Another new pattern: Spotted Toadstool Beret!

The second of a number of new patterns is up on Ravelry!



Spotted Toadstool Beret. Cute, huh? Are you getting an idea of what the whole collection is about? This three-page pattern includes photos and written instructions for the spot stranded pattern and slip-stitch "gills." It's for baby (14.5" circumference), child (16" circumference), and large child/teen/small adult (18" circumference).


I had a dickens of a time getting the decreases for the beret shape to line up with the number needed for the repeat of the spot pattern. I think I've got it all right now, but if anyone feels like test knitting it in the smallest and/or largest size for me, I'd be happy to send you a free pattern (for the beret as well as the hedgehog mittens, or any other Looking Glass Knits for-sale pattern)! Just email me (my address is listed in the sidebar) and I'll send you the pdf's.

UPDATE: thanks to everyone who volunteered to test knit for me. Your help is much appreciated!

Ravelry download:

A lot of circles

Finally got a chance to photograph a few of the projects in the works. Everything on the needles at the moment is circular! I've got now two baby yoke sweaters in the works and one finished:


I'm quite pleased with how this one came out, though there's some noticeable difference in the dye lots of the two skeins of "Grasshopper" -- most noticeably where the button band meets the collar.

Then there's a really simple garter yoke cardigan, using some leftover Knitpicks Felici self-striping yarn and Knitpicks "Bare":


And then there's the one that caused me the most consternation: a "fair-isle" yoke sweater using a super-secret trick to make it look much more complicated than it is to knit (which is why it's "fair isle" instead of fair isle). I had to rip and redo this yoke a number of times until I was satisfied with the way it looked.


And even when I was satisfied, I went back in and duplicate-stitched one row with the MC yarn (Knitpicks Stroll in "Tidepool Heather") because I was afraid there wasn't enough similarity between the yoke section and the body section (which is the old standby Knitpicks Essential/Stroll Kettle in "Grasshopper" and Lorna's Laces in "Gold Hill" -- the same two colors, in other words, that I used in the mosaic yoke cardigan pictured above). That combo looks quite different in single-row stranding rather than mosaic knitting, huh?


But it looks quite nice now! I'm busily knitting these as I write up the patterns, hoping to publish all three in one packet (they all have the same gauge and measurements). It's my hope that knitters could work from the garter-yoke one through to the "fair isle" one, gradually becoming more comfortable with stranded knitting. Then they could graduate to my Sock Yarn Stranded (which also has the same gauge and measurements) or to any other fair isle pattern! I'm a little frantic to get the pattern finished by the time Sock Summit is over, because even though I'm not going to Sock Summit, I figured that people would come home loaded up with beautiful sock yarn and be looking for projects to knit with it!

Then lastly, to continue the stranded knitting fiesta, there's one of these:


Which I am sure you all recognize as a Selbu Modern in the works, using a popular color combination. It took me a while to hit on the right color of blue, and I'm still not satisfied with it -- I was looking for "Tiffany Blue" or robin's-egg blue, but this is a little greener than either of those colors. I was inspired by haveyouanywool's version on Ravelry. She used Louet Gems fingering, but that was a little out of my price range and I don't like working with it -- too heavy and not springy enough for my taste. This is Knitpicks Essential/Stroll in "Glacial," a discontinued color, and the red is Valley Yarns Huntington (color 4150). I think in combination the two yarns look better than separately, and the Glacial looks sufficiently Tiffany-esque to cut it. Last year I had so much fun knitting and then wearing my Chevron Beret that I figured another pretty beret was just the ticket for getting ready for hat season!

millinery

Here's a little tidbit I made up to go along with the tulip cardigan. The parents of this baby are supposedly not into frou-frou girly things, so I tried to come up with a hat that had some flexibility. On the one hand, the cardigan seems to call for a 30's-style cloche or helmet, which of course needs an oversized, stylized flower. On the other hand, frou-frou-free parents may object to the flower. Hence the solution:


A removable flower. If they want this baby to sport a pared-down, tailored hat, they can, and if not, they can attach the flower for some frou.

Here are the specs:

Sizes: 3-6 (6-9, 9-12) months
Gauge: 6 stitches and 8 rows/inch
Needles: size 3 16" circular, size 3 double-pointed
Requirements: less than 100 yards sport-weight yarn each in colors MC, A, B, C; tapestry needle; one large-ish button.


With circular needles, cast on 84 (88, 92) stitches in brown (color A). Being careful not to twist, join to knit circularly, and work 4 rounds of k1, p1 rib. Break yarn and join tan (color C). Knit one round. Break yarn and join green (MC). Work 2 inches in seed stitch (*k1, p1 in round one, *p1, k1 in round two), adding one stitch at the end of the first seed stitch round so that you can just mindlessly go around and around over an odd number of stitches. Break yarn and join tan (color C). Knit one round. Break yarn and join brown (color A).

Work in stockinette (all knit) until piece measures 4 (5, 5) inches. In next round, decrease by 1 (increase by 2, decrease by 2) stitches randomly in round to get a multiple of 7 stitches. 84 (91, 91) stitches. In next round, place a marker after every 12th (13th, 13th) stitch. In the next round, begin decreasing as follows:

Round 1: *k to 2 stitches before marker, k2tog, rep from *
Round 2: knit.

Repeat these two rows until there are six stitches between each marker. Switch to double-pointed needles when it gets too tight. Then work decreases every row instead of every other. When there are 2 stitches between each marker, break yarn and thread through all stitches, dropping markers as you do so. Pull tight to draw together stitches.

Weave in ends and block. Sew one pretty large button to center of green band, at a jaunty place on the side of the hat.

Flower:

With double-pointed needles, CO 68 stitches in pink (color B). Join carefully to work in round, being careful to avoid twisting. Work in stockinette (all knit) until work measures 1.5 inches. K2tog across round, break yarn, and thread through all stitches. Pull to draw together, but leave a big enough hole in the middle to fit around your button. Knot yarn to keep from loosening up again, weave in ends and block.

Button flower to hat and enjoy!

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.

What I've been doing instead of grading papers.

Exhibit A:


An unblocked sock. The second in my set of socks for Sarah for Christmas. This one is top-down, eye of partridge heel, very standard-issue -- but not for me, because it is only the second pair of socks I've ever made.

Nicely kitchenered toe.

Hello, world. Hello, sock.

Exhibit B:


The sleeve of my long-neglected fair isle yoke cardigan. This one has been long neglected for two very good -- and one medium good -- reasons. The medium good one is that it has a tiny gauge. The two very good ones are first, that I started knitting it before realizing that I was twisting my purl rows, and since learning this I've become a much faster knitter when doing it correctly, and it's irksome to have to keep knitting this the old (wrong) way; and second, that I made the armholes too big when I was knitting the body, and I didn't know what to do to fix this problem. I didn't want just to rapidly decrease as I started knitting them, because that would make them have a funny shape, and in my opinion the most crucial part of a sleeve is the part where it hits your shoulder -- it can make your arm look either fat or skinny. So I came up with this ingenious scheme, which I think worked awesomely. The pit:

(for some reason, this seems like an obscene angle from which to take a picture). I ascertained that there were about 10 stitches too many in the arms as I picked them up to start knitting down, so I kitchenered together four stitches from each side of the arm, leaving the last extra stitch on each side for selvedge when sewing the arms up. Here's a closer detail shot:

That kitchener stitch is executed very poorly, but it's an armpit, for cripe's sake.

Exhibit C:
A gorgeous chevron beret that is, alas, too small, I fear. This is a mid-blocking shot, and I was only able to squeeze it onto a medium-sized dinner plate -- about an inch in diameter smaller than the one on which I blocked the first chevron beret. I have plenty of Imagination yarn left over, so I can just knit a new one if it is too small, but it's a disappointment nonetheless.


Exhibit D:

The beginnings of a February Lady Sweater for my grandmother. Despite my manifold qualms, I am knitting this in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Yes, it is already beginning to pill, but she is very picky about softness. It may not be evident in this picture, but I decided to make the yoke circular as in the original, and to start the lace pattern early instead of knitting garter to an inch before separating for the arms, because I'm knitting this as a bed jacket for her and I think that the circular, shorter yoke looks more like old-fashioned bed jackets.

Exhibit E:

I reorganized my yarn stash. I was beginning to fear moths, so I packaged it all up neatly in Ikea boxes and zipper bags and put it neatly in the bottom of one of my new bookshelves.

Pretty nice, eh? This project renders relatively obsolete my old system of organization:

I may have gotten a little obsessed in the process of putting everything in zipper bags. Here's my basket of UFOs:

All neatly piled in order of what's next to work on.

Yes, I really, really did not want to grade those papers.

new FO gallery!

I've been having fun with Mosaic Maker. Here are some pictures of my latest work:

Left-right from top left: Knitpicks Imagination chevron beret, front cable of Reynolds Candide Radcliffe Cardigan, two squares from a Noro Kureyon Log Cabin laptop case.

And here are some lovely new pictures of sweaters other people have knit with my patterns!

Left-right from top left: Nonstop Knitter's, Medieval Cactus's, Onoris's, knttygirl's, Koshiba's, Darwin Exception's, redroseknits's, Firstfallen's, and crgilvr's Modified Drops Eyelet Yoke Baby Cardigans (Ravelry names).

Left-right from top left: Manoute's, Ummeyysuf's, Nukka's, Knitterbunny's, Pennyg's, Realrellim's, Garnlinda's, Stressknitters', Bluedodo's, Mootthing's, Archangel's, Jandy's, Knickertwisters', Greendillybeans', Thomasinaknits', and Gotham Mom's Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigans (Ravelry names).

Yay for mosaics!

Projects completed and imagined

After learning that a college friend just had a baby girl, I finally got it together and finished what I'm calling my Faux-bruary Baby Sweater, because I didn't have the pattern and made it up as I went along, therefore not realizing that I was supposed to majorly increase in the armpits for both body and arms. However, I think that the sweater looks pretty much like the original:


Sorry about those dark window sash shadows. I didn't bother putting in buttonholes, and instead used snaps, reinforced on the inside with cheap buttons and concealed on the outside by some vintage buttons I bought last summer at an antique show. To complete the whole vintage-y ensemble, I made a really easy bonnet.


When I say easy, I mean easy. I just did a square of nine repeats of the gull stitch pattern framed by 4 garter stitches on the sides and 4 garter ridges on the bottom, putting an eyelet 2 stitches in from the edges after the first 2 garter ridges and every second lace repeat thereafter. After 4 inches, I did some unnecessarily fancy decreasing in something approximating the lace pattern (but next time I think I'll just switch to garter at that point, then switched to garter and decreased 7 stitches every other row until the thing was like 8 stitches, then ran the yarn through the stitches and knotted it. I wove a ribbon through the eyelets to make a tie. As usual, I have no idea how big a baby's head is, so I eyeballed it -- the kid might be wearing the two parts of this outfit at two totally different times in her life ...


Meanwhile, a shipment from Knitpicks just came in, with four colors of their new "Imagination" sock yarn. I really have enough projects in the hopper already, but I just had to get some of this yarn when I saw that one of the colorways was named Looking Glass! And then, of course, I had to get a few more colorways while I was at it...


From left to right, these are Wicked Stepmother, Seven Dwarves, Frog Prince, and Looking Glass. As usual with Knitpicks, the colors look significantly different in person and on the website. The worst offenders in this instance are Wicked Stepmother and Seven Dwarves, which looked sort of muted and sweet on the computer screen but are in fact quite bright and blaring. The other two look pretty much the same as on the website. In fact, though I was worried that Looking Glass would not actually be a color I'd like, it turns out to be the nicest in the bunch, I think. I'm planning to pair these babies up and make some more chevron berets for Christmas presents, since I so enjoyed making the first one. I'm banking on the mixing of the colors doing wonders for the brightness of the two bright ones -- after my first beret I was surprised how different the yarn looked in the skein and knitted up.

But that will all have to wait until I clear out some of my other unfinished objects...

Ooh la la!

Here's the chevron beret, all blocked and lookin' fine!


Here it is on a fine-lookin' knitter!


Here's some Lady Sweater progress. The bandwagon is a fun place to be!

ahh... summer reading and knitting

The papers are all officially finished, graded, and taken care of! And I've dutifully started in on the reward yarn! (actually, to be totally honest, I may have started in on the reward yarn before I finished that last paper...) I'm happilly knitting away, while listening to The Age of Innocence on CD -- the first installment in the summer Comps-prep reading.


Though a chevron scarf is in the offing, I decided to start with a La Parisienne beret first, so that I could just knit until the yarn was through for the scarf. The two have very similar chevron designs. It's been a bit of a humbling experience for me, since I always think I know a better way to do something; I started out by using my go-to increase instead of the kf&b increase the pattern specified, because I thought it would look nicer. It is true that this kind of increase creates a clean, etched-looking line of stitches that matches very nicely the line created by the double decreases. However, all of that knitting into the row below was basically creating a line of EZ-style fake seams of slipped stitches that were much less vertically stretchy than the increases, and I had to rip out and start over again, following the directions as written.

It's also been a lesson in color theory. I chose these two colors because they looked good together in the skeins; they are pretty much the same value. Knitted up, the fact that they are the same value makes for a somewhat bright color combination, just on the edge of what I'd call garish, and not at all what I was expecting:

I think I like it though (and if not I'll gift it). The yarn I'm using -- Claudia handpainted and Koigu (the Gems sportweight was too big) -- doesn't stand up particularly well to frogging, which leads me to suspect that the finished product will not be very hard-wearing. I'm hoping that a scarf and a hat are not particularly hard-worn items.

The next knitting project in the hopper is to pop this baby on the swift:


That's one of a bag of Reynolds Candide, which I am going to use to knit my mom a Radcliffe Cardigan. It will be fun to follow my own directions like any other knitter, and see where they could be clearer. Candide is totally not the yarn I'd choose for my own sweater -- it's pretty darn scratchy -- but it promises to be very hard-wearing, and my mom is not bothered by itch. It is disappointing when your lovely hand-knit item starts to pill and stretch, as in fact happened to my own prototype Radcliffe (Swish DK? Not such a great yarn for adult sweaters). I am hoping that this Candide one lasts longer.

Hurray! Here's to summer knitting, finally here!

Silence and silent auction knitting

Apologies for the relative blog silence recently. I've been a little overloaded with schoolwork -- totally saturated with saints' lives, relics, manuscripts, and frescoes, not to mention bogged down with research (which I claim to be doing all the time and yet which never really seems to result in much actual material)...

I have been knitting, just a bit. The choir is holding another silent auction this year and I have decided to donate my two sheep sweaters. To sweeten the deal, I've been working on some hats and booties to make them in to sets. I've finished the boy's version:


I thought long and hard about whether to make the hat match the yoke pattern, and finally decided against it, thinking that the repetition of the pattern would take away from its cuteness effect. Also, I was running out of green yarn. I have absolutely no idea how big a baby's head or feet are. The hat strikes me as a little on the small side, and the booties as I was knitting them seemed grotesquely large. Now, placed next to the sweater, they look small. They are cute though:


I used Carole Barenys's pattern for two-needle baby booties, but enlarged it by a few stitches, added some familiar sheep, and knit them in the round. I have avoided taking pictures of their horribly kitchenered soles. I always think that knit baby booties look a little amateurish, a little lumpy and acrylicky, no matter how they are knit. I hope that the sheep offset this factor a little bit.

For the girl's version, I made up my own bootie pattern, which I think worked out rather well, albeit with straps that are noticeably too short. I am trying to figure out how to rectify this problem, and coming to the miserable conclusion that I may have to rip them out. For the time being, I am thinking of trying some elastic loops on the ends of the straps at least to see how long they could possibly be. They are cute, though; here's a blocking shot:

I could not find a knitted slipper pattern that had all the features I wanted (especially stockinette going in the right direction to add my sheep), so I made something up. I used a toe-up sock cast-on (figure 8), then increased the uppers a little more than the soles, then knit them as a tube up until the mary-jane part, at which point I continued them flat and then decreased dramatically for the heel end and kitchenered the backs closed (with an incrementally-improving kitchener stitch). No seaming! They are not perfect -- I need to fiddle with the pattern a little bit before I consider writing it up -- but they will suffice, and the pair took only one evening in front of the TV to complete. I've just cast on for the matching hat -- a tam following EZ's easy instructions. We'll see how that works out.

There's more to show, but the camera ran out of juice: additions to the stash, headway on the fair isle button band, another version of the peach-blossom baby jacket in different colors. Those posts will have to wait for another day, when batteries and time are more plentiful. Another month of both writing my own essays and grading my students', and I am free for the summer, with promises of much less sporadic blog posting!

Happy New Year!

I got a lovely New Years present in the e-mailbox this morning: a picture of my Dante professor wearing the hat I made him! And doesn't it make him look like he's about to find himself in a dark wood, for the straight way is lost?

I am not Aeneas; I am not Paul... I am Bill Stephany!