Butter Yellow Gifts

Recently I acquired two skeins of this lovely -- but sadly discontinued -- yarn, Rowan's Wool Cotton 4-ply, in the Butter colorway.

I looked around on Ravelry and saw that someone had made that exact yarn into a pretty little fichu using two skeins.

Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) and US 3 (3.25mm)
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton 4-ply, 307.3 yards
Pattern: Sarah Hazell's Short Row Shawl
Mods: a lot of people had trouble with this pattern. The version I used seemed to have all the corrections. It still took me a fair bit to understand that the K2togs and P2togs in the short row section referred to picking up wraps, not to actual decreases.
Recipient: KD

So I did that, only to discover that they meant they had not used more than two skeins. So I still had pretty yellow yarn left.

Next, I made a produce bag, a Christmas gift for the household, as we are trying to use less single-use plastic in our lives. Although it looks small, it holds a decent amount of fruit.

Needles: US 5 (3.75mm)
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton 4-ply, 78 yards
Pattern: Julie Tarsha's Weightless Produce Bag, available here
Mods: Used figure-8 cast-on to avoid sewing the seam at the end; used dpns instead of circs; used 3.75mm instead of 3.00 mm needle for end; used Double-Chain bind off and Chinese Waitress cast on; cast on 30 sts for each strap.
Recipient: R

Speaking of small, that left enough yarn to make part of a tiny Christmas gift.

Needles: US 1 (2.25mm)
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton 4-ply, 8 yardsl Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic, 9 yards
Pattern: Anna Hrachovec's Cat in a Bag, totally delightful
Mods: I started with a figure-8 cast on
Recipient: M

And that is the end of the Butter Yellow yarn.

Bunnicula

Last spring, some household pets escaped in our neighborhood. Most were quickly recaptured or made their way home at feeding time, but one adventurous black bunny moved in under our neighbor's back porch, and worked at keeping our front lawn trimmed all summer. I tried to convince him to just work on the edging, but had no luck. The kids named him Bunnicula, and by the end of the summer he would eat carrots from NKD's outstretched hand. He was too canny to get close enough to be picked up and returned to captivity. I worried that he wouldn't survive the winter. In fact he disappeared in late fall, coincidentally the same time a fox appeared in the neighborhood.

 

So I made NKD a little version to stay with her always. Shortly afterward, the fox having moved on, Bunnnicula returned to view in our neighborhood.

Needles: US 4 (3.5mm)
Yarn: probably about 85 yards of no idea what in Black
Pattern: Sara Elizabeth Kellner's Henry's Bunny
Recipient: NKD

Test Knitting

I was away on a road trip in May, but I recognize that that excuse is getting a little threadbare in mid-June...

KD volunteered me to test knit for a mutual friend. This was a new thing for me, and I took it seriously. How seriously? I made gauge swatches!

Pattern: Simple Cable Socks, now available on Ravelry!

Yarn: Knit Picks Pacific Stroll Tonal

Mods: I got gauge on 2.5 mm instead of 3.00 mm; I used 4 needles instead of 3, because that's the way I like to arrange my dpns.

I really liked the way the pattern left space to write down notes as you went along. Since I was working off a pdf, it was really nice to just use the little Adobe Reader sticky notes. Since I made more than one pair in different sizes, I was even able to keep notes for multiple sizes. I've always made these notes on actual sticky notes before, or written them on a printed pattern, and they invariably get lost.

The pattern was simple and elegant and easy to follow. I like the socks very much. And to my utter surprise, I had enough yarn left after making mine (Women's) to make a pair of the size 6-8! Since I have a co-worker with a daughter the right age, I passed them on to her. In return, I got one of the nicest handmade thank-you cards I've ever seen. That girl has a future in crafts.

Spider Lace

Another co-worker retiring, another lace shawl made. It's quite astonishing how much I miss having lace on the needles now that this is done, but there's a sweater UFO weighing on my mind that I'll need to tackle first, before starting a new lace project. One project too big to lug around at a time...

I had been wanting to learn this pattern every since I bought Jane Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today. That book is a feast for the eyes, by the way. This particular pattern doesn't even look like knitting. It looks a little like tatting, which I learned and forgot decades ago. It took me a couple of false starts to get the hang of it, and then I never looked back. I made heavy use of Ravelry's ability to search for people who have made a pattern and left helpful notes.


Long before (fortunately) I started the edging, I realized that my co-worker likes beads. I knew exactly the beads I wanted (round crystals that would look like drops of water), but I had to go through a few weeks of self-doubt, and followed by a few more weeks of research because I absolutely wanted to add them by the crochet method instead of stringing, which meant I had to have a hole circumference and a crochet hook that would play well together, and a vendor (Beadaholique) who made that information easy to find. The beads (and new crochet hook) arrived before I needed them.

I tried the bead placement others had used, and it wasn't enough for me. A little experimenting, a little consultation with my mathematician daughter, and I settled on adding the beads to the edge points of the diamonds in the edging.

Then, finally, the delight of lace blocking, turning this:

into this:

Pattern: A Curved Shawl with Diamond Edging
Yarn: Juniper Moon Findley in Poppy
Beads: Czech Seed Beads, size 6/0, crystal clear
Needles: circular 3.00 mm, with nice sharp tips
Mods: used lots of hints from amvs, divadar,2totangle on Ravelry. Ultimately, I settled on adding the beads to row 1, stitch 6 of the k8 section; and row 9, stitches 2 and 12 of the k12 section in the edging.

Knitting from Stash

A co-worker gave me a bag of yarn she'd found when de-cluttering her house, "from when the kids did crafts." Since yarn does not equal clutter in my universe, I was happy to take it off her hands, despite the fact that none of it was yarn I would have bought for myself. Yarn is always useful.


The novelty yarn gave me pause, particularly in partial skeins. I challenged myself to find something to make from the light green eyelash yarn, and came up with a miniature boa for my young niece. It photographs badly, but I think she will like it.

Yarn: a partial skein of Patons Twister (discontinued) in Lime
Needles: Size 15 straight needles
Pattern: Cast on 8 stitches and knit every row until just enough yarn to bind off

~~~~~

That led me to pull a project out of the UFO bin and finish it for my nephew. Made from leftovers from Saige, it was much more fun to knit than to stuff.

 

Yarn: Berroco Sox in Huddersfield (discontinued color), 1/3 of skein

Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

Pattern: Celestine Sox

~~~~~

To my utter amazement, I still had enough of that skein to make myself a pair of ankle socks. Despite their bright colors, all of which lie outside my normal palette, I love them dearly. Possibly this has something to do with wearing them to work on a day when the temperature was in the single digits, and having my feet stay warm. But more likely it's because I was able to make them match without even trying hard. I just made my standard toe-up, fits-me sock until I could see that the colorway was finally going to repeat, bound off and started the second sock where the repeat started. The photo is wonky, they are really the same length.


Yarn: same as above, 2/3 of skein

 Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

 Pattern: Figure-8 cast-on of 24 stitches, 12 per needle; increase every other row to 52 stitches; 52 rounds of stockinette later begin gusset increases using Wendy Johnson’s Heel Template for a Gusset Heel Sock; knit 13 rounds; make k2, p2 ribbing until the color pattern repeat is coming up; use Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy bind-off.

Magic Lace

  Many years ago, I attended a Yarn Party where the fiber fumes went straight to my head and I walked away with several skeins of gorgeous, mutli-colored lace-weight silk. Very slowly it dawned on me that the beautiful lace patterns I was beginning to love making were completely lost in anything but a solid - or lightly heathered - color. I still don't know what I'm going to do with the green-purple-white that is so breathtaking in the skein, and so utterly useless to make lace with.



But I did finally find a lace pattern that could hold up to the skeins of heathered sea-green. I let the match-up of yarn and pattern bubble away on the back burner for a while, until one day I knew who I wanted to make it for, and why. Then I set to work, and spent a couple of years working at it off and on. This fall it was finished, and I gave it to an appreciative recipient, and updated my Ravelry projects page.

Pattern:   Hanging Garden Stole, by Sivia Harding

Yarn:       Neighborhood Fiber Co.'s Penthouse
                Silk Lace (discontinued) in "Sheridan Circle"

Needles:  3 (3.25 mm)

Beads:     Earth Faire's Wavy Leaves,
                70 (35 on each end, strung on the yarn)


Then magic happened. If you're not a knitter, you probably don't realize that knitters come to have favorite designers over time. The designer of this lace shawl is a favorite of mine - everything she designs is breathtaking. Imagine, if you can, my surprise and delight when she commented on - and favorited! - my knit-up of her design on Ravelry.

Done and delivered!

I finished and delivered the baby blanket before my friend's due date, so we've avoided the Yarn Harlot's superstition. This was a fun knit, working up steadily despite its size. I was a little worried about the edging's tendency to curl where attached, but it straightened out nicely when blocked.

Pattern: Sofo, a free pattern from Berroco

Yarns:

• Berroco Vintage DK in light green (2162)
• Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in green (801)
• Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in natural (817)
• Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in ginger (828)

 Needles: size 8

 Mods: I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, and ran the blocking wires through it, which gave the edge a bit of a crocheted/ruffled look which I like - on this.

I love the way the single row of light green completely disappears between the rows of white and green, subsumed into the gingham check by the magic of slipped stitches. I always love watching yarn become fabric, but this particular trick never got old.



All packed up with the sheepy sweater and hat, and delivered. Over to you, my friend - time to deliver!

Updated to add: There may be something to this superstition... Baby has arrived safely.

How to Make a Sweater

Step 1.  Inspiration

Always a fascinating part of the process, this time it was as simple as a friend saying (with great sincerity and in perfect truth) "you owe me one," and adding (not anywhere near as seriously) "that cute sweater on the Yarn Harlot's blog will do."

Step 2.  Acquire yarn

This took a little longer than usual. I stopped by my LYS, where they had already supplied a number of people with the ingredients for that particular sweater - my friend and I were behind the curve, since we'd been far, far away when it was first brought to the knitting public's notice. They had some possibilities left, and I bought them, because I am easily influenced in store settings, where I don't want to upset the nice person who's been helping me. Rational thought asserted itself when I got home and looked at the shade of green I had blindly purchased. I returned the yarn to my LYS (and bought something else, because, you know, I didn't want them to think I didn't like them any more...).

Mr. Internet was then involved, and a short time later, I had yarn: Cascade 220 Sport in green, black, and white. I then coerced a visiting NKD to act as a swift until it was all wound up.

 Step 3. Cast on and knit the body.

This was fun, mindless knitting. I did Jeny's stretchy slipknot cast-on because it looks so nice when followed by ribbing.

Step 4.  Knit sleeves

One at a time, because they're knit in the round. I like doing both sleeves at once, and I know it's possible in the round, but I've never tried it. Along about now I realized I'd been knitting on a size smaller needles for the ribbing than called for, because my needles were acquired in the Dark Ages when knitters believed what they were told and paid no attention to metric measurements (translation: my size 2 straights are 2.75 mm, not 3mm).

Step 5.  Attach sleeves to body, putting everything on a circular needle.

I am about to make the absolutely stunning discovery that my gauge is different on circulars than it is on straight needles. My straight-needle knitting has a machine-like precision that delights me. And which I apparently cannot duplicate on circulars.

Step 6.  Make sheep yoke.

Despair of ever making smooth color work.  Re-work first set of sheep a few times in pursuit of perfection, give up and soldier on. Toy briefly with the idea of only having three buttons (just through the yoke), buy the perfect buttons, notice there are 5 of them on the card, make button bands to accommodate all 5.

Step 7.  Block.

Procrastinate first, sure that even wet blocking will fail to overcome the deficiencies of my color work skills. Wonder if this is going to involve pinning each little sheep out separately. Plunge knitting into water and have it float back up, sheep now completely and perfectly relaxed. All I had to do was get it wet? Why did no one tell me?!

Step 8.  Make hat to match.

What is the Plural of TARDIS?

I made two pairs of these socks. Color work is never going to be my favorite thing, but when one is surrounded by such ardent fans, something must be done. The pattern itself was a fun knit; I actually didn't mind churning out four of them.

Pattern: Tardis Socks Tribute by Ellen Botilda
Yarn: Jawoll Superwash Solids in Royal Blue, plus oddments of white and black

I've come a long way since having to have Daleks explained to me. I've even become a fan myself. In fact, there was a maple chocolate Dalek not long ago. But of course, he was destroyed. Rapidly. By forks, if I recall...

Inspiration

Sometimes inspiration for knitting strikes unexpectedly, and from unexpected sources. My daughter and I came across an adorable baby outfit for our friends' expected daughter. Knowing that they had designed their nursery around a jungle theme, how could we resist the giraffe print in pale pink, the adorable elephant, the inexplicable owl balanced on his trunk?

Frankly, we couldn't, and by the time we got it home I knew I was going to knit a little owl toy, suitable for a newborn (washable, easily grasped). The stash came up with acrylic remnants in a pink and grey that matched the outfit (pink soles on the feet!). A Ravelry pattern search did not fail me. A quick store run for white felt and safety eyes, and a frantic search for some beak-colored acrylic, and I was ready. Both needles and stuffing were in arm's reach (they shouldn't have been, they should have been put away, but there they were). Moments later I had an owl.

Pattern: Owl Puffs (I will be making lots more, they are adorable. Besides, I have a whole bag of eyes, and the rest of the felt. Who wants an owl?)

Yarn: Red Heart, probably. The bands were long gone.

Mods: reminded my self to under-stuff to make it easier for little fingers to grab

Then I stared at the leftover pink and grey acrylic yarn for a few minutes. Back to Ravelry, which again did not fail me.

Pattern: Little Shells Carseat Blanket
Yarn: same as above
Mods: I started with one color, switched colors every pattern repeat, carrying the unused yarn up the side, and ended when I had enough of the other color to finish. It didn't work out to start and end with the same color, and I'm determined not to mind (no one else does).

And there you have it. A gift set I had no thought of making when I woke up that morning.

Things you do for the fun of it

I used to have a co-worker whose favorite expression was about doing things for "the sheer, glorious hell of it." Knitting is often like that. I gave up on embroidery decades ago because there was only so much you could do with the finished product besides stare at in admiration. Knitting is so practical. Knitting is so useful.

But, on occasion, knitting is for the sheer, glorious hell of it.

When JLM (my co-worker for whom no one had ever knit anything, the one I taught to knit, who brings me yarn from faraway places) offered me the leftovers from her experiment knitting with Japanese metal yarn, I took her up on it. I was just going to knit the equivalent of a gauge swatch, as I did with some silk hankies she let me try, but there was just enough yardage to tickle my creative fancy.

So I made a chain mail vest for the newest baby in the family.

And you really know all you'll ever need to about my family when I tell you that no one thought this was other than a fantastic idea.

 Yarn:  Habu Textiles A-177 Super Fine Merino
 Habu Textiles A-20 silk-wrapped stainless steel

Pattern: no idea after all this time; some top-down raglan cardigan, just bound off the sleeves right where they split off, continued on with just the metal after the wool ran out, and sewed it up the front making sure there was enough room for the typical baby mega-head. 

Quick Hat and Mitts (Doodads)

KD knit a cute little brimmed cap for herself this fall and has been wearing it all winter. Her grandmother saw it, fell in love, and most importantly, tried it on. The fit was perfect.

Fast forward until after the holidays, when I am back on my feet after a bout with bronchitis, and looking for something to re-introduce my hands to knitting that doesn't involve lace weight yarn or intricate patterns. That eliminated all of my current WIPs, and KD mentioned the hat-grandmother situation.

Not one to tempt the gods of gauge, I demanded to know the pattern and yarn that KD had used in her hat, only to discover that the yarn had been Discontinued. Taking a deep breath, I plunged into the previously unexplored world of stash trade on Ravelry. Sure enough, several people had the yarn, and in delightful colorways. I picked a color, and since I only needed a single skein, chose someone with just a single skein to sell.

The transaction concluded smoothly, the yarn arrived, and yesterday, I cast on a hat.

This morning, I finished it. Is there any sweeter instant gratification than a bulky weight, single skein hat?

 

Pattern: Capitan Hat

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky Hand Dyes in Ireland

Needles: Size 10, size 8

Mods: I used the size 8 needles for the inside of the brim, starting with the purl (fold) row, to make the fold lie along the edge the way I wanted. And like KD, I left off the button band trim.

That left just enough leftover yarn for a pair of fingerless mitts. After staring at several patterns, I closed my laptop, cut the leftover yardage in half, and cast on 32 stitches. This gave me a chance to try out Jeny's Stretchy Slip Knot Cast On, which KD had demonstrated for me, but which I still suspected might be a scam. Turns out, I like it a lot. I worked K1, P1 ribbing until it reached from my finger knuckles to the base of my thumb, tried out Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off over the next six stitches, then put them back on the next row, making nothing but a buttonhole thumb. In the interest of making them as long as possible, I finished with EZ's sewn bind off. I love Jeny's, but it uses more yarn. Then I made a matching mitt from the other half of the yardage, took pictures, and mailed them off. A successful doodad.

Doodad, you say? Doodads, as everyone knows (after reading this), are things you make out of leftover yarn (way less than a complete skein) that you just can't bring yourself to throw away. Once it's been made up into something, I can throw away the object if it was a total failure with much less angst than throwing away unused yarn.

For instance, I made these Jaywalkers for myself recently (my beloved brown ones bit the dust, and I couldn't resist the colorway of this yarn). They turned out slightly too small, as I was overcompensating for the stretchy yarn, so they are KD's now. I made the leftovers into little socks for my niece, but toddler sizing is never going to be my strong suit, and she couldn't even get them on, despite all the stretch. I tossed them without a pang.

Pattern: Grumperina's Jaywalkers
Yarn: Paton's Stretch Socks in Spumoni Stripes

Fortuitous mistakes

I ordered the Wrong Yarn a few months back. I thought the sock pattern I had fallen in love with called for sport yarn, so I bought a bunch of gorgeous colors (2 skeins each) of Comfy Sport (cotton) from Knitpicks. I was totally drawn in by the little "goodbye" flags telling me a color - a beautiful, mouth-watering color - was being discontinued.

Turns out, the sock pattern called for fingering weight after all.  Figuring out what to do with a mere 100 grams per color was a challenge that has been at least partially dealt with by whipping up a little red vest for my nephew, Mr. Dimples

I take really awful pictures lately, but here's more or less what it looks like:

  

Now I need to get it in the mail quick, before he outgrows it!

Overdye? Seriously?

I made my SIL (mother of two of the cutest kids on the planet - I have photographic evidence!) a beaded lace shawl, the beautiful and challenging Dracula's Bride (ravelry link).


I bought the type of yarn called for, Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk, not wanting to mess around with substitutions.

It was a shock to receive the pattern and discover it was beaded. My eyesight just isn't sharp enough to pick that out in the pattern photographs. But with some advice from my SIL, I found some gorgeous beads. I have done beading previously by attaching the beads as I came to them with a crochet hook, but there was no way that was going to happen with these tiny things, so I learned how to string beads on yarn and slide them up when it was time.

I started it in September, and restarted it in January (it's hard to spot a significant pattern error in unblocked lace), and gave it to her this spring. The one major modification I made was in the color yarn. The certifiably crazy wonderwoman who designed the shawl knit it entirely in dark red, and then OVERDYED the edge black. I had heart palpitations just thinking about how badly I could mess up my carefully knit lace by trying my hand at dying for the first time. So I bought the yarn in Ruby and Ebony and switched at about the spot it looked like she overdyed it. The black came off on my hands a little as I knit it, making me nervous about even wet-blocking it, but pinning and spraying did the trick.

Just for you, kid

Awhile ago (in November 2009, to be exact), I was in my LYS with my non-knitting daughter, a situation I normally try to avoid. Not on her account, lest she be bored, but because there is nothing worse than petting pouring over yarn in the presence of toe-tapping impatience. As it happens, she was extremely well-behaved, exploring an alien environment with her usual absorption, and I'd nearly forgotten she was with me.

Until she showed up at my elbow, her face aglow, waving a booklet in my face and asking "Could you make this for me?"

The kind of question that warms a mother's heart, right?

Except that she is in her 20s, and the pattern was for a small child. Still, I agreed that it looked like her kind of thing, and the construction was simple enough. I thought it would be possible. And on Mother's Day 2011, I finally sewed on the buttons and sent her on her way.

NKD's Saige


Pattern: Saige (Berroco #280 Soxcetera)
Needles: US 2
Yarn: Berroco Sox in 1420 Glamorgan, 1424 Huddersfield, 1425 John Moores, 1426 Royal Holloway, 1427 Lancaster, 1436 Lidores, 1474 Liverpool, and 1477 Kingston


Mods: Well. Since the thing is constructed from strips, I started out by doubling the number of body strips from 2 to 4, adding a couple more colors of gorgeous self-striping Berroco Sox, and doubled the amount of yarn called for in the sleeves. The green for the edging wasn't available, so I went with NKD's favorite blue. I figured out what color went where, and knit one of the outer strips that required no shaping at all. When I got the length (up the back, over the shoulder, down the front) that NKD wanted, I recorded the number of rows and did some math. Then I knit the rest of it. I took a bit of a rest before tackling the neck/hood math, but since NKD was available for frequent try-ons and math help (she's working on her doctorate in astrophysics, what's a little knitting math to her?), it wasn't too bad. I assembled it as I went along. I love mattress stitch, and really, when there's no shaping, it's practically mindless. When it was done and blocked, we visited her grandmother's button boxes to finish it off with some vintage buttons.