Wednesday WIPs

I recently turned up a sweater I had knit for myself but never worn, because it didn't fit. I vaguely remember knowing it didn't fit, but finishing it anyway. Not that I had sewn in the ends. But it was otherwise complete. So I turned it back into balls of yarn, measured the result, and embarked on a pleasant baby blanket - and a later baby sweater - in nice worsted weight cotton. I've got another worsted weight cotton baby sweater nearly complete. I don't know what it is about small fry and heavy cotton. Maybe I think bearing up under it will make them stronger. Anyway.

The first pattern I tried for this yarn, Beth Michon's Knot Stitch Baby Blanket was nice looking, and I had the yardage. But halfway through the first row of knot stitches ("Purl the next 3 stitches together, do not drop them from the needle. Knit the same 3 stitches together, then purl the same 3 stitches together. Drop the stitches from the left needle."), I knew I didn't have it in me to wrestle heavy cotton into knots for even one row.

I am much happier with this, Plymouth Yarn's Seed Blocks Baby Blanket. It will look nicer when it's been washed and blocked, of course. The color is more coral, less fire engine.

Origami moment???

I have been happily knitting along on my Skew socks. The toe is weird as all get out, but I can see how it's supposed to fit a foot, and then continue its diagonal growth.

Then the gusset increases started, and I began to take things on faith, following the instructions step by step and trusting that a heel was going to result.

My faith faltered a bit when I got to the instruction labeled "origami moment." My socks do not usually involve origami.

And yet, here we are!

Cat Toy

Over lunch today I took a scrap of leftover yarn and made a toy for a cat friend of mine.

Yarn: Lion Brand Homespun, Pueblo colorway
Needles: US 8 (5mm) dpns - the pattern can be done flat, but I detest sewing seams in Homespun
Pattern: Alexis Hamann-Nazaroff's Simple Ball
Mods: I did not have quite enough yarn for the pattern as written, so I stopped at 28 sts, knit 4 rows,  started the decreases, and had exactly enough. I left both ends out to add to the fun of chasing and catching the ball.

Socks on the needles, all is well

Sometime ago I discovered I had bought, by coincidence, the exact yarn used in Knitty's Skew sock pattern, which had long been in my to-do queue.

In the intervening years, I learned how to knit socks on two circs, even though I generally prefer my trusty dpns, and had my amazing sister wind the skeins into balls. This is an art. I literally don't know how she does it.

So now there are new socks on the needles, and no rush to finish them, since spring warm is just around the corner.

Wednesday WIPs

One complete hat, one scarf in progress. Cleaning out the acrylic stash, because I don't intend to move it to the Frozen North. This is yarn left over from a mammoth double-knit afghan project that fell into UFO territory decades ago. I'm not sure whatever happened to it. It could still turn up, in which case I've now used some of the yarn I would need to finish it. But if I want a double-knit afghan, I rather think I'd like it in wool.

Yarn: Brunswick Windrush in Snow and Deep Blue Velvet (discontinued)
Needles: US 7 (4.55mm)
Pattern: Yes, It's Garter Stitch hat and scarf from Great Garter Stitch

I really like the hounds-tooth check effect. I have three more skeins of this. I'm thinking baby blanket.

I was all set to post this last week when I really looked at the photo and realized the pattern in the hat had gone astray. Fixed now, as you can see from the above photo. See the problem below? The error's in the 4th row of white down from the top, on the left. It was a quick fix.

At last

It felt as though these socks took forever. In fact, it was just under a year. But given that I usually finish a pair of socks in a couple of weeks, it did take a long time. I'm not sure why. I bought the yarn at last year's Sheep & Wool Festival. I asked the vendor if she thought it would wear well for socks. She didn't know, and I promised to let her know. Not that I'm going to get much wear out of them between now and this year's festival.

It's totally not the project's fault that I broke one of my dpns over Easter, while carting this project around. I dropped a book in my bag without regard to tiny dpns. Repairs were attempted, but a chunk had gone missing, and the strength just wasn't there without it. Still, I had a spare (yay, Knitpicks sets, 6 dpns per size!).

I think the real delay was that a month after I cast them on, I retired from work, and all those meetings where I churned out socks. One can work on much more complicated things in retirement.

Yarn: Yankee Dyer Yarns' fingering weight Yankee Breeze in Cantaloupe, 50/50 merino/cotton
Needles: US 1 1/2 (2.5mm) 
Pattern: Wendy Knits' Double Eyelet Rib Toe-up Socks , one of my favorites.

I only used 2/3 of the skein. I might buy more at the festival this year in other colors and try this pretty sweater. But meanwhile - I have no socks on the needles!

Lentils

I'm knitting up the small amounts of acrylic in my stash, because I don't want to move them to the Frozen North. I got rid of a some of it via Goodwill, in memory of the years when most of my stash was from yarn leftovers donated to thrift stores, but I kept a couple of skeins that sparked my interest.

This long-discontinued yarn is the oddest color. I'm convinced it's from the era when kitchen colors were Harvest Gold, Avocado, and Almond. However, my brother-in-law tells me that it's the colors of lentils (except the black ones), so I'm going with that. If you should have such a skein, know that is sufficient to make a nice keyhole scarf and a pair of fingerless mitts:

Yarn: American Thread Company Dawn Wintuk Sport in "Citrus Spice"
Needles: US 4 (3.5mm)
Patterns: Martha Stewart's Knitted Neck Scarf and Megan Nordyke's Kenny's Flat-Knit Fingerless Gloves

Nothing to say about the mitts pattern - simple, easy, elegant. The keyhole scarf pattern had some elegant details - the edge is very neatly done - but the pattern on the website is a scream. Practically every line of the pattern tells you to "see instructions" for how to do what it asks - increases, decreases, dividing and recombining a row of stitches for the keyhole. But "see instructions" is not a link, nor is there anything on the page labelled instructions. I didn't need them - I've made keyhole scarves before - but I thought it was odd. It was a long time before I realized that the wordless, unlabelled illustrations at the top of the pattern were the "instructions."

Sister Cowls

I bought some pretty yarn to make an item in my queue. The color turned out to be not what I expected, but it was still pretty. Even better, it turned out to be exactly enough to make two of the items. So one is off by snail mail to my sister, who admired the first one when it was under construction.

I have no explanation whatsoever for why it started to pool into stripes a quarter of the way through the skein. I don't mind them.

Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn's Rios in Arco Iris
Needles: US 10 (6mm)
Pattern: Kristen Kapur's Chickadee Cowl

The range of colors labeled Arco Iris on Ravelry convinces me that this yarn could turn out to be any color at all when you order it. Nevertheless, I would work with it again. It had a lovely squishy feel to it, and was pleasant to work with.