Looking Ahead

So, I (finally) recounted what I did in 2009 with the needles, now I need to look ahead to what I plan to knit in 2010.

• Finish two pairs of socks in hibernation.


• Hats for the local hospital nursery


• Start a Hemloch Ring blanket with my grandmother's yarn (don't feel like I have to finish it this year)


• Christmas stockings for my Little Man


• Crazy Monkeys socks to learn Eye of Partridge heel that my SIL raves about


• Best Friend Cardigan for me


• Pomatomus Socks


• New hats for the kiddos for next winter: Who? for Pumpkin and a striped hat for the Little Man

That seems enough to be getting on with for now. I have already completed one of the socks I started last year, even:

The pattern is Die Zaubersocken and the yarn is On Your Toes by Kertzer. Loved, loved, loved this yarn. It was smooth and shmooshy and shiny and this pattern, with lots of stockinette, showed it off so well. I got exactly what I wanted by a yarn and pattern pairing. :) I do, however, need to get a better grasp of sizing... I always push on a little too long before I get started on the heel, underestimating how much length the heel will add. The picture shows a bit of scrunching up from my socks being a bit too long. I will hopefully learn!

smokin'!

Things have been busy in Knitting Land.

I finally got a picture of the Noro wristwarmers I made for my mom:

Aren't they pretty? She loves purple and I think this colorway was perfect for this. I used two skeins to get the stripes to match... but now I have tons of leftover Noro. Maybe she'll get a matching hat someday.

And I had two matching pumpkin hats for the trip to the pumpkin patch today! Have you ever seen anything so cute?

OK, maybe this will compete (especially when big sister's hat is one and we have a matching set of these, too):

I am going to WIN at Christmas card cute this year. Oh yeah.

After a not-so-brief delay...

I've been a bad blogger, haven't I? Well, I suppose I have a (very cute) excuse. But I have been getting back into my knitting because it's finally started to cool down here (at least on some days--the rainy ones) and I'm starting to envision my little man's noggin covered in handknits. *grin* My copy of Itty Bitty Hats will be smoking!

But he hasn't gone without any handknits:

"Polar Bear Hat" made from the "Bunny Tail" hat in Itty Bitty Hats with shortened ears. Made from a bunch of Baby Bee Pitter Patter that I'd bought ages ago and then didn't use for the original project. I also made a cute little bunny--and it is very little. Palm-of-your-hand little. It's a clever little pattern that has you knitting a square then folding it up to create the little bunny shape.











And he has a sweater that might still fit him once it's cold enough to wear it... It has little bear buttons so it goes with the hat (which is already too small for him, so he'll never wear them at the same time. ) Bunny and sweater also made out of Pitter Patter. And I still have plenty left... I hate the yarn. It has to be knit on size 2 or 3 to get a good dense fabric (but it calls for something more like size 8 or 10.) It also leaves fuzz all over the place.






And I have finally finished up the Samantha sweater just in time for my daughter to outgrow it!
I love the cotton yarn I used, but it made for a very heavy garment. But the detail along the button placket came out so nice. I shortened the sleeves a bit so that as she grows, it won't look like the sleeves are too short, it will look like they're meant to be whatever length they are on her. I just hope she can still wear it. Being on bedrest and having a new baby threw a big kink in all my knitting plans. But I still love this and hope it will be an heirloom. I'm proud of making such an ambitious project and I have high hopes that I will be able to make sweaters for myself.
But for now, I think I will stick to hats for the kids because that was so much work for something that won't hget worn much, if at all.


I've also knit:
a football hat for a friend's baby
A pair of socks
re-did the shoulder on the Anouk dress from a long time ago. Now it looks nice (again, just in time for my daughter to not be able to wear it...)
and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head.


Now, hopefully I can get my act together and knit some things for this fall/winter!

Pink Parade!

I went a little crazy with the pink this Christmas season and decided to shower my little girl with pink knitted things:

First the Upside-Down Daisy hat from Susan B. Anderson Itty-Bitty Hats. It's a very popular pattern and I can see why! The knitting was easy but I didn't enjoy all the sewing on of the petals. Oh well, I cannot wait to see it my little pumpkin's head. So cute! And it's all wrapped up and under the tree. Shhh!

Then I decided that she'd have fun with a little scarf and I had just enough Baby Britches yarn to make a hat and scarf set. I figured, hey, it's cheap yarn, she can wear it on the playground and I won't stress out about it, whatever. But it ended up being one of the cutest things I've made yet, I think! The little white pom just slays me. (I didn't have enough of the pink yarn for the fringe, so I decided to use a white accent color. I think it was a great choice.) Once I wash it, it will be under the tree too!

And though it won't be in time for Christmas, but I'm getting some good work done on the Samantha Sweater by Kate Gilbert. It's a precious little things and I hope I can finish it before the pumpkin outgrows it. ;) These pics are from the back, which I recently finished. It's my very first sweater project and I'm nervous about doing seaming and hemming which will be new skills for me. But as the Yarn Harlot says, it's just knitting and there's none of it I can't do. OK!

Are You Sleeping?

Needless to say, I haven't updated in ages... I hit something of a Knitter's Block for a good while there. It all started with a friend's suggestion to read the Twilight books and I got so sucked into them that I left my knitting aside completely while I plowed through those blasted books. :) That really resurrected my love of reading and I've been trying to figure out how to read and knit at the same time. (Solution: I found a lovely little book holder that I used to use in grad school to hold open a book and keep my hands free to knit. I prop the book on a squishy pillow so I don't strain my neck. Voila!)


I've also decided that knitting with a deadline is Not Cool. In pushing myself to get four pairs of socks done in time for Christmas, I drained my enjoyment right out of those projects. Solution: start spending more time on the couch at the yarn store while The Pumpkin is at preschool (the environment is so inspiring!) and change out one sock project for something completely different because I am tired of socks for now. (I'm sure it's just a phase) I have succeeded in finally getting three pairs of socks ready for Santa to drop under the tree:

and MIL is going to get some cute little snowmen ornaments and her socks will just have to wait.

OK, so maybe I have been productive!

busy, busy!

I'm taking a class at my LYS about doing two socks at a time, toe-up. It's actually a very simple idea, doing two at a time: just use a longer cable (magic loop) and work from two balls of yarn. No prob. I've never done toe up before, so that's really where I'm learning. Our instructor taught us Turkish cast on which is crazy simple: just wrap the yarn around your needles then start knitting the wraps as if they were stitches! It's like I'm just flinging myself straight into a sock!

Here's the socks I've started:

I received a review on one of the baby hats I made this year. I unfortunately couldn't make the shower, but I sent the gift along with someone else and I hear it was a big hit!

I bet that the mommy-to-be would love the colors. I just wish I'd placed those darn stripes lower.

5 stars!

Well, I now have a review on the socks.

"Squishy."

OK! He said they are thicker than his usual socks (yeah) and that they have a little more squish to them, which is comfortable. Maybe I have a convert? He also said they were rather warm. And he was a good boy and showed them off at work. And Pumpkin has enjoyed running around the bedroom with "daddy's socks." All in all, a success.

More footwear, this time in the Baby Parade of 2008:
Cute, CUTE, CUUUTE little Saartjes for my friend's little boy due in September. I don't really enjoy knitting booties, I've decided. But the cuteness of these makes it worthwhile. It's the buttons.

The pattern was a little wonky at times, but once I finally was able to project the finished bootie in my head, I was able to figure it out. I had to knit a little on blind faith until then. I was going to do this set over again for another friend, but I don't think I have quite enough yarn for both hat and booties. That's OK, though, because this way each of my friends can get something different for their bambinos-to-be, which oddly enough, equalizes things.

Accio socks!

"Honey, what are you knitting?"

"[blah blah, whatever I'm knitting now]"

"You haven't knitted anything for me!"

[in my head:] "But what in the world would you actually wear that I could reasonably knit?"

Well, now I have! DH's socks are done and have turned out quite well. I have yet to receive an official report on how well they wear (because he hasn't had the chance to wear them yet) but they do fit him well. *phew!* And such a nice picture, to boot. He seems to like them. If he enjoys wearing them at all, I might even consider it a yearly anniversary tradition to make him a pair of socks. At any rate, he seems satisfied that I finally made something for him.

The yarn almost ran out on me. I need to figure this out. Poking around on Ravelry, I didn't see anyone else having trouble with this using this yarn. Why is this happening to me? Am I knitting at an impossible gauge? Is it because it's men's socks?

Well, in the future I need to do toe-up, two-at-a-time to avoid disaster. Good thing my LYS is planning some classes on this soon. That way, if I do run out, the ankle is a little shorter, but they're still socks. One toe-less sock would have just been silly.

Come back, Jack

OK, coming back to my blog after a while I actually realized how long it's been since I updated and... how long it's been since I started Anouk! Well, Anouk is done with the exception of adding a snap to secure the shoulder. Bonus picture on the blog of Pumpkin showing off her dress!

I did lots and lots of math to make this thing work, given the re-formulation of the yarn. On my gauge swatch, the yarn knit up smaller, so I calculated how many more stitches I needed to get the size in inches that the pattern wanted. I added that many stitches throughout the pattern then doubled all the instructions since I knit one piece in the round, not two pieces flat.
I widened the shoulder strap, as per another Raveler's recommendation, but then didn't think to add another buttonhole. So one button isn't really cutting it, hence the need for a snap.

Pumpkin seems to enjoy the dress, but she does tug at it a lot, which stresses me out. Please don't stretch out mommy's work! On the plus side, she has now learned the word 'dress.'

It was a bit mind-bending to make this dress work, which is why it took so long. I also have whipped out one of the many baby hats I'm going to need for the year and I'm just getting warmed up! So far, I'm not behind at all. The babies being born next month have knitted things ready for them, and the next babies are due in August. For now I'm going to concentrate on DH's socks, then return to baby hats and hopefully knock those out quickly so I can get a start on Christmas knitting. Which is pretty much all socks. Accio socks!!!

No Sheep For You!

I checked out No Sheep For You at the library last week and have pored over it. It is so amazingly informative about all the nonwool options out there and has patterns that capitalize on the properties of nonwool yarns. I am particularly interested in Eileen, Tomato, and the Drunken Argyle sweater (knit out of sock yarn!), because I just love argyle. (I really need to learn some intarsia one of these days so I can actually knit some...) I so want this book next Christmas!

Skinny scarf is all done. It is a freakish 5 feet long. I had no idea it was so long, all scrunched up on the circulars, OMG. It was a pretty stitch pattern and cotton yarn worked well, except the bind off was a little sloppy, I think. I'd like to wash it to see if it will lay flatter, but I'm afraid the navy yarn is going to bleed.

I just finished a class on Tunisian crochet, which I find much easier than regular crochet. I will be making the Stashbuster blanket using the technique. It was a more rustic, hand-made look to it than I normally like, but what a godsend project to use up (most of) the bucket of yarn I got from my mom & grandmother. It's really clever.

I'm Calmer, now.

It's done! I'm so proud. It's sort of my first design: it was based on another hat pattern I found and I made (many, many) adjustments to the number of stitches because my gauge using Rowan Calmer was so different. And I came up with the idea for the i-cord bow. So here's the result!

It has a double-rib brim for lots of stretch and the ribbing is extra long so it can fold to accomodate a growing noggin. And the bow is girly, so hopefully I can field fewer comments about my "sweet little boy." I hope The Pumpkin will get lots of wear out of it.

I'm a rock star!

Running with stockings

Pattern: Twirl Top Stockings at Knit Picks (The pattern seems to have been taken down)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky # 17018
& Yarn Bee Highland Thistle # 201

I finished the last of my three stocking set! DH, Pumpkin, and I all have stockings based on Knit Pick's Twirl Top Stocking pattern. I used different yarns for them than the pattern called for, however, and I think it turned out just fine. Well, I'm almost done... I still have to make the loops. Once I do, though, and I buy stocking holders, I will hang them on the mantle with care and take a festive little pic.


I loooved working with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky on this project. Is her name really Bliss? Because that yarn is bliss! The cheapo Highland Thistle I paired with the cashmerino was quite trashy by comparison. But it suited my needs. It was hard once I got to the cuff to keep working becasue I wanted to get my hands back on a nicer yarn. And get this--that silly Highland Thistle had a knot in it, and when I untied it, well, you can guess: my yarn wasn't actually one continuous yarn, so I had to treat it like I was adding a new ball of yarn. I'm quite insulted at that, actually!

Now, on to a baby hat!