I don’t check all of email accounts regularly, so I was a little slow to the party that is the Knitter’s Fall Preview. There are some interesting designs in the gallery, but I was especially thrilled to see that the tabard is making a comeback.
I’ve been meaning to crochet this one for ages:
I’ll have to get right on that.
The last several months have been interesting around here. We decided to try to sell our house and move a couple of miles eastward. We found a house we liked, and we had an offer on our house, and then one day into the escrow, the buyer pulled out. Our contract with our realtor expired, we waited a while, and then we went back on the market with a new realtor. We found a house we liked, and we got an offer on our house with a promise that there would be no problem finishing the escrow in 30 days.
Sixty-four days later, we closed the sale. Week after week, we thought we’d be moving in another week or two. My knitting stuff was among the first stuff packed up (in an effort to keep myself from procrastinating on packing up the rest of the stuff, you see).
Since then, just about the only knitting I’ve been doing has been a sample knit for Knit Picks, which I can’t share until it appears in their catalog.
And, since it’s high summer, what else would I be thinking about but Christmas? Last week, I started work on another cross-stitch stocking, this time one for me. It’s a little more complicated than the one I did for Little Miss, with metallic threads and beads and something called couching that I may have done once before… in junior high Home Ec class.
A while back, I signed up for Summer of Socks. Have I done any socks this summer? No. I started one, but I haven’t made much progress.
Soon to come: pictures of that cross-stitch and maybe some progress on the sock.
I go away for a while, and wordpress totally changes the look of things. Crikey.
Last week, I was off work on Friday, and I decided to go through some stuff in the craft closet. I found a bag that I knitted up at least two years ago, but never got around to actually felting. So, I tossed it in our front loader on Hot with a few tennis balls, then ran it through again with a load of towels. And voila: a felted bag. The i-cord handle tied itself in a couple of knots during the process, but they came out easily. The pattern was supposed to be done in stripes of Lamb’s Pride, but I used either Noro Kureyon or Big Kureyon and let it stripe itself.
It’s my first felted project, and I have not fallen in love with the process. I think I’ll go back to socks now.
I’ve been calling these socks “Frozen Hedera”:
Pattern: Hedera, by Cookie A.
Source: Knitty, Spring 2006
Yarn: Yarn Pirate Merino/Tencel in “Icicle”, the December club yarn. I love, love, love this yarn. It’s so pretty.
Needles: Brittany Birch DPNs, size US1.5, 5 inches, set of 5
Comments: This pattern was easy to memorize. I printed it out, but then misplaced the hard copy, so I would just check the pattern online at crucial points. I made the larger size for my Flintstone-style feet, and they fit just about perfectly.
I have a new method of tackling my stash. I’m working alphabetically. You see, Ravelry displays my stash alphabetically, so I decided to just start working at the beginning.
Except I’m not, really, since the first yarn listed is Austermann Step, and I keep changing my mind about what to do with it. Instead, I cast on the Berroco Cotton Twist for a Baby Tart.
The color in that picture is not at all true. The yarn is shiny, and the “crust” is a nice golden color, while the “filling” is a bluish-purple shade. It’s turning out to be really cute, but those bobble decreases are tough. I’m nervous about the Denises, since I broke the join the last time I tried to work cotton yarn on them. For most of the K3TOGs, I’m using a separate DPN with a nice sharp tip, and I’m having a lot of trouble pulling the loop through without splitting it. I have some of the golden yarn left, and I was thinking of trying to make the smallest size for a gift stash, but I don’t think so. I think I’ll use it for sock puppet hair or something instead.
Huzzah! The Debbie Bliss Hooded Jacket is done!
Pattern: Hooded Jacket from Simply Baby, by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, 7 skeins
Needles: Size 9 Denise Interchangeable
Notions: One large plastic button, picked up at a garage sale
Comments: A pretty quick knit, and not too hard. I learned the backwards-loop cast-on to make the hood, and I got to practice my seaming. (That would be putting a positive spin on it there. I got to practice my seaming more than I might have expected, since I sewed the underarms the wrong way and had to pull it out and do it again.)
Now for the bad news. After all that worry about finishing the jacket so she could wear it this winter, it’s too big. I suspect that by next winter, it will be too small. Gah. Maybe it will be just right on a day we have strangely cold weather. One can hope.
I was catching up on one of my mailing lists yesterday, and I realized that I’ve pretty much managed to avoid a problem that seems to plague knitters everywhere.
Unappreciated Gift Giver Syndrome.
Those of you who have experienced the UGGS know the symptoms all too well. Aching hands and tired eyes (from hours of knitting), only to have your beautiful gift insulted, abused, or sent off to the local thrift shop, leading to sore throats (from screaming about the unfairness of it all) and strange bruises (from kicking walls, curbs, or other stationary objects in an effort to relieve the frustration).
In these post-holiday weeks, scores of tales of knitters (and crocheters) suffering from the UGGS have appeared on mailing lists and blogs and Ravelry boards.
I have avoided this by protecting myself from the sole disease vector: I very rarely knit for other people. I knit for myself, and if I don’t like it when it’s done, well, I’m not insulted. And I knit for the Little Miss, who, being pre-verbal, can’t complain about what I give her. From time to time, I’ve knit for K, who reminded me several times before the holidays that I still hadn’t knit her a pair of socks.
How could I refuse a wish for handknit socks, I ask you?
So, I cast on in mid-December, and before midnight on New Year’s Eve I was able to present these to K:
I haven’t cast on a new pair of socks yet. I’m still hard at work on the Hooded Jacket – all the way up to the beginning of the hood now.
Sometime early last year, the Black Sheep Knittery had a ridiculously big sale on their entire in-shop inventory. By the time I got there, a lot of stuff was gone, but I did manage to walk out with this:
Two bags of Cashmerino Aran in a pretty shade of gray. I wanted to make the Cardigan for Arwen, and I decided to make a hooded jacket for Little Miss to go with. There’s a cute pattern in Simply Baby for a hooded jacket with a single button closure, made from Cashmerino Aran. Perfect.
Of course, time passed, as it does. I realized I was not going to have enough yarn, so I managed to find 4 balls of the same dye lot from someone on Ravelry. More time passed. I realized that my baby, who at 9 months was the size of the average 18-month-old, was going to quite quickly be too big for the jacket.
So, I cast on.
I’m hoping to get this done with time for her to wear it before the weather gets too warm. I am not likely to finish Arwen anytime soon (especially since I haven’t started it), but at least the baby will get a cute hooded jacket.
Yesterday, we had a family Christmas get-together, during which I was unable to resist the siren song of my knitting, since I was so close to finishing the Feather & Fan Socks.
Pattern: Feather & Fan Socks by Judith Sumner, from Socks, Socks, Socks
Yarn: Socks that Rock Lightweight in Haida (Ravens series), from Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Needles: Brittany birch dpns, size 2, set of 5, all of which are now dark blue
Modifications: Swapped out the garter stitch ridge at the beginning of the heel for another pattern repeat, did Eye of Partridge instead of ribbing on the heel flap. I also did all the decreases on one sock one stitch over, but it will never be noticed from a trotting horse.
And, they fit! Oh, glorious day, I made a pair of socks that fit on my feet!
I wore them to work this morning and made everyone admire my fancy socks.
I worked half a day today, since the library was open in the morning, and when I came home, there were two packages waiting for me. The first was full of pink and purple loveliness:
When Miss Violet of Lime & Violet put up some her stash for sale, well, the phrase “sharks on chum” really is the best way to describe it. Several items vanished out of my cart when I went to pay for them, but a skein of Doodlebirds Swell Socks in Goth Girl, a pink and gray skein of Austermann Step, and a cotton shawl kit from Rowan made it to my house, along with a note from Adminnie and a Thank You note and candy from V. I promise to do right by your yarn, Miz V.
But that was not all, oh, no, that was not all! (Sorry, Dr. Seuss moment)
A little Loopy Ewe package was also waiting for me. It held two skeins of L&V Sasquatch Sock in Connect 4 to make a scarf to go with the socks I’m working on for K, some Stitchkeepers, and a packet of Entrelac stitch markers, which are very, very pretty.
It was like my own private little yarny Christmas around here.
I meant to take a picture of Checking His List this morning, I really did. It’s coming along nicely. I’m way down at the bottom, stitching in the toys in Santa’s bag.
I am well aware that it’s less than 3 weeks ’til Christmas. Maybe I should have bought that little pink Baby’s First Christmas stocking I saw at the grocery store.
I’ve been so wrapped up in cross-stitch these days, in fact, that I missed the deadline to download the final clue for Secret of the Stole, but DK emailed me a copy.
I have to say that the SotS knitalong was really excellent. The pattern was lovely, the guessing game for the theme was fun (although, man, I was way off on those first few clues), and DK has been wonderful in offering advice and support through the Yahoo! group and commenting on individual members’ blogs. I’m already signed up for SotS-II.
But, first, the stocking.