Just hours before the end of 2008, I wanted to make one last post for the heck of it. First off, here's a little something I made for my mom for Christmas that I forgot to post about.
A pair of Fetching wrist warmers made of the same Berroco Alpaca that I made mine out of. I modified the pattern to make mine extra long, but I didn't do the same for my mom's. When I gave them to her, she was a bit puzzled as to what to use them for, but hopefully she'll find them as useful as I find mine.
As some of you might already know, the hubby and I are now house-hunting. We're packing up our condo in preparation for putting it up on the market, so that means a HUGE de-clutter, and sending a ton of things into storage. And so, my knitting corner had to disappear from the premises (ack!). I've had to select a few key skeins to tide me over, but the rest had to be packed away. So here it is. My entire stash.
Yes Adrienne, that includes all that Silk Garden you were so kind to bring me. I seriously thought I had more yarn than that. Maybe I can treat myself to some more yarn when we've got ourselves a house :)
Have a safe and happy New Year's celebration, everyone! See you all in 2009!!
First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their very helpful input. After reading all the comments, and thinking about it a bit more, I've decided to continue with the sweater. As for my own thoughts, I have to say that I really love the way the cables look. But like Adrienne said, the check pattern on the sides (a simple k2, p2 alternating), seems a bit visually distracting. However, I find that I really like the way that part feels when you touch it, so maybe Baby will like how it feels too. And yes, I agree that the sweater is not quite gender neutral. I'm not knitting it for any baby in particular, so I'll just hang on to it until someone I know has a baby girl.
Man...you know what this means? I'm going to procrastinate on that second toe sock even more!
I took the opportunity to photograph what I've knit so far of Baby Yours in some natural light this morning (and let me tell you we've had very little natural light lately), and that's what it looks like.
So, before I venture forth with the rest of this sweater, I'd like to solicit some opinions from you. Keep on knitting, or start a-froggin'?
[And in case any of you are wondering, I do have my own opinions about this, but I wanted to see what you all say without me polluting your initial thoughts.]
Many of you know that finishing is one of my least favourite parts of the whole knitting process. I try to take as many sneaky tricks as possible to minimize the amout of it I have to do, but sometimes there's just no helping it. And so, after having put it off for a little while, I decided to sew the seams and put the buttons on that Baby Surprise Jacket.
Having learned from the first BSJ that I knit, I resolved to do a better job of the seams this time.
I think they turned out pretty well this time around (and my camera fails at taking close-up shots like that).
With all sorts of friends with something cooking in the oven so to speak, I decided to start yet another baby sweater.
DETAILS
Pattern: Baby Yours by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Jasper
Needles: US size 4 Addi Turbos
I'm not sure about the colour, to tell you the truth. Or rather, I'm not sure about how all those lovely cables will look considering the amount of striping that's happening. I'm not really an experienced cable knitter, so I'm not sure if cables+variagated will still turn out to be perfectly lovely. The only time I've really done cables have been with non-variagated yarns. I do admit to being quite enamored with the pattern so far, and have been enjoying it greatly, so the only question now is if I should really be getting a different colourway. Any thoughts before I get too far with it?
Little by little, I'm getting closer to finishing up projects that I've had going. The first is another EZ Baby Surprise Jacket that I'm making from some friends of mine who are expecting. They've elected not to find out the baby's gender, so I tried to pick something relatively neutral.
This sweater turned out a lot more brown than I thought it would based on the yarn. I thought the light blue would be more obvious. In some ways, all that brown makes me feel like the sweater has a more "manly" feel to it, but I guess it's still pretty gender neutral. Just need to sew up the shoulders and put the buttons on. I wasn't in much of a finishing mood today, so I decided to just leave it for now.
Since I was in the mood to do some more brainless knitting, I decided to finish off one of those toe socks that have been on my needles forever now.
I am now exactly 50% done this project. Someday, I'll get off my butt and cast on the second sock. But today's not that day either. I made these with size 0 needles, and found those to be a huge pain in the rear. These will probably be the last pair of socks that I make on size 0's. That said, the small needles have produced a wonderfully cozy sock, but I'm just not sure they're worth the pain (quite literally too since my hands were starting to ache from those ridiculously small dpns).
Yay! I finally finished knitting my mother's Absolutely Fabulous Throw, after 10 months of knitting. I started this beast way back in January, made fairly good progress on it during the winter, then put it away once the weather started warming up. Then some chilly weather descended upon us in October, so out came the blanket again. And now it's done at last!
This is Colinette's Absolutely Fabulous Throw in the Antique colourway. I was under the impression that they stopped selling these in the U.S. a while back, and started selling other (similar) throw kits, but I think I've still seen some of these kits around so I don't really know what's happening.
After having experienced this finished product I dearly want one of these for myself, but I'm not sure I could bring myself to do all that knitting again. It's the mohair (3 different colourways) that really got to me. As well as the Fandango (chenille, ugh).
All that mohair makes this a very very warm blanket, though. Almost as good as having a purring kitty sitting on your lap.
My mom and I bought this kit together, so it's not exactly a surprise present. I hope she uses it, especially since it's basically the most awesome blanket ever.
I know this is supposed to be a knit blog, but I finished a fun little craft that I wanted to share. I made myself a purse organizer following the instructions here. It's a very easy and affordable little project, and costs much less than similar purse organizers that are on the market. For the fabric and interfacing, I paid about $7; I have enough interfacing left over to make another organizer too.
It folds up nicely, so I can put it into both small and large bags. Makes changing bags really easy now. If you're a rookie at sewing, I highly recommend this project as something to get you started.
I experienced my first sock casualty today. BOTH heels in a pair of socks completely gave way.
Those are socks knit with Claudia Handpainted fingering yarn in the Stormy Days colourway. I thought I had blogged about them before, but apparently not. These socks were an experiment in knitting toe-up socks with a heel flap, and they turned out just fine except for the fact that the colours of each sock pooled pretty differently (not so obvious in this photo). However, I thought that knitting a slip-stitch heel was supposed to make it sturdier? Or maybe not?
I can't remember when exactly I knit these socks, maybe last year, maybe the year before, but they were far from the first pair of socks that I knit, nor were they the handknit socks that I wore the most. I have other socks (knit with Regia, Lorna's Laces, and Fleece Artist yarns) that I've worn just as much (if not more), and none of them show signs of biting the dust anytime soon (and I usually knit short-row heels, sans reinforcement). It seems like this yarn just doesn't hold up as well as the others?
I have other socks knit out of this yarn that I haven't worn yet (including my Monkeys), as well as yarn for 2 more pairs of socks in the stash. So now I'm thinking, maybe they shouldn't become socks if the yarn isn't that hard-wearing? Maybe they want to be something else? A Chevron scarf? Gloves/Mittens? Hats? Maybe I should put the other socks into the rotation and see how they hold up?
Sophie's not quite sure what to do either.
Finished my sweater! Yay! This was definitely the quickest I've ever been on a adult sized garment of any kind. I started it at the beginning of October, and finished it last night.
Again, taking photos in the middle of the night is a bad idea. Oh well. I'll try to get some better photos another time.
Details
Yarn: Zen Yarn Garden Gemilicious Worsted
Needles: size 6
Modifications: doubled the length of the sleeves, added length to the body.
There are lots of things I like about this sweater. The color, the yarn, the cables. It fits quite nicely, but can be a bit unforgiving if you're wearing baggy jogging pants underneath. I'm just going to assume that if I was wearing a pair of nice fitting jeans, those odd bumps around my waist will go away (that remains to be seen however). The only thing I'm a bit unsure of is the wide yoke. I don't have enough...ahem...assets to fill the top part enough to feel comfortable with wearing it slightly off the shoulder without worrying about the whole top falling down (plus my bra straps show). But, if I don't wear it off the shoulder, there's too much fabric around the top that bunches all weird.
Now, before everyone asks if I checked the pattern before knitting, the answer is yes, I did. It turned out as the pattern described, but I believe the main problems is that I didn't quite make the connection of needing boobs to hold up the sweater. I have no problems wearing a shirt that's off the shoulder, but I don't want to wear a shirt that will leave me flashing people whenever I bend over. I'll probably just wind up throwing a tank top underneath it or something though. All in all, I do like the sweater, and would like to wear it every now and then. Probably not to work, but maybe to other things.
One of the (many) things I miss about Canada is the wearing of poppies on our lapels in honour of Remembrance Day. I've seen a few people over the years with poppies down here in the U.S., but have never actually come across anyone distributing them. A few weeks ago I was even considering going to the Canadian consulate to ask if maybe they had some poppies to give away (I didn't, they probably would have thought I was a bit crazy). Which is why I was extremely pleased to see Laura Chau's pattern for a knitted poppy (Rav link) this weekend.
This one is made out of scraps of Calmer (brown, apparently I have zero black yarn) and Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran (red, more red than this photo shows), and took about an hour to make. And now I'll never have to go poppy-less again.
(I also want to say a big Thank You to all of you who said such nice things about my Malabrigo vest, and for all your suggestions. If blocking doesn't fix the the weirdness of the scoop, I'll think about redoing the ribbing to maybe add one extra round, since I have very little yarn left. It's funny how knitting one's own garments actually does very little to mitigate one's insecurities about clothing and fit and all the negative stuff that tends to happen in fitting rooms. =))
I love Malabrigo yarn. It is super-soft and smooshy, one of the most pet-able yarns out there. There's a reason why it's the 3rd most popular yarn used on Ravelry.
A few years back (June 2005, to be exact!) I bought 2 skeins of Malabrigo in the Loro Barranquero colourway, a gorgeous mix of maroons and reds with some pinks and yellows and greens and white thrown in. I originally used the yarn to knit a hat and scarf set, loved how the colourway knit up, but hated the actual finished products themselves. Here's a photo of the hat-that-didn't-really-fit, see all the pretty colours?
Earlier this summer I decided that the yarn was being wasted as never-to-be-worn winter accessories, so I frogged the hat and scarf and cast about for something else to make with the yarn. I only had 2 skeins worth (~420 yards), so it definitely wasn't enough for a sweater. I couldn't find any coordinating solids that would have matched well. Eventually I came across the Scoop Neck Vest pattern from Blue Sky Alpacas, which only required 400 yards or so of yarn for my size.
Making sure I didn't run out of yarn required some reworking of the pattern on my part. I cast on provisionally and knit the top parts of both the back and the front first (i.e. the stockinette portions), then joined both pieces together and knit the bottom ribbing in the round. Then I picked up stitches around the neckline and armholes to knit the ribbing there. I have a very small ball of yarn left.
I'm not sure how I feel about the finished product right now. It hasn't been blocked yet, but currently the fit is a bit off, and I feel like the scoop is too low, especially given my lack of, um, assets in that area. The straps are rather curly and the neckline is a bit wonky, but that will probably (hopefully) go away after blocking. In the photo below, I'm wondering where my waistline went, and why plain white shirts are flattering on everyone else except me.
In general, I think I've realized something about Malabrigo. It's very pretty yarn, but there's something about it that feels a bit....off to me when I knit with it. Maybe it's that it's too "floppy" when knit up, I always feel like I like it better in the skein than as an FO. In this situation, I'm sort of feeling like the vest doesn't do justice to the gorgeousness of the colourway, and that it didn't necessarily live up to the promise of the original skeins. I mean, aren't these prettier than either the hat or the vest?
So, who knows. Maybe blocking will "fix" everything. Or maybe this will go into the pile of knits-I-never-wear. In either case, I am NOT knitting this yarn up again for the third time. =)
Did you all get the email about the Webs Silk Garden closeout sale a couple of weeks ago? Did anyone else buy any yarn? Because we (Karen and I) sure did. We didn't go entirely crazy like I'm sure some folks did (did you see how fast it disappeared?), but when I put in the order for 28 skeins I admit to feeling a teensy bit faint despite the fact that the yarn wasn't ALL for me (hey, I'm on a postdoc salary and can't afford to buy too much yarn at once, ok? =P).
I thought maybe the box would be enormous. Turns out, yarn is squishy. Here's the box with an 8-pound cat sitting on top:
The box of yarn balanced on my head:
And the spoils. I won't say who bought which yarn, but that's 3 colourways of Silk Garden, #47, #226, and #247.
The yarn is even prettier in person (top to bottom, #47, #226, #247). I love love LOVE this yarn. If I were stuck on a desert island with only one kind of yarn to knit with, this just might be it.
I have a deep and abiding love for Noro Silk Garden. In fact, a significant portion of my stash (almost a quarter of it) consists of Silk Garden. I usually only buy it when it's on sale or from eBay, since my budget wouldn't be able to handle buying much of it at full price. Over the past couple of years, I've managed to acquire a few skeins in darker colourways, colourways that fall far outside my usual palette of bright and pretty colours.
Not that I don't like the darker colours, they're just not the first things I'd reach for.
So what to do with these orphan non-girly skeins? How about a manly Noro Striped Scarf?
The only man in my life worth knitting for at present is of course my dad, so I'm thinking that this might make a nice Christmas present for him. The thing is, there are a couple of less-manly sections in the scarf, such as the one right here with the pink and green.
Looking at the scarf as a whole, I think it's plenty manly enough, and it's received positive reviews from at least one man (my coworker who was in the car with me when I finished the scarf on the way home from a conference). I'm posting these photos mostly for the benefit of my mom and sister, who get final say over whether the scarf can be gifted. What do you think?
(This scarf used 2 skeins of colourway 86, 1 skein of 82, and 1 skein of 88)
Hello! I'm back. I think. I have no idea how the entire summer got away from me like that, but here it is October and I haven't touched this blog in 3 months. But just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been knitting! I've worked on a sweater, a vest, some socks, an afghan, a scarf, and have also been doing some super-duper secret knitting. All of which will be revealed in good time.
But before talking about the knitting, how about some stash enhancement? This weekend was Yarn-Con, "Chicago's own yarn-centric exhibition", and I went with two goals in mind. To grab some more Sophie's Toes sock yarn (I made a patchwork scarf out of the yarn here, see also the Rav link), and to get a little project bag from Piddleloop. And that's precisely what I came home with:
See the bag? It's got flying pigs on it!
And the yarn, here's a closeup of the yarn. My camera doesn't come close to capturing all the pretty colours. Those are the American Patchwork (top) and Fall Mums (bottom) colourways (with Sophie cat's toes peeking into the photo), I was standing in the booth for the longest time trying to decide which ones to get.
And here's a little confession. By my reckoning I've knit 19 pairs of socks. I now have enough sock yarn to knit over twice that number. You think I should stop buying the stuff already? I've actually been pretty good lately about staying away, but I've got to support the indie dyers, don't I? =)
Well, it didn't take me long to get back on the knitting band-wagon. I'm out of my slump! I actually wound up doing pretty much everything that all you lovely people suggested to me. I indulged in other hobbies (a little crochet, some cooking, and reading), decided to start a new project, hung out for a little bit with other knitters, and purchased some more yarn. So, thank you, all you wonderful people you.
Here's the project I decided to start -- the Curvy sweater in Zen Yarn Garden's Gemilicious.
I absolutely love the colour. Just looking at it makes me happy. (Oh my gosh! I actually knit something of a gauge swatch!)
And then, a friend of mine from work found out that her best friend is now pregnant, and you all know what that means! Just like that, we were searching for baby blanket patterns for her to try (she's a bit of a novice knitter, but with great potential), and then it was off to Lettuce Knit to look for supplies. Once there, it was impossible for me not to get something. Or a few somethings.
Some Jojoland Rhythm for another EZ BSJ for my pregnant friend who's decided not to find out the baby's gender in advance.
And some happy, orange Koigu for me. I want some fun and flashy socks. The colour in the photo is quite bad since taking photos in the middle of the night proves, again, to be my nemesis. Let me assure you, this yarn is quite a brilliant shade of orange.
Since I'm on the topic of socks, I forgot to mention that back on Sept 24, Laura Chau had a book launch party at Lettuce Knit for her first book. I really wanted to go, but had a rehearsal to go to. That didn't stop me from popping into the store and picking up a copy to support a super awesome knitter.
I lucked out, and Laura was even there to autograph it for me! Exciting! Please forgive the horrible, out of focus photo.
I've been in a little bit of a knitting slump these past few days. You're probably thinking that a couple days doesn't really qualify as a slump, but I don't really know what to call it. Up until this weekend, I had been working away happily at my Talia vest. And then disaster struck. Hanatarou, my naughty white and black cat, decided to pee on the bag holding my precious knitting (I think he was mad that I gave him a bath). Luckily, all was not lost! Thanks to the plastic bag holding my yarn, and the plastic sheet covers that I put my pattern in, most of the knitting survived unscathed. Only a little bit of the bottom edge of the vest was soiled. I have a feeling that the bag is a total write off though -- I've washed it a few times, and soaked it in special enzyme solution, but I'm not sure if it's salvageable. It was only this cheap black bag that I got at Old Navy, but still.
I put my knitting onto a holder and washed the bottom edge, and I think that did the trick. Problem is, I just don't want to work on it anymore. It's as if just looking at it makes me angry right now. I was contemplating starting a new project to help me get over things, but I feel guilty at the same time. I mean, I've got a perfectly good project waiting to be finished, so why start something else? Plus I'm wrestling with just what to make. I could start my Curvy sweater, or start a baby sweater for a friend due in February (though this one is a tough call too because Jamie doesn't think the yarn I have slated for it is quite gender neutral). Or maybe some toys? I just don't know. Should I just bite the bullet, and truck on with Talia?
What do you do to get yourselves out of knitting slumps?
I made a little hat to go with the Tulips sweater. It's the same pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I just used the leftover yarn from my sweater kit, and incorporated the same colour changes.
I had a debate with friends about what colour to make the I-cord. Since I don't know the gender of the baby, I wanted to keep it mostly gender neutral. I had a choice between the peach, and a mustard yellow. I liked the pop of the peach, but was worried that it might seem too girl-ish if the baby turned out to be a boy. But then my friends pointed out that a) I already have peach on the sweater, and b) what would the baby care anyway?
And Adrienne, no worries about not posting. Life is busy, and there are other priorities above blogging. I'm sure everyone has posting droughts.
My cousin in Hong Kong is expecting, so I originally was going to take my time and knit some things up for her and ship them over. Then my mom pointed out that her father was coming to Toronto to visit, so why don't I save myself the shipping cost and give it to him. Great idea mom! Only drawback is that I originally had until December to get my knitting done, and now I have until mid-October. Eek! So what's a girl do to when she doesn't know if it's going to be a girl or boy, and she's finding herself in crunch time? Go with something she knows she can do.
And so, my second Tulips kit got knitted up, and will be winging its way to Hong Kong via Uncle Ronald's luggage. I think I'm going to make a little matching hat with the yarn that I've got left over from the kit. Even though I think Tulips is supposed to be for a girl, I think the colours are sufficiently gender neutral that it'll be okay even if it turns out to be a boy.
This time around, I used that trick of weaving in the ends as I went (thanks, Adrienne), so finishing was such a breeze! I think I did a better job of doing the sleeves this time than the first time I made it. The photo is pre-blocking, so there's some curling happening, but the cute little sweater is pinned out and drying as I type this entry.
I just love this pattern!! Even though it was my second time knitting it, I still had a good time!
Well, I decided what to make to go with the baby sweater. I ended up settling on a hat. I took the pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, so it was a really super fast knit.
The photo is quite terrible - my apologies. Again, taking photos in the middle of the night proves to be a bad idea. I made the i-cord a bit too long. Hopefully it turns out okay.
I also blocked the cotton scarf I finished.
The cotton was soft to start with, but somehow feels even softer after blocking. Super nice stuff.
With the closing ceremonies set for about 7 hours from now, I managed to get that leaf patterned scarf done. There was a real push on it the past two days, and there may come a day when I feel that I want to make a REALLY long scarf and add a 4th skein of yarn to it, but I like the way it looks right now. It's not blocked yet, so some people might argue that it's not completely finished, but it's off the needles, so I will consider it finished for the purposes of the Ravelympics.
I'll endeavor to take a better picture of it after it's all blocked.
Congrats to all the fantastic athletes, organizers, volunteers, staff, EVERYONE for making these 2008 Summer Olympics one for the ages! Watched some awesome sports, and got knitting done to boot. What could be better than that? (^_~)
What, you may ask, is in this compact package for me?
Thanks to the Ravelympics, I 'met' the fantastic Roxanne, proprietress of Zen Yarn Garden. We are both working hard for the Ravelry Team Canada. She was showing off some lovely blue sock yarn that she dyed for one of her events, and I couldn't help but commenting on it, what with blue being my favourite-est colour in the world. And so, she mentioned that she'd be happy to do a custom order for me if I wanted some of it. After cruising her website, I fell in love with the Curvy sweater, and told her that I loved the sweater, but not the pink. And so, she offered to make me a custom kit out of the lovely blue yarn, dubbed Azure.
And so...
MY KIT ARRIVED TODAY!! Can you believe it? Barely 3 days since we messaged back and forth about it! Thanks so much, Roxanne!!
And in other knitting news, I am desperately trying to finish my leaf-pattern scarf before the closing ceremonies finish. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it, but boy have I made loads of progress on this project that I definitely wouldn't have otherwise.
Yet again, Ravelry proves to be quite the enabler of my addiction...
[NOTE: To answer Marie's question to my previous post, BSJ stands for Baby Surprise Jacket. It is so dubbed because, as you knit it, it resembles nothing like a sweater, but at the end you do a little creative folding, and presto! You have a jacket! Surprise!!]
Hooray for the Olympics! Hooray for lots of late night TV for me to knit by!
Finished my EZ BSJ. The pattern is a little tricky to decipher if you're going from the one re-printed in Knitting Workshop, but with some help from all you lovely people, I've finished it! And so, I've completed my first item for the Ravelympics!
I have just less than one skein of that yarn left (only had to dip into it to sew up the edges and sew on the buttons), but I'm not sure what to make with it. I'm a little worried that it's a bit too scratchy to make a good hat or booties. Any opinions?
EDIT: Received my medal for this item, so I thought I'd post it here.
And I just wanted to say that Ravelry is doing an awesome job co-ordinating the over 5000 Raveletes.
Really quick post here! I've signed up for the Ravelympics for the WIP Wrestling event. Haha! I need some sort of kick in the pants to finish a couple items. The first is that cream coloured leaf-pattern scarf that's been kicking around for a year now. The second is the EZ BSJ that I still haven't finished. I know that it hasn't been all that long for the BSJ, but the baby shower where I plan to give it away is coming up, so this seemed like good motivation to get it done.
After that's all done, I'm planning to start that other Tulip kit that I have, and the Talia vest (though that Honeycomb vest is looking pretty awesome too). I really like Talia, but the fact that I have to add buttons is kinda making me think twice. But I already have the yarn for it, so I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can sub that yarn into Honeycomb. Decisions, decisions!
I sat on this post for a little bit, and have now realized that I still want to knit Talia. I'll look for yarn for Honeycomb another time.
