After the Shawl

I finally finished Drachenfels!* It felt like it took forever to knit. And it kind of did. It was my only project, other than a few log cabin squares for all of April and the first two weeks of May. And now it's sitting in a crumpled ball waiting to be blocked.

The yarn, Cormo Sport by Elemental Affects, is delightful. It's soft but not mushy, makes crisp clear stitches and is springy as all get out. Seriously, I would sometimes get distracted while knitting and find myself just holding a length of it between my hands pulling it out and watching it spring back to shape. Boing, boing, boing. Delightful!

When I finished Drachenfels I couldn't decide what to do next. I need to dye more yarn before I can continue on my log cabin blanket. So, being me, I knit a few hats. I finished another X-ing X's  that I had cast on before going to the movies months ago (Zootopia? Probably.) 

Then I started another hat for a viewing of Captain America: Civil War. A two-toned affair.

Now I'm knitting a plain black, ribbed hat for a co-worker's husband. 

I have to pick out my next project. I'm deciding between the Honeylocust Loop and Waiting for Rain but if history teaches us anything I'll probably end up starting something completely different.

*I see that I never mentioned starting Drachenfels here. I started it. Then I knit it. Now it's done.

Leftovers and Foolproof

I have been knitting and knitting and knitting on my Leftovers Cowl. I'm worried I might run out of sock yarn scraps before it's 54-56" long (my preferred length for a thick cowl). That sound crazy, right? What knitter of my tenure could run out of sock yarn scraps? It's not that I will simply have no more scraps. It's that the scraps I have are all annoyingly the same. You know, I like what I like. I have no shortage of blue-green and green-blue scraps but they don't show off colorwork when knit together. The biggest pops of color in the cowl so far come from leftovers that friends have passed on to me. Friends with entirely different taste in color than mine. It's currently about 30" long. But now I'm setting it aside because tomorrow I head to Madrona!

Colorwork, or any kind of charted knitting, is not great at Madrona. While some knitters really try to display their prowess in the projects--and FOs--they bring, I like to work on something stupidly simple. I'm chatting with friends, I'm on the go, I have to time for charts! So instead I'm bringing Foolproof, by Louise Zass-Bangham. I'm knitting it in two skeins of handspun. One is some Shetland-Merino from Sporfarm that I believe I bought five years ago at Oregon Flock and Fiber and some Ashland Bay Merino-Silk(?) I got as a birthday gift from Jeanne ten(!) years ago.

Maybe this year I'll remember to take a picture or two.

Work Whirlwind

I'm six (straight) days into my new job (Operations Lead at Sephora U Village). I'm a little overloaded right now. Everything is new. I'm learning, learning,  learning every day and moving, moving, moving. The pace is ridiculously brisk. It's like it's the busiest day of the year at my old job, but every day. Currently I'm a little overwhelmed by it all, totally exhausted and really loving it.

I'm also adjusting to a totally new schedule. I have lots to do each day before the store opens so I work each day starting at six or seven in the morning. Last night I planned on going to bed at 9:45 but ended up going to sleep even earlier!

I've barely touched my knitting. I ended up ripping out several rows from my Pebble Beach shawl sometime this past week and am still in negative-knitting territory. I'm headed to Purlygirls tonight and hopefully won't fall asleep while I'm there.

Making a Big Red Sweater

It's been a long time since I showed something that was in progress. I'm still in love with CustomFit and could not wait to start a relaxed fit, long cardigan in some Manos Wool Clasica I bought at my November retreat. Wool Clasica has always been a favorite of mine. That's a skein of it right up there in my blog header. ^^^
 I'm using the Flame colorway which refuses to be accurately photographed.

Thanks and WIPS

Thanks for all the kind feedback on the baby sweater I'm making. I'm going to TNNA and won't be taking it since it's so close to being finished. Maybe next week.

I'm making great progress on Brickless which is just the right amount of easy plus patterning. You don't have to think about it but it doesn't lull you to sleep. I also just cast on for Shalder to take with me on my trip.

Is This the Ugliest Baby Sweater I've Ever Knit?

I've been trying to use up all my little sock scraps for...ever? I had a bag of scraps that were completely not my colors but seemed to work nicely together so I decided to knit a Scrappy Socky Stripey Cardi.

Oof.

I'm a fan of scrappy projects but this is a bit much even for me. That coupled with colors I don't particularly care for and yeah...not great.

I'm just going to forge ahead and finished this sad little dude then try to find someone who likes these colors.

Cleaning My Queue

Over on the Doubleknit podcast group Erin and I are hosting a KAL called Spring Clean Your Queue. The idea originally was to get inspired to knit things that have been in your queue since last year or longer. I have items that date all the way back to 2007. The KAL has morphed into a reassessment of all those patterns sitting there waiting to be knit. I deleted so much I was able to cut my queue down from eight pages to three. The Medusa shawl I just finished came off of there. It was originally queued in June 2011.

Now I'm working on Brickless by Martina Behm. I queued it when it was first released in 2012. Then deleted it. Then put it back in October. I'm using some Hazel Knits Lively DK in Jam Session that I got at one of the trunk shows we've had at the shop. I only recently got it into my Ravelry stash so I don't know which year I bought it. This is a lovely nearly mindless knit that is still interesting enough to keep me from nodding off while I knit.

Testing

A few weeks ago I was given a skein of Dream in Color's new yarn, Jilly, to test. I finally got started with it yesterday. This will be Medusa which has been in my Ravelry queue for a several years. I've been severely editing my queue as part of the Doubleknit Spring Clean Your Queue KAL. It feels really good to wrestle it down to a manageable size. I've shrunk mine from eight pages down to three!

Linney in Progress

Linney is coming along. I just completed the body of the sweater. Two sleeves and an edging and I will have a new, very long, handspun sweater.



It's going to be a bit...er...rustic. That's okay with me though. I imagine this will be a hanging around the house sweater and I think I will get a lot of use from it.

Continue in Rib Until You Lose Your Will to Live

I'm working on Linney. You start by casting on the full circumference of the sweater and knitting in twisted rib (twisting every stitch) for 6.5". I'm getting close to the end of it but it's taken me days.

Sticking to My Knitting

I'm keeping Ravi. Some have suggested ripping it out and starting over. That is not going to happen. I will just not point out the mistake to people or, as some readers suggested, camouflage it with a pin or something. I can't go back!

Also I am definitely doing the Follow Your Arrow along. I already started and plan to be ready for the next clue on Monday.

Remember When I Did All the Knitalongs?

Once upon a time I did all the knitalongs. BRE.* I mean all of them. Sweater KALs, sock KALs, designer KALs, book KALs. Loved them lots. Somewhere in there I lost my passion for them. And I never got into the whole "mystery KAL" concept. I have so many things I know I want to knit why would I spend my time making something I may not even like.

I decided to try a stuffed toy mystery knitalong this fall. I grabbed a skein of Rowan All Seasons Cotton in a blue grey (still trying to use all of this up from 2004!). As I worked on it at my knitting group everyone kept trying to guess what it was. A mouse, they guessed. I would say I don't know and point out that the color choice was my own and not dictated by the pattern. An elephant, they guessed. Again, it's grey because I had some grey yarn. Then we got the big reveal. I was knitting a gingerbread man. A grey gingerbread man. Sigh... He has been stashed away and is waiting to be finished. Someone suggested giving him ears and calling it a mouse. We'll see.

So why would I try another mystery knit? This time it's Ysolda. I've knit a lot of her patterns and don't think there's a bad one in the bunch. I trust her. So I've joined the Follow Your Arrow KAL. I'm using two skeins of Hazel Knits Divine in a Rogue (one of a kind) colorway. This yarn is very, very well-named. It is divine.



Just heavenly to knit with. So soft, such amazing color. I think I'm going to like this KAL.

*Before the Ravelry Era

Noooooooooooooo!

Ugh, guys. Just ugh. I finished the yoke for Ravi, separated the sleeves and have knit a few inches. I tried it on last night and the fit is perfect. It's exactly what I wanted. The openwork hits well above the fullest part of my bust, the underarm length is just right. I was so pleased with myself.

So pleased that I brought it outside this afternoon to photograph. I laid it out. I snapped a picture.



"Huh, what's that?"



That, sadly, is where I worked the wrong line of the openwork pattern. It's right on the front of the sweater. Right at the very beginning. My choices are 1) live with it or 2) rip out the entire sweater and start again. My gut is saying just ignore it and move on. Most people won't notice. Unfortunately I will notice. I'm sad.

The Chaos That Is My Brain

Oh dear. The Ravi Knitalong at the Fiber Gallery wraps up tomorrow afternoon and I'm still working on the yoke of my sweater. Hopefully this will be comforting to customers who worry about finishing on time.



I got distracted. I started BonBons to use up one of my many oddballs of fingering weight yarn. When I was searching for a pattern I also saw Ghislaine and remembered that I had cast on for a pair in a skein of handspun months ago and never even completed the first round of knitting. So I started knitting that. But then I had to work on Ravi...but my BonBons just need thumbs...but those Ghislaine are so easy to knit...Chaos!

Sock Yarn Scrap Stashdown

I'm not one for resolutions. They always seem like a setup for failure. But this year I would like to focus on reducing my sock yarn stash. There was a time that I would knit at least one pair of socks every month. I always had a pair on the needles. But I hardly ever knit socks anymore--though I should, my sock drawer is nearly empty. One area of the my sock stash that is completely out of control are my scraps. I just did a quick sweep and gathered up nearly three pounds of fingering-weight leftovers. Some are tiny little bits of only a few grams and some are a good chunk of a 100 gram skein. I grabbed a ball last night and cast on for BonBons. I've had this pattern in my queue since 2009. I'm using some Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors II that I bought at the second Sock Summit.

 

I've also been compiling a group of favorites to give me some stashbusting ideas for fingering-weight yarn.

What do you do with your sock yarn scraps?

FO and WIP Roundup

I had a pile of FOs waiting to be photographed for ages. I finally pulled out the camera and, in typical Seattle fashion, the sky turned completely black. Here's the best I could do.

This is a hat knit from some of my first hand-dyed fiber. I think it's Coopworth. The pattern (loosely followed and not easily visible here) is Bobcap.



Here is one of my helix-stripe hats knit in bulky artyarn I spun in a class with Jacey Boggs several years ago at Madrona.



I knit this hat with some leftovers from my latest Retro Prep sweater knit in Dale Falk. The sweater still needs blocking and has some ends to weave in.



This cowl is called Solstice. It's by Janel Laidman. I got it as a kit with a skein of Lorna's Laces Sportmate a few years ago at TNNA. It's coming out, I recently noticed, impossibly small. Hmm...



I started a cowl that is simple enough to knit while walking with some Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Chunky. The pattern, Columbia Cowl, is by Cirilia Rose. It's free on Ravelry.



I am making some good progress on my Rorschach that I started by in August. Though there are still miles of garter stitch to go.

Sheesh

Every day I think I'll do a blog post. And then I don't.
 

There's quite a bit of knitting going on here. This heap is a Retro Prep I started back in April. I did a crocheted steek on it. When I was picking up the stitches for the bands I noticed one stitch that looked a little dodgy, like I hadn't quite caught it in the steek. I set it aside to run under the sewing machine. And it sat for weeks. Last week I finished the bands and when I tried it on I felt the collar was too wide and floppy. I set it down. Another week passed. Finally at knitting last night I completed the bind off with enough decreases along the back of the neck that I think it sits right. It needs a bath and a good blocking.

I knit that crumpled hat with some of the leftovers. I still have enough for another hat. That also needs a good blocking.

At the bottom of the pile is my Seamless Hybrid in O-Wool Balance. I completely ripped out the entire sweater back in July then reknit it. I need to machine stitch the steek since there's cotton in the yarn. I'm also teaching a mini class on steeking at the Seattle Knitters Guild next month. So I'm going to stitch it but won't cut it until I show it to my students.

In other sweater ripping news, I started a Rorschach sweater, also by Elizabeth Zimmermann, on a road trip to Oregon. I cast on on Thursday morning and on Sunday afternoon I realized I had reversed my set-up row and had increased stitches on the wrong side of my sweater on the eleventh row. I ripped it back and began again.

This is it before I realized my mistake.

I'm still doing lots and lots of walking and spending lots of time at the zoo. The otter pups have been out a few times and they are adorable! And a giraffe was born two weeks ago. He's got a webcam.

That Was The Sweater That Was*

The sweater that went all wrong has been ripped out and restarted. The good news is that I do think I'll have enough yarn. The bad news is that I had to rip the entire thing. I have a good chunk of a new sleeve done and have measured and checked gauge more carefully this time.

*I never saw the show but my dad used to reference it frequently when I was growing up.

The State of Things

I had a massive photo session with my knitting bag so I can finally get my projects up to date. In no particular order this is where my projects stand.

1. Retro Prep. I've been working on this for a month. I finished the entire sweater and had the steeek prepared to cut when I decided that the bottom ribbing as written in the pattern was just not deep enough. I unpicked the bottom of the crochet I used for the steek and cut a stitch above the ribbing and unpicked a round and got everything back on the needles. I reworked the crochet at the bottom of the steek. I've now set this aside so I can cut my steek at Purlygirls on Monday since a few people expressed interest in seeing it done.
2. Little green tube that became a baby vest. This little guy has been sitting around for ages waiting to have its steeks tidied up and a button added.
3. Zombie Vixen. Started these a while back and stopped after the first few rows of the pattern because there are no charts. I haven't decided if I want to go to the trouble of charting them out myself and I definitely don't want to move ahead on the project without charts.
4. Bulky Skullcap with Big Button. I crocheted this in under an hour last night with a leftover ball of handspun. I just need to weave in the ends and find a button for it.
5. Little woven squares. I bought a Zoom Loom (small pin loom from Schacht that we carry at the shop) a few weeks ago. It's really addictive. I've been weaving all my little bits of handspun that are too small to knit anything with into these little squares. I have no idea what I'll do with them all. Probably sew them into a blanket or a bag or...something.
6. Mariam's Bootees. Another handspun project. I finished these booties just a few minutes ago using every last bit of a ball of handspun from 2006. I just need to sew up the bottoms and weave in the ends.
7. Squish hat. This is a plain hat knit in a sample hand-dyed fingering yarn from a defunct company. It's been my movie knitting. 
8. Happypotamus. I started crocheting this guy at the Purlygirls retreat in the beginning of May and haven't touched it since.  Putting the pieces together is a bit fiddly and stresses me out but the results are really cute.

So that's the state of things right now. I should hopefully have a bunch of these finished in the next few days.

The Possibilities of a Tube

A few weeks ago I was about to head to the movies with Older Son to see Silver Linings Playbook (believe the hype, it's really good). I like to knit at the movies. It keeps me from fidgeting and from biting my nails. However I can only knit stockinette in the dark. My true preference is stockinette in the round. I usually cast on for a charity hat before a movie and knit the ribbing earlier in the day then knit the plain stockinette at the show. But on this day I didn't have time to knit an edging so I just did a provisional cast on in this 100% alpaca. I thought I'd knit the hat then put the edging on later. Alpaca is one of my favorite fibers but it's really not great for hats. It's slack, has no memory and gets kind of slithery as headgear. Then I thought I'd make a cowl. And lastly I decided to make a baby vest.



Here's my tube with a (barely visible) provisional cast on along the bottom edge and three "kangaroo pouches" started. Two are the armholes and one is for the neckline. A kangaroo pouch is an Elizabeth Zimmermann technique for placing a steek in the middle of your work. You slip stitches onto waste yarn then cast on steek stitches (you can use backward loop, it doesn't have to be pretty) over those stitches and continue knitting. I'll continue decreasing along these lines to shape the armhole and the neckline and once I've joined the shoulders I can cut the steeks and finish those edges.

I'm really happy I chose to do this since I can just play with my knitting. There's no pattern to follow. I decide what the openings should be like. Frankly, I'm not very experienced using these techniques to create shaping so it's a bit of an experiment. But in the end if I'm not 100% in love with the result it will still keep a baby warm so there's no harm in exploring.