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?

Baby Gift

Here is the completed Baby Aran sweater all ready for the recipient with a few other goodies for the babe. The pattern is the Aran Pullover from Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas. The yarn is Mission Falls 1824 Wool. I used pink shell buttons for the shoulders from JoAnn. The shoes are Robeez-so cute!-purchased at Patina. The soft lamb is from Pottery Barn. The sweater will probably fit the little darling next fall.

Perfect Weekend for Fetching

After a week-plus of extremely cold weather (highs around 10 degrees fahrenheit), this weekend we finally had a bit of a warm-up, 20 on Saturday, 39 on Sunday- nice! It worked out perfectly because I finished my Fetching wristwarmers on Friday and was able to wear them all weekend. I really loved this project- it was fun and quick and the resulting garment is lovely. They were perfect for ice skating this weekend and will be great for watching soccer games on cool fall days. Oh, and I knit these without a cable needle, my first time with that particular technique. Once I got into the rhythm of it, it went pretty quickly.

The yarn is already looking a bit worse for wear, however, and they feel pretty stretched out. I think if I were to make these again, I might go down a needle size to a 5. I'll try throwing them in the washer to see if that helps. Both J and the little guy really liked these and have asked for a pair of their own (all black for J, red and black striped for the child, both without the cables).

Meanwhile, I finally got started on the Urban Aran Cardigan for J with the Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky. I changed the original Patons pattern to a cardigan, and have altered the pattern so that rather than the back and fronts being knit separately and seamed together, I'm knitting the fronts and back all at once on one long circular needle. It took some time to reconfigure the pattern, but I know that I'll be happy when I don't have to sew those long seams down the sides. It was a bit daunting to have 234 stitches on the needle and carefully setting up the pattern, but once that was done, things were going along pretty easily. Although its a men's sweater (translation- lots of knitting), I'm hoping it will go quickly due to the chunkiness of the yarn and the relatively large needle size.

The Opinionated Knitter

I had been curious about Elizabeth Zimmermann since reading about her on several other blogs and knitting sites, but had never actually had my hands on one of her books. I was finally able to get The Opinionated Knitter through my library at work- and wow! Her writing style is funny, informal, welcoming, and warm and the way she discusses gauge, patterns, sizing, etc. is incredibly intriguing. I'm not sure when I'll get to using one of her methods, but I'd really like to, and I can definitely see how you could take her concepts and then just go with it to work up a unique creation of one's own. This might be a good way for me to work on becoming a fearless knitter. She really is an inspiration. I can see why Zimmermania exists!

Quick project- so Fetching!

So yesterday the massive quantity of yarn that I bought for J's Urban Aran Cardigan arrived from Herrschner's. Unfortunately the Patons Shetland Chunky in Oxford Gray has quite the shine to it. I really don't think he would dig a shiny sweater, so I'm packing it all back up and shipping it back. Instead I ordered some Highland Peruvian Chunky from Elann. Last I checked they had very low supplies and hardly any colors available, but it looks like their stock was upped and so I was able to order 24(!) skeins of Light Gray Heather. I'm hoping that will be a better fit for the project. This is the yarn (in a different color) that Brooklyn Tweed used for his gorgeous version, so I'm feeling optimistic.

In the meantime I wanted something quick I could work on until the new yarn arrives, plus I was going to book club and wanted something to work on while we discussed. I had some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in my stash in a nice blue green. I popped on to Ravelry (love that site!) to look for patterns using that yarn and I happily found that Fetching, which was in my queue anyway, uses it- happy happenstance! I've been wanting some fingerless gloves to wear at home while knitting, working on the computer, etc. These look fun to knit.
Speaking of book club, our discussion was on Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan- a fascinating look at our food production systems, organic, industrial, local, imported, etc. I definitely looked at things and shopped differently when I did my supermarket shopping this weekend. For example, visit the Cedar Summit Farms website to read why its not only organic that's important, but also why its important to buy dairy from ruminants (cows) that eat grass- not corn! Plus Cedar Summit is local to Minnesota, so their food doesn't need to be shipped cross country using up valuable energy. Read Pollan's twelve commandments for serious eaters to get a sense of where he's coming from. Definitely food for thought!

Too small!

I finished the baby socks. Alas, he's busting out of them already.

Boy's Baby Socks

After making these socks for my niece, I thought it would be a fun (and quick) project to knit up some baby ones for my littlest guy (5 months) in a similar yarn. I've finished one sock and I need to try and hurry up and finish the other before the yarn arrives in the mail for J's manly cardigan. I like these socks but the only socks I've made are pretty basic, ribbed all the way down the top of the foot with varigated sock yarn. This time I tried to incorporate an eyelet row in order add a tie at the ankle, since baby socks frequently fall off. Unfortunately I had alot of difficulty with this and had to frog quite a few rows. I did wind up with some mistakes in this sock, but I'm chalking it up to a learning experience! I also tried kitchener for the first time. It was a learning experience, let's leave it at that.

After these I think I'd like to try a different sock pattern, especially in the baby size since they knit up so quick. Anny Purls had some really cute ones on her blog as part of the baby sock advent calendar project.

This weekend the high temp is 5 degrees so I think we'll pretty much stay huddled inside. Its a good chance to get some knitting done, and maybe try to work on some needle organization (which clearly needs to be done).

Knitting Gifts

One of my Christmas gifts was a Boye Needlemaster, which I am very excited about (thanks Vivien!). I love the idea of having one set of interchangeable circular needles, rather than the incredibly messy jumble of all different sizes currently in my incredibly disorganized needle box. So far I've liked using the Needlemaster. I knit this boy's hat with it and had no problems at all with the cord being too stiff. The needles do tend to unscrew after knitting with it for a while, but I just got into the habit of tightening it every so often and that seemed to be a good, not too inconvenient, solution. Next on the to do list: organize the knitting supplies!


Another fun gift: last night hubby surprised me with this mug. Cool- just need to keep out away from the youngster's inquisitive eyes!