Finished Ski Beanie!

Here is the finished ski beanie for J. A little tall, next one I'd start decreasing at about 5", instead of 5 3/4. I really like this pattern though. I'll make one for myself in some bright yarn from the stash. Good for bad hair days!

Another Small Diversion- Ski Beanie

Hmmm....will I ever finish the cardigan? I've been diverted once again by another small project. This time its the Ski Beanie by Terra Jamieson from Debbie Stoller's Son of a Stitch N Bitch. My friend Andrea was knitting this for her husband at book group and I really liked the way it looked. J didn't like the colors available at my LYS of the yarn called for in the pattern- Rowan Classic Cashsoft- he really wanted something with black and a very dark green. We settled on Lana Grossa Cool Wool Merino 2000. Its much finer, however, so I'm knitting it up on size 6 needles, with size 5s for the ribbed brim. I'm really digging the garter rib. It should be a nice soft, stretchy, form fitting hat when its finished.

Last night I went to craft cirlce and brought the hat to work on. Honestly, I thought I'd finish it be be able to present it-ta dah!- when I got home. Unfortunately, when I started the decreases for the crown I got a bit distracted and did one row where I just knit knit knit, and forgot to purl. As is typical of me, I just thought I'd go on and he probably wouldn't notice the mistake. I finished the hat, tried it on, and my sister was like: What's that wierd line running around the top? Argh! Since one of my new knitting resolutions is to knit without mistakes, rather than my lazy, sloppy way, I decided to frog out the top and redo. I know both he and I will be happier with the result.

In an effort to see the positive, despite the error the hat looked good and fit great, plus I got some really necessary seaming practice. On another note, at craft circle, Kirsten was making a mini version of Fetching for her 3 year old, and Sarah was crocheting a headband from a pattern in Knit Scene. Cute!

Snuggly Lion & Mr. Pepperman

I finished J's wristwarmers (based on Fetching but without the cables). He likes them. I've decided however, that I do not like knitting with black yarn. I could hardly see what I was doing due to the lack of depth and shadow on the yarn. Here he is wearing the gloves and snuggling with a cute crocheted lion given to "M" by a work colleague.

Not a knitting project, but a food craft- my brother-in-law made Mr. Pepperman here for dinner. Yum!

Trying the Jaywalkers

I decided it would be nice to have a small project to keep at work for knitting on over lunch, especially since I've started going to a lunchtime knitting group on Thursdays. The cardigan is just getting too big to tote around (this is a good thing!). I did bring it to book club this week, but I sort of felt like I was hauling out an afghan. (By the way, everyone loved The History of Love by Nicole Krauss-highly recommended). Anyhoo, I decided to cast on the much loved Jaywalker socks by Grumperina using some Knitpicks Essentials I had in the stash. I had been having some concerns about my cast on method for a while- it always looked pretty sloppy. Before I started these socks I decided to utilize Ravelry (love that site!) and see if I could get some help. I asked on the techniques forum if anyone could help me out, and Rox was smart enough to suggest I take another look at the long-tail cast on video on Knitting Help (love that site too!). I did and realized I was doing a funny little stitch twisting thing as I was casting on. Problem solved and I can already see a marked improvement!

Next up for book group: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Kid's Wristwarmers

I took a little break from J's cardigan this weekend to work on a couple of smaller projects. I made a pair of fingerless gloves/wristwarmers for the 5-year old. He loves them! I used some inexpensive Lion Brand and Bernat yarns in bright red and blue stripes. He's been wearing them pretty much nonstop since I finished. Actually, see how one looks wider than the other? That's because after I finished the first one he wore it and played like crazy, stretching it out a bit. I can tell these will get alot of wear. This is a pattern I worked up very loosely based on the structure of the Fetching wristwarmers. I just cast on 30 stitches, did a k4 p1 rib until the spot where I wanted the thumb, and made the thumb 4 stitches instead of the 7 indicated in the adult size. I also finished one of the adult size black ones for J, and hope to complete the 2nd one in the next couple of days.

The Art of Knitting

A post was sent to the Knitlist regarding a pair of mittens in the National Museum of American History knitted with a poem inscribed. They're quite beautiful. The poem reads:

One thing you must not borrow nor never give away
For he who borrows trouble will have it every day

But if you have a plenty and more then you can bear

It will not lighten yours

if others have a share

You must learn to be contented then will your trouble cease

And then you may be certain that you will live in peace

For a contented mind is a continual feast.


One of my favorite parts of Interweave Knits is the focus on knitting in history or art. There's a lovely painting by Bouguereau depicting a girl knitting. He's not my favorite artist, a bit too saccharine, but this is a nice image.

Booties!

Check out these booties that my Mom made for little "M". The pattern is from Easy Knitted Socks by Jeanette Trotman . They're a little big at the moment, but he enjoys pulling them off his feet, having us put them back on, pulling them off, having us put them back on, etc. etc. I also wanted to share that I finished The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which is my book club's pick this month. I highly recommend it!

Progress!

This weekend I had some good, solid knitting time and was able to make some recognizable progress on the cardigan for J. The 5-year old had friends over on Saturday afternoon, and I was able to work on it for quite a while throughout the day. I got to the point where I could knit without looking at the pattern, which was great, and actually saved me from lots of mindless mistakes (i.e. blindly following the wrong row of the pattern). I'm just about done with the side cables (known as pattern panels B & C), which will be a good milestone in my progress. From there on in, its just Pattern Panel A up to the arm decreases- onward!

We also stayed home and watched La Vie en Rose starring Marion Cotillard as French singer Edith Piaf. The movie was great, albeit, tragic. Plus Edith Piaf was a knitter, so it was the perfect movie to watch while working with wool (although she did get terrible arthritis, so that's not so great). This is a photo of her knitting in the hospital after stomach surgery. There is even a yarn with a colorway named for her.

Wearing the I Do Shrug

Since I took a looooong break from blogging and my last posts before the hiatus were in May, 2006 (yikes!), and were dedicated to my work on the I Do Shrug from Knitty, I thought I would pull out something from the past- (thanks for the inspiration Lolly) and actually go ahead and post the finished photo of the shrug, since I did in fact actually finish it. Voila! I didn't wear it to get married, but I did wear it to a wedding. Although you can't see the detail that well in this photo, I like the way it looks worn over the strapless dress. This was knit in Tahki Cotton classic in light plum.

PS: I'm posting about old stuff in part because I'm continuing work on the Urban Aran Cardigan. Hopefully I'll be able to post new photos at the end of the weekend, and show some real progress!

Scandinavian Mittens

I never really had much desire to knit traditional Scandinavian mittens. I'm more of a polartec fleece glove kind of gal- much more practical when you have to venture outside in 5 below zero temps, (carrying 2 little boys' backpacks, an infant in a car seat, a work bag, lunch, a knitting back, etc.) scrape the snow and ice off the car, and buckle the kids into their seats, not to mention trying to get little ice skates on (and off of) little feet in the freezing cold. All that being said, however, ravelry has really inspired me- seeing work by Hello Yarn, Saartje, and others-has made me want to cast on some of these puppies. I checked out Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila McGregor from my local library for some more inspiration. Check out this wonderful Flickr pool of Norwegian Mittens (and gloves, and socks, and...)

Knitted Hand-Me Downs

Little M is now big enough to wear the hat I made for E a few years ago. This was a great pattern (just something I made up as I went- a very basic ribbed cap), very stretchy to fit a wide range of heads, and making several for various little tots used up a bunch of miscellaneous skein ends.

Men's Wristwarmers

I made some good progress on the Urban Aran Cardigan this weekend. I just hope it will be large enough! One place I really enjoy knitting is at the skating rink where E takes skating lessons on Saturday mornings. Its a nice way to pass the time while watching him slip and slide his way around the ice. The sweater is a bit too big to bring with- I like small, portable projects for this kind of knitting. I was able to make a little bit of progress on the men's wristwarmers for J this way. Its ok because since it looks like this outside today, I think he needs regular "full finger" gloves for a while longer.

Made with Love (or I should have swatched!)

I'm absolutely sure that I am by far not the first person to blog about the importance of the gauge swatch. Be that as it may, this post will be about....ta dah! The Importance of the Gauge Swatch (notice the capital letters). I started the Urban Aran Cardigan for J with a couple of faulty assumptions.

Assumption #1: Since the pattern was written for a woman, I should automatically make the largest size since I was knitting it for a man.

Assumption #2: Since I read about making this sweater with Elann Highland Peruvian Chunky, using needle sizes 10 & 10.5, I could go ahead with that and assume it would work.

Not!
First of all, I now realize that the XL women's size shall we say "chestal" measurements may be significantly larger than an average size man's. Second of all, just because someone else uses a particular needle size does not mean it will work for me (or that said person did not make other non-obvious alterations.)

I knit about 3 inches of the pattern, which actually took quite a while since I did some major pattern reconfiguring when I thought I probably should do a measurement. Hmmm, I don't think the intended recipient is 56 inches around- more like 40". I suggested to him that we could just shrink the sweater (everyone likes cozy felted sweaters, right?), but he didn't go for it.

I got out the smaller needles, swatched, and ripped the whole thing out. Square one here I come! (This photo is from the new, hopefully correctly sized, attempt). Isn't it cute how it made a little heart when I laid it out to photograph?