago, every one of the Fiber Guild spinners asked me independently if the yarn were handspun. I just wish the [significantly cheaper] Boku came in as many color variations as the Noro.
Multicolored Noro scarf: Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, most of 2 skeins each of colors 204 and 249, bought on eBay. Needles: Knit Picks Options US#7. Pattern: Cast on 39 st. 1x1 ribbing. Slip 1 purlwise wyif at beginning of each row. Edited to add: Work 2 rows from one color, then 2 rows from the second color. Repeat until scarf is long enough or you run out of yarn. Natural/brown/gray Noro scarf: Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, most of 2 skeins each of colors 267 and 269.
* * * * *
Big changes happening here:
I'm going back to work at the accounting firm for a few weeks to help in the pre-October 15th mini-busy season. (October 15th is the date that individual returns that were extended last April are due, plus the last date that 2003 amended returns can be filed.) So I will be back in Minneapolis, hanging out with my orange cat Tabby, and coming back here to the lake on weekends. It's all good: I like the work, I like the people, and the extra paycheck means Smokey can let up a little at his job and be able to work on the projects he wants to finish up before winter.
Matthew got a callback for an internship at a video post production company in Minneapolis. I was able to help him get his foot in the door because my cousin runs the company, but they use interns regularly, plus he has spent time there before and they know his work. He will probably work there for most of the next year.
I don't remember if I have talked about his plans before. He graduated from high school last spring. He wants to go into graphic design and advertising, and his educational plan is to attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. But although he is very bright, he is not a scholar, and he didn't want to move directly from high school to college -- he wanted a year off from the pressure of assignments and homework. So this internship/job is exactly what he wanted and needed. He will live in the basement of our Minneapolis house.
We both start Monday morning. We are all smiling. Life is good.
I started these in May and finished the knitting a couple months ago. It was way too hot to wear them, though, so they sat for weeks and weeks, waiting to have their ends woven in. Now it is cold enough to wear them. Thankfully.
This was my first project from Koigu. Now I knew what all the fuss was about. Squishy squooshy yum.
I like how the colors made tidy stripes on the feet. On the legs the stripes are more swimmy, if you know what I mean. Not entirely circling the leg but instead spiraling one way for a bit, then reversing on themselves and flowing the other way for awhile.
But how best to model them? Hmmmmm...
First.
Second. My legs are not long enough to capture both feet at the same time, sorry.
Third. Boy, that was piss-poor. These things get a lot harder with age.
