The hat is finished! DH says I look like Pippi Longstocking in it, so Pippi is her name.
Crochet edging took care of the curling issues. I tried single crochet, but it didn’t have enough oomph to tame the curl, so half double crochet is the winner here. The hat is really fun to wear, even though I don’t wear hats.
Now I want to make it again, a little bigger, a few tweaks…but I have another project that I promised myself I would finish by New Year’s Day, so that one is first in line.
Well, I didn’t make another pair of socks. I decided to try something else with the stash yarn.
What is it? Besides bright and cheery.
It’s trying to be an earflap cap. I’m designing as I go. I mostly like it. But I don’t like that the brim in front is flipping up. I should have started with some garter stitch at the edge.
The earflaps themselves tend to curl. That’s their nature, being stockinette stitch. I think some crochet around the edges will tame that problem. The flaps could also be about half an inch shorter, but I’m not going back to the beginning to change them!
I generally don’t wear hats; they mess up my hair. But after all the snow of the past couple weeks, I decided that a hat could be a good thing. Earflaps and some braids on the flaps would give some visual interest (pretend to be a hairstyle?); I think I’d like that better than a beanie.
First try at the crown shaping was not what I wanted, so I’m on the second attempt. It’s all trial and error here.
Happy new year!
Posted in Knit, pattern design
I finished my second Athena entrelac neck warmer last night. Purling back backwards (not turning the work each row) makes this go pretty quickly. But it looks like this Athena won’t be for me. She’ll be going on to her new life as a shop model. Shannon and Emily will be selling the hard copy pattern at Twisted, and they’d like a sample. Done! So I picked up more Taos and will make another one for myself, in a bit. Check out this color:
And I bought myself a little present for the next one: 16″ ebony circulars from Lantern Moon. Mmmmm, I love these needles. I didn’t realize that they made 16″ circulars, but now that I know, I had to get a few. Great tools make knitting even more of a pleasure!
I’m also dreaming of some quick worsted weight socks, because it’s cold and snowy, and my boots are just a tad big so there’s room. I think I’ll use some stash KnitPicks Wool of the Andes and make something fun with a color pattern, because I have a lot of bits of different colors left from other projects.
I guess I should be cleaning my house for Christmas, but if I clean it now, it will be messy by Christmas Eve. Maybe tomorrow!
Posted in Knit, pattern design
Tagged Athena, cowl, entrelac, Knit, knitpicks, lantern moon, neck warmer, twisted
It’s finished! Introducing Athena, an entrelac neck warmer.
This yarn really lends itself to entrelac. I did try four other patterns, but ended up having to come up with something on my own. I knew I didn’t want to knit a long scarf; time was of the essence. I thought about knitting an entrelac scarflet, but I’ve only knit entrelac in the round, and didn’t feel like learning a new trick in a hurry (it’s just learning about side triangles for flat entrelac, but a mood is a mood). My next thought was a hat, but I didn’t think the intended recipient would wear a hat. And it would be floppy. I went to bed thinking about it, and the next morning I woke up with this neck warmer idea springing from my head. And I love the name Athena for it.
I did have to start it three different times. The fun of designing is making all the mistakes for you, so you don’t have to! The pattern is available as a pdf download for $5 US through Ravelry. See the pattern page for more information.
Here’s Carole with her new neck warmer!
Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry
Tagged crystal palace taos, entrelac, entrelac cowl, entrelac neck warmer, Knit
The Taos project continues. The idea popped into my head as I was waking up the morning after I abandoned the Pioneer Braid. It wasn’t quite as cleanly executed as Athena springing fully formed from Zeus’ forehead, though. The first cast on was enormous! The second cast on, still pretty oversized. The third attempt appears to be spot on. It’s an entrelac project (yes, this yarn is perfect for entrelac!) so it’s hard to tell how large the project is going to be without working through at least two tiers of blocks. That’s a lot of knitting and ripping. But this yarn is a bit fuzzy, and ripping doesn’t adversely affect it at all. Thank goodness. No picture yet; it’s a surprise.
So what can I show you? Not Hey, Teach; she’s been languishing while I’ve been playing with Athena. How about something I found in my yard?
I think it’s a fungus, next to a weed and between some dead iris leaves. It’s so vibrantly orange! It caught my eye when I was leaving the house.
Oh, a bit of knitting news: I’m going to be teaching some classes at Twisted in February and March. I’m signed on to teach a class on basic hats in the round (will knit up a sample soon), and a class on my felted slip stitch tote! Schedule should be going up soon.
Or, behind the scenes in the process of choosing a project.
The new yarn (Crystal Palace Taos) is being a bit difficult. It’s lovely stuff, very soft, and the colors are beautiful. But I’m still not sure what to knit with it. Nothing is singing to me.
At first I thought a bit of feather and fan would be fun. I’ve always wanted to knit a feather and fan lace pattern, and Two Weeknights with Warrick looked like it would be perfect. Great pattern, easy to memorize. Alas, it doesn’t do justice to the yarn. I’ll knit this pattern with a different yarn somewhere down the road.
So I cast on for the checkerboard scarflet. But the checkerboard was getting lost in the color changes, or the color changes were getting lost in the checkerboard. I’m not sure which.
I poked around on Ravelry to see what other people made with this gorgeous yarn. A lot of entrelac! And some mitered scarves. Aha. How about the Pioneer Braid Scarf? I cast on this morning and knit for a bit. The pattern is ingenious. Here’s what it looks like. And this is a much better depiction of the true colors.
It’s better than the first two tries, but it still doesn’t sing to me. And I’m not sure I want to knit an entire scarf right now. Tempus fugit! I’m thinking that I’ll play with some entrelac. I’d make a Quant, but the intended recipient isn’t a headband sort of person. On the other hand, I’m not sure she’d use the entrelac item I have percolating in my mind, either. But at least I’d get a design out of the yarn. If I do it. What I thought would be a straightforward project, isn’t. Le sigh.
Well, the yarn isn’t singing to me yet, but I was singing yesterday! The Day Old Pastries, my folkie group, played and sang carols at our church Advent Festival in the afternoon. From there I went to sing with the Everyone Welcome Community Choir at Artichoke Music, and that was a blast. Here’s a clip of one of my favorite songs from yesterday, Siyahamba. It’s South African (Zulu). Enjoy!
Posted in Day Old Pastries, Knit, music, pattern design, ravelry
That’s how I feel, now that my Central Park Hoodie and the related Checkerboard Scarflet from the leftover yarn and buttons are done. I finished writing the pattern for the Checkerboard Scarflet, and Marie was kind enough to look it over for me. I’ve incorporated most of her suggestions, and the pattern is now available through Ravelry download/PayPal for $4.
I have another scarflet on the needles, the mindless log cabin blanket, and a secret holiday-related project, but no sweater. I’m antsy. Apparently I’ve become accustomed to bigger projects, and feel bereft without a sweater in progress.
What to do?
I think I’m going to have to make Hey, Teach. I even bought yarn for it. The pattern calls for four skeins of this yarn, and I hope it doesn’t need more, because this is all they had in this color at Yarn Garden. I usually have to shorten garments, so for once in my life, the fact that I’m not tall and willowy should work in my favor. At least the not tall part, anyway. 😉
The music behind the yarn is what I’m working at the piano. Which means not often lately! It’s from Valses Poeticos by Enrique Granados. Granados has usurped Mozart’s place in my affections, at least temporarily.
What else is going on? I’ve been taking a harmony singing class at the local community college. Just for fun! The day after the class started, the local paper had a feature on the teacher, Anne Weiss. Sweet! It’s been a great class, but it’s only four sessions and next week is the last one. I’ve been using my Zoom H2 digital recorder to record the songs we sing, and it’s been great to have those recordings for practice. I’ve loaded them onto my iPod, and there’s always a song running through my head these days.
Posted in Knit, music, pattern design, piano, ravelry
Tagged anne weiss, checkerboard scarflet, granados, hey teach, Knit, Zoom H2
I’m helping with a knitting party at Twisted in January. The party was a buy-in item at our high school booster club auction. Participants will receive yarn, Lantern Moon needles, and a lovely morning of tea and treats, as well as knitting instruction. I wanted to add a little more to the package, so I’m making stitch markers in school colors, and a pattern for a relatively simple project.
I had some leftover Louet Riverstone worsted from the Central Park Hoodie, as well as the almost perfect buttons. I needed a pattern that has some visual/textural interest, but wouldn’t be too hard for relative beginners. A lot of beginners start with an endless garter stitch scarf, but I know a lot of beginners lose interest in that endless scarf! So how about a shorter scarf? With buttons, because I have some that are perfect with this yarn?
And so the Checkerboard Scarflet was born. It’s pretty simple, just a knit/purl checkerboard pattern. Writing it was harder than knitting it!
It’s very cozy to wear. It will be great under my wool coat when it gets cooler.
It’s hard trying to take a picture of your own neck without seeing the viewfinder!
I thought about moving the buttonholes to the beginning of the project, rather than the end. But that made the beginning of the pattern more confusing for a beginning knitter. Also, I figured that if one were a relatively new knitter, the end of the scarflet would be better looking than the beginning, and the buttonhole end is the end that overlaps on top. We wants the pretty on the part that shows! So I’m leaving the buttonholes for the end. Isn’t it interesting what goes into deciding these things?
Pattern coming soon.
eta: Pattern information has been added here.
Remember how summer was all about blue for me? Blueberries, blue February Lady sweater, blue hydrangeas? And a little pink: Josephine, and the pink February Baby sweater.
New season, new color. Now it’s all about purple. Makes sense; blue + pink = purple!
Here’s what I’ve been working on: purple plums. Or technically, Italian prunes. I picked these at Vickie’s house when I was at her block party on Saturday. Kind of blue purple, but purple nonetheless.
I made them into two batches of jam. It’s funny how it’s red purple after processing, especially since the flesh of the fruit is yellow and the skin is blue! I used MCP pectin, which comes with a simpler recipe than the Sure-Jell variety. (No pre-cooking the plum mixture.) I know you can make jam without purchased pectin, but that would take a lot longer, and I’ve been using this process for years. Now I have 20 jars of plum jam, a taste of summer all winter long. And it’s great for gifts, too.
I rode my bike over to Twisted this afternoon to buy this yarn. It’s Louet Riverstone worsted; the color is eggplant. It’s a red purple, although I tend to think of eggplant as blue purple, like the plums in the first picture.
The yarn is for the Central Park Hoodie, which is the next knitalong at Twisted. It was my favorite out of the items up for vote, so how could I not make it? I voted for it! I admit that I may have been swayed by TurtleGirl’s CPH.
I’ll be swatching tonight at Knit Nite.
And since there’s just a bit of summer left, I’m using the leftovers from the blue February Lady sweater, and playing with the idea of a gull wing lace fingerless mitt. Besides, purple has blue in it, right? I’m transitioning!
There’s a new sweater pattern that’s getting a lot of attention on Ravelry. It’s called the February Lady Sweater by Pamela Wynne, and it’s a grown-up adaptation of the February Baby Sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s classic book, Knitter’s Almanac. Cute!
I put it in my Ravelry queue as a joke, just to see if it would spread there. Yup. Then I heard that Twisted, my favorite LYS, is hosting a KAL (knitalong). And then they decided to have an anniversary sale to celebrate their first year in business. How could I resist all that?
I couldn’t. Last night I bought Louet Riverstone Worsted in a gorgeous color, French Blue.
I think it will be great with jeans. Twisted’s KAL begins on July 11, but I’ll need to swatch before then. For now, I’m reading Ravelry’s February Lady KAL group forum for tips and ideas.
Side note: Emily bought some of my patterns, so they’re available at Twisted, as well as here on my blog. They’re for my felted slip stitch tote,
entrelac socks,
log cabin baby blanket,
and zigzag pedi socks.
More pattern sales mean more yarn for me. Do you feel like an enabler? 😉
PDXKnitterati 