Last of the Holiday Knitting

The blocking rectangle is a neckwarmer/scarf.

It got five of those little brown buttons to go along with the 5 buttonholes along the end that you can't see.  The recipient loved it.  The yarn is a particulary soft merino given to me by Terri Minkin. 

The blue hat and mittens were for a little boy named Ethan.  They are all the same yarns--a wool aran weight stranded with some acrylic dk--except that the hat has some floofy yarn stranded along. I can't remember what it is.  I had given him an earflap hat 2 years ago and last year his mom asked me for another one because it covered his neck well.  It only took a year.  I hope he managed to keep warm last winter. 

The remanining knitting is OPK which falls into the category of holiday knitting. OPK stands for Other People (who don't have blog)'s Knitting.

  Laura made me the red clogs. They are the famous Fiber Trends' felted clogs pattern. She sent them to me to felt to my own size. I did this with her a few years ago. As you can surmise, the first picture is pre-felting. The second picture is after one run-through with a load of laundry. I was happy with the high amount of shrinkage on the first try.  I'll keep putting them through until they are ready to wear.

 This whale flap hat was made by Sue.  Now that's good knitting.  Even though I'm modeling it (because I like to try on hats), it is for Sue's sister, Laura (lousy with Lauras lately).  The earflap is lined with supersoft polar fleece.  Aaaaah.

Knitwear in Action

Chambered Nautilus Hat and an unblogged shorty scarf, Lola (non-knitter) and Lynne in Madison on the 19th. 

Various

Pattern below:  Norwegian Fisherman's Mittens by Eva Skulbru Eriksen. In the wash right now.  Will either go to the VA holiday party or Occupy Milwaukee if they come out man-size.  If not, we'll see then. Kureyon, 2 balls, with various small windings left over.  I followed the advice of another Raveler and made the thumb both narrower and shorter.  Otherwise, as per the pattern except that I made one cuff-up and the second top-down in order to make sure the fingertips would match. The ruler is about 6 inches (15 cm).

Terri Minkin, America's Next Top Hand Model

Pattern below:  Striped Sprite by Lynn Hershberger (ColorJoy).  I was hot to make this as soon as I saw it in the new issue of KnitCircus.  Just look at the first picture in the pattern link!  So Seussian, so chevronic, so clown, so spritely.  Of course I'm not making it as in the pattern.  I don't want it to actually touch my neck, leastways, not the front of my neck, near the Adam's apple.  Instead, I am going for a slouchy pouchy look.  I have about 5 or six inches done now.  The yellow yarn is creamy smooth merino that I got in our Knitting Camp swap this summer.  Shepherd's wool by Stonehenge Fiber Mill, Michigan, USA.  It matches the Cascade 220 Superwash perfectly by gauge and compensates manages to negate the tiny bit of scratch that the 220 has.  Thank you to whomever brought that to Knitting Camp.  Lynn Hershberger the designer, got back to me right away when I discovered that KnitCircus had made a small error in the pattern.  Check out her other pattern in her Ravelry Store.

Pattern below:  Not Yet.  This is another of my own, probably to be incomplete, designs.  It's inspired by the Chambered Nautilus hat that I recently knit and a pair of socks I saw on Ravelry that I may never find again.  I've been looking.  If anything comes of it, I'll blog about it.

Pattern below:  Yes and no.  This hat started out as this: From Russia, with Love: Cable Balaclava by Nikol Lohr. But then, I don't know, I decided to make it a hat. Maybe it seemed too scratchy for under someone's chin and touching their face.  It really is quite nice and thick and springy.  I used thick Kureyon--looking it up . . . didn't have the label anymore . . . Hmm.  It's not in Ravelry's yarn list.  I like it.  This will be a warm hat.  I think it was called Big Kureyon, but it's not as big as what they are calling Big Kureyon now.

Swirling Gauntlets FO and Twisting Hat WIP

I have had this pattern in my Ravelry queue just about forever.  Swirling Gauntlets by Susanna IC I had some fresh yarn burning a hole in my pocket. It is Sugar Bunny, a new yarn from KnitPicks. They are calling it a limited edition. The color is called Platinum, but in some lights it looks like Putty or Sidewalk. It knits up just fine, though. I like it. I don't ADORE it, but I do like it. It's 80% merino and 20% angora. I can't resist angora.  The gauntlets, including my modifications took one ball with  about 2-3 yards left over.  

Oopsie! I knew I had made the mistake, but I kept redoing that row and still couldn't get it. So I finished the whole repeat in the hope that it would look ok anyway. 


Nope, couldn't live with it.

 Figured it out the next day.

Nice fit. 

Modifications: 1. This is not the thumb called for in the pattern. The original only has an opening and no sheath for your thumb. I added my usual 15 stitch gusset, though it was 16 this time because of the 2x2 rib. If you put it where the original thumb stitches are in the pattern, the design will pull too far toward your thumb. You have to move it about 4 stitches further away from the front/top/back of the hand. On the first I used my latest favorite way to increase stitches--knitting into the stitche below a la what's her name, but it didn't work out because of the rib. I went back to the lifted bar increase on the second mitt. looks better. You are viewing the second mitt.

2. Number of stitches cast on. The pattern called for 52. I cast on 56, or 1 extra ribbing repeat. Because of my mistake with the cabling, I was able to see that 52 were a little tight and that adding some to the palm side would not alter the appearance of the design.

3. Needles. I knit the cuffs on either end with size 3 needles (loose knitter here), but I knit the cable section with a size 4 because of the cable. I don't think it would have hurt to go up still another size there. Quite a bit of opportunity for upsizing.

4. I forgot.

This is another hat for the V.A. holiday party that's coming up next month. THe yarn is Plymouth Boku and it comes from a swap. There's one more skein, but I think I'm going to have to go into it to finish the hat. The pattern is Cables That Don't Cable Hat by K Yarns.

Ethan's Hat On

You may remember this hat. It is knit with 2 strands of sock yarn. One of the 2 was the green that I couldn't locate for the Devan Sweater. It was in this hat on this baby's head. I was very pleased to see him wearing it and enjoying it (back in December). Here he is, happily displaying his head. It's the grown-ups who keep seeming to misplace it--and his nose, his eyes, his teeth, various other parts, and his mamma.

It's putting on the jacket and leaving that he isn't thrilled about.

Baby Set Finito

Yarn: Socks that Rock medium weight in the color, Downpour; about 1.75 skeins--I don't know what happened with the color in the photo. There is no greenish cast to this yarn. Sorry about that. The color is correct in the pictures from 2 posts back.

Size: I was shooting for 6 months to 1 year. Most people think it looks big. The baby is due in October and I figure he will be big. His dad is well over 6 feet tall and strong like ox.

Needles: 2.75 mm/US 2, combination of circular and dpns

Sweater Pattern: Combination of Joelle Hoverson's Placket Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system. I used the measurements and the decreases for the raglan from Hoverson. I was proud of how I managed the placket. I picked up 5 stitches from between the 6 stitches at the edge and held them to the back. I knitted a couple rows in stockinette for a smooth placket bottom before I switched to garter. The waist band rib is a 2x2 garter rib (row 1:k2,p2; row 2; knit). The sleeve cuffs are 2x2 simple ribbing and I extended this toward the elbow by adding more and more plain rows between ribbing rows. I added a couple of long short rows in the upper back a la EZ.

Hat Pattern: Jewel by Sock Pixie. Thanks to S. Pixie's excellent instructions, I actually managed to count the decreases correctly without stitch markers. I used 11 little mitered squares. Again, I probably made the hat too big. What can I say? I'm surprised there aren't more of these in the Ravelry gallery. This hat has a beautiful shape though I had trouble laying it out for the photo. The mitered squares will flatter many types of yarn. I'd make one for myself if I wore hats that squish a person's hair. The pattern is such that even though it is written at 7 stitches per inch, I think it would work with any yarn up to worsted so long as you knit the strip of mitered squares until you reach the desired head circumference, pick up the stitches in a multiple of 10 and make a reasonable guess as to the length to knit before beginning the crown shaping. Kudos to Sock Pixie on this elegant design. It is elegant in both the scientific and artistic senses.

Sock Pattern: None. Worked toe-up on 32 stitches. Short row heels from memory. I'm getting better at short row heels. Seiding should be proud. She helped me learn. Of course it's easier on 16 stitches than on 30 or 36.

~~~

All in all this has been a great knit. I am glad I finished the sweater 3 times because I can be satisfied with the end result knowing that I've explored my limitations and the characteristics of the yarn and pattern. Tomorrow is the shower. I'll go to my lbs (local bookstore) and pick up a sweet little storybook of some kind to throw in the box and I'm good to go! I hope there will be good food at the shower. No matter what, I expect cake, but if the mom to be's mother is involved, I am looking forward to a Polish food extravaganza.

Hat #1 for Bev of Knitter's Journey's birthday. It's the big 5-0. She wants to give 50 hats and pairs of mittens to charity. The yarns are a combination of Monarch Knit Paint Series - color Amethyst & Coral Jewels purchased from littleknits.com and KnitPicks Palette in a heathered greenHat #2 is a combination of the same yarns as above plus purple Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport from early stash. Hat #3 (not pictured) is actually a fuzzy pink headband with one cable that I began to demonstrate cabling to my knitting students. It is in progress. We have until December to complete the 50. At last count she had 12 and it didn't include my hat #2.