Quick hat for a Cold Night

Made another Fisher Rib hat in bulky yarn. At first I thought it was taking twice as long as the other because I wrote down what I did incorrectly. There was a little tweak I needed to make, but mostly I just kept making mistakes. But I got it done before it turns bitterly cold tonight. This colorway knit up into a sort of arrowhead pattern, which I did not expect, but NKD is pleased.

Yarn: Patons Shetland Chunky in Blue Jeans Variegated
Needles: US 10 (6.00 mm)
Pattern: my own

Thanks to KD for teaching me the Tubular Cast-On!


Then I knit the leftovers into a little squishy ball for a little squishy friend of mine.

Dragon Mitts, the sequel

The second pair of Dragon Mitts is off the hook - wait, that's not what I meant. I scaled it down (ouch) from the last set to only 6 scales around, but followed the pattern for length. The color shifting of this yarn is so perfect for this pattern.

Yarn: Berroco Millefiori Light wool/acrylic in Sedum*, just over half of a skein

Hook: E (3.5 mm)

Pattern: Holly Fisher's Dragon Scale Fingerless Gloves

 

*It's a flower - who knew? Also known as stonecrop.

Flashback Fridays: Cuddle Cloth and Blankie

More gifts for the babies that arrived in 2016:

I attended a Knitting Boutique Retreat on Shadow Knitting in 2016, and chose this blanket for my project. It's beyond my skills to catch the shadow knitting illusion in a photograph, so you'll have to believe me when I tell you that it shifts from squares to strips as your viewing angle changes.

Needles: US 6 (4.00 mm)
Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby Solids in Mint and Antique White, just under 1.25 skeins of each
Pattern: Clara Masessa's Shadow Checkerboard Baby Blanket
Mods: Jeny’s super-stretchy cast on paired with EZ’s sewn bind off. Added 5 rows of garter stitch at beginning and end. Slipped first stitch throughout, being careful not to pull unused color too tight.

With the leftover green, I made a cuddle cloth for the same little recipient:

Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm)
Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby Solids in Mint, used just over half a skein
Pattern: Frankie Brown's Cuddle Cloth

Shoulder Wrap

The switch to short hair after a lifetime of long hair means that my neck and shoulders are often cold. Shawls help, but the braided cowl taught me that there were smaller, more efficient methods. Enter the shoulder warmer. Bulky yarn, big needles: it took me four days.

Yarn: a 260-yard skein of Angora/Merino/Silk/Polworth acquired at the Knitting Boutique
Needles: US 10 (6.00 mm)
Pattern: Yana Petrova's Jane Austen Shoulder Wrap
Mods: Started with the Chinese Waitress Cast-on, followed the pattern through row 34, then knit on until I ran out of yarn (made 3 buttonholes, not 2). Backed up 2 rows and used the Double-Chain Bind-off.

I'm extremely fond of it, so I've gotten fussy about the buttons. I'm thinking wooden, so I'm going to have to go out and find some.

Warm Socks for Cold Feet

Socks for a family member who is wool-averse; the colors remind me of the Sonoran Desert, so maybe that will be warming.

Yarn: Berroco Comfort Sock (acrylic/nylon) in Stewart Island
Needles: US 1 (2.25mm)
Pattern: Marlowe Crawford’s Oliver, my favorite pattern for this part of my family, as it fits their feet perfectly

Flashback Fridays: Meadowsweet

There was a crop of new babies at work in 2016, and I had, at the time, an abundance of acrylic baby yarn just waiting to be used.

Needle: US 6 (4.00mm)

Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby Solid in Antique White; it took less than a skein

Pattern: marianna mel's Meadow Sweet Baby Dress

Mods: I knit the skirt in the round. I fastened the knit flower on with a matching button.

 

Shortly after, I knit this one, this time with the matching hat:

 

Shetland

Yes, I'm finally watching the tv show knitters rave about, and enjoying it very much. I'd love an annotated version, so you'd know the pattern names of the sweaters, hats, and scarves, as they distract you from whodunit clues.

Meanwhile, I acquired three skeins of a yarn that has been no closer to the Shetlands than its name, and knit up two quick Christmas gifts and some bootees for the box in record time. After the miniature work of pence jug and handkerchief edging, these items flew off the needles.

Needles: US 10 (6.00mm)
Yarn: Patons Shetland Chunky in Harvest variegated

Scarf Pattern:

Chinese Waitress Cast On 18 sts.
Purl 1 row.
P1, (k in st below, p1)x8, p1.
Rpt last row forever.
Double Chain Bind Off.

Hat Pattern:

Tubular cast on 64 sts.
Work 1 rd k1, p1.
Begin Fisher Rib:
P1b, k1 around.
K1b, p1 around.
Work 7” of Fisher Rib. Begin decreases:
1 (Work 6 sts in pattern, k2tog) around.
2 Work next rd in pattern, k the decrease sts.
3 (Work 5 sts in pattern, k2tog) around. 4 Rpt rd 2.
5 (Work 4 sts in pattern, k2tog) around. 6 Rpt rd 2.
7 (Work 3 sts in pattern, k2tog) around. 8 Rpt rd 2.
9 (Work 2 sts in pattern, k2tog) around. 10 Rpt rd 2.
11 (P1b, k2tog) around. 12 K2tog around.

Bootees: Mrs Smink's northsea socks (on US 8/5.0mm dpns)

 

The recipient declined the bootees, so they have gone into the box, but the hat and scarf are doing their best to keep warm a lad from the Sonoran Desert who, while still south of the Mason-Dixon Line, believes he has been assigned to the Frozen North.

Dragon Mitts

I feel I should add a number to that title, since I'm about to make two more pair. Apparently dragons come in clutches.

 

Yarn: Berroco Millefiori Light wool/acrylic in Hyacinth, about three-quarters of a skein

Hook: E (3.5 mm)

Pattern: Holly Fisher's Dragon Scale Fingerless Gloves

Mods: I sized up to 48 sts, did 6 rows of scales, added length to arms/cuffs

Coming up, in colorways Sedum and Gladiolus:

Flashback Fridays

To no one's surprise, I did not blog much in 2016. I did, however, knit, with the result that there's a whole slew of projects that never had their day in the sun. So here we go.

Although I mentioned problems with it here, I never showed off this beautiful child's smocked sweater, possibly the sweetest thing I've ever made.

Yarn: Berroco Vintage DK, one of my favorite yarns to work with, in Beige
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) and US 6 (4.00mm)
Pattern: Princess Child's Smocked Cardigan, size 4
Mods: I made Tulip buttonholes

and my own buttons(!)

I love this sweater so much, and it lives in the box because I don't currently know any 4-year-old princesses.

Edit: turns out I already blogged about this!

Museum Knits

2018 was the year I discovered that one could knit copies of things in museums. So I knit the pence jug in the collection of the Smithsonian.

Once I discovered the pattern, and realized I had the yarn, I bought the tiny (00) knitting needles, beads, and ring.

Step 1. String beads.

 

Step 2. Make the top of the jug.

 

Step 3. Make the body of the jug.

Step 4. Make the handle.

Yarn: Knit Picks Luminance Lace, about 53 yards
Needles: US 00 (1.75mm), US 0 (2.00mm)
Pattern: Jamie Quick's Silk Beaded Pence Jug; I bought the beads and ring from her etsy store.

A delicate thing

I bought a handkerchief to wrap a gift in; I'm not a fan of gift-wrap paper. It turned out to be a handkerchief blank, that is, a handkerchief with evenly spaced holes around the edge, ready for a crocheted edging. KD had recently bought me some thread in an attempt to rekindle my interest in tatting, so with thread and hook and blank in hand, I set off into the wilds of the internet in search of a pattern to add a pretty little edging.

There are lots of really pretty, free, vintage edging patterns out there. But what with one thing and another, primarily the fact that my blank had a scalloped edge instead of a straight edge, I couldn't seem to pull any of them off. "Why can't I just make what I want?" I fumed.

Turns out, I could.

Hanging in there

Knocked flat by a brutal cold, I still managed to knock out a couple of hexapuffs for my eventual beekeeper’s quilt, a great use for leftover fingering weight.

Last Minute Knits

I really thought I wasn’t knitting any Christmas gifts this year. Ha!

Thank goodness for bulky weight yarns.

Worth the Effort

Finished up my one-skein shawl and wanted the right bind-off. It needed to stretch along the lace edge - so not the traditional standard bind-off, but not so much that it ruffled - so not Jeny’s, and I didn’t want a visible line - so not the double chain bind-off. I was pretty sure I wanted E-Z’s sewn bind-off, but who’s got the patience to pull yarn twice through a couple hundred stitches?

Turns out I do.

Gauge

I read a thought-provoking post today about one designer’s efforts to not list needle size recommendations on her patterns. Her point?

Needle size is immaterial. Gauge is all that matters.

I rarely make a gauge swatch. Then again, I rarely make anything fitted. When I do, I’m more apt to adjust the number of stitches than the needle size.

For instance, I knit socks with light fingering weight yarn on US 0 (2 mm) needles. Smaller stitches mean less friction, less wear on the fabric. If the sock is too small, I’m not going to switch to a larger needle, I’m going to add stitches to the pattern.

Hats? Mittens? I go with the recommended needle size and adjust the number of stitches if things aren’t working out. I guess that makes the object itself the gauge swatch.

When I make the infrequent sweater, I will often let the sleeves be my gauge swatch. Which is why a certain sweater has never made it beyond the sleeve stage. And I certainly try to find the needle size that will give me gauge rather than re-work all the sweater math!

I understand her insistence on gauge swatches. It would never occur to me to blame the designer if things didn’t work out and I hadn’t swatched. I like the idea of a pattern that calls for a “gauge-sized needle.” But I’m not that far removed from a knitter who needs at least a starting place for a gauge swatch. These days, I could make a pretty good guess. But as a beginning knitter? Don’t make me guess from 0-17 (2-12 mm)! The ball band usually has a starting place suggestion, but we don’t always have a ball band any more, do we? We trade yarn, we are gifted with handspun, and things just... get lost.

I think it might be a while before pattern publishers let her designs go without a suggested needle size as a gauge starting point. But it has got me thinking about measuring my gauge after the fact and including the info on Ravelry, in the neatly provided space for it. Recording what needle size I used only helps me, not anyone else who comes along and wants to mimic what I did.

After all this blathering, I feel compelled to provide a picture of knitting, so here you go.

How about this?

Making progress...

I'd be further along if someone (ahem) would send me the measurements I asked for...

Does this count?

Does this count as a work in progress?

(Life has gotten busy, posting will be sporadic until after the holidays.)

My Turn

I made KD a braided cowl two years ago,

and immediately cast on for one of my own. Life intervened, and I just came across it, half-finished, last week. Since this really is a quick knit, I finished it up, and now I have one of my own.

Needles: US 8 (5 mm) - not the US 10 specified in the pattern
Yarn: Caron's Simply Soft Solids in Chocolate, Autumn Red, Dark Sage, and Cobalt Blue Pagoda

Pattern: Braid It Bright
Mods: I got lazy and did a 3-neele bind-off instead of some neat flat weaving. I will probably regret it, but my neck was cold.

Color Block Slippers

"Mom, my feet are cold! I really wish I had some slippers."

I dug around in the stash for thick wool and came up with the leftovers from a knitting retreat project from four years ago. I weighed it (in the bag), then I dug around in Ravelry for a simple slipper pattern that didn't call for too much yarn. Because of the patterning I chose to do on the original project, I had different amounts of each color, but I wasn't worried about it. I figured I'd divide each color in half and just knit until I ran out of a color and start the next one. They might look odd, but the object was warmth, after all.


It was also an opportunity for KD to teach me the cast on she is obsessed with, so now I can add the Tubular Cast On to my bag of tricks. An inch into the cuff I realized that the size I wanted was half-way between the Child and Woman sizes, so I started over again, which gave me the chance to really cement the new cast on in my mind.

When the scale told me I had used half of the purple, I started from the other end of the yarn and knit a second cuff. I was surprised to discover that I had exactly enough purple for two cuffs. KD chose the color sequence for the rest of the slipper, and I started in on the green. I hadn't read ahead in the pattern, and as soon as I started the next step, I realized that these slippers were not going to be oddly-striped, overgrown socks. When I ran out of green at exactly the end of the next step, I realized that somehow, out of a random selection of yarn, pattern, sizing, and possibly planetary alignment, I had perfectly matching color block slippers.

I used up every bit of the yarn, 78 grams. They also fit perfectly. (I said, "Show me the bottom!" and she turned her foot over, resulting in a photo that looks like her leg is on backwards.)

Leftovers

After finishing what eventually became KD's Color Affection, and measuring the amount of yarn I had left, I decided to make a tricolor shawl.

Yarn: madelainetosh Tosh Merino Light, in leftovers of Forestry (122 yds), Vermilion (210 yds), and Baltic (92 yds)
Pattern: Cristiana Brenna's 100 Grammi
Mods: I cast on 15 sts blue - 30 sts red - 15 sts green. I worked the pattern backwards, as many people have, working all rows as P1, *yo, k2tog*, p1 instead of k1, *yo, p2tog*, k1. I bound off when I ran out of blue.

 You can have correct focus or correct colors, but evidently not both.