Finishing Up

My copycat sweater is almost done.



This was taken before I grafted the underarm opening, and before I sewed in the ends from all the color changes. Those two steps I've since done. So all I have left to do is embroider the animals on. The original has foxes which were knit in intarsia. Since I was knitting in the round, intarsia wasn't an option, plus I didn't get the colors needed for foxes. So I decided I'd embroider dragonflies on instead. Should be easy, I've got dark dark green I'll use for the bodies, and I'll use the lilac color for wings. Now I just have to get around to doing it.

Interesting note about this sweater... As I was analyzing the original, I figured out that it wasn't entirely a yoke sweater, and wasn't entirely raglan. It's raglan for the first half of the top bit, and then yoke for the rest. So I made mine the same way. I think it turned out well. A problem I have with yoke sweaters is the puckering that results, so I was kinda wanting to do raglan anyways, but wasn't sure how that would work out with the color work. Problem solved with the hybrid solution.

Oh, and learning continental during the whole boring body of the sweater paid off in spades when I got to the stranded color section. It was SO easy to knit with one color held in the left hand (continental) and one in the right hand (English). I'm so glad I finally taught myself this. So if you've ever been thinking about learning a different style of knitting, go for it!

new skills

Hey! I finished The Anubis Gates. SO good. Exactly what I wanted to read, kickass historical sci-fi/fantasy stuff. Highly recommended. Right after I finished it I got that sad, depressed feeling you get when you finish a really good book, a book you don't want to end. So I dove right into another book that was lying around Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. So far, 10 pages in, it's good. Only problem is it's a very male book. Meaning, so far there are only male characters, and I have the feeling it might be mainly about male characters. The Anubis Gates was also almost entirely male. Even the one female character spent the whole book pretending to be male. So I kinda feel like a need a dose of literary estrogen.

But guess what. I've been knitting also! Yes, my arm/shoulder healed all better. It must have been a pinched nerve. All of a sudden one day it didn't hurt anymore. So I've been working on a new project. Bickie has the most adorable little cardigan I bought her at Gymboree. It's gorgeous, actually. It's soft and fuzzy and it's got cute little foxes on it. See?



I love it so much, I thought I'd try to copy it. Of course, as soon as I was planning on buying the yarn for it, the sweater went missing for awhile, so I guessed at the colors, bought the yarn, and started in on trying to copy it from memory. I've been meaning to try knitting a seamless yoke or raglan sweater for awhile so I thought this would be a good learning project. I'd tossed around the idea of doing it as an actual cardigan, with steeks and everything, but decided I'd just do it as a pullover.

I bought cheap Knit Picks Palette yarn since this is my first attempt at such a sweater. And then I decided while I'm at it I'd do something I've been thinking about doing for a long time: teach myself continental knitting. I've tried before, but every time I've started it's looked so crappy, and I've been in too much of a rush, so I've given up. But I know there's no way I'm going to learn if I don't go through a crappy phase, so I've decided to suck it up and deal with this sweater not being perfect, and in fact, being quite imperfect. Fully embracing this as a sweater of firsts, I did hems for the bottoms of the sleeves and the body. Hems with a fair isle pattern. When I did the sleeves, the original fox sweater was missing, so I was trying to remember the pattern for the hem. Turns out, the sleeve hems don't have any patterning. Oh well. But here's what I did.



Then I found the fox sweater. It was in a suitcase from a trip that we hadn't emptied in the weeks since we had returned. Oops. So I got closer to the actual pattern on the hem of the body.



Turns out that I think hems, especially fair isle patterned hems, are waaaaaaay too much effort. I did it by doing a provisional cast on first, knitting with smaller needles for an inch, switching to bigger needles, purling a round, then knitting for another inch, and then knitting a round with a stitch from the live round and a stitch from the cast on round together. The biggest problem was knitting in the round with the provisional cast on flopping about. Maybe it'll just take more practice (as with everything knitting). Once the whole sweater is done I'll decide if it's ever worth the effort again to start a sweater with a knitted hem like this.

ultimate example of my pet peeve

Okay, not only is she holding the needles in her fists, she's also not touching the yarn at all, one strand of which is coming directly from the sheep!!!!

books

About a month ago I decided I was going to read more books because I couldn't knit, due to the pinched nerve in my shoulder. Well, I'm happy to report I've been successful in that endeavor. I read an entire novel - Extravagance: A Novel - which was fairly entertaining, and very fluffy, despite the high concept (same story told in 2 different places and time periods) and stuffy subject matter (stock trading). The book had been left lying around my house for months, I was pretty sure it was my brother's. A perfect reaction to the novel was when I mentioned to my brother that I had read it, he couldn't remember it. His wife recalled he had read it, but it was so unmemorable that he had no clue. Now I'm on to one that he's recommended - The Anubis Gates - so I know it's at least memorable.

So my reading of fiction is on a very slight up-tick, but there's no worries about my knitting and crocheting reading. Here's a shot of the books I've got out from the library right now.



I've added a handy Amazon widget on the side of the page that lists all these books. I'm obviously not hurting for patterns to try.


And last, but not least, on the subject of books and knitting, I thought I'd reveal a pet peeve of mine. My daughters have these totally cool pop-up books, you open them all the way up and tie the front cover to the back cover, and they make awesome fairy houses, and they come with little press-out paper fairies. These books entertain the girls for literally hours. I actually love them so much, that I bought 2 extra copies of My Fairy Princess Palace for when the first copy gets destroyed. Don't get me wrong, these are pretty sturdy books, but they are after all only paper.

So my one gripe is with My Fairy Treehouse. Which brings me to my pet peeve. I HATE it when knitting is depicted like this:



It's awesome that the book features knitting at all, especially a little boy sitting under next to his mother ironing, but really?



Does anyone knit like this? I don't think so. Why don't these illustrators ever look at how knitting really looks before drawing it????

clapotis finally finished

I finally just finished my clapotis scarf today. Well, I finished knitting it yesterday, then I washed it and lightly blocked it (very lightly, I just spread it out on the floor and reshaped, no pins). Today I wove in the ends, and it's done!

I took a photo of myself modeling it as a head scarf. Sorry for the bad lighting.


I kinda love it, despite the fact that it's one-sided. Meaning one side of it is clearly the Right Side, and one is the Wrong Side. I don't usually like scarves that have a right and wrong side, because when you're wearing a scarf you don't want to worry about which side is showing. Plus they move around so much, you might inadvertently have the wrong side flip forward. But whatever. It's gorgeous and soft and not at all my colors, and I still think it's gorgeous. Took long enough, so it better be.

Here's the Right Side.


No point in showing the other side, because it's Wrong.

covert knitting

I probably shouldn't be knitting. My shoulder still hurts. It's gotten slightly better, but it's not 100% yet. But I can't help it. I must knit. So I did. Bic had another birthday party to go to, so I knit a quick hat as a gift for Eliza who turned 5 years old. Here it is modeled on Gigi who's just 21 months old.



Don't worry, it fit Eliza fine, it's a stretchy hat. It took me about 3 hours to knit, and I was sewing in the ends up to the very last minute before the party. I had wanted to have it be more interesting, like with different colors, or pompoms, but I just didn't have the time. Oh well. Next time I'll give myself 5 hours.

The pattern was from Knitscene's premiere issue. Very easy top down earflap hat, written for any yarn, any needles, any gauge. I used some old 100purewool worsted merino I had lying around. Just about half a skein for the hat in the child/woman's size.

Now I'm just working on finishing the Clapotis scarf I've been working on. It's sooooo slow going, seeing as it's in laceweight yarn. I can't wait till I finish it and can start on something new.

not knitting sucks

I hate not knitting. I feel like I'm wasting my life away when I'm not knitting. Problem is, my shoulder still kills. I guess it's good and bad. Since I stopped knitting, the pain hasn't improved (it's actually worse now), so I guess the knitting wasn't the problem (more likely it's all the Guitar Hero I was playing) and I could probably knit still. But it hurts so much. :( Wah! I'm a crybaby. It's most likely a nerve issue, as the pain has spread all the way down my arm to my elbow and hand. The chiro appointments haven't shown any sign of helping, so it might just have to be physical therapy next. I'm a mess.

In the meantime, I'll share some knit fixing I did a few weeks ago.

Cleaning out the girls' closet, I found this gorgeous purple raglan roll neck sweater that Auntie Marya had knit for Bic when she was about 1 year old. Meaning it was a long time ago. Marya had knit and cast off the roll neck too tight, so it couldn't fit over Bic's head, so it was never worn. Marya had attempted to fix it once, but it still was too tight, and by then Bic had outgrown it anyways, so it languished. Having found it, I realized it was now or never to get it worn, as it looked just about the perfect size for Nys now. I just ripped back the neck almost all the way, put the stitches on much larger needles, knit just a few rounds, and cast off super duper loose. Now it fits over Nys' head. :)




Feeling victorious, I thought I'd tackle a much harder knit fix challenge. Remember this? The adorable little purple hoodie I made for Nys got snagged on something and cut clear through, not just one stitch, but 2 stitches, in 2 different rows. I had it lying around forever, meaning to fix it. I finally did.



Fixing it wasn't nearly so hard as I thought it would be, but it wasn't easy. I undid several stitches either side of each cut, and put the cut ends plus new yarn on a tapestry needle together. Then sewed the stitches back in. That means in the area of the cut, the yarn is now doubled, but it's not too noticeable.

I totally love this sweater, despite the fact that the hood is ENORMOUS. The yarn is amazing. JaggerSpun Zephyr in the DK weight, it's 50% merino wool and 50% silk. I wasn't especially impressed while I was knitting it, and when Nys wore the sweater the first few times, but after this fix, I finally washed it, and the yarn totally blossomed. It's so soft and silky and shiney and pretty. :)

time for a time out

This has come up before. Sometimes I get neck and back pain, not necessarily caused by knitting, but certainly not helped by it. :( Sunday morning I woke up, laying in bed I turned my head, and tweaked something in my neck so bad I was bawling in pain for half an hour. The pain shot down my back into my right shoulder. It's been three days now, and I'm still megadosing on Advil trying to alleviate the pain. :( I went to the chiropractor yesterday, who loosened things up some. This morning feels slightly better? I'm not sure. I knit sparingly the last three days, but now I think I need to stop altogether for a bit. Last night while I was working on the Clapotis scarf, my right shoulder kept spasming, these little fluttering type twitches that weren't painful, but weren't fun either. :(

Oh well, here's a shot of how far along in the mini-Clap I am.



I think I have about a third of the skein left. I can't decide whether to just use the one skein for this, or make it a normal length scarf using the second skein. If I do that, it'll take FOREVER. Well, it might take forever anyways, if I can never knit again. :(


So what am I going to do in the meantime if I can't knit? I think I'll read a book. A book about something other than knitting. A novel. Ever since I seriously started knitting 4 years ago I've barely cracked a book. I used to be the most avid reader.

yet more gift knitting

There's nothing like an upcoming birthday party to kick my knitting into overdrive. The one tomorrow is for a 5 year old boy, so I wasn't quite sure what to make. But after the success of the fingerless mitts I made for a male teacher at Bic's school, I thought I'd go all the way and make a pair of full mittens for Ben. I searched around for a good, basic mitten pattern, and started in with some of the 100% wool worsted I had picked up on my last trip to New Zealand. But even though I got gauge, my mitten proportions were pretty off. Not horribly, but bad enough that I didn't want to give it as a gift. I think it was my problem, and not the pattern's, because I was doing it without my handy tape measure, and was just estimating the lengths. It's not a total loss, because Bic totally wants them for herself, after I made her try them on a million times while I was knitting them. I'll post a pic when the set is done.

Having determined that the mittens were a no go, I decided a hat would suffice. I settled on Center Square over at Knitty. I've been wanting to try stranded knitting anyways, having never done any Fair Isle before ever, and thought it would be a good first color knitting pattern.





It turned out pretty well. Here's Bic modeling. I didn't knit a gauge swatch, since it's such a small item, and my gauge was WAY off. Luckily, the circumference was still good (fits me perfectly, is roomy on my Bic's 4 year old head), so I just started the decreases way early, halfway through the second row of circles. Instead of doing a square top, I decreased evenly 8 times each row, right in the middle of each circle, so it looks kinda nice even though I'm decreasing in the pattern. This is going to be a warm as hat, because it's knit with 2 strands for each color, with 2 colors, meaning it's 4 times the thickness of a single strand.

The other gift knitting I've been working on is my first Clapotis. Back in June Indu gave me this lace weight yarn, and I've been meaning to knit something with it. Now a friend of ours is undergoing chemo for breast cancer, and I thought a scarf for her would be a good use of Indu's yarn. I'd been wanting to try the famous Clapotis pattern for awhile, since I think I'm the only knitter online who's ever NOT made one. But it's written for a much heavier weight yarn. That's okay, I'm making it a scarf instead, and it's working out really nicely, though really slowly. I've been knitting it nonstop (besides the break for the Center Square hat) for over a week, and I only have about 2 feet so far. So not even a third done yet. Good thing it's a fun, easy knit that I can do while watching TV.





This is how far I was about a week ago. I'd just dropped the second stitch. I'm going through and pulling the drops all the way down each time I hit one, because the wool yarn is already having a tendency to felt to itself, and I don't want to finish the whole thing and then try to drop the stitches and find that they're all stuck. You may also notice that I'm only using one stitch marker, the first one. The additional ones were all just a waste of time, as it's easy enough to see which stitches to twist. I haven't even bothered to purl the stitches to be dropped, as I've seen suggested as an alternative to stitch markers. Again, just an extra step that makes the knitting that little bit slower, which I don't need. Really, does anyone want to knit slower?

is 35 years old "vintage"?

When I visited my mother-in-law in New Zealand in February she let me raid her HUGE box of old patterns. One of the magazines I took from her was an issue of Stitchcraft, published December 1972, the month and year Aidan was born. I liked the idea that she was sitting there, 9 months pregnant, waiting for my husband to be born, flipping through this magazine.



Maybe she came across this scarf pattern and thought how cute it was, and how she'd like to knit it for herself, but it was summer (seasons reversed down under) and she'd wait a bit, but then her baby was born and she had no time to knit for herself.



Okay, maybe it didn't go down that way, but I think it's a totally cute scarf, so I knit it for her.





I used the last of my Interlacements Oregon Worsted Merino Wool in Tapestry. I LOVE this yarn. Love love. And I love the baby born 35 years ago last week, who's the psycho in the photo above.

warm and wooly

I finished Aidan's socks! They turned out well. Sooper doopter (as Bickie says) thick and warm.



I followed the Comfy Socks pattern pretty closely. To make the yarn bulky enough, I held the Treliske Organic Merino doubled. I made the large size, on size 11 needles (long circular, magic loop) and they fit him pretty well. Funny thing is, he has one foot that's half a size longer than the other, so I knit one half an inch longer. I guess that's one of the benefits of hand knit socks. :) To differentiate them, I double stitched a large L in the bottom of the longer one, which works out well, because it's also his left foot.



The one silly mistake I made was that I decided to make the socks ribbed, instead of just stocking stitch all the way. With 28 stitches cast on, I divided with 14 on each half of the magic loop. And I k2, p2 across the first 14, then k2, p2 across the second 14. I didn't even realize until I rearranged the stitches after knitting the heel flap that each set of 14 was beginning and ending with k2, so that I had 2 ribs that were k4. Oops. I'll just pretend I did that on purpose. It was on purpose on the second sock, after all. ;)

knit like the wind

Coming up to the holidays, I had a lot on my plate. I had to study for a big final exam for one class, and write a 10 page paper, prepare a 5 minute presentation, and finish a take home final exam for another class. So all that left very little time for knitting (and blogging about knitting). But knitting had to be done. I wanted to give Bickie's preschool teachers (all 5 of them) hand knitted end of the year gifts. I'm quite pleased with the resulting collection, though there were a few missteps along the way.


Top row (left to right) - Fingerless Mitts, Fuzzy Scarf, Cabled Neckwarmer
Bottom row - Boucle Hat, Striped Wooly Hat

The Fingerless Mitts were the most time consuming, partly because I had to rip out to the thumb on one of them. I had thought that my yarn was giving me larger gauge, so I made a smaller thumb hole and thumb. But it ended up much too small. I should have just followed the pattern. Which, BTW, was Dashing from Knitty. So I did follow the pattern for the second one, it turned out perfect, so I ripped back the first one and redid it to pattern specs. One thing I did change from the pattern was the length of the arm. I just shortened it a bunch, mainly to make knitting it quicker. I was short on time.



I'm really happy with how they turned out in the end, I might actually make myself a pair. They were knit for a guy, and I had my husband and brother both try them on to make sure they'd fit a guy, and they did, but these are my petite lady hands modeling here. They actually fit me pretty good too, though I'd probably knit a smaller size for myself. For these I used the first yarn I ever bought, over 11 years ago, when I had my then-future MIL in New Zealand teach me to knit. It's a totally basic, hard-wearing undyed 100% wool called Thorobred Farms Stormy Ridge Station Triple Knit 12 ply. I bought a whole bunch of it for a sweater, and never finished it. I got halfway up the back and decided it was ugly. So I bound off, felted it, and I think ended up throwing it away. But I still have a whole bunch of this yarn left. I could make 50 pairs of these mitts.

The Fuzzy Scarf was just a made up pattern. I have all this feathery yarn that I got from the 2006 Boston Knit Out for registering my blog with them. A whole bag of it. But I don't know what I'd make out of a whole bag of nylon eyelash yarn. So I knit it with a strand of Jaggerspun Zephyr on size 19 needles. Knit, knit knit. Knit, knit, knit. It became a scarf.



Kinda cute, right? I made the ends wider than the middle, because I cast on too many to begin with (20 stitches) and thought it would be too wide, and take too long to knit. Have I mentioned I was in a rush?

For the neckwarmer, I followed this pattern. I really like it, and the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky is super soft. The only thing I would change is to make the next one a bit tighter. This is just a bit too loose. So I would take out one repeat of the cable I think.



And then there're the hats. The first one, in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan, is totally cute, right?



I copied this idea to do the Tychus pattern from Knitty in this boucle yarn. I took Knerq's suggestion to start with 26 stitches, but it was still too short on me, so I added a garter stitch border, plus a picot cast off. It used almost exactly one ball of the yarn.

Last but not least was the Noro Big Kureyon Hat.



I used the Zen String Pro Bono pattern exactly. It ended up a bit short. Or a bit long, depending on how you'd want to wear it. Enough on me for a tiny little rolled edge. But too long to wear down. Oh well. Considering I started and finished it in the 2 and a half hours between dropping Bickie off and picking her up on the last day of school before break (the last chance to give the gifts) I think it's pretty awesome.

So that was my knitting world for a bit. I took a day off, and then started a pair of warm wooly socks for the hubby for xmas. I finished one just in time, so I had something to give him. LOL I'm working on the second now. I show you the pair once I've finished.

my first (real) socks!

I love socks!



Just finished this, my first pair of real socks. I'm not counting the Class Socks I made months ago. This new pair, are real because they were knit for real, not hypothetical, feet. And they were knit on size 1 needles. That's serious sock knitting.

From Sensational Knitted Socks, the Elongated Corded Rib socks. A 4 stitch pattern. Took me less then 2 weeks to make the pair, which is pretty quick for me. I used Rio de la Plata sock yarn, a merino/nylon blend. It went really well, and I'm looking forward to knitting 4 more pairs. I'm giving all my family socks for Christmas, assuming I can get them done in the next 2 weeks. Wish me luck!

one sweater down...

Hey, it's done!



A bit too small for Bickie, but she loves it anyways. I made a mistake and sewed the collar in the wrong way, with the seam showing on the outside, but since the collar folds down and covers it most of the time, I'm not going to bother fixing it.




Marya went to the yarn store with me to pick out buttons. After a long time looking at all their pink buttons and not finding any we liked, we found these perfect ones. Little leaves and berries to go with the leaf motifs in the knitting.

i have been knitting

It may not seem like I've been getting any knitting in, due to my lack of updates. But I have been! Mostly, I've been working on the pink cardigan for Bickie, which is now SO close to being done. I finally finished the sleeves, re-knit the right front, blocked it, knit on the button bands, seamed it all up, and now I've just finished the collar. I need to sew that on, block the button bands (they pull in a bit) and sew in all the ends, and I'm done! Whohoo.

more last minute gifts

Why do I always seem to be cranking out last minute gifts? I guess I appropriately named this blog, eh? I had a trip out to Cali to see the rellies, and wanted to bring a few nice hand-knit items. I had this scarf (the Airy Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts) laying around that had been knit as a last minute gift months ago.



I never gave it away, because I didn't like how it turned out. I decided to resurrect it and make it a bit nicer by adding a beaded fringe.



I like it much better now. My 15 year old first cousin once removed liked it very much, and wore it around all day after I gave it to her. :)

The other gifts I made super quick from a couple of Be Sweet Magic Balls. I so love this yarn. I very loosely followed this pattern.







Let's see, how did I change it? I used size 19 needles, a long circular because by the end there are a lot of stitches in each row. I cast on 45 stitches, increased at the beginning of every row for about 5 inches, then increased at the beginning and end of every row for about 5 inches, then did a row of (kfb, k2) repeated all the way across then cast off. The first one (the whitish one) I guessed pretty well, and ended with only a yard or so of yarn left over. The second one (the bluish one) I finished too early, and ended with quite a bit left, but too little to do anything with. I tried knitting it into a very small, very thin scarf, but it didn't really work. Oh well.

too girly for a boy

The cashmerino astrakhan presto chango is done. Well, virtually done. I finished sewing it all together, and went to put it on Little Sis Nys to model it, and the seam ripped. Ooops. Because of the nature of the yarn, I obviously couldn't use it to sew the seams, so instead had used a standard sewing thread in the same color. It clearly was not strong enough for the job, even doubled up. I'll just have to get stronger thread for it. I still managed to get a picture of it. I had been planning on this as a present for one of my many baby nephews, but the boucle makes this just too girly. I guess I'll just keep it for Nys for now, and then when she outgrows it send it on to a random baby girl.



As you can see, I modified the pattern, making it all one piece, rather than having the detachable front panel. Here's what it looked like before it was (inadequately) sewn up.



I think it looks like a thneed.