Sunny Snow Day Knitting

Snow day! No school -- which made sense at 5 this morning when the snow was pretty bad, but now the sun is shining and this is the view from my window:


So a good day to catch up on some knitting and finally photograph some FOs.


First, I finally finished my Daybreak Shawl, and it is just gorgeous! I've been wearing it nonstop since.

It's a pretty great size -- I knit the large, but then I stopped at 18 stripes of each color and 5 garter ridges at the end. This is an easy pattern to knit, but it did take quite a while, especially when those rows got really long at the end!


When I finished the shawl I made myself a matching beret. This was the Purl Bee beret pattern, which I think I added some stitches to because of a gauge difference. A nice simple pattern. I didn't like the way the decreases made the top pucker on the Purl version, so I spaced mine out a little differently. It came out to a nice size, a tiny bit bigger than I'd like perhaps. Sorry not to have a modeled shot -- I'm still in my pj's with no makeup in lazy snow day mode!


I was wrangling two and sometimes three balls of yarn, because I had two colors of orange that were slightly different and I decided to work them kind of like a gradient. Then at the end I was running out of one of the oranges so I did stripes of the two oranges together. It worked relatively well. I like the brighter orange better, though -- "Smaller Yellow Ant," if you are looking for a really gorgeous, rich, slightly brighter than pumpkin color. Fabulous. The other color is "Ruddy Daggerwing," which looked much darker and redder online, and is in fact only slightly darker and browner than the other orange (still a lovely color, but not as rich and bright). I had originally planned to stripe the two oranges, but they weren't different enough in color, so I ordered some more contrast yarn. The green is "Juniper Hairstreak." Again, a gorgeous color with a lot of depth. I had heard a lot about Sanguine Gryphon colors, and it was all true -- such beautiful, rich, sophisticated colors, with a nice variety of tones, but no pooling -- a truly gorgeous yarn. Bugga! is really soft but seems relatively strong. It did lose a little of its elasticity in blocking. This was fine for the shawl, though if I were to do it again I'd use smaller needles (I knit this on size 4). For the beret, it meant that I had to thread some elastic through the ribbing band. No big deal. Anyway, Bugga! is by far my favorite fingering/sock/light sport yarn now. So far it's wearing quite well, though of course it's a scarf, not socks. I don't think I'd use it for socks -- too soft, maybe not elastic enough, probably would wear out quite quickly. It's a tad on the pricey side, but the yardage is really generous. When I win the Megamillions, I am going to buy a skein of every color.

What I'm working on right now (somewhat furiously) is a super-late Christmas present for my bestest friend. She's the only person I've gifted knitting to who really seems to appreciate it. Non-baby knitting, that is -- I've knit a lot for babies and the moms (and grandmas) are always super appreciative. Anyway, I had ordered some pretty blue DK cashmere from Colourmart before Christmas to make her a cowl, but it still hasn't arrived a month later! This is a real fluke for Colourmart -- I have ordered from them a few times in the past and things always come shockingly quickly, considering that they're coming across the Atlantic. [update: it turns out the delay is due to US heightened security measures that were in effect between November and January. So their shipping should be at normal speed now if you order from them.] So I finally gave up on waiting and bought some Madelinetosh Pashmina to make a Honey cowl -- bandwagon knitting again!


It's a really beautiful fabric and a sophisticated final product, but it's kind of a tedious knit, especially because I decided the larger size really looks much nicer, and because I'm using a finer-gauge yarn than the pattern specifies. I am using Fleegle's garter-in-the-round hack, as suggested by Christina (Bowie on Ravelry) -- a brilliant way to avoid purling! But it does leave you working with two different balls of yarn, which is a little less portable, I find, and it also means that you have to keep peeking behind the slipped rows to make sure you're on track, because the wrong side is facing you when you knit these rows instead of purling them. And I find that I am just absent-minded enough that I mess up whether I am knitting or slipping a given stitch with relative frequency. Luckily the fabric is pretty easy to read so it's not a huge deal. The Pashmina yarn was nice and soft in the store, and really beautiful colors. Knitting it now I'm a little underwhelmed -- it doesn't feel quite as soft knit up, and it looks to me like it's going to pill and halo pretty quickly. For yarn that expensive I was expecting higher quality, I have to say.

Anyway, it's a lovely day to be sitting here in my cozy apartment, with a warm dog sleeping on my feet and a warm piece of knitting in my lap! Happy snow day to you all!

Sock Yarn Stranded

The sock yarn baby sweater is finished! I'm quite pleased with it.


The stranded yoke looks just darling.


The wrong side is the neatest of any fair isle work I've done -- I think knitting in the round is the key here (the first time I've done this with a stranded sweater!).


The steek threads are all snipped down and hidden underneath button band ribbons. I had to put the ribbon kind of halfway into the button band, but in fact, I think that it looks fine, and it makes it much easier with the buttoholes. Other sweaters with ribbon-faced button bands I've made, I've used my sewing machine to make buttonholes on the ribbon to match the eyelet holes on the button band, and they are a pain to do, plus the shapes of machine-made holes and eyelet holes are not the same and it's just an awkward business.


Here's the other side. I have to say, I may be a pretty neat knitter and finisher, but I am a total moron at sewing on buttons! My knots are never neat, you don't know how many times I threaded the needle through the wrong side of the button or the wrong side of the band and had to cut the thread, and then I had to rip out and reposition almost all the buttons at least once in order to get the bands to lie flat. Ugh!


But all in all, a totally fun knit and a great finished product! I've written up pretty detailed instructions and will post them soon.

Squee!

A last-minute socktopus for my friend's baby's birthday. They invited me to dinner on Monday night, and I knit the whole thing on Sunday (it did take longer than I thought; I was up pretty late Sunday night).


Were I to knit it again, I think I'd do paired right- and left-leaning increases and decreases for some symmetry. I'm not super fond of the way those increases swirl across the top of the head.


The thing is even cuter than I thought it would be! Those tentacles were a little fiddly to knit, but so worth it! Just look at those adorable socks.

Two FO's and a work in progress

The Shalom Cardigan is finished and blocking at the moment. It turned out well, with only a slight degree of panicking over growing superwash yarn during the blocking process. Modeled photographs are forthcoming.

In the meantime, here is a picture of a long-finished knitting project: the cashmere OX cable scarf I knit my boyfriend for Christmas. Begrudgingly modeled (but not begrudgingly worn) by the man himself.


I'm partial, but I think he bears a slight resemblance to the sexy Severus Snape. This photo was snapped during a walk this Saturday, a truly glorious day that led me to do a little sightseeing in my neighborhood:


Ah, scraggly weeds and the Henry Hudson Bridge. Gotta love NYC.

Hopeful yoke

School and work pressure has lifted (however temporarily), and knitting can resume! I've been working away on a new design for that sweater for my friend's granddaughter.


It's really, as all my patterns are, a variation on a theme -- the new element for me this time is the yarn, which, being a cotton blend, seems less well suited to fair isle knitting than my standby superwash wool. Therefore, the yoke pattern I cooked up is decidedly simpler than previous fair isle yokes I've done.


And it's a hopeful yoke -- those coral-colored tulips on a muddy brown ground are a wish for spring from the midst of February doldrums.



I'm working on writing it up as I go, this time in three different sizes. That's a first for me too!

Meanwhile, the red socks are one toe away from completion. My parents are going to be here tomorrow, and I'm hoping I can finish knitting right now and block overnight, so my mom can wear these puppies pronto!

As promised.

As I posted yesterday, I have a sock completed. As I look at this little number, it seems a little short -- but I am banking on my mom's having smaller feet than mine. She's visiting this weekend and I am hoping to have the pair done by then.


Meanwhile, this tasty treat arrived this morning from Knitpicks: some Shine Sport to make a fair-isle yoke sweater for my colleague's granddaughter, due in April. This seems like a lovely spring bunch of colors, don't you think?


Not a yarn bribe this time -- more of a yarn reward. It feels quite nice to get that Chaucer-paper monkey off my back.

... what's that you say? I have some mittens that I have not finished? You are right. With temperatures in the high 40s, it's hard to conceive of knitting mittens. But not to fear: cold weather will eventually return, as will my knitten-mitting mojo.

16 knitting days left until Christmas!

I've reached the point where school stress and knitting panic meld together into the perfect cocktail of anxiety. Instead of finishing end-of-term grading or beginning work on my final papers, I am knitting myself into a frenzy here as I finish holiday gifts. Completed this weekend: the partner to the Felici striped sock I made a while ago:


Now only one sock left to go: the partner for the Jaywalker sock I made last month. Here's the progress, such as it is:


The next few projects I can only show snippets of, as I don't know if the recipients will be reading this post:


And there's more: I am still totally stalled on my grandmother's February Bed Jacket, for example, needing to work a few more lace rows and bind off the body before starting on the sleeves. If I can get that all done in time I may try to cram in some mitts for a few relatives and friends. Then after Christmas, it's back to selfish knitting for me, baby! And man, do I have some fun things lined up!

New world, new sock

I'm finally getting over my post-election exhaustion. I'm so happy to live in a country I can feel proud of again! And, heaven knows, excited at the possibility of an end to an environment of anti-intellectualism! As exciting as it is, though, I almost feel sad -- I had so much expectation and anxiety about politics in the last month, that now it's all over I don't know what to do with myself! I'll just have to fill that hole with knitting.


Here's one jaywalker sock for Sarah. I love the way these socks look on the foot, but I can't say I adored the knitting process. And I know that she is going to gripe about how hard they are to pull over her heels. Too bad. If she hates them, I'll be happy to take them, because I love them.

Specs:
Pattern: Jaywalker by Grumperina
Yarn: Knitpicks Felici in colorway patina
Needles: Knitpicks options size 2

Other things to feel contented about: staying on top of my grading, perfecting my scone recipe, coming closer to having an idea what I want to dissertate about, and blissful Sunday afternoons working at the coffee shop in the most delightful company...

Be still, my heart

To those poor souls who actually follow this blog: sorry for the communication blackout there! I've become quite busy of late. Grad school of course is a time-vampire, and teaching is nothing to sneeze at. I've also been spending quite a bit of time with a certain gentleman friend -- about which I will say nothing more at the moment, except that as alternatives to knitting and blogging go, it's been a very pleasant one.

Meanwhile, there has been some knitting afoot. My friend just adopted a baby, and I've been furiously working ever since I found out about it, with these adorable results:



The socks and mittens are my own design; the hat is the "Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap". A simple but ingenious pattern that yields heart-grabbing results. All done on size 2 needles, Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply.

Officially Fall...

... and officially finished! The first pair in my Socks for Sarah project, that is. These are in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway Gold Hill. 64 stitches around, toe-up, short row heel, double eyelet rib and double rib leg.

Lookin' good, for a first pair of socks. Things I learned: work more rows plain after the heel before beginning leg patterning. Work tubular bind-off LOOOOOOSELY!

Here they are on my fat, fat feet:


And I've cast on for my second pair. Top-down, this time, still 64 stitches around. These are in Knitpicks Felici in colorway Schooner. I'm going to try a different heel this time too.


Meanwhile, in other knitting news, the body of my mom's Radcliffe Cardigan is finished and blocked, with button bands and everything, and ... it's too small. I've got to rip it out halfway and increase under the armpits. And take out the waist shaping -- it is my style, but not my mom's.

Lessons learned with this project: while aiming on the small side for superwash projects is the way to go, non-superwash yarn does not grow nearly as much in blocking. I measured my swatch ruthlessly, but I should have rounded up instead of down, because a difference of a tenth of an inch a stitch can make a difference of an inch or more in the final product. Oh well -- at least the gauge on this one is big, so it won't take too long.

100th post!

That's right, today's post is a mini-milestone. And to celebrate, here's a lovely rainbow of yarn that just came in the mail. I've had so much fun arranging it all to take photos!


I'm planning to use this Knitpicks Telemark yarn to make Floral Fair Isle Gloves for my... sister? Mom? Aunt? ... unclear... for Christmas. Which purchase puts me in a bit of a gray area as far as my newly pledged membership to Ravelry's Selfish Knitters group is concerned. Because while I am knitting for others, I bought yarn that I know will pill (as Knitpicks yarn always does), because it was cheap, and if I were to knit myself fair isle gloves I'd pick something pricier and better quality.

Man, it sure is pretty, though...


And at least when the gloves are actually given, they will not be pilly. A selfish gift indeed! I will get all the glory of beautiful handmade gloves, then not be around when they stop looking as nice after a few wears.

Meanwhile, here are not one but two Radcliffe Cardigan yokes in progress -- one for my mom and one for me (selfish knitting again!). Both in a color that is impossible to photograph accurately:
I'm glad that I'm knitting them both at the same time, because it's been a real lesson in yarn qualities and gauge. The big one is in Reynolds Candide, a hairy, hard-finished, two-ply (?) woolen-spun wool that's knitting on size 7 needles at a gauge of 4.125 stitches an inch (after a bad sweater-growth episode I have been gauge swatching and measuring assiduously); and the little one is in Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000, a soft, springy multi-ply merino that's knitting on size 3 needles at a gauge of 5.8 stitches per inch. I am finding myself preferring the way the Candide looks in this particular pattern, though, as I said in the last post, it's been rough on my wrists. This is a kind of vintagey sweater style, and the fuzzy finish and larger gauge of the Candide are a nice compliment. The seed stitch, however, in the Cool Wool is just so crisp and nubbly and neat. I hate working seed stitch, as it takes twice as long as stockinette, but I do so love the look of it. And while my mom doesn't mind itchy wool, I do, and like to wear camisoles under my sweaters instead of turtlenecks, so Cool Wool it is for me. I'm just hoping it holds up better than the last Radcliffe Cardigan I knit for myself!