Share Time!

After coming home from Seattle with so much yarn from so much yarn, I had to get creative. The Dream in Color Smooshy has been stuffed in a bag is helping one of my purses keep its shape while being stored. Two of the skeins of Silky Alpaca Lace are in the process of fueling my shawl kick. In spite of that, there's no way the remaining skeins are going to fit in the Yarn Tote.

And what do I find on the doorstep after work one afternoon?



My latest CSA share from Vermont Grand View Farm. This is the third year I've participated in it. The past two years' shares gave me the Pimlico Shrug, with a few skeins to spare.

I believe the sensible reaction would have been to cry out in duress at the prospect of having more yarn than I could possibly store until I can find the time to turn it into a finished project.



So what do I do? Open it, squoosh it (Kim's yarns are quite squooshy), smile at how she always packs in a little treat (gift cards this year) and start planning a cream-and gray striped raglan pullover with a little placket along one of the raglan seams.

Getting Rolling

(Jolty view from the bus window)

After the snuggly, bakery-filled stasis of the holiday season, the year is getting rolling again. I have started the year with some volunteering at ASU. Traveling to ASU can only mean riding the bus, and that can only mean knitting on the bus.

Woohoo!

I'm coming out of a bonnet jag.





The pattern, as you may have guessed, is HelloYarn's Top-Down Bonnet with Anime Character, aka the Totoro bonnet. I had downloaded this pattern ages ago, but put off making it because I was intimidated by the figure 8 cast on. I shouldn't have worried--Adrian put together a tutorial for that, and I can attest that it comes out ok even if you forget to untwist the stitches on the second needle.

Notes--the Yoda bonnet is knitted with the discontinued Silk Road Aran, which is a little too hefty. The Totoro version, knit with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK, has more give, which is ideal for a bonnet that stretches to fit snugly around the wearer's head. Having worked the back of neck decreases as written for the Yoda bonnet and been unhappy with the fit, I adjusted the rate of decreases for the Totoro Bonnet for a gentler slope. Full list of mods Ravelled here.

Digging the Silk Road out of my stash has reminded me of all the yarn I own--and like!--so I do believe the next jag will be a Stash-knitting jag.

Week 11: Elizabeth Zimmerman Made Me Do It

For all I've been blogging about it, one would think I wasn't knitting at all. Au contraire, my dear readers.

First came the Mousie.



Knit out of small amounts of Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight and my all-time-favorite stash yarn, Lamb's Pride Worsted for a little instant gratification, my Mousie got me thinking about my other stash yarn and the joy of knitting something for oneself.

Not that I don't like knitting for other people, but sometimes it's discouraging to only knit what others will like rather than what makes *you* happy.

So I started daydreaming about Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover, a sweater I've wanted to knit for eons. Since it came out in the Spring '05 issue of Interweave Knits, as a matter of fact. I'd bought the yarn and swatched it in April:



...but then my library classes started, and I had two summer sweaters going, and so I set it aside.

The pattern calls for a bulky, and my yarn is DK, so I'd have to do some fiddling with the gauge. I looked on Ravelry to see if anyone else had tried this. I never found out--I got sidetracked first by the neck. It looked wonky in just about every single one of the pictures. A dozen Ravelers can't be wrong, so it had to be the pattern. I could fiddle with that, too. So I pulled out The Opinionated Knitter and Knitting in the Old Way, decided to scrap the bottom-up-meets top down approach and do the whole thing in the round bottom up, and to scrap the raglan for a better-fitting round yoke...

And then I just cast on. Finals? Unfinished Thundercloud Cardigan? Another Christmas gift in the works that is most definitely going to need the same size 5 circular? The fact that I have only the gauge and the barest idea of how I am going to execute my sweater? I generally consider myself a practical person, but for this sweater, I threw practicality out the window. I have been inspired (possessed?) by the spirit of Elizabeth Zimmerman, and I'm going to go for it.

Week 10: Do Not Tell Me It's Week 10

...Because if this is week 10, that means I need to start working on some class projects.

Moving on to happy thoughts: Sunday was Stella's Adoption Day!



The day was nothing out of the ordinary--she threw up on my carpet at 5 in the morning, sat and watched Sunday Morning with us, the usual Sunday things--but it's so strange to think we've had her for a year. In that time, she has developed a ridiculously large vocabulary (eat, sit, and walk, but also bed, dressed, cheese, shoes, and kiss, to name just a few) and an affinity for nesting, as pictured above. I was changing the sheets on my bed, and she came over and plunked right down in them, nevermind that they were right in the entrance to my room.



I love having a dog, for all the barfing in beds and on carpets, and will say it loud and clear: if you want a dog, rescue dogs are the best! Mutts have excellent personalities, and there are too many dogs out there without good homes and loving, responsible owners. We were lucky enough to find Stella by chance (literally, the first dog we saw when we went to the pound), but Petfinder is another great resource that will show you how many dogs (and cats) are out there in need of homes.

In knitty news, I am taking a day to do some stash-diving (and me knitting) while waiting for the back of Mum's Thundercloud cardigan to dry. If it shrinks to the right gauge, I'm done with that piece, if not, I have to rip out the last dozen rows and bind off from there. For all I think this is a brilliant pattern, I'm really hoping it dries to the right size, because I'm kind of getting tired of obsessively measuring my knitting.

I Make a List

1. The Red Scarf, a.k.a. the Movie Scarf, is in the mail. Yaaay!

2. Pandora has tried to put Modest Mouse on my Death Cab station. Extermination is underway.



3. Pictured drying beside it is my version of the Cisco baby bonnet: Baby Blue Ears. It's heavily influenced by the brilliant B r o o k l y n t w e e d, and modeled here by Stella. She is such a strange little dog--we can dress her up in just about anything and she's never particularly bothered. Here, she is very busy watching for her twin nemeses, Cats and Boys on Bicycles. Yes, the fact that I used my dog as a model is part of the reason I washed the bonnet.



4. I'm experiencing a bit of destashing mania. The Baby Blue Ears is all stash yarn, and pictured above is the new sleeve I made for my camera (modeled on Hermanita's camera) using a dab of Inca Alpaca I'd been saving for something special, paired with a skeinlet of handspun I simply did *not* know what to do with. The combo is nice and dense, which is good because my old camera case was not sufficiently sturdy to stand up to the rigors of my purse.

5. The new Knitty is up, and the navigation is marvelous. I am so impressed, I'm going to post about it in my Digital Collections class if I can find a place.

Changing Gears

We in the desert have lucked out with an exceptionally mild spring. Only now is it beginning the transition from gloriously pleasant to hotter than the dickens, which means it's time to transition into a new phase of knitting projects.

My hands were getting sore from all the projects I'd be doing on tiny needles, so I took a break from that branch of crafting and zipped up a recycled materials tote bag.



I am thrilled to death with it--this is exactly how I envisioned it turning out. Big deal, you say, it's just a square of jersey fabric sewn on a bag. Scoff not:the last time I tangled with the Funstyler, it won.

The knit-free day lasted just that long--a day--and then it was back to the needles. I finished up my Pinwheel Shawl, and am similarly pleased with the result:



The pattern is incredibly simple, and as promised in Knitalong, shows off fancy yarns to great advantage. The two I used were Malabrigo (left over from Hermanita's Firebird) and Parisienne (purchased during my post-semester meltdown). For being so little, it's incredibly warm, and will serve me well during the months of freezing A/C.

Now I'm ready for something on bigger needles, with bigger yarn, so the Top-Down Shoulder Warmer may finally get its turn!

Happy Easter!

With love from the stuffies, all finished. Ok--all finished as of 8 this morning, when I did eyes for the Mousie on the left.

Patterns:
Loch Ness Monster, by hansigurumi
and
Mousie, by Ysolda Teague
Nessie used some discontinued acrylics from the depths of my stash, and Mousie is Crystal Palace Panda Wool leftover from Mum's Christmas socks and a modicum of my endless stash of Dalegarn.

Both are fabulous patterns, and happily received. We always got little stuffed creatures in our baskets when we were little, and there are just too many adorable stuffie patterns out there *not* to continue the tradition.

Here's hoping everyone's having a restful Sunday, complete with jellybeans and knitting!

Better with a Story

My thumb's all better, and my mood, too! I'm giving credit for the latter to a quirky book I found at work--The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Hermanita's gift is done--on time!--and now I'm casting about for the perfect new project. (I didn't have time to block the lavender demon, so the reveal will have to wait.)

While I was waiting for my thumb to feel better, I banged out a floppy potholder/trivet with some ancient yarn recently reclaimed from a shawl.



The pattern comes from Weekend Knits, via an old copy of Interweave Knits. I adjusted the pattern a bit to accomodate a bulky yarn, and it was a good instant gratification project, but not exactly what I was looking for.

Now I'm trying a pair of Latvian Socks, from my all-time favorite sock book, Folk Socks. Erm. I guess I should've expected this with fingering weight yarn and size 0 needles, but they're going a bit slow.

The search for the perfect project (as of now) continues....

Stuck

Yikes--I have started this post three times (this is #4), and the words are just not there. How 'bout I try checking in on my New Year's resolutions?

#1 Continue knitting from the stash
Yep, working on that. After a really long hiatus, I finished off the February Baby Sweater. And it's February! What are the odds of that?



Specs!
Yarn: A little over one skein gray Dalegarn Baby Ull, plus little bits of black and red.
Needles: Size 5
Modifications: I did the sleeves last, in the round, like cosmicpluto did, which turned out to be a sanity-saver in the finishing department. Also, I only did 3 buttons at the top. Like Melissa did. Apparently I am a shameless copy-cat.



I enjoyed this foray into the world of EZ's pithy patterns (waaay easier to understand when you have the knitting in your hands), and would definitely knit another FBS if given the opportunity.

More stash knitting:



A little sachet. This is not the project if you're looking to clear a lot of yarn out of the way fast, but I'm enjoying experimenting with bead knitting and different lace patterns.

Specs!
Yarn: an utter mystery, purchased at a seminal sidewalk sale many and many a year ago. Ditto the beads, except they came from Michael's.
Needles: Size 2 dpns
Pattern: Daisy lace from Lace Knitting to Go (fun fun fun box of lace patterns printed on greeting-card size cards). 56 stitches is 3 repeats, enough for a chubby little sachet. I get my herbs from Whole Foods. This little guy is going to be rose/rosemary/lavender, I do believe.

New Look/Old Knits

What do you think of the new color scheme? I wanted something softer, without being too twee. Give me a poke in the posts if I've gone too far and you can't separate text from background.

And now (drumroll)...the results of my 2008 Stashbusting Mission:


















I got the inspiration from Wendy's guidelines, adding only two modifications: 1, I had to be able to get the lid on my yarn tote closed at the end of the de-stashing process, and 2, I could buy yarn to help me use up stash yarn (both new + stash skeins had to get completely used up for this to count).

I used my one get-out-of jail-free for this:



And all Christmas gifts were sock yarn or purchased after September and therefore doubly exempt.

In the end, I think I was successful. The lid to my tote does stay closed now, and I've gotten rid of most of the yarns that were bogging me down. I'm going to keep de-stashing on the agenda for this year, though. There's a cake of sock yarn that will help me through my simmering sock obsession, a few skeins of laceweight I want to play with, some Lamb's Pride begging to be felted...

I guess it's always a destashing year.

This is the New Year

Gotta love Death Cab.

(Advance apology: all these photos are terribly lit. The fixture on my overhead died.)

To start the new year afresh, we packed away our Christmas decorations, y las hermanitas y yo cleared the deadwood off our bookshelves:



Alack, we are still double-stacking. I managed to fit my entire college education into one drawer of my filing cabinet (good thing or bad thing?)...



And I organized my stash, returning to whence they came the UFOs that I knew I would never finish. Now all my sock yarn is together,



all my yarn of unknown fiber content but definite Latin American origin is together,



and all my wools/wool blends are together, sorted by color family (red, for example).



I'm very against storage in plastic bags on principle, but in practice, I know I'm a messy knitter who has a tendency to chuck stuff into the stash willy nilly. The bags save me the hassle of having to fish through the entire stash to get what I want, and also reduce the chances of balls getting unwound and tangling. Any ideas for more sustainable storage?

Now: in with the new!

Week 14: Alpaca Fumes

As an avid reader of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, I am well versed in the hazards wool fumes pose to knitters (heaven knows I've even gone a little crazy in a yarn shop myself once or twice)

I was unprepared, however, to learn that alpaca can have the same effect on dogs.

When I washed my alpaca skirt, Stella was obsessed. She couldn't stop smelling it when it was outside, and when it came in, she even hopped up on my bed to get a whiff.

Mum was not pleased, particularly not when Stella wanted to inspect the next load of (non-wool) laundry in hopes of finding the skirt.

When I had made the skirt, I lengthened the waistband to help it stay up, only to discover that a strand of beading elastic did a better job. This was finally my impetus to snip the extra piece off (no worries, it was knitted separately) and unravel it.


I was intrigued by the sproingyness of unraveled alpaca.


Stella was (and is) intrigued by the finished product.


Specs--
Ollie the Octopus catnip toy (Ridiculous name; Stella's is called Hubert) from The Knitter's Book of Yarn
Less than 1/2 skein Blue Sky Alpaca Sportweight (color unknown), held double
Size 6 dpns
An excellent pattern--my only modification was to make the legs shorter than called for, so there was no danger of Stella choking if she attempted to eat one.

Week 12: Happiness is a Warm Puppy

Sin dudo.

This is Stella, and although happiness is undoubtedly a warm puppy, the little angel has caused a minor derailment of basically everything.

Case in point: those Christmas socks? On hold for an entire weekend because the poor baby needed something to keep her warm outside.



Warm Puppy (or dog) Cape:
Just over 1 skein Lamb's Pride Bulky in Onyx (out of stash--woohoo!)
Size 10 1/2 needles
No pattern
Two vintage buttons out of button tin

I started with a cape because I couldn't imagine getting a dog into a turtleneck, but Stella's such a good girl she'll let us slip the cape over her head with the front tab buttoned. I see a world of knitty possibilities opening up--I just need to resist temptation long enough to finish my classes. And those socks.

Amoeba on a Stick!

Not really. It's a February Baby Sweater, my first foray into the designs of Elizabeth Zimmerman. I'm hoping to create something unique but classic, along the lines of this or this rendition.

Once again, we have the White Stripes-esque color scheme of my Baby Ull stash. Maybe something little Scarlett White would wear. And, once again, I don't have a baby handy, which is why I'm going for classic. Even if they will cover every article of clothing (theirs and their mothers') with unspeakable liquids, babies do deserve to be dressed in style.

Results

Whew. Olympic viewing has resulted in sleep deprivation of Olympic proportions. But for knitting time, it can't be beat.

Gigi is finished, not just the knitting but the neverending finishing too. More on that after I corner my photographer.

My next focus is Christmas knitting (it feels too early, but I'm trying to avoid daylong knitting sessions come Dec.), but I can't very well do any of that while mi familia looks on, so I dug back into the stash.



A scarf, just long enough to be worn cravat-style about one's neck. I used the ripple pattern (#116 in the Vogue Stitchionary--beware, the second set of k2tog's are supposed to be ssk's), some black fuzzy acrylic bought many and many a year ago, and (you guessed it) some more of the neverending Homespun. I cast on enough stitches for one pattern repeat and knit until the black ran out. Did I use up all the Homespun?



Of course not.

Ultimate Recycling

Newest in our line of Miss Marple chic accessories is...

The Sampler Bag



Displayed here on a filing cabinet, this entirely unstructured bag is recycled from a pillowcase knitted from Lion Kitchen Cotton (circa 2000)



as an experiment in the newly-learned techniques of cabling and entrelac.

Cable mis-crossings add to the wonky charm of this never-to-be-duplicated piece,



as does the irregular whipstitching that holds the lining--recycled from a t-shirt--in place.



Please do not place orders, as the knitter has since learned from (most of ) the errors in her experiment, and has additionally vowed not to go near a sewing needle for a very, very long time to come.

It's the Heat

The other night, just as it was beginning to get dusky, Monita came in from taking out the garbage and remarked that it was pretty nice out. Our thermometer, parked deep in the shade of the back patio, read 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

That might explain why I chose now to do that scarf I wanted in February.



Specs--
Yarn: Mysterious, gray, from Quito. Light worsted, two ply, fiber content unknown (suspected synthetic)
Needles: Size 7
Pattern: Large Eyelet Diamond (#110) from the Vogue Stitchionary, slightly modified



Paired with a black tank, the diamonds take on an edgy, snakeskin vibe. I was going for classic, and am hoping the snakiness goes away when the scarf is paired with a nice, conservative pea coat. We'll have to wait to find out, though; I'm not so far gone that I'm actually going to put on a lined wool coat and a scarf just to see how they look together.

It's a Bib! (boy version)

The Petal Bib pattern withstood the replicate test. Specs are identical to the girl version, with the exception of the color, Ice. I highly commend this pattern to anyone with a last-minute baby shower invitation and some fancy cotton hanging about. I consider myself a relatively slow knitter, but I did the petals while waiting for the shuttle to the airport. A few Concerts a Emporter got me through the short-row shaping, and doing the i-cord took less time than reviewing a GRE vocab list (bleugh).

Whip up a little washcloth to match,



and you're in business.

(no pattern there--just 34 sts on those size 6s)

The real excitement is not in the stockpiling of items for a hypothetical baby, but in clearing the detritus from my stash. The washcloth represents the very last of my Cascade Pima Tencel, save for a scrap destined to become a gift bow. The aforementioned washcloth party is underway, and my stash tote is beginning to feel roomier.

Not to worry. I will not be a yarn ascetic forever. This period of prolific stash knitting will soon be supplanted by a fortuitous event: my birthday, which, I have a feeling, will be characterized by prodigal yarniness.

(no, "yarniness" is not on any of the GRE vocabulary lists)

I Commit Another Crime Against Gauge

This time, the crime involves my string bag.



Pattern: Elisa's Nest Tote, long-handled version
Yarn: Just over 1 skein of Plymouth's Fantasy Naturale mercerized cotton color 9002 and one skein mercerized, cable-spun mystery cotton (worsted-ish weight) in green.
Needles: size 8, but read on before you grab yours
Additional note: See below for theoretical adaptation to worsted-weight yarn. The applied i-cord border really pulls in the top. If you want a bigger opening, begin crocheting the side seams together about an inch down from the CO/BO edges

When I got the project together, I read "one skein" and "cotton." I was busy getting ready for our trip to California, and my main concerns were not forgetting anything essential to survival like socks or my hairbrush or toothpaste.

I started the project the morning we left, and when the 41 stitches on size 9s produced a piece that was 12 inches, not the desired 8, I thought--oh, gotta go down a size.

Had I done my homework, I would've known that Rowan 4-ply Cotton was a fingering weight yarn, not a worsted. And working a worsted yarn on needles only one size above what's recommended on the label will not provide the extraordinary amount of stretch intended.

Here's what I should've done:
1. Go up to a size 10 or 11 needle
2. Cut down the number of stitches to, say, 29 (the stitch pattern is a multiple of 2 sts + 1, I do believe)

Ah, well. I'm not the only person to finish with something not-quite-intended. I found the pattern on Owl and Acorn, and the proprietress, who had knit her version in the round, wasn't so hip on the stretch factor and the size of the opening.

I know failure to research and read instructions properly are part of the issues I had with my version, but I'm chalking up a portion of the blame to the weirdness of the pattern. I mean, knitters usually do everything in their power to avoid stretching out their knits, and to achieve the yarn's intended gauge.

But don't worry, I'm not going to sit and moan about this project.

The blue-against green adds to its quirkiness,





and it passed the stretchability test (materials: one 16-inch PowerBook and an armoire)



I can't say that I'm thrilled about having added almost a full skein of Fantasy Naturale in my stash, but seeing as the project wasn't a complete, resounding failure, I'm going to call it a success and hold a washcloth-knitting party in my room. How does that sound?