Vacation over?

Okay, I'm back.  Back from my unannounced and unintended vacation from the blog.  Honestly I'm not sure why I haven't written in so long.  Well, that's not totally true.  I have been knitting a fair amount still, but I wasn't really excited about very much of it.  Also, I'm not afraid to say it, old man winter really kicked my ass this year.  I know it's technically been spring since I wrote my last post, but it basically stayed winter until... May?  The weather combined with everything else that's happened in the last few months just kind of sapped all of my energy and desire to do anything except knit and watch TV.  I was starting to feel a bit better after the snow finally melted, but then some more crap happened, and it took until now to start feeling like myself again.  It comes and goes still, but I'll take advantage of my good mood today to write (finally!).  However, I will say that my energy today extends only to the actual writing, and not the taking of pictures.  Therefore, all of the pictures that follow are just ones that I already had on my phone.  Please excuse the crummy lighting and picture quality!

So, an update on my knitting.  I made some mini cupcake earrings for my mom's birthday.  It's amazing how she keeps having birthdays but never gets any older!  I think it's all a ruse to get presents.

As for more tiny things, a few months ago when the Enabler went on a business trip, I knit him a tiny airplane to take with him.  Partly because he was going to be flying on an airplane, but mostly because he works for an airplane manufacturer.  After he got back he kept it on his desk at work, and a coworker saw it and asked if I would make her a bunch to give as gifts.  So I did!

On a sad note, one of my dearest friend's kitties suddenly and unexpectedly had a major health problem and had to be put down.  So I knit a pillow for her in memory of him.  

 

And last night, I finished knitting Hanami, which is a lace stole inspired by the tradition of viewing cherry blossoms in Japan.  I made mine grey, so I feel like it looks more like raindrops than cherry blossoms.  Well actually, it didn't look like much of anything right after I finished knitting it.

   

Total dog's breakfast.  Luckily I know by now that a knitted item that has not been blocked is a totally different creature than something that has had the benefit of a bath and a stretch... So I wasn't worried.  An hour and half a million pins later, the true nature of the beast made itself known.

Again, I know the picture is terrible.  I'll take better pictures once it has finished drying and maybe when I wear it.  However even with the crappy picture I think my point has been made: Blocking is MAGIC.

Hanami was a fun knit but holy cow those charts made me cross-eyed.  In order to give my eyes a break I started knitting the Dream Stripes shawl.  This is a work in progress, nowhere near completed, but I'm liking it so far.  Simple stockinette stripes.  I don't think you can go wrong with stockinette stripes.  Let me know if you disagree, we can fight about it.

Seriously, if you don't think stockinette stripes are awesome, I WILL fight you.

And I will win.

Lion and Lamb Mitts

Ok so I haven't been the best blogger lately, not that I was ever the best blogger.  Only one post in February... that's not very good, even for me.  Can I use the excuse that it was a short month?  Let's say that I can.  In this post I talked about how January was a hard month for me, but it turned out that February was kinda rough too.  I can't really say why, not that it's a secret or anything, but I just didn't feel very motivated to do much of anything.  I haven't finished anything new since the one February post... except for a pair of fingerless mitts.

I decided I wanted to make something with my blue and brown hand-spun that I showed off last month because it was too pretty to leave un-knit.  I decided on fingerless mitts because I'm getting impatient for spring, and went on a search for a pattern.  After perusing through ravelry for awhile I hadn't found anything that really fit with what I was looking for.  I wanted it to be both simple enough to show off the hand-spun, but more textured than a basic stockinette gauntlet.  Finally I realized that I should just start knitting and see what happens, so that's what I did.

 Thus, the Lion and Lamb Mitts.  

I'm calling them this because I think they're good mitts for March (you know, in like a lion, out like a lamb, or vice versa...).  Even though this year, Winnipeg in March looks like this:

March is a month of transition.  Although there is still a lot (I mean A LOT) of snow, it is starting to melt in places, and I like to think that it's melting at a faster rate than more snow falls.  A girl can dream, anyway.  In any case, the temperature during the day isn't really lower than -10 C anymore, and I don't need to bundle up quite as much.  So I made these fingerless mitts long to cover most of my fingers, and textured to provide extra warmth.  I still wouldn't wear them in a snowstorm, but they're plenty warm enough for the walk to the bus stop in the mornings.  The colours remind me of March too (okay maybe some other Marches, if not this one).  The brilliant blue sky, the brown snow and mud, and tinges of green poking through.

They are quite simple, and easily sized up or down by using different yarn or needles.  I used my hand-spun yarn which is sometimes sport weight and sometimes light worsted weight, but mostly dk weight I think.  If you substituted a commercial dk weight or light worsted weight yarn it would likely work fine.  It would also work to increase or decrease the beginning stitch count by a multiple of 2 to make it fit the size you need.

Anyway, here's what I did:

You will need:
Yarn: 100 g skein of DK or light worsted weight yarn, or hand-spun in roughly DK weight.  I used just under 50 g of yarn for my pair, so theoretically one skein could make you two pairs.
Needles: 3.75 mm dpns or size needed to make a fairly tight gauge with your chosen yarn.  If you like you may go down a needle size for the cuffs, but I didn't.stitch marker
waste yarntapestry needle

Glossary:
k: knit
p: purl
pm: place marker
sm: slip marker
M1: Increase 1 stitch.  I used M1L but you may use a different increase if you like.  From the front, lift loop between stitches with left needle, knit into back of loop.  If the increase stitch falls where a purl stitch should be to fit with the seed stitch pattern, from the front, lift loop between stitches with left needle, purl into back of loop.  (if you don't want to do this, just do regular M1s and it'll be fine, it will just be slightly less textured)
Seed stitch: Row 1 is *knit 1, purl 1, repeat from * around.  Row 2 is *purl 1, knit one, repeat from * around.  There may be places in the gusset where this doesn't quite work.  The important thing to remember is to purl the knit stitches from the row below, and knit the purl stitches from the row below.
k2tog: knit two stitches together.
p2tog: purl two stitches together.


Cuff:
CO 40 stitches using the long-tail method, pm (if needed), join to work in round.
K1, p1 ribbing for 2"
Rows 1-6: K around.
Rows 7-12: Seed stitch around.
Rows 13-18: K around.

Thumb gusset:
Row 1: M1, p1, k1, p1, m1, pm, continue in seed stitch around.
Row 2: Seed stitch to m, sm, seed stitch around.  
Row 3, M1, seed stitch to marker, M1, slip marker, seed stitch around. 
Row 4: same as row 2.
Row 5: same as row 3.
Row 6, same as row 2.
Row 7: M1, k to m, M1, k around.
Row 8: k to m, sm, k around.
Row 9: same as row 7.
Row 10: same as row 8.
Row 11: same as row 7.
Row 12: Slip 15 stitches before marker to waste yarn.  Remove marker, cast on one stitch. K around (38 stitches).

Hand:
Rows 1-6: Seed stitch around.
Rows 7-12: K around.
Rows 13-18: Seed stitch around.
Rows 19-21: K around.
K1, p1 ribbing 3 rounds or until desired length.
Bind off loosely in ribbing.

Thumb:
Place 15 held stitches back onto three needles (6, 6, 3).  
Row 1: Join yarn at first st after gap and knit 15 stitches. Pick up two stitches at the gap and join to work in the round (17 stitches)
Row 2: Seed stitch to last 2 stitches, k2tog or p2tog to stay in pattern. (16 stitches)
Rows 3-5: Seed stitch around.
Rows 7-8: K around.
K1, p1 ribbing 3 rounds or until desired length.

Make second mitt.

Holy crap it's already February 17?

Apparently I have some catching up to do.  First things first.  I finished my Idlewood sweater last week.  By finished I mean totally finished.  Blocked and pocket sewn on and everything.  I even wore it a few days already.

Apparently I can't hold my arms still for two seconds.

I knit the whole sweater as written, except for the pocket.  The pattern said to make two patch pockets, but I'm the kind of person who actually likes to put hands into pockets, and patch pockets weren't going to cut it.  So, I made a kangaroo pocket instead.  I pretty much made it up as I went along.  I started out with a vague idea of how I was going to do it and then did it.  I don't often do stuff like that, so I was pretty proud of myself that I actually ended up with a pocket that works.  I'm really happy with the whole sweater!  It's really comfortable and it was really enjoyable to knit, so much so that I want to make another one!

Part of the reason I would love to make another one is because I have rediscovered my love of reading lately, and the knitting of it was easy enough that I could read while knitting.  Of course this is most easily done with either a book that doesn't need to be held open, or an e-reader of some sort.  The Enabler got a kobo glo from Costco a couple of weeks ago, and when he wasn't using it (which hardly ever happened), I would seize my opportunity.  I loved it.  It has an adjustable light built into the screen and you can make the font whatever size, and it's touch screen that just needs a light tap to turn the page.  It rests comfortably on my lap while I knit, and it was just lovely.

Until, of course, the Enabler would ask for it back and I'd have to give it up and go back to reading my hardcover book that didn't really stay open that well unless I propped it against my leg JUST right.  It got annoying.  So, as soon as we got paid this week (yay overtime pay!) I got my very own kobo.

There was an immediate problem with this, however.  Although the kobos sold at Costco are a very good deal, they are all identical.  Luckily, I'm brilliant and handy with a crochet hook, so it didn't take long for me to devise a solution.

Problem solved.

I wanted to start knitting something else that was possible to do while reading.  I tried reading while knitting this sock:

Well actually I didn't try while knitting this exact sock, it was actually the second sock that I tried reading while knitting it.  I'm showing you this sock, the first sock, because it's not full of mistakes.  The second sock, well it IS full of mistakes.  The lattice lines are all crossed wrong.  It's not the sort of thing that you'd notice unless you were looking for it, and it's just a sock, but still.  I can't even blame all of the mistakes on reading, because it didn't take me long to realize that I'm not skilled enough to knit an actual pattern while reading.  I can do stockinette.  Or garter stitch.  I could probably do ribbing if I had to. But this sock?  Not a chance.

I finally realized that I knew exactly what I should knit while reading, Wingspan.  I even had the perfect yarn for it which had been sitting in my stash for nearly a year and a half.

I cast on yesterday and knit the whole first triangle section because each row in the section gets shorter and shorter as you go along, I wanted to see how it worked when you finish one triangle and start the next, and I really wanted to knit some of the pink.  Back when I first got this yarn I started knitting a sock with it and was really unhappy with it so I unravelled it and it sat in my stash until now.  I've started knitting with the new yarn now and it's great.  You know how when you've unravelled a previous project and re-wrapped the ball, and you start knitting a new project with it and then you finally get to the point when the previously knitted yarn is done and you start knitting with new yarn?  Yeah, I love that.  I'm also loving the really gradual colour changes of this yarn, which is pretty perfect for this pattern.

I've done a bit of spinning since the beginning of the year:

Fractal-spun Frabjous Fibers Polwarth top in Blue Lagoon

I really love the idea behind fractal spinning.  It's a way of making the knitted item have subtle stripes without the stress of trying to match up the colours when plying two bobbins together.  I don't know if it works because I haven't knit this up yet, but I think that it might?  Just trying to figure out what I should make with it!  Someone suggested the Either/Or mitts to me which look really cool, so I might try that.

Chain-plied Polwarth (I think) fleece that I hand carded and spun.  

Back in fall I had intentions of hand carding and spinning a bunch of the fleece that I have to use for gifts, but I spun one bobbin full and realized that I'd never get it done in time, so the single bobbin full sat for a long time.  I didn't know what to do with it until I realized that I could try chain plying to make a three ply yarn from a single ply, so that's what I did!  It's pretty rustic and really overspun, but I kind of like it, at least as an experiment.

50/50 Alpaca and silk

 This fibre was a birthday gift from my mom last year, shortly after I had gotten my wheel.  Two 50 gram bags of super soft alpaca/silk roving that I didn't want to spin until I was good at it.  Well I couldn't wait any longer even though I still have a long way to go... but I can even admit that I'm not terrible anymore.  So I spun one bag onto a bobbin and spun the other bag onto another bobbin and plied them together.  Although the yarn itself is not entirely consistent, I was at least consistently inconsistent, because after plying the two bobbins together I just had a yard and a half left on one bobbin.  This skein is 100 g and roughly 340 m so I estimate the weight of it to be either a hefty fingering weight or a sport weight yarn, it fluctuates between the two.  It's so soft and shiny that I really want it to be a scarf of some sort but I'm not sure what would show it off the best.  While I decide, it will sit in my handspun stash making the other yarn jealous.  Also, is it just me, or does the picture make it look kind of like a turd?

...It's probably just me.

Level up

January is always a difficult month for me.  The holiday season is over, and it seems like it will be roughly forever until there's another long weekend, never mind the time until the snow melts!  I'm fairly certain that I don't have seasonal affective disorder, but I do notice a dip in my mood in January every year.

This dip used to be much worse, however, before I started knitting a lot all the time.  The Januarys (Januaries?) of 2011 and 2012 didn't seem so bad to me, and I thought that it was because I had my knitting.  I was contemplating this recently and realized that those two years had fairly mild winters compared to what we've usually had here in Winterpeg.  That's not to say that it wasn't still as cold as a witch's teat (at least for a week or two), but comparatively they weren't that bad.

This January has confirmed for me that the knitting definitely helps, as it has been a very cold, very snowy month.  When it's -40 degrees outside (Fahrenheit or Celsius, take your pick, it's the same at that point), when it's so cold that your eyeballs will freeze if they are exposed for longer than 5 seconds, when it's colder than a witch's teat after said witch has gone skinny dipping in the Arctic Ocean, it's really nice to be able to stay inside and knit.

And knit I have.  I've been so busy knitting that I kind of forgot about blogging (sorry about that...).  I knit to keep myself occupied of course, but also as a way to keep myself warm.  Whenever I'm knitting winter accessories I feel like I'm knitting a woollen suit of armour.  This armour is physical and psychological.  I feel like if I'm wearing something knitted, or if I'm busy knitting something, it keeps the winter chill and the blues away.

It totally worked.

BAM!  Knitted socks for the Enabler.  Take THAT, cold floor!  +1 Damage for also being apple green and the complete opposite colour of everything outside!

BIFF!  Idlewood sweater.  More than one ball of Cascade Eco down, who knows how much to go.  And I'm sorry but I have to say it... those are big balls.  Of wool.  Take THAT, cold neck.  +1 Armour because oh, what's that?  Forgot your scarf?  Don't have a hat?  Well don't worry about it because the giant cowl on this baby has got you covered!...  Literally.

KRUNCH!  Honey Cowl, knit out of Three Irish Girls in a colourway called Serengeti.  Take THAT, cold grey skies!  +1 Lion Taming for making me sing the song "Africa" to myself the whole time I was knitting this.

ZZZZWAP!  Ariosa Pom-Pom hat (pom pom not yet attached).  Take THAT, cold head!

+1 AWESOME because... well, it has (or will have) a pom pom.  Obviously.

And that's how I survived January.  February is just around the corner though, which is only marginally better than January.  I'm prepared for it, though, I have a lot more yarn.  Bring it.

Ready...  KNIT!

Pom Pom!

Let me just start out by saying that I totally love knitting tiny hats.

I am getting to the age now where other people around my age have started having kids. For some reason though, very few of my close friends are among these people. My brother is nowhere near having kids (as far as I know), and I do not have kids yet and probably won't for at least a few years. All this is to say that I am often at a loss as to where I should direct my desire for tiny hat knitting. This may not sound like a real problem (and I guess it isn't), but I'm talking about it anyway.

When I recently became a step-auntie-in-law to two adorable little boys, I realized immediately that my tiny hat knitting inclinations were going to have a new outlet. Christmas knitting still got in the way a bit but I was still able to do some quick post-Christmas knitting for my newly acquired nephews!

Both hats were knit over the course of a weekend. The pattern for the more red one is called Aviatrix, and the more orange one is the Ky Baby Ear Cozy Hat (but it's sized up to adult). I will definitely knit these again, and I might not be able to wait until I have more little ones to knit for. I can just fill my house with tiny hats, right? Right??

Gift Wrap 2012 (Part 2)

As promised, here is the second instalment of this years gifts.

First up is a scarf/neckwarmer thing that I sort of made up as I went along, so there's not really a pattern for it.

I knew I wanted to make a nice warm manly scarf without too much bulk, so I started out knitting a fisherman's rib scarf.  It's just a little different than regular 1x1 ribbing, all of the purl stitches are normal, but all of the knit stitches are knit into the stitch below the stitch on the needle.  It makes it a bit more complex and doubles up the warmth of the scarf because each stitch is being knit twice. Unfortunately this also makes the knitting go a lot slower.  So instead of knitting a full length scarf I decided to add the buttons and some buttonholes to make it more interesting and stay put without having to wrap around a bunch of times.  Invention out of laziness!

Next are the Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang.

After knitting the Deep in the Forest mittens (see part 1), these pretty much flew off the needles.  Such a fun, simple knit where after getting used to the pattern I only needed to glance at it to see what row I was on.  The only thing I changed from the written pattern was that I omitted one repeat (10 rows) of the cuff section since the recipient has pretty small hands.  Also, because I didn't feel like knitting all of the repeats.

Next is Bias, a long scarf which looks much nicer in real life than it does in the picture.  (I apologize for these next two pictures, they were taken hurriedly after 10 pm just minutes before they were stuffed into boxes to be wrapped up.)

This one was a very simple portable knit.  Most of it was knitted on my lunch breaks or on the bus home from work.  The yarn (sweet georgia silk crush) was so beautiful that I think a more complicated pattern would have hid the variegation, and then what's the point of a lovely variegated yarn?  Exactly.

And last for today, Camptown Races, a cowl (infinity scarf) that just about killed me.  Not literally.

This pattern only became available in November.  Once I had the pattern I needed to find the yarn.  As soon as I first laid eyes on this cowl I imagined it in grey and yellow and started searching for yellow yarn.  You may or may not know this, but nice yellow yarn is very hard to find.  Not only is the right yellow hard to find, but finding it in the correct weight was even harder.  So hard in fact, that I never did find the right colour in the correct weight.  The pattern called for sport weight, but the closest I came was fingering weight.  Since it's a cowl, the difference in weight wasn't crucial so once I found the right yellow I didn't even care that it wasn't sport weight.  I knew I wasn't going to get any closer.  More difficult than finding the right yellow was giving this away.  Even though the colours were chosen with my friend in mind, I totally love them too, and I don't even wear yellow.  I guess when it's the right yellow, the rules change.  Luckily I have enough yarn left over to make another one.  I don't know if I actually will make another one, but I could if I wanted to, and that's the important thing.

After my last post I finished my last bit of Christmas knitting, which will come in a future post as it has not yet reached its intended recipient.  A few weeks ago I had started to knit a little something for myself as I thought I was farther along with my knitting than I actually was, and I almost paid dearly for my hubris with my sanity.  I kept it together though, and after finishing my Christmas 2012 knitting I celebrated by finishing the Deviate shawl for myself.

Blocking is much more enjoyable (and nicer looking) now with the assistance of my new blocking wires and knitter's block, courtesy of the Enabler.

Unfortunately,  I will have to wait until next year to wear it.

Fortunately, next year is only two days away.

Gift Wrap 2012 (Part 1)

Merry Christmas everyone!

I know I know, it's Christmas day, I should be spending time with my family, not sitting in front of a computer writing something that nobody is sure to read until probably next year.

Well to that I have two things to say.  The first thing is that I already spent all day yesterday with my family, and I will also spend all day tomorrow with my family.  Today so far I have spent all morning and part of the afternoon with my family, and the trend suggests that I will also spend the remaining part of the afternoon and all of the evening with my family.  I think they probably won't miss me (and I them) for an hour or so.

The second thing is that now that much of the Christmas knitting that I did has been distributed to their intended recipients, I can't wait any longer to show the projects off!

As I have said before, I was a little overly ambitious this year.  Although I started out with good intentions and did not mean to nearly drive myself crazy with Christmas knitting madness, most of the gifts I started were with tiny yarn and tiny needles and it would have been fine if just one or two were like that, but there were only a couple that WEREN'T like that.  Big mistake.  One that I am not going to make again.  Actually I probably will make that mistake again but at least not until next Christmas.

So, here are some of the projects that have now found their new homes (many of them photographed using my new photo studio in a box!.. but edited on my dad's computer which does not have much of a photo editor on it so I can't adjust colours/levels as much as I'd like to, but gimme a break, it's Christmas.):

First up, Highwayman Armwarmers for the Enabler.

This is the first time I have succeeded in knitting something for him in secret, so I was pretty proud of myself.  The colour of the yarn happened to perfectly match the colours that he picked out for the Earth and Sky scarf (shawl) that I made for him earlier this year, so I knew this yarn had to be something for him.  He wanted fingerless mitts for driving, so when I found this pattern I knew it was the perfect choice.

Next is the Cuss Hat for my (not so) little brother.

My evil big sister side really wanted to knit one of the... um... less family friendly charts, but better sense prevailed and I stuck with this one even though the other ones would have been hilarious.  Maybe when he's older. 

And now one of the most knitting madness inducing projects I took on this Christmas, Deep in the Forest Mittens for my mom.

The first one wasn't too bad, but I gotta say that starting the second mitten took an enormous strength of will and I nearly didn't make it.  Totally worth it though.

The last thing for today has a bit of a story to go with it.  Last year I made my dad a pair of fingerless mitts that he (said he) loved, but couldn't wear due to the Itch Factor.  Turns out that he has a sensitivity to wool, which is not something that a knitter likes to hear.  I vowed to make a better decision for him this year, so I chose a silk/cotton blend and was going to make him another pair of fingerless mitts.  Then I realized that silk/cotton would not make very good mitts, so for some inexplicable reason I decided to knit a tie instead.

Yes you read that right, a tie.  This tie, specifically (with modifications).  Who knits a tie??  Apparently I do.  This was clearly a symptom of my knitting induced madness.

In my haze, I knit the tie.  All 60 inches of it.  Well okay, it was about 62 inches by the time I stopped knitting, but that's because I kept measuring it and it was 58 inches every time I measured it.  I swear, three times over the course of an evening I measured it, and it was 58 inches.  After the third time I knew it had to be getting close, so I knit a few more rows, measured again, and it was 62 inches.  At that point I did what I could to retain some semblance of my sanity, and instead of ripping it back I said "CLOSE ENOUGH" and grafted the end together.

Then I blocked it.  I figured that it would grow a little during the soak, so I tried not to stretch it when I was pinning it out.  I measured it as I went and still managed to keep it to about 64 inches which I deemed CLOSE ENOUGH.

Finally Christmas Eve came around and I gave my dad the tie.  He was initially confused, then excited (only my dad would be excited over a knit tie... my knitting madness must have known that).  He put it on right away, but it was immediately obvious that it was too long.  He grabbed one of his usual ties, and we measured the ties next to each other.  The knitted tie was 72 inches long.  As my dad is about 5'9", the tie was taller than he is.  Something had to be done, as I wasn't about to let the second present in a row be a failure.

I slept on it, and today I did a tie-putation.  I marked the 60 inch point with a needle and set to ripping the tail back.

It was actually pretty fun.

It didn't take that long before I'd ripped it back enough, got the stitches back on the needle and grafted the end back together.

Now my dad is totally ready to rock.  All the other dads on the playground are gonna be super jealous.

Best tie/shirt combo EVAR