I know what my people are thinking tonight...

Did she do it?

She said she was going to...

She's been saying that for months! What if we have to get through the winter without any?

Any at all? I don't think that's possible. Or advisable...

But we're not there to help her, and it's a lot of work...

She'd never let us go the whole winter without any at all!

* * *

It's all right, my chickens. We're set for the winter:

First person to comment gets the first jar... Wouldn't it be funny if it was a complete stranger? Do you want a complete stranger scarfing down your jam???

Summer knitting doldrums

Not a quiet summer - they never are. Lots of storms, and consequent yard work. The usual summer turn out of rooms in hopes of clutter reduction. Work, classes, day trips. I've recently figured out how to download library books to my Kindle, so LOTS of reading. A little knitting. I finished a pretty little lace scarf, but I can never find the time to block it. Maybe this weekend, it's supposed to be less humid.

I had hoped to make this yarn, acquired at my last knitting retreat, into the Abundance Shoulder Shawl (the pattern version I have calls for 500 yards).

I knew straight off that I didn't have quite enough yarn, but I thought I'd be able to make it work. Let's just say that it took me entirely too long to realize that a sideways knitted-on edging uses more yardage than one can readily imagine. So out it came, and the yarn was re-purposed into these:

Pattern: Edwardian Boating Socks, by Emma Grundy Haigh (I may have been influenced by the fact that my yarn was the same color as the socks in the picture)

Yarn: Severn Fingering (BFL & silk) in Lilly

Needles: 1.25 mm dpns

Mods: I used Jeny's Stretchy Slipknot Cast On, which hardly counts as a mod any more, since I start all my ribbing cuffs that way. I replaced both suggestions for the heel flap stitch (a linen stitch heel flap? are you mad?) with Eye of Partridge.

That was about it. They were an easy knit, but I have been catching up on missed tv, and learning the hard way that I cannot knit during Game of Thrones. So this happened at one point:

- in the center, 4 repeats down, I totally forgot to pick up a float. And there are both skipped and knit stitches in the rows, so just dropping down and picking it up was not going to happen.

Meanwhile, although there are other socks languishing on the needles (and a poor mitten without a thumb - I hate thumbs), I've begun to play with this:

 

 Fall colors. Winter is coming...

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.

Brain Freeze

I stumbled into the kitchen this morning and mumbled "morning," as I poured my first cup of coffee. DH, who gets up much earlier than I do, began dishing up the oatmeal, commenting as he did so that he remembered to add salt this time. Part of my brain recognized a cue and thought I should say, "Really? I did too, because you always forget!" and expected a third person to pop up and confess that they had as well. The rest of my brain realized that a) I'd been upstairs when he made the oatmeal, and b) there was no third person in the house. Since the two parts of my brain were moving too slowly to handle the discrepancy, I just smiled sleepily and took my coffee into the other room.

It's a trope. The Big Eight all bring salt to the picnic on the Little Island. Anne (of Avonlea) and Diana and Marilla all add sugar to the peas (sugar? peas? who does that?). Everybody in the house adds liquor to the State Fair entry before it leaves the house. Have I missed any? Leave a comment if you've seen it elsewhere.

I finished another pair of socks, just in time to wear them once and put them away for the winter:

 

Pattern: Wendy D. Johnson's Double Eyelet Rib Toe-Up Socks

Needles: 0 (2.00 mm)

Yarn: Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock in Temple Turquoise

Mods: I love this pattern. I've been knitting it up for years. I think the only thing I do differently these days is that I've switched to Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off.



I also made a scarf out of the last of the alpaca:

Pattern: Vanesa Polo's Garter Stitch Keyhole Scarf

Needles: 10 1/2 (6.5 mm)

Yarn: Bernat Alpaca in Wheat, Stone, & Tomato

Mods: I didn't sew it together to make the keyhole, and I didn't add fringe.

Since I had the least Wheat, I made sure I didn't start or end with it, and just kept knitting until I ran out of Wheat. Then I knit one more row in the next color and bound off.

It made a very nice long tricolor scarf that is not for me because alpaca and I don't get along. I'm going to try to find it a home this weekend.

March Madness

NKD asked me if I could figure out how to knit the poncho from The Emperor's New Groove. The one with the llama on it. Out of alpaca.

Once I got over the idea of knitting a poncho, it was a pretty easy project, especially since I chose bulky weight yarn. And copying a cartoon in knitting turns out to be pretty easy - not a lot of detail to deal with. Copying cartoon colors, on the other hand, since I'm not a dyer myself, turned out to be much harder.

We compromised on the amount of pure alpaca in the finished product; camelid yarn is notoriously expensive. I went with pure alpaca for the dark green stripes at top and bottom, and a much cheaper alpaca/acrylic mix for the main body and picture. How much cheaper? The yarn for the dark green stripe cost almost as much as all of the rest of the yarn for the project put together.

I've not met the recipient, but I'm sympathetic to most cosplay, since it's not that far removed in spirit from Renaissance Faire garb. I hope it meets his expectations.

Yarn: Cascade Yarns Baby
          Alpaca Chunky,
         4 skeins Olive Heather,

and Bernat Alpaca,
       6 skeins Fern,
       1 skein each Wheat,
         Tomato, and Stone

Needles: 10.5

Pattern: Mitered Unisex
Poncho from Lion Brand
as a base, plus an intarsia
rectangle appliqued to the
center front




I had a little of the pure alpaca left, so I knit a scarf for a friend...

Yarn:      Cascade Yarns Baby Alpaca Chunky
               in Olive Heather

Needles: 9

Pattern:  The Fidget

Mods:    I used the twisted moss stitch pattern to
              make a cushy scarf rather than a neck
              warmer.

Seasons in Transition

Winter knitting is winding down. I just ripped out one sock back to the foot because I had managed to start the heel gusset increases in the wrong place. *sigh* But I finished the latest pair for DH.

Pattern: Oliver
Yarn: Crazy Zauberball in Würzelsepp, 1 skein
Needles: 2.5 mm
Mods: kept the toe increases at every other row until 12 sts remained instead of switching to every row increases, to widen the toe box slightly

To my amazement, I only used one ball of the yarn I had set aside for these. I poked around a bit for a different pattern for the other ball - still for DH, since these are definitely not my colors, but different enough from the Olivers not to make laundry day more of a chore than it already is. Fortunately, Oliver is such a completely different shape that finding another pattern was not difficult. I think I've settled on Paraphernalia.

The neighbor's crocus are in bloom. I dodge bunnies in the morning, I've seen fat robins eating worms, and we've eliminated our first stink bug of the season. Definitely spring, even if there is still some snow in the forecast.

I've been knitting up a silly project in bulky weight alpaca on 6.5 mm needles. That really goes fast!

There's lace in my future, but so many non-knitting things on my to-do list to check off first. We're planning a road trip in a few months, though, so it will definitely be on the needles by then. This one first, I think:

Restful

Earlier in the month KD and I went on our second annual knitting retreat. I love the place where it's held. Not just because the Kent Manor Inn is a sweet spot - are knitting retreats held anywhere else? - but because this particular sweet spot was unknown to me before we started going there on retreat, even though I've lived here for decades, and I could, if I had to, walk home from it. Somehow that makes it extra sweet.


Last year's focus was on color work; this year's was on finishing techniques. I didn't learn as many new things, but I took to heart a pithy lesson: learn to say to the pattern, "You are not the boss of me." (I may have taken this lesson so much to heart that returning to a job where  someone actually IS the boss fo me was a little harder than it might have been. But I digress.)

The retreat project was a knitted cover for a small pillow. Since I have no place for decorative pillows in my life, I made sure (with the help of the retreat's sponsor, the lovely Knitting Boutique) that the colors for my pillow and KD's pillow would compliment each other. This pillow is now at her house, waiting to be paired with hers. I decided the colors looked like earth, air, fire, and water, so I chose moss stitch for the green earth, a single star stitch for the purple night sky, dumped the rosy coals into reverse stockinette, and found a wavy cable pattern for the blue sea - which also let me explore seaming the top of one square to the side of the other. It was more than tempting to knit the whole thing at once, without seams, but the seams were the point of the project, after all. And I wouldn't have been able to make the waves horizontal.

Aren't the strips on the back sweet? If I wore striped sweaters, I would SO make a sweater of those colors. I love when other people pick colors for me. The original pattern called for buttons and buttonholes, but I went for an overlapping envelope, like my European pillowcases.

Meanwhile, I've finished a pair of socks and am on the second sock for three other pairs.

Pattern:    Nutkin
Yarn:        Paton's Kroy Sock FX in Copper Colors
Mods:      Instead of a purl row at the hem fold, I did a k2tog/yo row for a picot edge.
                Decreased the sole of the foot down to 26 sts.
                Decreased 4 sts every other row for toe until 24 sts left. The "earbumps" on the
                ends of the weaving disappeared after the first day I wore them, as they
                always do.

What ailed me wasn't Second Sock Syndrome. It was... Startitis. I haven't yet cast on anything - I think the pillow helped. But the pairing of yarn and patterns is well underway, and any minute now I shall break out and cast on about six things at once.

And NKD has hooked me up with an absolutely ridiculous project wish has me laughing before I've even started. More on that later.

Symptom Check

It's cold and flu season, and also a deeply cold winter. So there's a certain amount of symptom checking going on all the time. Is this a runny nose because I'm coming down with something, or because I just came inside from below-zero weather? Is my throat ticklish because the air is dry, or because I'm developing a sore throat? Whether these are fleeting thoughts or day-long obsessions depends on the individual, of course. But I believe we all have that moment when something catches our attention and we stop to decide whether this is something to worry about.

Here is that moment this week. This certainly looks like the onset of an unexpected bout of Second Sock Syndrome, something I have been lucky enough to escape thus far. Starting at 12 and running 'round the clock, we have

• one completed Nutkin sock from Patons Kroy Socks Fx in Copper (yes, I finally got tired of knitting that yarn into Hermione's Everyday Socks);
• one just-past-the-heel Oliver from  Schoppel-Wolle Crazy Zauberball in Würzelsepp (my new favorite word);
• one just-past-the-heel Eyelet Rib in a delicious summer sky shade (Temple Turquoise) of Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock;
• and one completed-but-flawed standard toe-up sock in leftover Berroco Sox (I've given up keeping discontinued colors straight).

Except for the last one, which turned up in a stash dive and has unclear fit issues, none of the others are abandoned projects. I just happen to be knitting a lot of socks at the moment (see deeply cold winter above). The Wildfoote are my office knitting, home for the weekend for a sanity check (I knit these from memory, and it's always a good idea to make sure memory hasn't wandered down some strange sidepath). And the Nutkin and Oliver are my tv knitting, still very much what I'm working on at the moment. So I think I'm okay. I haven't had the urge to cast on any more socks.

Lace, however, is another matter...

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.

Java Jive

I was all set to write about my second pair of socks knit from a particular pattern when I realized I had never mentioned the first pair. Which is astonishing, because I love that first pair. It was another example of a great yarn/pattern match-up. I made a second pair in a different yarn for myself, and I like them, but not with the passion I have for the first pair.

The pattern is Java, from the Knitty Winter 2011 edition. It looked like a fun pattern to try. All I needed was some not too colorful yarn, so all that lovely texture wouldn't get lost. The 2011 MS&W had netted me some Creatively Dyed - Beaches, I think, but the label is long gone. I put the two together, and voila!

Pattern: Java

Yarn: Creatively Dyed (Beaches?)

Needles: 2.25 mm




 
This past summer I acquired some sock yarn as a souvenir of my trip to Alaska, and decided the perfect way to show it off was to knit up some Java of my own. They turned out very nice.




Pattern: Java

Yarn: Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts
         100% Superwash BFL

Needles: 2.25 mm

 I have enough left over to knit something else, something lacy and beaded and totally worthless as outdoor wear on this day when it's snowing and blowing and the temperature is plummeting. Something merely decorative.

 

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.

Sometimes, it's a perfect match, even when they don't match!

Have you ever fallen in love with a pattern/yarn combination?

Leyburn Socks and Patons Stretch Socks was a nice combination, and I made lots of them.

But Hermione's Everyday Socks and Patons Kroy Sock FX is just golden. Also thick and warm and just the thing for this seriously cold winter.

I first tried Hermione on some sock yarn that had defied several tries to knit it up, Southwest Trading Company's TOFUtsies.

I was really pleased with the results, so I used the same pattern on my next socks. And there it was, the perfect marriage of pattern and fiber. I'll admit having to get over the fact that this yarn will not make matching socks. I love their warmth so much it was easy to get over.

I found some more of that yarn in my stash, so I did it again. Although given the color, is anyone surprised that these wound up in KD's sock drawer?

 

Wishing you warm feet this winter, and happy knitting all year!

  

Warm Toes, Eventually

The temperatures took an early dive last month, and I didn't sit there with cold feet for long before realizing that the solution was literally at my fingertips.

I grabbed a skein of yarn (Knit Picks Stroll in discontinued Twinkle Heather),

 

and my current favorite footie pattern (from Knit Picks Fancy Feet), and whipped up a pair of foot warmers.

    

Before you know it, I was showing them off to visiting KD, who immediately noted that they exactly matched her pajama pants.

 

*sigh*

Fortunately, I knew where there was more yarn... (and modified the pattern for a short-row heal and 2x2 ribbed cuff):

Instant Gratification

The Saturday after Thanksgiving being Small Business Saturday, NKD and I went out to support two of our favorite local small businesses. As it happened, NKD had not been in my LYS before, and after initially (and understandably) being mistaken for her twin sister KD, she stunned them all by announcing that she was my Non-Knitting-Daughter. She was raised by knitters, though, so while I took care of some business she ranged through the store, petting the yarn. When I was done, she took me around to introduce me her favorites. Not surprisingly (even her car is blue), this skein of Malabrigo Rasta Superbulky was a favorite.

After some heavy hinting on her part about what a beautiful hat it would make, we included it in our SBS purchases. Once we got home, we round it into a ball. My LYS had offered to wind it up, but NKD wanted to have some part in the process, and she makes a great knitting noddy.

A pattern was quickly chosen (how did we live before Ravelry's pattern search?), and in no time a hat was on the needles.

A very few hours later, the hat was on her head.

 

Pattern:     Big Chunky Comfy Hat, by Erica Kempf

Yarn:         Malabrigo Yarn's Rasta Superbulky in Sollis (804)

Needles:    size 11 dpns

Elapsed time, yarn purchase to head: 4 hours

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.