A Trio of Finished Objects

It feels as though I've had less knitting time than usual lately, however I've actually accomplished a lot in the last few weeks, so today I actually have three (THREE!) finished objects for your viewing pleasure.

First up, we have Nancy's Comfort, a comfort shawl to help Nancy deal with the sudden loss of her husband at age 64.  I haven't been saying much about this project, but here it is finished:

Pattern:  Janet's Shawl  Knit in Lion Brand Home Spun Colorway: Wildfire.  Ravelry Pattern Link  and Project Link

Totally unlike Cindy's comfort shawl, since their personalities and situations are so different.  For Cindy's, I wanted an earth tone for grounding and a somewhat tailored shape.  For Nancy, I wanted FIRE with a rustic, homespun feel. 

The shawl came out just the way I wanted it, the color, texture, and shape are just what I envisioned.  Only one problem; I really dislike the yarn!  The shawl desparately wants a good blocking, but sadly it is 100% acrylic and doesn't block the way wool does.  It is also lacking wool's wonderful "bounce", so even though I did Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off using needles 2 sizes larger than I used to knit the body, the edges are still very rigid compared to the stretchiness of the garter stitch body.

The pattern is a very basic elongated V shaped shawl with YO at the beginning and end of each row for increases, and garter stitch in between.  I modified it by adding a row of YO, K2tog across 2 rows before the bind off to add an eyelet row across the long edge to match the eyelets caused by the increases on the two sides of the triangle.  You can make this out in the left side of the picture just above the knot. 

The second finished object is Ginny's Not Boring Poncho.  My original design (or as original as you can get with a poncho, which is a pretty basic garment), I am really pleased with how it came out as well.  LOVE the color and it was a fun, quick knit.

Pattern from my head.  Yarn:  Viking Balder 100% superwash wool.  Ravelry Project Link

I wound up using all but about 15 inches of 3 skeins.  Instead of a ruffle at the bottom edge, I switched to US15 / 10mm needles for the final skein and did a decorative border to mirror the collar (1 round purl, 1 round knit, Purl bind off).  The bulk from the purl rows on 10mm needles actually cause it to ruffle really nicely.

I have never used superwash yarn except sock weight, so I wasn't prepared for the way this GREW when it hit water.  Measurements on the blocking mats are:  Neck = 19-20",  Spine = 27", sides = 25" long, bottom = 44" across.  I was aiming for length in the low 20"s, so this is a bit longer than I had planned.  I guess if it is down to her knees, they can mail it back and I can remove a bit.  But I'm reminding myself that it is April in Florida (it is April here as well, but not quite the same kind of April), so she won't probably be able to wear it much longer this spring anyway and it will still fit her next year (and the year after that and the year after that).

If she likes it, I'm thinking of making a smaller, lighter, more decorative poncho from bamboo or cotton that she can wear in warmer weather.  Something like this:  Karen Stelzer's Summer Poncho (Rav link).  We'll see :)

And finally, we have my February Lady's Sweater, finished knitting just needs buttons, blocking, and ends woven in.  I totally can't wait to block it, this yarn gets so incredible when it hits water.  I just need to wait for the poncho to dry and come off the mats. 

February Lady Sweater  non-Ravelry link! is Pamela Wynne's lovely tribute to Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Sweater on Two Needles (aka February Baby Sweater) upsized for women.  It is just a fabulous knit.  Super easy to modify as much or as little as you want to exactly meet your needs.  As of today, there are 10,660 projects for this sweater on Ravelry and an additional 11,320 people have it in their queue, waiting to be knit; that is just amazing!  Great job, Pam,  EZ would be so proud.

When I started mine, I was frustrated by sweaters that DON'T FIT right (yeah, Entrelac Tee, I'm looking right at you!) and really wanted to make this one fit well.  Pre-blocking, it is fitting very well, just a tad short.  That is intentional; I'm assuming that the sweater will grow in length between the blocking and the effect of the lace and the weight of the border.  If I don't pick up the inch or so that it needs, I will most likely undo the bind off and add a few more rows to the body.

The only real modification I made was to the yoke.  The original pattern calls for a garter stitch yoke and, as you well know if you've been reading this blog for a while, I hate garter stitch.  I'm not crazy about the look, but mostly I dislike the way it stretches in unpredictable ways and can really ruin the shape of the garment.  I did NOT want to be one of the people who knit this sweater and bemoaned the fact that it fits wonderfully except when it is falling off their shoulders.  I did a search on "stockinette" in the project pages and found quite a few lovely examples of this sweater with a stockinette yoke and went with that.

I also did my increases by lifting the stitch from the previous row.  I really like the neat and tidy way this increase looks.  It even looks great with the lifeline still in the picture.

The yarn is Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted, 50/50 alpaca/merino (sigh, I love this yarn) in the Muir Woods colorway.  WEBS link  I call it my "Visualize Whirled Peas" FLS. 

More photos to come.

The Quest for the Perfect Poncho

A few weeks ago, my Mom mentioned that I should knit a poncho for my will-be-7-this-week niece, Virginia.  I agreed that ponchos were wonderful for kids because you had your arms free for play and they bridged a wider temperature range than most sweaters or jackets.  However, I was strangly reluctant.

So I thought about it over a few days and finally realized why I was reluctant.  To me, Ponchos = the 70s.  I remember the 70s.  I really disliked the clothing then and, frankly, I don't think it has improved over time.  Bell bottoms, hip huggers, tie dye, fringe ... not exactly a shining moment (or decade) for fashion.

I remember being 8 in 1972 and talking to my BFF at the time, Patty.  Patty was wearing bell bottom hip huggers and a tie dye top (yes, at 8).  She asked me why I never wore tie-dye.  I told her I was allergic to it.  Fortunately, she believed me.

So when I think "poncho", I think this:

And this:

And this "men's montrosity horror poncho" -- oh goddess, I'm starting to get hives ...

And I just can't do that to a perfectly charming almost-7 girl.

So time passed.  And I started looking at this as a challenge.  I'm a knitter.  I am in control of what comes off my needles (in theory anyway).  Was it possible to make a poncho that I wouldn't hate?

So I started looking at patterns and just couldn't find one that I liked.  Actually, I found one that I liked a lot, but made the mistake of showing it to my Mother who "pooh poohed" it completely because it "wasn't a real poncho" (no kidding, that's most likely why I liked it).  She also "pooh poohed" ponchos with cables (an improvement in my opinion) and everything else that I showed her.  So I came away from the conversation with 2 decisions made: 

(1) I was going to have to design one myself, and

(2) no way was I letting Mom know what I was doing until it was too late to change it.

My research underscored the two things I had to avoid in my poncho, a big stretched out gapping neck that would fall off one shoulder, and FRINGE.  Now, I have no quarrel with the TV show of the same name, I've never seen it but I've heard it's good, but NO FRINGE is allowed anywhere NEAR my poncho, and this is non-negotiable!   There were also 3 givens, it had to be pink enough to please Virginia but not so pink I couldn't bear to knit it, it had to be machine washable for my sister's sake, and it couldn't be boring for Bob's sake  (Bob is on a kick where he is rebelling against "mundane" and "boring" colors, a completely natural response to this winter).

So, armed with a germ of an idea, I trotted off to Monterey Yarn on Thursday, March 24, in the hopes of finding the yarn that would make this all possible.  I made it through 3/4 of the store and had found only one yarn that I considered "right" when Kathy caught up to me.  I explained my mission.  She said she knew EXACTLY the right yarn, and went straight to the one I had just considered.  We held it.  We rubbed it.  We read the label.  We agreed... just right.

Yarn:  Viking Balder superwash 100% wool, 100gr = 137yds/125m.  Colorway:  465.

I CO 46 stitches  on size US 11 (8mm) circ needles and started with a little bit of a "collar" knit flat 1 row purl, 2 rows knit, 1 row purl (this is how it looks on the outside, it is actually knit as 2 rows purl, 2 rows knit to get that effect).  This gives a little notch at the throat to allow room for the poncho to go over her head.  I will make some I-Cord ties so she can tighten the neck if it is too big or chilly.  I also plan to run a row of single crochet around the inside of the first row so the neck can't stretch out.

Then to join it into the round, I knit to the stitch before the last on the needle, did a YO, knit last stitch on this side, first stitch on the other side (that joined it into the round), YO, K21, YO, K2, YO, K21.  And K around the next row.

This established the pattern, with YO, K2, YO every other row in the front and in the back as increases.

After about 4 or 5 inches, I switched to size US 13 (9mm) needles.  I would have done the whole poncho on 13s, but wanted to do the shoulders a little tighter (okay, so I'm obsessed with not letting this stretch out of shape completely, but I'd rather be cautious than disappointed).

I'm REALLY liking this.  I think Ginny will love the color (it earned the Bob says it's not boring stamp of approval).  and it is SUCH a quick knit!  I started on Friday afternoon and it is about 14" long unstretched (more than twice as long as in the picture, taken Saturday afternoon), which I'm estimating would = about 18" post blocking.  I intend to block it rather aggressively for length.

My intention is to continue knitting till I finish the second skein (coming up quickly), then to switch to US 15 needles and increase in every stitch (ie double the number of stitches) to make a ruffle as long as I can with the remaining (third) skein.  I'm not sure if doubling the stitches will be sufficiently "ruffly", but I hope so.  I could triple the stitches, but that will eat up a lot of yarn and make the poncho correspondingly shorter, so I'd rather split the difference between fullness and length and go with twice the stitches and bigger needles. 

I should point out that it is REALLY hard to design something for a virtually-7-year-old without one handy to measure.  This might come back a week later in the mail with a request for a complete re-knit.  Which would be fine, as long as it was accompanied by a photo of it on her or measurements :P

Now comes the really hard part.  I'm about to head over to Mom's for several hours of DIY bathroom improvement shows.  No way am I not going to work on this poncho while I watch, which means showing it to Mom and reminding her that she can always knit one herself if she doesn't like mine.  Wish me luck.  I vow to not negotiate on the fringe! 

My Reality vs Real Reality

I like to think of myself as a rational, realistic person.  Sadly, I have recently had to confront the fact that my version of reality often does not match real reality.  It is a bitter bitter truth that I was confronted with during my recent vacation from work.  My reality says that when I have 6 days off from work I can accomplish massive amounts of fun things that I normally don't have time for.  Case in point:

#1 - Fantasy:  if I'm off work, I can do blog posts every day!  Reality:  my first March blog post is the 26th.  Gads.

#2 - Fantasy:  I am absolutely committed to finishing my February Lady Sweater during my vacation!  All I have left is the two sleeves and they are only 3/4 length.  Easy Peasy!  I'll just consider it a "test knit" with a March 12th deadline and get right on it.  

This one has two odd thought patterns in it, the first is easy to spot, that I thought I would finish the sweater by March 12th.  Observe Reality as shown in a March 26 photo:

Project link: "Visualize Whirled Peas" February Lady Sweater
Pattern link:  non-Ravelry Pattern Link 
Knit in Misti Alpaca  50/50 Merino wool/alpaca  100% sheer heaven   colorway: Muir Woods

Please note that one and about a quarter sleeves are done, but that's probably more than you were expecting to see.  <sigh>  (and trust me, it will look better after it is blocked!)

The second fallacy is harder to spot, but it is in the pledge to consider this my own personal test knit, thereby implying that I won't be distracted by someone else's test.  Yeah, right.  But on the plus side, Bob has a lovely new sock.  (As I told my boss the other day when he suggested that perhaps I had a knitting problem, "I don't have a problem, I HAVE a sock." )  Unfortunately, I don't appear to have a picture of the sock available at the moment, but here's a link.  Louche Sock  It was a very fun pattern to knit and I'm looking forward to knitting the second one.  The socks are mirror images of each other, so I will have to bend my mind around the pattern being backwards. 

Bob is also looking forward to the second sock, so he can wear a pair instead of gazing admiringly at a single sock.

The next fantasy didn't happen during my vacation, but it shows what a slow learner I am.

Fantasy #3:  "snow day" means a lovely day sipping tea and knitting while watching lazy flakes fall outside the window.  Reality:  March 23rd - 17.8" of snow = 3.5 hours with a chain saw and a snow blower followed by a nap because we were too exhausted to stay awake after clearing both driveways.  Amazingly, the snow plows had already been by when we went out to clear.  During the day (after the photos) we got an additional 4 inches of snow but no additional branches fell.  We lost 1 very large branch (8-9" diameter), 1 medium branch (4" diameter that was totally hidden in the snow till I hit it with the snow blower), and 2 smaller diameter branches.  Fortunately, when Bob got home from work during the storm he put the car in the garage so the branches didn't hit it on the way down.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  Hope you had snow on your birthday list, cause that's what you got!

 

This is my favorite picture of the storm, a 9 inch cap of snow sticking straight out from a Christmas light.  It gives a great idea of how wet and heavy the snow was.  Amazing defiance of gravity.

Happy spring!

A Brief Moment of Sun

Yesterday morning the sun came out. I don't actually know the last time that happened, but it feels like years or at least months. Anyway, when I saw it, I snatched an armful of wool and my camera and ran across the street to my Mom's sunroom.

She was great and managed to not call the police when I burst into her house yelling, "here, put this hat on QUICK", but that might be because she assumed the police were right behind me. Either way, the result was decent pictures of the items I've been discussing for the last few days.

Here's the first hat:

It's a little hard to see the chevron design, but still a pretty texture.

Rav Link

Clearly I failed to complete my knot badge in Girl Scouts.

Next up are final pictures of mara:

And, finally, my new Madelinetosh hat,  Aspen Tam  finished this morning:

The color is more accurate in the bottom picture, it is more a rust than an orange.  See that little knot of yarn?  That's what was left over after I finished the hat.  4grams, 8 yards of a 210yd skein.  I was very happy that I hadn't noticed how little was left until after I finished knitting!

This week's plan is to:

• finish the body of my February Lady Sweater  Visualize Whirled Peas.  This should be easy, I have begun binding off while uploading these pictures. 
• pick up the stitches and get a good start on the sleeves, and
• do a lot of knitting on Nancy's Comfort.

Love, thy name is Madelinetosh

Last weekend I saw a cute hat pattern listed in the Free Pattern Tester group on Ravelry. My experience in knitting hats for myself was bleak -- every one had been immediately ripped out because it was huge or oddly misshapen or huge AND oddly misshapen. Now, I've made a few very nice, well fitting hats for other people, my cousin George, my Dad, Bob (heck Bob even sleeps in his.  I like to think that's because he loves it too much to take it off, but it may just be because our house is really cold), and Virginia (see A Christmas Cowl post for pics), but for me? Fagetaboutit!

Anyway, (a) the hat, Tied-Band Chevron Beret, was cute (see While Waiting for the Snow post), (b) I needed a break from a garter stitch comfort shawl, (c) I really wanted to knit with that brick red Nashua Hand Knits Focus Worsted that was burning a hole in my stash, (d) based on the 7-11 inches of snow being forecast (we got 11.8), there was clearly a lot of winter left and I don't actually own a hat that fits, and (e) being a Knitter who doesn't actually own a hat that fits is kinda embarrassing.  So I volunteered for the test.

The hat test was a resounding success, I started the hat on the 19th and finished on the 21st and it fit me very well.  Ravelry Project Link

So the very next day, when I saw another hat test, for the Aspen Tam Pattern Link  and my Project Link, I jumped at it.  This hat seemed to use the basic shape of the last one, which fit me very well, and added cool leaves and the twisted knit stitch that I loved from Bob's Unicurve Socks.  So at lunch on the 23rd, I trotted off to Monterey Yarn to find the perfect yarn.  To be perfect for this project, it had to be an interesting earthy color, be tonal enough to not distract from the pattern, and have exceptional stitch definition to make those twisted knit stitches really POP. 

I found it.  And I am so in love with this yarn!  Madelinetosh Tosh Merino (non-Ravelry link) in the Amber Trinket colorway.  For some reason, the website is not showing Amber Trinket.  I hope it isn't discontinued, but they have so many amazing colors that I know I'll find something else to love if it is. 

Tosh Merino is a worsted weight 100% merino single ply, similar to Malabrigo but with a tighter twist so it is even rounder and gives even crisper stitch definition.  And soft, as in OMG soft.  The Tosh is to Malabrigo what Malabrigo is to Manos of Uruguay. (And we know I love Malabrigo enough to have named one of my Guild Wars characters Misti Malabrigo after both Mal and Misti Alpaca Tonos, my other favorite yarn).

Okay, for non-knitters, I know that last paragraph sounded like the adults on Peanuts -- wah wah waah wah, so let me try to restate it in non-knitter terms... Remember how you thought a hamster was really soft until you felt a chinchilla for the first time?  Yeah, just like that.  Tosh is to Malabrigo is to Manos like chinchilla is to hamster is to dog.  (I could SO have a career writing SAT questions!) Now if that didn't make sense to anyone, I just have to recommend you visit either a good local yarn store or a good pet shop, either one should have what you need on hand to make this make sense.

I really haven't done enough of the hat to see the pattern yet, but look at that stitch definition!  The color is more accurate in the first picture. 

It has been 2 days since I bought the yarn, and Bob has already taken to saying "yes, we got it, you love this yarn" a lot, so I guess maybe I'm obsessing a little bit (just maybe). I mentioned to Bob at lunch that I totally understood now why the Madelinetosh Lovers group in Ravelry has almost 3,000 members, but he kinda got hung up on the fact that a yarn could have a fan club, which was not the response I was looking for, so I moved on conversationally.

But I definitely see a sweater in this yarn in the future, maybe this one:  Renaissance (non-Ravelry link).    Yes, I know, NOT until I finish my February Lady Sweater (which is almost done) and Bob's sweater (which is not quite as almost done).  Then again, those will go faster now that I'm so motivated.  Until then, I might have to make myself a Hamsterbean with any leftover yarn from the hat.  A cute little knit hamster will probably be more socially acceptable than carrying around a little ball of leftover yarn to pet and admire.  Or maybe not...

Meet Flitwick

I'd like to take a moment to introduce my favorite new toy, a birthday gift from my wonderful husband:

Okay, I for one am totally stunned that I am excited to get a scale as a present, seeing as how I normally avoid scales like the plague. But THIS is a YARN scale and not just any old yarn scale, but a Knit Picks Yarn Scale http://www.knitpicks.com/cfaccessories/accessory_display.cfm?ID=80633, guaranteed accurate to 0.5 grams. Trust me, that's impressive; check the ones at the kitchen store or Target, they are mostly guaranteed to 5 grams. So who cares? ME, and I'll tell you why so you can care too!

That gorgeous yarn on the scale is what remains of my Claudia Hand Painted Yarns fingering weight skein (colorway: Copper Pennies) after finishing one Fair Isle Fox Mitten Test Mitten.

The skein originally weighed 50 grams. Those magical numbers on my new scale read 28.0g. Since 28.0 is greater than 25.0, and is well within a 0.5g margin of error but not within a 5.0g margin of error, I now know that I have enough yarn to finish the second mitten!

AND, since I know that the original skein had 175 yards in that 50 grams, I now also know that I used 77 yards for the first mitten and have a whopping 21 yards more than I need for the second mitten. Who knew I could rattle off math like that? If only elementary school math class had used practical scenarios like this one, my school years would have been far more pleasant and productive!

See? Magic! I think I'm going to call my yarn scale "Flitwick", since it is small, magical, and completely charming.

BTW, that Claudia Hand Painted Yarn is as wonderful to knit with as it is pretty, love the beaded texture and the color.

And, for you very observant types, yes, I really do have ridiculously short toes.

While Waiting For The Snow

Note: after many hours of cussing and snarling, I finally got blogger to post my pictures. I'm not sure if it was a glitch or an editorial comment by blogger, because the pics really are awful. My humble apologies. At some point, the weather will brighten up and I will be home during those bright hours to retake most of these pictures. Until then, I apologize, but hope that lousy pictures are at least a little better than none.

A lot has actually been going on, so a Random Sunday seemed in order to catch it all up.

1. Since there might be someone out there who (a) lives in a cave without internet, and (b) actually cares about the Packers, I will end the football portion of this blog with a very few words (and I swear this is the last football reference!): "nail biter", "Yikes", "wow that was close". Okay, done, back to knitting!

2. During the game, I cast on a Newborn Packer Charity Hat:

Ravelry Project Link and Pattern Link Knit with Berocco Comfort in Dark Green and Gold.

I think this hat is rather acorn shaped, but apparently so are newborn heads. Who knew?

I have more of this yarn left and hope to do another hat or matching booties before the challenge ends at the end of the month. As it was cast on during the game, I expect this to be a very lucky hat! (oops, did I mention a game? game? what game?)

3. The reason I cast on the hat is because I also cast off mara. After an illness delay, mara is currently drying on the pins and should be all done later today.

I am really pleased with the size and shape while blocking. I used just over 2 balls of Cascade 220 tweed, 521 yards and it is 25" down the spine. I would have made it a little bigger for myself, but Cindy is small and I think it will be just right for her.

The only real modification I made was to do the border increases every row instead of every other row as written. That changed the shape from a basic V to this elongated wing shape that enfolds the wearer -- like a bear hug. Or, technically, a sheep hug, since it is 100% merino wool.

I am still hoping to get better pictures, of the shawl off the pins. Stay tuned, I'm pretty sure the sun will come out eventually...


4. I have started a new comfort shawl for Nancy, whose dear husband, Jim, died very suddenly of a heart attack at age 64 last week. When I set a private goal of knitting 11 shawls in 2011, I really did NOT mean comfort shawls for grieving friends.


More about this later. Suffice it to say that objects are larger than they appear in the picture. Admit it, how many of you immediately pictured an enormous eyeball filling a rear view mirror when you read that?


5. After 5 days above freezing, the ground is covered by dead grass, dead leaves, and grey, icy, dirty, dead snow. My eyes and brain are so starved for color stimulation that I have started fantasizing about red. I found a dark raspberry long-sleeved cotton Tee for $3.99 at Shopko on Friday and almost wept as I threw it into my basket. I think I managed to not actually snarl and hunch over the basket as I looked around for potential competitors to my shirt, but it was close.

6. Last night I signed up for a hat pattern test and cast on within minutes of receiving the pattern. I'm using brick red Nashua Handknits Focus Worsted left over from Arlene's Braided Cowl. I don't want to put it down. I keep looking at it while I type. It's helping.

I should call this project "a not grey dead hat", but that would probably confuse anyone who hasn't read this post. Instead, it is called Tied-Band Chevron Beret Test. And here's a Ravelry link: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Rainyt/tied-band-chevron-beret-test

In answer to the obvious questions, no, I do not have measles, and no, I don't know why the picture makes me look like I have measles. Yes, it is a totally crappy picture taken by someone who got caught up in the moment and forgot that the object of the picture was supposed to be the hat.

The picture is also pre-blocking. Post blocking the hat is much smoother at the top but still has the three "wrinkles" or folds at the bottom, which I like a lot. If the knitting goddess smiles, I will get decent pics of this as well tomorrow during daylight hours.



7. For the last 30 years (at least), I have had a standing request for snow on my birthday. It's a day early, but it looks like it the universe is coming through in a big way this year - they are predicting 7-11 inches today and tonight. Nice job. That will help cover the disgusting mess that is Green Bay right now (see #5 above).