totally bummed

I'm have a bad knitting week. First of all, I'm having more problems with the Angel Top pattern than I've ever had with any pattern ever. Partly because it's a poorly written pattern, partly because I don't have enough lace experience, and partly because I'm just not paying enough attention.

Like I've said before, it's a 4 row pattern, with wrong sides purled, and the 2 right side rows are exactly the same, just one stitch off from each other. And since I don't keep track of rows while I knit, I kept forgetting whether to do row 1 or row 3 of the pattern. I thought I could tell by just looking at my last right side row, but apparently one time I couldn't, and so the pattern got off by half a repeat. In the photo above it's about an inch down from the top. You can't see it, can you? Didn't think so. Thank you. I'm just going to pretend like I meant to do that.

But then I got to the decreasing for the raglan sleeves. First I had to cast off 2 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows. No problem. Then I needed to decrease one stitch at the beginning and end of row 3, and then every 4th row after that. I messed up wrapping my head around decreasing while in the lace pattern (which itself has decreases and increases). Plus, I got mixed up and thought I needed to decrease 2 stitches at the beginning and end of row 3, rather than just one stitch. Needless to say, I totally screwed up the armhole shaping. Hopefully it won't be noticeable once I sew the sleeves in. If I ever get that far.

Something totally bummed me out even more than my lace errors, though. I put the cute purple hoodie on Baby the other day. The one I was so proud of and totally love as one of my favourite finished objects. It was fine (though a little dirty, never having been washed) when I put it on her. Then a few hours later I noticed a hole cut right in the middle of the front. Wah! She must have gotten it caught on something. But it's a very clean cut, so totally strange. And now I'll have to figure out someway to stop it from all unraveling. And then I guess I'll sew a pocket over it or something. :(



After all that, I needed a bit of mindless knitting. I wanted to use one of the skeins of Fleece Artist Country Mohair I got recently. So I decided to make a spiral scarf, aka curly whirly. Of course, with the knitting funk I've been in, I managed to even screw that up. I started with needles much too small (size 10.5) and it's just so dense. I've switched to size 13, hopefully that'll help.

angel top in progress

This is the pattern of the lace angel top I'm knitting for Baby. The bottom one. The term 'angel top' is not common here in the US, but it seems fairly well-used in New Zealand. It could be a British thing. As far as I can tell, angel tops have the shape of an a-line dress, but they're just to the waist, like a sweater. Like I mentioned in a previous post, New Zealand (and most likely Australia and the UK and maybe other countries) have a type of yarn called 'baby wool' and I'm using a lovely lavender baby wool for this project.

It's been awhile since I knit lace, and I'm really enjoying it, though my hands are starting to cramp up and get sore from the fine detail. The lace pattern is easy, but I still managed to mess it up at one point. I accidentally added a few stitches as the end of a right side row, and didn't realize until I had purled a row, and then knit another whole right side lace row. I don't know how I managed to screw it up so bad. Normally when I make mistakes I un-knit to get back to the problem area. I don't knit with any kind of life line. And even when I'm knitting just stocking stitch I won't ever pull out the needle, rip out the knitting to past the mistake and put the stitches back on the needles. I always un-knit. Meaning I go backwards through each stitch individually to take it off and put the lower stitch back on the left needle. A waste of time I'm sure, but it stems from the days when I was a novice knitter and didn't trust that I'd be able to figure out how the stitches went back on the needle.

My method of going back to mistakes causes a big problem when I've knit past the mistake so far. Especially on lace, with 103 stitches per row. I debated for several minutes whether or not to go back. I've read several places that if you catch a mistake, always go back to fix it, or else you'll always wish you had, and that every time you look at the finished piece you'll regret not fixing it when you had the chance. What would you do?

Well, I decided not to go back and fix it. I k2tog a few times to get the stitch count right, and I just kept on going. And actually, as I look back at the mistake area, I'm really really happy I didn't go back to fix it. First off, since it's right at the edge, it will most likely disappear once I seam the finished pieces together. Secondly, I could easily have made MORE mistakes, more glaring errors, had I tried to take out two whole rows. And then of course there's the theory that every hand knit piece NEEDS a mistake or two, to make it unique. Otherwise you might as well buy the sweater from the store.

So here it is so far, in all its imperfect glory. Knit on a long circular, so very difficult to straighten out for a photo, even with the help of my 3 year old.

new layout

I thought I'd try out some of the new features available with the new Blogger, so I updated my layout a bit. New photos across the top with close ups of various finished projects. Links on the right side now. I kinda like it.

I went back and added labels to some of the more recent posts. Took awhile deciding if the plural of 'scarf' is 'scarfs' or 'scarves'. I looked it up, and both are right. In the meantime, I said both so many times that both sound wrong.

the pictures are here

The problem apparently is with using Safari on Blogger. Not fixed yet, but Firefox works fine.

Here's the jacket. I didn't buy a ribbon specifically for it, I just searched around in my mother's sewing table. I found three options - a cream silk, a pistachio silk, and this cream gauzy one. I liked this one because it's airier feeling - kind of light and fluffy. Plus, it's got the little wires in the edges, that make it keep it's shape. That might cause problems in the long run, but I can always sew a different ribbon on later. Below is a photo of my older daughter trying to tie the bow.

what's the point?

I've been trying to post and update with my finished project, but blogger doesn't seem to want to let me upload any photos. :( And what's the point of a knitting blog entry with no pictures of knitting?

Oh well, I'll just tell you about it then. I finished the ribbon tie jacket. It's cute, but not quite as cute as I was expecting. Probably because it just barely fits Big Sister, and she tried it on over a long sleeve dress, which bunched up the sleeves unattractively. If it still fits her in spring (just one week away!) she could wear it over a tank top shirt or dress, and it will probably look a lot better. And then of course Baby will fit it in a year or so.

So now I'm back to working the little lavender lace angel top for Baby. I was crazy, and had stopped working on it in the middle of a row! What was I thinking? I had to count 3 or 4 times to make sure I still had the 103 stitches that I started with. Not the easiest thing with baby weight yarn, and babies running around making all sorts of distracting noises. Again, this should be a nice spring sweater, so I hope it doesn't take too long. The lace pattern is and easy to remember 4 rows (yf, k2, sl1, k1, psso, k2tog, k2, yf, k1 - purl wrong sides, and right sides are 1 stitch off of each other). It has a cute little scalloped bottom edge, which I would show you if I could upload pictures.

Napier yarn tour

Last week I returned home from a 3 week vacation in New Zealand. I basically spent the whole time in Napier, where a bunch of my husband's family live, but we went to Wellington for a long weekend as well. I was planning on hitting all the yarn stores in both areas, but ran out of time in Wellington, so was only able to make a tour of the yarn shops in Napier. No worries, I still managed to pick up enough yarn to fill a whole suitcase. :)

My mother-in-law led the unofficial tour, and we started in Hastings at Knit World. Since it was our first stop, I only browsed, wanting to get a better feel of the offerings before purchasing. Next we went to the Design Spun factory shop in Onekawa. They're commercial spinners, and have a large, fairly unorganized room of seconds, discontinued lines and some premium yarn. The prices were great, so I bought 10 balls of a standard DK 100% wool in a dark dark purple, 10 balls of a magenta DK angora/wool blend, and the last 7 balls of a merino/silk blend in a rusty color. All this for about US$30. Amazing.

Then we went to JJ's Crafts, where Jan Gilray handpaints her own line called JJ's Specialty Yarn. Lovely stuff. I got 2 skeins of the Mystique mohair and 1 of the Kaleidoscope 100% wool. Funny thing, I had never heard of this yarn before, but when I returned home last week and looked through the lastest issue of Interweave Knits that was here waiting for me, I saw that the Merry Maiden's Dress pattern calls for JJ's Specialty Yarn. Small knitting world.



My mother-in-law has been knitting for a very very long time, so she has accumulated a lot of patterns. I went through many of them, and she let me take a bunch that interested me. She had an old Women's Weekly magazine with a pattern for a Fireman Sam doll that looked fun and different, as I've never knit any toys or dolls before. She also had another old issue with a Pingu doll pattern. So at our last stop on the tour, Wool 'n' Things in Onekawa, Napier, I picked up a bunch of really cheap acrylic yarn for making these toys. I've never knit with acrylic before, preferring natural fibers, but decided for my first toy efforts it would pay to be a bit economical. I also got some lovely looking multicolored Ashford Tekapo 100% wool. And then I got some lilac 100% superwash wool in a light weight, called "baby wool" down under. This is specifically for another borrowed mother-in-law pattern, a cute little lace baby angel top. I actually bought 4 balls, one isn't pictured because I've already started that project. Lastly here I bought a Patons book of toddler patterns which are really cute and utilize an eyelash type polyester yarn called Feathers. These patterns will help me with ideas to use the 9 balls of similar yarn that my mother-in-law gave me.

Then I decided to go back to the first shop to make a last few purchases. First off was another Patons book of adorable kids patterns. It features their Zhivago yarn which is 50% tencel, 50% acrylic, and I figured I'd actually get the called for yarn, which I virtually never do. So I got 7 balls of this nice shimmery denim color (only 4 shown since I've already started this project as well). And they had some more of the Ashford Tekapo in their discount bin (discontinuted colors) so I got 3 more balls. They're 100g balls, so I should be able to get a baby sweater, or a few soakers at least, out of them.

And that's it! Now to knit it all. Like I said, I've already started the lacey purple sweater for baby, but that took too much concentration to work on while catching up on all my missed TV shows, so I started this jacket from the Zhivago book. My first time knitting with synthetic yarn. It's very soft. I've only got the trim left, so I'll be updating soon with the finished project. Originally it was meant to be for Big Sister, but I might have picked a size too small, in which case it will be for Baby. :)

who needs hats?

I've been on a headband kick lately. First I made all those pantas as Christmas gifts. Then I decided I needed to try some new headband patterns. I made this purple one that Big Sister is modeling (goes with the purple ribbon on her dress). It's the Nakiska pattern from knitty.com. Cables, cables, cables. Now that I've actually knit cables, I can say that they're technically simple, but still a PITA. Not sure if they're worth the decorative effort on such a small project.

I love the way the headband turned out, but it took me ages. I knit it from the same JaggerSpun Zephyr DK (color Elderberry) that I used on Baby's hoodie (same previous post coincidentally). I knit the Adult S/M size (cast on 90) and it fits me perfectly. The yarn I used is almost an exact gauge match to the recommended yarn, so I knit on the recommended size 5 needles.

Since I've dedided that cables aren't fun, it was then time to try yet another headband pattern. I went for the Calorimetry pattern on knitty.com. This is my favourite by far. Here's a picture I took of myself with my spiffy new webcam that came with my spiffy new laptop. The yarn is Noro Big Kureyon color #7. I've been knitting with handpainted yarn so much recently, it's a nice change to have the gradual color gradation of the Big Kureyon. I love the way the color stripes go in my Calorimetry.

Again, the yarn I used was almost an exact match for the pattern. I used the recommended size 8 needles. But having read on a few other blogs how big it turns out, I followed this knitter's alterations. I only cast on 80 stitches, and I only repeated row 5 eleven times, instead of the fifteen it says. It fits me perfectly, but I'm starting another one and I'm casting on 88 stitches instead, since it's a gift, and I'd hate for it to be too small. This thing would be HUGE if knit to pattern. Good thing I thought to Google it first. :)

diaper knitting

I've been knitting for cloth diapering a bunch lately. For those not in the know, wool makes very effective diaper covers - aka soakers. When they're pants, they're called longies. In the past few weeks I've done quite a bit of knitting for clother diapering. Here's a pair of longies and two soakers I've just finished. The blue one is for my new baby nephew Thomas!

The longies and the orange soaker are knit from handpainted merino wool. I used the Wooly Wonderpants pattern for the longies (with the curly purly pleated waistband). I embroidered the star on with double stitch afterwards, based on a chart for the Baby's First tattoo cardigan in stitch 'n bitch Nation. This book has a lot of cute patterns. I wish I had had time to actually knit something from it before needing to return it to the library. I'll definitely be taking this one out again, though.

I used the Warm Heart Woolies Trim Soaker pattern for the orange soaker. I really like this pattern, it knits up super quick. I kinda modified a pleated waistband for it (I don't like using drawstrings for newborn soakers and longies).


The blue soaker is another curly purly soaker, knit from bulky handpainted merino wool. This yarn is yummy, so soft, and so fast to knit. Having finished all these diapering projects, it's time to move on now, and get ready for my upcoming three week vacation to New Zealand!

not much knitting

So for ages I thought the reason I was so busy was because of the year end holidays. But for some reason I'm even more busy now in January than I was in December. Makes no sense, but that's why I haven't had much time for knitting.

I did finish this lovely man scarf for my friend's birthday. He's a man, hence the man scarf. Man scarves are hard, they've gotta be kind of boring so they don't get girly. This one is just a simple 2 x 2 rib, in color-grown Henry's Attic Inca Organic Cotton, color Ecru. Cast on 48 stitches on size 8 needles. k2 p2 each row for 6 feet. I got the idea from here.

My current project is purple newborn longies, and I'm almost done with them. Very exciting, since they'll be worn by a baby who is due in just a few weeks!

elf baby

In between knitting a scarf for Will's birthday and longies for Andrea's baby, the Debbie Bliss cashmerino superchunky yarn I ordered arrived, and I just had to knit this little elf hat for Baby right away. The pattern is the Elf Cap from SimpleChic : Designer Knits, SuperQuick! by Jil Eaton. It was super quick, but not quite as quick as the book says. It took me about 4 hours, the pattern says 2. Oh well, I guess I'm just a slow knitter.

The pattern is super simple, too. My gauge was perfect with the yarn and size 13 needles. The toddler size took just under 1 ball of the cashmerino superchunky. I didn't put the tassle on the top that it called for, but I do have enough yarn left if I change my mind later. I love this hat, love the pattern, love the yarn, and now want to knit one for everyone in my family, including Aidan. How funny would that be? :)

I do think there is a mistake in the pattern, though. The photos in the book pretty clearly show the cable is evenly twisted (see red caps below). But the cable pattern is a 12 row repeat, with the cross overs occuring on row 4 and row 12. Which means the cable is loosely twisted, then tightly twisted, as shown on my hat below. To be evenly twisted the pattern would have had the cross overs on rows 6 and 12 (or 4 and 10). I'm not sure if the pattern is written wrong, or the samples in the photos were knit wrong. Because it looks good both ways. If it was meant to be evenly twisted, then it could have just been written as a 6 row repeat pattern, so that leads me to believe that the pattern is written correctly, and the photos are wrong. Unless it's some standard procedure to write cable patterns with 2 twists, even when they're evenly distributed. I'm not sure, maybe that's it. I wouldn't know, because this was my first ever cable project. Maybe I'll write to the author and ask. I searched online, and couldn't find an errata page or anything.

more quick gifts

Still using the Interlacements Oregon Worsted II yarn, colorway Tapestry, I knit a few more quick xmas gifts. I made another headband, making a few changes. I made the increases on the wrong side (kf&b) rather than the right side, and I think it looks much better. And I made it several centimeters shorter, since the last one was too loose.

I made this drop stitch scarf to match, and I really liked the way it turned out. I had never knit anything drop stitch before, and I had assumed it would be a quick, easy knit. It actually took a lot longer than I thought, and it totally hurt my hands. Not technically challenging, it was just a PITA because the dropped stitches makes it so loose. I really tensed up a lot to make sure I didn't drop any extra stitches. But anyways, it turned out beautiful, I love the way the colors ran a diagonal up the scarf. I was lucky with the spacing. I made the pattern up based on others I had found online. Let's see, for this I just cast on 25 stitches, knit 3 rows, did a row of (k1, yo3 across ending with a k1), then knit the next row, dropping the yos. Then I knit 4 rows, and repeated those 6 rows 31 times. Then I ended with just 3 garter stitch rows (instead of 5, to match the other end).

If I were to do something different next time, I think it would be to put only 4 rows of garter stitch between the yarn over rows, instead of 5. This way, the direction I was knitting would have switched each time I did the yo rows.

See on one end of each yo row the long stitches looked all nice, like these ones on the left. The other end of each yo row pulled the stitches up from the previous row, looking a bit messy, as seen on the right. If I had worked on each row a bit when I was done and tried tightening it up, I might have been able to make those messy stitches look a bit better, but I figured it wasn't worth the effort, since it's hard to see from far away. But in the interest of making the scarf more symmetrical, I would have switched the messy end each time. So next time.

embroidered argyle

I finished the little hooded sweater from Special Knits by Debbie Bliss. This was done with Treliske organic merino sportweight in silver. I used Denise Interchangable needles in size 7, and something about the wool was really sticky with these needles. Not so bad that I switched needles, but it did take a lot of pushing stitches around since they wouldn't slide nicely over the needles. I love this yarn though. It's super soft, and besides the stickiness, really lovely to knit with. Funnily enough, this time the hood actually seems a bit on the small side, rather than way too big like it was on the hooded kaftan I did before. I knit the sweater in the second smallest size. It turned out realy cute I think.

It became even cuter after I embroidered the argyle pattern on it. I'm so glad I decided to embroider the pattern on afterwards rather than knitting the color changes in. Embroidering took no time at all. Okay, really a few hours, but it flew by. I took the argyle chart from the same book, different pattern, but I altered it because I wanted 3 across the front, and the way it was written, I needed an odd number of stitches, and the front is an even number of stitches wide. So I doubled the width of the center diamond, and kept the side ones the same. I was going to put the pattern on the back as well, but decided against it. I need to ship this off and start some new projects!

done and done

I finished the hooded kaftan from Special Knits by Debbie Bliss! Except for the embroidery. I'll get to that eventually. Maybe. It's cute as is, though, and it's not as huge on Baby as I thought it would be. It's mainly just the hood that's too big. The sweater needs some blocking to stop the edge of the hood from turning in. I didn't have a long enough size 3 circular to pick up all the stitches needed for the edging around the hood (184 stitches) so I used a 28" size 2 instead. That probably contributes some to the excessive curling in.

Knowing that the hood is so big proportionally to the rest of the sweater, I'll make adjustments for the next hoodie I'm making from the same book. So far I've just done the back, but it's so much quicker going since it's on size 7 needles, and I'm doing the 3-6 month size, rather than size 5 needles doing the largest 18-24 month size.

The other project I finished recently was this headband/panta. Big Sister is modeling it, though it's actually adult size. It's so cute on her, especially with her little braids, so I'm definitely going to knit her one as well.

I used this pattern, but it's got some mistakes. Luckily, I had been warned of them before hand, so I was able to make it through unscathed. The main issue is with the length at which changes are made. To the halfway point, it's fine. But then it starts over with the lengths, rather than working backwards to make it symmetrical. So from the halfway point, you actually need to decrease the P5 to P4 at 27 cm, from P4 to P3 at 30 cm, from P3 to P2 at 34 cm, and from P2 to P1 at 40 cm. Then complete at 48 cm. Oh, and in the pattern it says to decrease from P4 to P2, but this is obviously just a typo, and it means P4 to P3.

As for adjustments, rather than knit the 1 stitch garter stitch border, I slipped purlwise the last stitch of each row (and then knit the first stitch on right side rows, and purled the first stitch on wrong side rows). And I did a provisional cast on with a crochet chain, and used kitchener stitch to finish. But next time, I think I'll follow the pattern and just cast on normally and seam from the live stitches at the end because it would be nice to have a little bit of seam to be able to locate the center by feel.

My handy dandy Vogue Knitting reference book describes how to do this in the grafting section. By the by, I love this book. I use it all the time for when I'm learning a new technique, or when I've forgotten how to do one I learned once before. KnittingHelp.com is great for when you're in front of a computer, or when you need to see video of a technique, but when I'm just kicking around at home, I prefer to look in my books first. The other knitting reference book I have, The Knitter's Companion, is great too, but it's much smaller, so doesn't have all the info Vogue Knitting has. Perfect for in your knitting bag, though.

next projects

For my next project I was going to knit the argyle cardigan, again from Special Knits by Debbie Bliss, for my upcoming nephew (due in January). I knit this swatch with the yarn I wanted to use Treliske Organic sportweight merino. Rather than knitting the pattern in using intarsia, I embroidered the diamonds on afterward using duplicate stitch. As you can probably see, the cream is really too light on the silver, so I think I'll use brown tweed instead. The darker color there is dark brown that doesn't seem to be available on Treliske's site anymore.

But now I think I won't do the argyle cardigan after all. I hadn't realized that it calls for baby weight yarn, so I would have to do heaps of altering to make it work with this thicker yarn. Since I'm just going to be embroidering the pattern on afterwards, any stocking stitch sweater should do. So I think I'll do the hooded sweater from the same book. Yes, another hooded sweater. But I like hoodies. And I'll add the argyle pattern onto it to make it super cute.

While I'm working on that I'll do a little side project for myself. Inspired by the Panta! thread on MDC Yarn Crafts, I'm going to make one using this gorgeous Interlacements worsted weight merino called Oregon Worsted II. The colorway is Tapestry. I think I'll do most of the suggestions given. Like doing a provisional cast on and kitchenering (is that a word?) the seam. And also slipping last stitches rather than having a garter stitch border. I'm not really a fan of garter stitch. If it all works out well, I'll probably make several for gifts for friends and family.

finishing before finished

I hate finishing projects. The blocking, seaming, hiding ends. I especially hate that it's the last step, so that to actually finish a project, you have to do all this finishing at the end. So this time, to try to cut back on the amount of finishing there will be, I've decided to work it in during the knitting portion. Still working on the hooded kaftan from Special Knits by Debbie Bliss. Like I mentioned before, I bound off the shoulders together so I wouldn't have to sew them together later. I did the same with the top hood seam, and rather than bind off and cast on again for the bottom of the hood, I left the stitches live and increased stitches across to make up the stitch difference. One less edge to sew. When I finished the first sleeve, I picked up stitches along the body to bind off with the sleeve (using a crochet hook made it easier) so that I wouldn't have to sew that seam. And since the sleeve was mostly attached already then, I used all my long ends I had left to sew up the under arm sleeve seam, and then that whole side of the body as well. So I've got all that finished out of the way now! I'm psyched. So when I finish the next sleeve, it goes in, and I'm pretty much done, with minimal finishing. It's so much more rewarding to me this way. But I didn't block the pieces, obviously, which hopefully won't affect the finished item too much.

When I got this far, I actually almost decided to put the project away for a bit to work on something else. Despite being just 11 months old Baby wears all size 18 to 24 months in store bought clothes. She's not huge or anything, that's just the way baby clothes are sized. So for this sweater I did the biggest size - 18 to 24 months. It's HUGE. So I figured, I might as well put it aside and work on some Christmas present projects since I'm running out of time on those, and I can finish the sweater for Baby later when it'll actually fit her. I decided to finish it now. At least the knitting and seaming part, if not the embroidery. The last sleeve will just take me one week (yes, it takes me that long to knit one baby sleeve, because with Baby and Big Sister around during the day wanting to "help" I can only knit at night after they're in bed). I just couldn't leave a one armed sweater around till after Christmas. I'd see it sitting sadly in my knitting bag, and I'd feel guilty. So it's almost done, and I'll share a picture of Baby swimming in it when it finally is.

hoodie half done

I'm knitting the hooded kaftan from Debbie Bliss' Special Knits : 22 Gorgeous Handknits for Babies and Toddlers for baby. Since I took this photo a few days ago I've actually finished the hood so all I have left is the sleeves, and then the embroidery. I haven't knit a sweater in a long time. It's slow work, especially on such small needles (size 5). Oh, and as you can see, I actually knit a whole gauge swatch for once. I'm impressed with myself. I usually have no patience to do the swatch, but I figured it's worth it this time.

I'm using JaggerSpun Zephyr DK which is 50% merino wool and 50% silk. It's really soft and lovely to knit. The silk gives it a shiney sheen which I like. I'll be doing the embroidery with the same yarn in laceweight. Since I've done virtually no embroidery before (see the daisy on the bag below) I'll be practicing on the handy gauge swatch. See, I knew there was a good reason I knit it! :)

I usually Google patterns I'm planning on knitting before I start to see if there's any errata, or just general problems others have had with the pattern. This one seems to have caused some confusion surrounding the hood. I can see how it might have been confusing if I hadn't read it was going to be confusing, but knowing in advance actually made it quite clear to me. The pattern calls for the back to be completely bound off, and then the base of the hood is cast on separately, and then stitched to the bound off back. I figured that's kind of unnecessary, so I kept the back stitches live and just knit the hood from there. There are more stiches called for in the hood than the back, so I just increased evenly across the back on the next row. It seems to have worked out fine. I also did double bind offs along the shoulders and for the top of the hood, so that I wouldn't have to sew them together later which would cause a bulkier seam. Being able to do things like that is one of the reasons I like knitting with the Denise Interchangeable Needles so much. It's so easy to move stitches around from needle to needle to holder and back to needle.

too hot for longies

I finished the longies for Baby last night. And then of course today it's 85 and humid. Where'd that come from? But I dressed her in them anyways. And then went down to the Boston Knit-Out! That was fun. But hot. Since I was one of the first 25 to add their logo to my blog, I got a free bag of yarn, and who can argue with free yarn? It was neat to see so many knitters on the Common, but unfortunately the girls were too uncomfortable to stay long. Did I mention it was hot?

The longies are wicked cute, but she JUST fits in them, which means in 2 weeks she won't. Ooops. The problem came from the fact that I changed patterns halfway through, so didn't make the rise high enough. An extra 2 inches would have been good.

I'm cheating on my knitting

I have a confession to make. I'm working on multiple knitting projects at the same time. Until recently, I've always only worked on one project at a time. I thought it would be "cheating" if, in the middle of a project, I got bored and started a new one. Plus, I also thought I would never get around to going back to the original project and finishing it. So I forced myself to finish a project before starting a new one. In the instances that I got incredibly bored with a project, I'd just stop knitting for weeks at a time.

But now I've finally gotten over it. I don't know what did it. Probably the fact that I have SO many projects I want to do, I couldn't settle on just one.

So I've got that little green clutch that I'm still got going on. I've decided to add some little white beads on either side of the daisy, so once I'm done with the beading I'll just have to sew the bag together and add the lining and zipper. Then I've also started a lace poncho for Marya. I've only done four rows of that. And there's this pair of longies I've almost finished for Baby. It started out as another curly purly soaker but then the weather started getting colder, and I realized having longies is so much better than trying to get regular baby pants over a cloth diapered baby butt. So after doing the waistband, I just changed to the Wooly Wonder Wonderpants pattern. I've also just barely started the Peace Fleece Child's Shepard Jacket.

The problem I'm having though, is that I usually always use my Denise Interchangables, and all these patterns require pretty much the same needles. It takes some manipulation whenever I switch between projects. Oh well. It's worth it to be able to knit different projects depending on my mood.

been working on some bags

Actually, I finished working on this bag about a month ago, but yesterday I just finally gave it to Narie, for whom it was a Christmas present. That's right, a Christmas present, 8 months late. But it wasn't really that bad! I had the knitting and felting done by Christmas, I just wanted to put a zipper in it to make it a functional bag. I don't feel like little hand bags are all that useful if stuff keeps falling out of them. So I stalled for months and months. I'm so not good at sewing. But I finally got the zipper in. I messed it up royally of course. I didn't pin it first, so it doesn't line up correctly, but it zips, and stuff will stay in, and it just lies a little crooked now. It makes it more charming of course. And now after telling the story, I realize that the fact that it was almost ready for when it was supposed to be a present and then took so long to finish the last little bit is much worse than have the whole thing not nearly ready in time. Oh well.

A little about the bag... It's my own design, knit of Peace Fleece in Moscow Magic Pink and Antarctica White. Knit in the round on size 13. The snowflake was a complete pain to do. I made the mistake of thinking it would be easy to knit it using intarsia. It wasn't easy. In retrospect I came up with the idea of embroidering it on, so that body of the bag would have been much quicker to knit. I assume that that would felt up reasonably well. I'll have to try that next time.

This cute little clutch was knitted much more recently. I finished with the knitting just last week. It's a pattern from 25 bags to knit by Emma King. This is the very first time I've ever embellished anything I've knit. Isn't the little daisy cute? The white cotton yarn (Henry's Attic Inca organic cotton in Ecru) isn't the best choice for doing it, but I don't have much else in stock that would go well. The pattern calls for 5 daisys per side, but the 2 I've done so far (front and back) took so long I might just leave it like this. But with practice it'll probably go quicker. The body of the bag is knit again with Peace Fleece in Kamchatka Seamoss. Because the weight of Pleace Fleece worsted is heavy than the Rowan Kid Classic called for, I didn't double the yarn throughout as the pattern calls for. The dimensions still worked out pretty similar using number 9 needles. I'm going to sew in a zipper again, but this time pin it so it goes on straight, plus I'm going to line the bag. I just feel like it will be more practical to have it lined, since it's not a felted bag, and stuff put in the bag might poke through. Here's a close up of the daisy.

can't show what i finished

I just finished my coolest, most gorgeous project yet, and I can't tell you what it is because it's a Christmas gift for someone who may see it here on this site. And since I'm going to try to knit as many Christmas gifts as possible this year, this blog is going to be pretty boring for awhile. Oh, well. Come January, I'll be showing everything off.

In the meantime I'll show you my new toys, a swift and jumbo ball winder. The yarn on there is the Fleece Artist Kasula in Pale Pink. I'm not normally a pink person, but I LOVE this yarn. Even though it sheds ridiculously.

So this post won't be entirely knitting project free, I thought I'd share a tiny little felted case I made for my new digital camera. This was actually my second attempt, as the first ended up way big. I had expected it to shrink much more in the felting process, having never felted this particular yarn before. This second one ended up better, but the length shrunk more, and the width less then I thought it would, so the camera fits in the other way round than I planned. Which works out well, though.