Project fails

So, socks.  It has been established I enjoy knitting them, and those around me enjoy receiving them.  My mother usually gets one for her birthday and Mother's Day - I say one, because generally I have one sock finished and the other 3/4 done when the holiday rolls around, so I show her what she'll be getting in just another few days.  No matter how much time I leave to finish the project, it never happens.  Anyway, sticking with tradition, mom got one sock on Sunday:

....and it didn't fit.  The pattern is called Sand Dunes, by Phyll Lagerman, and it is really beautiful.  It calls for Madeline Tosh sock yarn and a size 1 needle.  I had this Regia Jet Set color that I thought would be a great substitution for the recommended yarn, and I am using size 1 1/2 needles.  My mother cannot get the sock over her foot.  It's my own fault - I don't test knit a swatch (although in this case, I don't know that it would have helped) to check size & gauge, but I almost never have a problem.  The silver lining, however, is that the socks are now up for grabs for anyone who they fit.  I will be like Prince Charming, only with socks.

In other project fails, I had nearly finished the winter cardigan I started in November:

The yarn is Alpine Lake by Tucker's Woods, a dyer out of Connecticut who is discontinuing production of these yarns.  Which is a total shame; I totally adore this yarn.  Anyway, this is a shot of the back, the only thing I currently have done.  Why, you ask?  Well, when cast on for the first front piece, the number of stitches for size large (46) seemed too small to me, so I cast on a few more (70.)  I finished the piece, then noticed I had changed the size of the cables, making them larger.  Knitting friends assured me no one would notice, so I made the left side to match.  I got a little nervous, because there was not a lot of yarn left over to make the sleeves, and it's not possible for me to get more since the dyer is no longer creating new product.  And there's no guarantee of color matching anyway.  But I decided to risk it. 

To start the sleeves, I needed to sew the shoulder seams together, which is when I discovered that if you increase the front, but you have not correspondingly increased the back, when you sew the seam, the cardigan front will come more than halfway across, creating a sweater that is unwearable.  So I ripped back both front pieces into nothingness, and cast on for the right front again.  The silver lining in this project is that I have now made the cables to match the back, so I won't be thinking about that mistake when I am wearing the sweater.  If I ever actually finish the sweater.

I think my next project will be a stockinette scarf.  Pretty hard to mess that up.

Sweater weather

I have started several sweaters for myself in my career as a knitter. Last spring/summer I made myself a short-sleeved shrug in a beautiful shade of purple:

Still on the needles

Unfortunately, I did not pick up enough stitches when I went to knit the 2-inch ribbed trim, so it flops unattractively when I put it on, so I need to unstitch it, rip out the trim, and pick up the correct number of stitches.

I've also started 2 winter cardigans for myself:

Neither of which are yet finished.  The problem is that my primary knitting time is on the train, commuting to work, and the sweaters are too large for my cosmetic-sized knitting bag.  At least, that's my excuse.  I suppose I could stop packing my lunch, and then I'd have more room for yarn.  Who needs to eat, when you can knit?

But I have finally finished a sweater!  A friend of mine from high school and her wife have a three-year-old daughter who is obsessed with Tyrannosaurus Rex - every night she and her mother play "dinosaur," with E telling her mother, "Mama, you be the TRex!" and my friend chases her around the house, roaring.  They bought her a 3-foot inflatable TRex for Christmas, and put it under the tree wearing a Santa hat.  I love that she is so into dinosaurs, because I went through a phase between about 6-10 where I couldn't get enough of them either.  So while perusing Ravelry and thinking about knitting her a hat, I stumbled upon a pattern called Tony Tyrannosaurus Rex Jumper by Christine Grant, I bought it.  It called for Intarsia, a type of color work knitting I had taken a class in but never tried.  I am so excited by how it turned out:

Even the inside didn't turn out too bad:

I am meeting her mother for lunch in just a few hours to hand over the sweater.  I really hope it fits her.

Why I don't block

One of the key components in most knitting patterns comes right at the end, where the pattern writer tells you to bind off your knitting and "block."  I have never blocked.  It's simply not my thing.  Everything I've ever read about it told me I needed to soak my knit item (shudder - what if the colors run & it's a gift on deadline?) then pin it flat and allow it to dry.  I have successfully avoided that for the nearly 20 years I have been knitting.

Until now.  I finished a scarf this week for my cousin's husband A, he of the pestering-knitters-on-the-commuter-railroad story from November.  I saw him just after Thanksgiving, and he was wearing his hat.  The family tells me he wears the hat a lot - to work, indoors, on weekends - and he proudly showed me a black scarf he was wearing that, ".....almost matches this fantastic hat!"  Because I cannot keep my mouth shut, ever, I blurted out that the hat had a matching scarf pattern, and was he interested?  Say, after Christmas?  Of course he was!

I forgot how much I hate knitting scarves, but I persevered.  75" at 31 stitches per row doesn't sound like much until, well, you spend 2 weeks, 2 hours a day, knitting it.  This scarf is a physical manifestation of proof that you do not have to be a blood relation for me to love you.  Quite honestly, the fawning over the hat pretty much cemented his ability to get whatever knit item he wants, now or in the future.  Except maybe a sweater.

Anyway, finished the scarf and it curls up on both edges, pretty significantly.  So I knew my day of reckoning had come - I was going to have to block a piece.  I was not looking forward to it, but at least remotely confident because after all, this is a completely black item so if the color ran, it would not ruin the garment. 

First step, into the sink:

I soaked it in Eucalid (per the instructions) for 15 minutes, then squeezed all the water out of it.  No color seepage, so that was good.

Then, the hard part - laying it flat to dry and pinning it.  Which makes my dining room floor look like this:

The good news is, if I was a little short on that recommended 75", I have it now.  But blocking doesn't really show the pattern all that well, as you can see here:

It looks like the hat, though, so that's all that counts. 

You might notice to the left of the scarf a very small knit strip - this is a piece that goes on A's wife's hat, that also curled once knit, so I decided to block that as well.  You can see a little better how I pinned the pieces on that one:

So that's a close-up photo of what I did to that 75" scarf to block it.  Every few inches. It was tedious.  My instincts to avoid blocking were totally correct.  But now that I've done it, I have no excuse not to do it in the future.

Speaking of that little piece for M's hat, this is what the finished product looks like:

On my head, of course, not hers.  The pattern is called Capitan by Rosi Garmendia and my friend Dorothy says this is a hat that makes everyone look cool.  Guess what?  Not me.  I was so excited to knit myself one after this and then I put it on to check the button placement and discovered I look like an idiot in this hat.  Which is a total bummer because I can use all the help I can get to look cooler.  I still think I'll make a couple more - one for M's sister J, and my college best friend.  All women who can rock hats, apparently better than me.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a toddler cape!

Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that I should be making new projects for all those babies who got blankets and socks and whatnot when they were born, now that they are toddlers and preschoolers.  And what do small children like?  Capes!  (Honestly, we all like a cape when you get right down to it.)  Who doesn't want to be a superhero?

An internet search led me to Thread Riding Hood, who posts not only the pattern for making capes out of felt (best fabric ever for kids' dress-up stuff) but a quick tutorial.  She recommended Googling for Superman logos, which led me to this website.  I decided to start small by getting enough materials to do four capes, in case this turned out to be a goat rodeo and I ended up Freecycling most of it.  Which is what happened when I tried to a project that involved satin.  We will not speak of satin, fabric of the devil.

Anyway, I bought a couple yards each of light green and light blue fabric (very gender-neutral), coordinating squares for background color, and some white stick-on felt to make the letters.  I cut out the letters, stuck them to the shaped squares, sewed them onto one side of the cape, sewed up the other piece, added Velcro, and got this:

The inside of this cape is the same shade of green as the background for the M.  I cannot tell you how pleased I am with how this came out.  It took about two hours to make, but I think that was because it was the first version.  After sewing the two pieces together, I did have to trim around the edge because they were not exact mirror images of each other, but that was a quick fix.

Deep winter is birthday time for many of these toddlers & preschoolers.  Guess what everyone's getting this year?  I'm a little sad the pattern only goes up to 4T.  I could use a cape myself.

Whew!

Christmas has come and gone, and I have just about recovered from my crazy knitting spree.  In the middle of the scheduled Christmas knitting, my husband threw me for a loop by asking for a new hat because his was itchy.  I dutifully knit him a new hat in non-scratchy yarn but it bumped my mother's birthday socks out by a few days, and she ended up receiving only one sock for her birthday.  No matter, she was happy with them, when I managed to get her the other one five days after her actual day:

The pattern is called Winter Wheat by Donna Seex.  This is the women's version -I found it in the Love of Knitting Winter 2011 issue.  Check out the pattern either on Ravelry or by Googling it - the photo accompanying the pattern shows a beautiful raspberry color yarn, which shows the pattern off much better.  However, my mother was very taken with this yarn - it's called "Dream in Color Starry" and it has little silver threads running through it, which you can just about see in the photo.  There's also a men's version that is, you guessed it, "too fancy" for Himself but I'm rather intrigued by, so I might knit myself that version as something different.  It has just a little bit of patterning in a 1/4" stripe up one side of the sock.  Scandalous!

Speaking of knitting for myself, I had started a pair of socks before Christmas but had to abandon them due to the accelerated holiday knitting schedule.  I finished them just last Friday, and happily wore them over to my volunteer job on Saturday inside a pair of slip-on shoes so I could show them off:

It promptly snowed an unscheduled 6" of heavy wet snow.  Probably because I was tempting fate with those shoes.  Sorry, fellow New Englanders!

To take a break from all the sock knitting, I made myself some pint-sized pines, which are little knit tress you stick on wine corks (or the top of an unopened bottle of wine as a hostess gift.)  I found them on my friend Dorothy's Ravelry page (she of the, "If you buy the alpacas, I will bring them home in my mini-van if you agree to get it cleaned afterwards.")  I think they are really cute.  I asked a few friends to save wine corks so I can make a lot more for next year, and I have discovered my friends are drinkers.  Which might be why I love them.  Anyway, my little trees on the kitchen windowsill:

So cute.  They take about 30 minutes to make when I am distracted while knitting, and they use just a few yards of yarn - the perfect amount for when you have no other use for that last scrap of yarn.  I am experimenting with making them in a variety of colors.

 I also wove a scarf for my close friend and favorite food blogger, Stella Caroline, using a hand-dyed sock yarn as a base.  (That's the stripe on the bottom as well.)  I also used a coordinating light blue and light lavender to create wide stripes in the weft.  I love how it came out:

Stella Caroline is a petite woman, something I did not consider as I warped the loom and made an extra-long scarf.  When I took it off, Himself looked and me and said, "Are you trying to smother her?"  I prefer to think that I am guaranteeing she will not have any exposed skin in this vile winter weather.  Or she can wrap herself and the children up all at the same time.

The stockings will be hung by the chimney with care

I am knee-deep (pun intended) in sock knitting right now.  I have confidence that I will be finished all pairs by the intended gifting date, and for once, Himself will not be getting shafted on socks:

I did these sleep socks for Himself first, which means that for the first time in memory, he will get two complete socks, not one finished sock and one still on the needles, in the gift bag.  The yarn is Viking of Norway Raggan, and while the colorway is similar to one I have made for him before, these socks are much thicker and fluffier, and they knit up in about a week, which was amazing.  Looing at the photo, though, from the ankle down they do not match.  I did not notice this when I was working on the socks.  Now, if I thought these socks were ever going to be worn out of the house, I might be bothered enough to do something about it.  But they will never be worn in public, because they are "too flashy," so I'm not saying a word about the mismatch of patterning.  I would probably not fix a pair of my own socks, which are always worn out of the house, if a similar problem occurred, because recently I've realized people take a quick look at your hand-knit socks, which are almost always covered by shoes or boots, and move on with their day.  Look at me, getting all Zen in my old age.

I have also started work on socks for my goddaughter E:

This is another purchase from the Fiber Festival, from Enchanted Knoll Farm.  The colors in this yarn just called out to me, and I couldn't leave it in the booth.  It's more than I normally spend on sock yarn for someone who's feet are still growing, but I'm knitting them in a modified ladies' size, so I think they'll fit her a little bit longer.  The colors are just fabulous - well blended and sharp, and the same old-same old classic sock pattern is not seeming at all boring while looking at this.

I am about done with socks these days, though.  Even new patterns aren't all that appealing.  If only they weren't so quick and easy, or if cardigans knit up as fast as the socks do.....

No closer to finishing the Christmas gifts

I have been plugging along on all my holiday crafting projects.  Unfortunately, those projects have mostly been for me.

Here's a couple of shots of the sweater I am knitting for myself, using the Tucker's Woods Mocha's Worsted I bought at the Fiber Festival:

This is a better color representation than that blue shade that showed up when I photographed the skeins on my counter before dawn.  I photographed these shots before dawn, too, but smartened up and used a white dish towel as a back drop.  This is also my very first attempt at knitting cables.  I have no idea what I was afraid of for so long.

So in my spare time (ha ha ha) I serve as the president of the board of trustees for our local food pantry, and I also volunteer there a lot.  There are people who volunteer there more than me (retirees who are available weekdays, whereas I am expected to show up at my office to earn my check - so unfair) and one of them mentioned she needed a hat.  With ear flaps.  And a pom pom.  In red.  Ok, then!  I could use a break from knitting socks:



Look ma, more cables!


It took me about 8 days to do this hat - the pattern is from Classic Elite Yarns and is called Lavish Flap Hat.  It is lavish, I suppose, because it supposed to be knit with cashmere.  I chose Debbie Bliss Rialto DK, which is a superwash marino and much more practical, in my mind.  The pattern also does not feature a pom pom, which was my own (easy) addition, to meet the requirements given by the recipient.  A tip - when trimming the pom pom, do it over the trash, not sitting on your couch or you will then have to get your vacuum out to get all the little bits of yarn that will go everywhere.  File that under "things I have learned the hard way."

It was a fun break from socks, which is pretty much what I will be working on exclusively right now until early January.  I decided to interrupt the Christmas knitting because she needs the hat now, not January.  Also, she sits on the board with me, so I have a feeling she'll wear it during board meetings.  She's that sort of fun person.

I also made a couple of Christmas dish cloths for our kitchen:

These were a simple stockinet stitch done with Lily Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn, and took about an hour apiece.  I expect they won't make it much past the holiday season but given I paid about $1.49 for the skein and got two dish cloths out of it, I can't be too upset if they end up in the garage rag pile in January.  At that price, I should think about doing the dish cloths for the house on a regular basis, because that's cheaper than what I can buy at Target.  (Sure, in all my spare time!) Unless they only last a month.