Tag - Knitting

Cherry Blossoms

As part of my Year of Finished Projects, I actually started a major knitting project.  I’m a slow knitter at the best of times and with a my hands full of Pipsqueak all day, things don’t get done very quickly.  So starting a project during the year that I’m focusing on finishing those long overdue things seems sort of counter productive.

But as I was looking over my friend Sandy’s queue of knitting that she will never even start, I was reminded that my own list had stalled out.  I have a ton of little things that I can accomplish easily – a toy monster in a bulky weight yarn that will take no time, lots and lots of socks that are surprisingly easy and some hats that I can do in my sleep.  But I thought I’d like to get a Major Project (perhaps even a Lieutenant Colonel Project) (ha! Army humor!) started.  I thought it would feel good to finish the “getting around to it” phase and actually cast on something out of my queue.

I picked Hanami.  Please click on this link.  There is a whole story behind this shawl I chose to knit that really adds to the appeal.  Plus the link has pictures!  Always a good thing.  You clicking the link will let me *not* steal those pictures and paste them in here.

I have to admit that I am not a good lace knitter.  I’ve only done one real lace project and I didn’t enjoy it. But I am drawn to all the beautiful lace.  I’m not really up for the challenge, but I want that shawl.  So I’ll persevere. Fortunately my friend in crafting-crime, Shanti, decided to knit along with me.  She’s got a ton more lace experience than I, so she’s already passed me up.  I’m not going to compare my progress to hers (ok, that’s totally untrue), but I am going to be inspired to keep going and actually finish this shawl in a timely manner.

And then I will have another finished project to share with you!

A Convoluted Tale

…of How I Won Yarn.

Perhaps I should call it a yarn, not a tale.  Either way, it’s pretty convoluted, so stick with me.

I happen to have a fondness for variegated yarns.  Lorna’s Laces, in particular.  I may or may not have quite the stash of their sock yarn.  I’m admitting nothing.  And this little yarn store called Jimmy Bean’s Wool happily keeps me supplied in all the Lorna’s Laces I can use or stash. Jimmy Beans Wool (JBW) also has a Limited Edition of Lorna’s Laces dyed just for them every month.  It should come as no shock to you that I am a member for the JBW Lorna’s Laces Limited Edition Fan Club.

Way back in October they announced a little contest on their Facebook page to name their upcoming December yarn.  I was one of the first ten people to suggest a name, and the first person to come up with “Ribbon Candy.”  A few hours later someone else suggested the same name.  Six *days* later, yet a third person also suggested it.

The deadline for name suggestions passed and they announced their top three choices which would be put to the vote.  Choice B was “Lisa’s: Ribbon Candy”.  WHAT?  Lisa?  Who’s Lisa?  I’ve been called “Laura” before, and I’ve had my named misspelled more often than not, but no one has ever mistaken me for a “Lisa.”

I pondered this situation for a while.  I might have let it go (ok, not really) except that there was actual yarn on the line.  The winner of the naming contest would get the yarn as a prize.  So I sent JBW a very nice email, pointing out that I had actually suggested Ribbon Candy about 5 hours earlier than Lisa did.  I heard back from them right away.  They apologized and acknowledged that I was indeed the person who first submitted the name Ribbon Candy.  They were unable to amend the post, but in the comments they corrected themselves. They assured me that if my name won, they would address the confusion again and I would be the winner.

So…voting closed and they left us hanging until December 1st.  Ribbon Candy was the winner!  Yippee!  So I just sat back and waited for my prize.  Later in the day the JBW December Newsletter arrived, announcing the new limited edition yarn.  Imagine how far my jaw dropped when I read this line:

A huge thank you goes out to Shirley and her brilliant stroke of insight on the perfect name for this colorway - Ribbon Candy!

Why thank you very  much.  But stop calling me Shirley.

Shirley? Shirley?!? Surely you jest.  What in the world was this all about? To quote Charlie Brown’s little sister Salley, “All I want is what I… I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”

Turns out that Shirley was the person who suggested the name 6 days after both Lisa and I did.

After I got over my sputtering indignation I sent another email to JBW.  It took them a few hours to respond this time.  Meanwhile on their Facebook page, they’d already mentioned that someone would be getting their December yarn prize that day.  Then the email came that said my prize yarn was on its way, one hank of each weight.  I got a shipping notice shortly afterwards.

I’m guessing that Shirley got a huge surprise on December 1 because my yarn just arrived yesterday.  I’m thinking that poor Lisa got nothing.

So I named a yarn and got no credit, but I did get my yarn.  Here it is, the December Lorna’s Laces Limited Edition color: Ribbon Candy.

  You can get some for yourself, before it runs out,here: Ribbon Candy.

 

 

 

H is for

Hat! Soccer hat, specifically.


I have actually managed to squeeze in a little knitting here and there. It took me 2 weeks, but I made a hat for Boo that matches his soccer uniform. He plays in a club that has the same uniforms every year, so no need to make him a new one every season.

Spring soccer in Colorado is a chilly affair. As I type it is 52 degrees and falling, and soccer practice is still an hour away. Last year we had a game canceled because the snow from earlier in the week had made the field too wet. I think that was in April.

I send the boys to their games and practices with hats, sweatshirts, and even gloves. I keep telling them that suffering breeds character.

This is another hat from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. Just a basic K2P2 rib for 2 inches, knit until it fits, decrease evenly and finish. I like to reference the book for the exact numbers to cast on based on the yarn I’m using, the needles I have available and my gauge.

More Baby Knitting

While the baby is busy enjoying his limited days in my belly (he’s on 30 days notice to vacate), I wrapped up some final projects for him.

Here’s a little hat from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns.

It’s a great book if you like to pick your yarn with only a vague notion of the sort of project you want to use. Or if know what you want to make and the yarn you want to use, but don’t want to do the math to figure out how to make it all work out. An any gauge, any yarn, any needle, any size book. Love it!

Also, love the yarn. Usually, all the different colors and patterns would be achieved with different yarns and complicated charts, but this is self-patterning yarn. So the simpler the pattern, the better, which totally works for me.

And matching socks, just because.

I’ve got one more hat in mind to make for him and then I’m ready for him to arrive.

Heat, Holmes and Hats

The hotter it gets, the less I blog.  The less I blog, the more  I knit.  Feet propped up, cold water within reach, watching HGTV and knitting.  Could be worse.  I’m kind of addicted to “Holmes on Homes.”  (What’s up with all the shady Canadian contractors, eh?)

Philip may be getting annoyed with Mike Holmes and his proper way of doing things because it’s costing him time and money.  We’re having built-in bookshelves put in our music room.  Nine foot beauties that run from one wall to another.  The thing is, they will permanently and forever cover up a heating vent on the floor and will cause an electronic thing to be removed from a corner of the room.

After countless episodes of Mike telling me how things should be done, I was insistent on finding out if we could just close the vent or if it needed to be rerouted or something.  So I made Phil leave messages for our HVAC guy to find out the deal.

Do you have “guys”?  Now that we own a home, we have guys.  HVAC guys, landscape guys, hardscape guys, a wood guy, a drywall guy and now a cabinet guy.  I’m planning on sticking their business cards in a binder labeled “Guys”.

Reminds me of when Bip was a baby and we had this shadow box thing of mini Korean theater masks hanging in the hallway.  We passed by it every time we went into the bedroom.  He liked them a lot and when he started talking, he’d point at them and say, “Heh!  Guys!”

What was I saying?  Oh yeah, the HVAC guy.

So Kevin, the HVAC guy informed us that the easiest and cheapest solution to the soon to be unusable floor vent was to have the cabinet guy just cover it with a piece of sheet metal.  This would be fine and not cause the shelves to heat up and burst into flame, or need to be torn down at a time in the not too distant future to get at the vent and close it off properly.

Then there’s this electronic thingy mounted into the corner of the room.  The corner which will soon be covered by the bookshelves, of course.  Phil has dismantled it so now it is just a couple of wires hanging down, attached to a tiny little computer looking panel. He says he can just cut the wires, tape the ends, shove them into the hole in the wall and call it a day.  And you know, it’s not that I don’t trust him, but yeah, I don’t trust him.  Why does the Talking Heads song “Burning Down the House” keep running through my head?

So I’m making him at the very least, call a handyman and have him come over and advise.

He’ll probably cut the wires, tape the ends and shove them back into the hole.

So, my whole entire point of this blog post is that it’s been rather hot, so I’ve been propping up my feet, watching HGTV, filling my head with construction horror stories and knitting.  Knitting funny hats for our new baby, to be exact.

Did I tell you we’re having a boy?

Well, arriving as he will, at the end of October, he’ll need a pumpkin hat.  I’ve actually made 2 of them this summer, a newborn size and a toddler size for our friend Sam in DC.  Here they both are, with Bip’s big-boy pumpkin hat for scale.

And since we live in Colorado, he’ll need some sort of hat for the first 8 months of his life, so I made him a Sweet Pea hat.

And a funny stocking cap for Christmas time, so he’ll look like a right jolly ol’ elf.  My model here is Amy, our Bitty Baby.  The hat still needs a ginormous pompom at the end to pull off the look.

So, in review: heat, Holmes, guys!, hats. Questions?

Final Batch

Well, final batch for now.

This little cupcake really isn’t so little, but it’s tasty looking and really cute!

I used good ol’ Red Heart Super Saver white for the cake and Berrocco Plush for the frosting. The pattern is available here for free: Cupcake.  I made some changes to the original pattern, but my notes are downstairs and I’m too lazy to go get them.  If you’re interested, let me know in the comments and I’ll post them. (The cupcake is knit, not crochet.)

Next up is a strawberry ice cream cone!

Another free pattern from the same designer as the cupcake:  Ice Cream Cone. It’s important to note that there is no hook size listed, but I ended up using a G.  If you’re going to make this, I suggest getting the Starbucks sample cup that goes in the base first so you can check the size of the cone as you go.  I had to add more height to my cone to make it fit.   I don’t think I even wrote down what I did exactly, but if you need help, let me know and I’ll walk you through it.

And continuing with our theme of pink  food, here is a frosted donut.  Mmm…donut!

Another free pattern, of course:  Donut. It’s supposed to be a pincushion, but I left off the sprinkles/pins so it can be a toy instead.  Maybe I’ll make myself one for my sewing basket.

One more from the designer of the ice cream cone and cupcake, it’s a Bakewell Tart.

I’d never heard of a Bakewell Tart, but it was too cute not to make.  Here’s the pattern (scroll down past the kitties):  Crochet Bakewell Tart. And click over here to find out all about these little goodies:  Bakewell Tart.  No modifications on this one.  It did have to wait a while to be stuffed while I figured out what to use on the bottom to give it structure.  In the end I used a clean fast-food drink lid, cut down to size.  I also taped over the straw slit so it wouldn’t be an issue later.  Oh wait!  I didn’t use a button for the cherry (?) on top.  Instead I crocheted 4 single crochets in a loop and sewed it to the top before stuffing.

Ok, so that does it for now on my toy food.  Quick, easy and portable plus using cheap yarn makes them affordable and gives you a ton of left-over yarn for the inevitable requests that you make them for friends.   Personally, I love the instant gratification that comes from a finished product after only a couple hours of work.  As opposed to that sock that stares at me accusingly from its’ project bag.

The rest of my craft projects can be found under the category Getting Crafty.  That’ll give you the first part of each post.  To read the whole thing and see the pictures, just click the title of each post.

Hiking

We’ve got lots of hiking trails here in the Rocky Mountains.  There are two located less than 5 minutes away from our house. But this post has absolutely nothing to do with them!

Nope, this is about the Irish Hiking Scarf and matching Irish Hiking Hat I made for Philip.

Remember the pink cabled beret I made last year?  Well, I’d never knit cables before, so I wanted something simple to learn and practice on.  So I started the Irish Hiking Scarf.  Once I figured out that cables are not nearly has difficult as they seem, I put the scarf away and made my hat.

I knit a bunch of other things after that, then finally returned to the scarf in October-ish.  I finished it quickly, then started a matching hat.  The hat also only took a couple of weeks, which amounts to maybe 6 hours of total knitting time.

But I was never able to get a picture of either of them because by the time Philip got home from work wearing them, it was dark.  But the other day he was home around lunch time and I made him model his knit wear.

Behold!

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The cool thing about the hat is that the cabled band is double thickness so it keeps your ears nice and toasty!

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The pattern for the scarf can be found here for free: Irish Hiking Scarf The matching hat pattern is also free and is found here:  Irish Hiking Hat

Rainbow Scarf

One month, almost to the day I cast on, I’ve finished my rainbow scarf! Entrelac is surprisingly easy, so it was a good mindless project for watching TV with.  I got it all finished and blocked and then it got just cold enough to be able to wear it at least once before packing it away for the season.

Portrait of the Blogger in a Pink Hat

My most recently completed knitting project – a pink, cabled beret.  I’ve read that slouchy berets are all the rage out in California, and you know me – always on the cutting edge of fashion.


Here it is, flat on the table.

I’d never done cables before, but they were surprisingly easy.  I added an additional round to the pattern to accomodate my big head and thick hair, and also to allow the hat to come down and cover my ears.  The next time I wear it, I’ll probably be in Colorado.  Barring an early Spring snowstorm here, of course.  One can hope.

Answers

I love getting comments on my blog, but I find myself in a conundrum of how to handle them.  If someone asks a question, should I reply in the comments or through email or both?  All comments to my blog arrive to me through email and I’m supposed to be able to hit reply and it goes right to the commenter.  But I don’t think it’s working right.  I wrote out this nice lengthy reply to someone and right as I hit “send” I saw that it was going to my blog’s inbox. So I have no idea if my replies are even getting through.

So I’m going to answer some questions here.

Tami asked why she wasn’t able to make smilies appear in her comments anymore.  It’s because you need to leave a space between the sentence punctuation and the punctuation for the smiley.

Nancy wanted to know which colorway of Noro Silk Garden I’m using for my scarf.  It’s number 87, which is mostly jewel tones.  The scarf I’m making calls for 4 skeins.  By the way, the pattern I’m using is free.  I think it’s well written and is a good way to learn entrelac.  You can find it here:  Entrelac Scarf.

Janice was wondering if it’s all one skein of yarn.  Yes, it is! It’s handpainted varigated yarn.  I have seen other people’s entrelac projects where they used 2 different skeins to get a very specific set of color changes, but that’s a lot of work and I like the way the yarn does all that work for me.

JennG was wondering if I learned all these fun knitting techniques from books or from other people.  A little of both, but mostly I’m self taught.  I learn best from reading (what kind of learner does that make me?), so I can usually muddle along well enough to get by. Part of the fun of knitting, for me at least, is trying something new.  I’ve managed to infect several people in my neighborhood with the knitting bug and having all these new and quickly learning knitting friends has inspired me to try all the fun things I’ve seen others do.

Angoraknitter (a fellow Army wife who just moved to our area) mentioned that she can hardly wait until her yarn arrives (I’m assuming in her household goods).  Angora – can I call you Ang? – you don’t have to wait!  There’s a fun knitting store in Old Town Alexandria.  Head north on Hwy 1, after you pass the Beltway, turn right.  It doesn’t matter which street, but I turn at the gas station.  When you get to Washington, turn left.  When you pass the statue in the middle of an intersection, Knit Happens will be on your right.  I think the cross street is King.

She also asked me about my ottoman and chairs seen in my messy living room.  They are indeed from IKEA.  Both have removable, washable slip covers – a must in a house with children!  We put sliders under the ottoman feet so we could move it around the living room easily, but that was a mistake.  Pushing the ottoman around caused the knobs under the lid to break off, so the lid slides off when bumped into.  That was our fault, though, since it was designed to really stay in one place.  The chairs are comfy and have enough room under them to store a basket full of Wii paraphenalia under one and the WiiFit board under another.  I had to wash one of the slip covers during our last round of stomach virus and it washed up wonderfully.  No fading and the wrinkles disappeared once the slip cover was back in place.  I spot clean the ottoman at least weekly and it’s holding up well, too.

OK, I think I got all the recent questions.  Now I’m off to try to figure out how to get my emailed replies sent to the commenter.

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