Holiday roundup 2014

With the holidays now behind us, I can post what I made as gifts in that compressed post-surgery period where I was supposed to be all caught up on everything and ended up making absolutely nothing for anyone else.

For my college best friend, J, a Capitan hat in a moss green:

Modeled by her niece, E, who is just adorable and maybe should get her own version of this hat, now that I've seen her in it.  This was one of those gifts that I handed over, and the recipient went absolutely crazy for it.  It is exactly the right reaction to have if you want more hand-knit items from me.  And J was wearing it when I saw her this past weekend - score another point for her.  She'll probably get a scarf out of me before the winter's over, at this rate.

I also did another Capitan for my 14-year-old cousin, S.  Here it is, unfinished:

I am going to be giving it to her this weekend for her birthday, and hope to get a shot of it on her before I leave.  Unless she doesn't like it - then I'm taking it back.  Someone will wear it, by god.  Won't be me - I look ridiculous in this hat. 

I finished the Men's Winter Wheat Socks, by Donna Seex, for my husband:

Here they are, on his feet - he has subsequently worn them since this photo, since he knows I'll steal them back - his feet are only a little bigger than mine, so unworn socks are commandeered into my own collection.  These were originally supposed to be for my father, then husband casually mentioned he liked how they looked, and he's usually pattern-averse.  So dad still has not gotten hand knit socks from me, although he has several hats.  Someday, dad.

I did the usual pair of socks for my goddaughter, E:

I used Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet 100 Splash and it was nice to work with, but notice that the socks are essentially two different colors.  It's fine because the current trend for middle schoolers to wear two different socks, so this kind of works, but I don't think I would buy the yarn again because I am a little particular about having socks match.


Except this year, non-matching socks seems to be a theme.  To wit, mom's birthday socks:

And of course, I only had one sock finished by the time her birthday arrived.  Given that I finished E's socks on 12/22 for a gift date of 12/24, last minute was the theme of the holiday season, apparently.  I brought over the one finished sock and the second under construction sock and asked mom if she wanted them to match.  She did not care, figuring she will be wearing these with jeans and who will know?  I will. But I'm learning to let go.

Finally, I currently have a baby sweater under construction for our neighbors' daughter, who will be 1 at the end of February:

It is called Cherry Cobbler Sweater, by Lorna Miser, and calls for three skeins of Malabrigo Rios for the 12 month size, which I just happened to have in my stash and was wondering what to with when this pattern was in the Winter 2014 Love of Knitting magazine.  Granted, the pattern calls for the color English rose, and I had Lavanda, but I decided on the substitution because it's a purple / grey-lavender colorway and before the baby was born, her mother asked for a grey knit hat with knit flower options if the baby was a girl (which she was.)  I know they'll like the color and I think the sweater could be worn by any future siblings as well.  I just started the sweater on January 5 and I have already nearly finished the back, leaving only the 2 front pieces and sleeves to do.  I like the pattern and the yarn - I would definitely recommend both.


Happy New Year, everyone!

Keeping out of trouble

In early October, I had knee surgery - nobody's idea of a good time, but I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a jump on all my Christmas knitting. After all, this was how I spent 10 hours+ per day:

No brainer to get all that knitting done, right?  Not exactly.  I was in far more pain than I expected, and I had a difficult time overcoming the effects of  both the anesthesia and the prescription pain killers, so I was far less productive than I had envisioned.  It also did not help that everyone and their brother came to visit, and very few of them were knitters, so I had to focus on talking to them rather than knitting, because it was too hard to do both.


Despite this, I did get a few things started:

This pattern is the Iced Aqua Scarf by Julie Farmer, in the Fall 2014 Love of Knitting.  Obviously, I did not choose an iced aqua yarn - this is Caron's Simply Soft Paints, in Oceana.  I loved loved loved the colorway, and I loved that it was on sale at Joanne for $2.99 a skein.  I bought 3 - 2 of the same dye lot for the scarf, and another to make myself a hat.  I decided this would be my Winter 2014/2015 hat & scarf project - two years ago I used another Caron yarn to make a pretty purple basketweave scarf, complete with fringe.  I love that the yarn can go in the washer and the dyer.  With all the handknit socks around the house, flat drying space is at a premium some weeks after I do laundry.


Speaking of socks, I also managed to start, and finish, a pair for myself:

I decided these would be my Thanksgiving socks, because they have the right shades of yellow, red, brown & orange and remind me of those childhood construction paper turkeys we all did in school.  The yarn is Decadent Fibers Savory Sock yarn, made by Decadent Fibers out of Kinderhook, NY.  I bought it last year at the New England fiber festival - it was part of that sock yarn-a-palooza that happened:

That's it over there on the bottom right-hand side.  I do love how they turned out.


So, that was my 3 week knitting extravaganza.  Note that not one of the projects was actually a Christmas gift.  I would express remorse, except I've got (or will get) new knit items to keep and wear, so I'm not the slightest bit sorry.  Except that I now have to knit twice as fast for the holiday items.

Projects of questionable value

I finished my very first adult-sized sweater, and I hate how it looks:

Seriously, it looks great laying on the table, and that's all you're going to see of it, because I refuse to be photographed in it. All the knitters I have shown it to tell me to wear it with a shawl pin, or a button, to keep it closed. Sure, I can do that, but I'm not sure I want to spend a penny on anything like that for something I am unlikely to wear out of the house.  This might be the second-most ridiculous thing I have ever knit, because there would be no need for me to have a short-sleeved sweater in the house if I get "chilly" - we don't have central air, so if it's cold enough for me to be looking for something to put on, it's going to be something with sleeves.  I am going to chalk this up to a learning experience, and a victory in the finished project category.


I call the shrug the second-most ridiculous thing I have ever knit, because this is the most ridiculous:

In process - photographed outside Halcyon yarns, Bath, ME

 "What are those?"  you may be asking yourself.  Patriotic chaps, made with wool and fun fur.  "Why on earth would you knit patriotic chaps to begin with, and then out of those materials?!" Well, let me tell you.  A few months ago, my favorite local yarn shop had a "Wine and Pointy Sticks" party.  People were asked to bring the worst fiber-based item they had in their collection.  There were some doozies - a traffic-cone orange sweater in a nubby yarn, a potholder knit by a great-aunt who ran out of yarn so just stuffed another color into the middle of it - and somehow the conversation evolved into a discussion about bad projects with the theme, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."  Somehow, I piped up with the idea for chaps.  I forget who suggested making them out of fun fur (doubly funny because one of my fellow Wicked Weavers believes fun fur should be banished from the earth), and the shop owner volunteered that she had some patriotic stuff on clearance, so off we went to look at it.  I quickly realized that just using the fun fir would require a really small needle and take forever, so I pared it with a navy-blue wool so I could use large needles.  Carrie (the shop owner) gave me a great discount on all of it.

The result is the ugliest, itchiest thing I have ever knit.  I looked for a chaps pattern on Ravelry and guess what, no pattern!  I cannot be the only knitter who has ever wasted her time on a chaps project, but I bet you could count all of us on one hand.  Also, who's going to admit to knitting such a thing by publishing a pattern?  Adding insult to injury, the patriotic fun fur sheds so there's physical evidence of where I have been with these things.  Also, they're kind of heavy.  But they'll be ready for the next Wine & Pointy Sticks party!

I may have even ordered a sparkly cowboy hat with light-up brim.  Go big or go home, partner.

Something besides socks

Ok, admittedly I am currently working on a pair of socks, because I am pretty sure I must have one going at all times:

This pattern is called Winter Wheat Socks and this is the men's version.  I knit a pair of the women's version for my mother for her birthday this year.  I intended to knit this pair for my dad, who has no hand-knit socks from me, for Christmas this year.  Husband expressed delight in the socks.  This pair is for the husband.  Which means that I now have to knit this pattern again.  There's nothing really wrong with it; it's the (boring, BORING) yarn that makes me unenthusiastic about knitting it.

I am also making use of the 1800 yards of Madeline Tosh lace-weight I bought back in April to knit Viajante:

I love it, it's gorgeous, it's taking forever.  Dorothy says lace weight shawls take about three years (argh) which has burst my dream balloon that I would have this shawl done for an upcoming late-September trip to Philadelphia.  Maybe I will have it for a late-September trip in 2016, if I am lucky.

Meanwhile, I took a trip last weekend up to Halcyon Yarn in Bath, ME with my Wicked Weavers group.  I was delighted to discover that Halcyon sells mini-cones of weaving yarn - 600 yards to a normal one-pound cone of 3,200 yards (or more!)  So I bought a bunch of mini-cones of unmercerized cotton, to make dish towels:

Mostly mini-cones, with 2 large in the back

I have several patterns in mind - at least one or two to be done on my rigid heddle loom, which has the advantage of being in the family room and thus more accessible and more frequently used.  My first project is a set of place mats for the kitchen:

Cascade Luna Paints, Cascade Ultra Pima , 3/2 unmercerized cotton

Place mats in progress!

I have a strange affection for purple these days and picked some lighter shades of it to blend with the blue in the Cascade Paints that makes up the foundation of the multi-color in this placemat pattern.  This is a plain-weave pattern, making it less likely I will screw up this weaving.  Unless I did the yardage wrong.....

A weaving project redeemed

So I have been working here and there on a couple of weaving projects.  Most recently on my rigid heddle I decided to try the Log Cabin pattern described in Jane Patrick's The Weaver's Idea Book: Creative Cloth on a Rigid Heddle Loom.  The pattern is derived using two contrasting colors from the warp and weft crosses.  I thought it would be simple.  It was not.

My first mistake was the way I threaded it.  I miscounted the number of threads in each color block, and then I sleyed the reed entirely wrong - instead of alternating light-dark (or vice-versa) in the slot and holes, I grouped the colors together by two (one slot and one hole both the same color) which gave me a lovely houndstooth-style cloth.  So, lovely, but not the original aim.  I decided to completely re-sley the reed to try and get the pattern I had hoped.  Success!  Except that the back of the reed looked like this:
 

 Messier than I would have liked, for sure, but it all straightened out in the weaving:
 

Because I had to rearrange the threads at the back, pulling some out of the warp and tying them together, a few of the remaining warp threads did not get caught around the back beam.  Which was fine until I got near the end, and they grew so loose I could not get the yarn to lay smooth when I beat it down.  In the end, I opted to cut it off and tag it as a learning experience.

Here's the finished piece, which is less of a table runner and more of an oversized placemat:

My selveges are a little messy but I will stitch them under before displaying it on a table.  Given that I thought this was going to be a total loss when I first started it and it was not, and that I got this yarn on sale and will be able to do another similar project with it, I am not at all unhappy with how this turned out.  True, it would be great if these things turned out right the first time, but Rome wasn't built in a day.  Hell, sometimes I can't even get the loom threaded in a day.

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.

Knit to Flatter

Last Saturday afternoon I took a class with Amy Herzog, knitting author and all around genius.  I never understood the concept behind "girl crush" until I spent four hours with a woman who completely changed the way I will look at clothes, and shopping, forever.  Seriously, she's so good, she should be teaching self-esteem classes to teenage girls.  I hate to shop, but now I'm kind of looking forward to it after taking this knitting class, she's just that good.

Amy's the author of a book called Knit to Flatter, and her premise is if something doesn't look good, it's the clothing's fault, not your body's fault.  She demonstrated this by changing up the outfit she was wearing by rolling her cuffs, buttoning her cardigan, and slipping out of her shoes.  The transformation was amazing - and not in a good way, but she knew that.  Her explanation that sweater patterns are designed for "Miss Average," was like a lightbulb moment - of course a sweater pattern based only on bust size is not going to flatter everyone, because the difference in all your other measurements affects the fit.

Amy taught us how to take all our measurements - distances between waist & hip, shoulder to waist, multiple hip circumferences, and nearly a dozen others - and then use those measurements to adapt patterns to fit us to create the most flattering sweater possible.  After all, who wants to spend all those hours knitting a pullover to discover upon completion that it makes you look dumpy and misshapen?

I currently have two separate cardigans on the needles - my birthday project from last year, and another one I couldn't resist starting with some of the yarn I bought at the Fiber Festival - but I have put her book on my Christmas wish list and plan to make one of her patterns as soon as I finish these two sweaters.

If your local yarn shop ever offers a class with her, go - eat Ramen, sell your children, sell (gasp!) some of your stash, but go - it is an amazing experience and you will leave with an unbelievable number of practical tips for knitting yourself something perfect and flattering.

How many days until Christmas?

My fall has been crazy between work & volunteer obligations, and I've been very lax about documenting what I am working on, besides Halloween decorations.  But no more!  Here's what I've been up to lately:

My fall edition of Love of Knitting magazine had this beautiful Falling leaves hat pattern, made out of Berocco Boboli, which I just happened to have four skeins of sitting in my stash.  Fate! I used one for the hat, which knit up in about 4 days, and then decided to modify the pattern to make a matching scarf, which I haven't photographed yet.  It needs to be blocked, and probably never will be.  Just after finishing the scarf, I wandered into my favorite local yarn shop and discovered they were carrying Boboli Lace in virtually the same colorway, so of course I needed to make matching gloves......  This ate up about a month of prime holiday knitting time.  Which I feel a little bad about, but then I note that it will be a wonderful set to keep someone warm, and this is New England so this project was necessary.  Totally.

Way back in June we were in NY for my cousin's youngest son's christening, and my other cousin's husband asked if I would knit him a hat.  He has always wanted a hand-knit hat, you see.  He rides the Long Island Railroad every day to work in the city, and apparently there are several women on the train who knit (hello sisters!) and he asked one of them who was working on a hat if he could buy it from her.  She kindly explained to him that most knitters are working on something for a particular someone and suggested he find someone he knew who was a knitter and ask for a hat.  My mistake was working on a pair of socks in front of him, although I don't think it's much of a secret in the family that I knit, as I have knit his sister-in-law three baby blankets in recent years.  Anyway, he wanted a black hat.  Snore.  So I found this cute pattern by Jennifer Burt called Changing Seasons Men's Hat, and knit it with that.  It only took a couple of days.  The photo makes it look grey, but it is most definitely black.

In addition to the knitting, I have just finished an 8-week class for 4-harness weaving.  I liked the weaving, and my classmates and teacher, but oh boy, do I hate warping that type of loom.  Our first project was a sampler, using scrap yarn for the weft, to try out different patters:

I am not crazy about some of those colors, but it was a practice piece, so you don't want to spend a lot of money on yarn when you're just starting out.  I didn't have too much of a problem following all of the different treadlings to make the patterns, so I probably could have used more of a coordinated color scheme, except that it would have been against our teacher's directions.

Our next project was called a Rose Path Sampler.  For this I chose a rayon-cotton blend warp, in three separate colors, and a contrasting weft to make the patterns stand out:

I love the colors, and a lot of the patterns, but the blocks of pattern are not all the same size and the asymmetry of it bothers me a bit.  I had thought about turning it into a gift scarf, or maybe two, but the end piece, which is all one pattern, is not long enough and I can't do much fringe for either end of the scarf.  I guess that means I'm a pretty efficient weaver with not a lot of waste, which is the silver lining here.

  There are about 40 days until Christmas, and the project list for gifts isn't getting any smaller.  I think I will get over my dismay about the asymmetry on that woven scarf rather quickly as the calendar counts down.....