New Work on Old Projects

I have had a lot going on lately, so much of my knitting has been the meditative sort. This means projects that require minimal shaping and consist of stockinette or garter stitch. Though most of it is mindless, I have been sneaking in an occasional twist to keep it interesting. For example, I started yet another Sophie for the preschool auction, but decided to add a ruffle at the top as well as tabs to hold the handles.

The spring cleaning bug has also struck, and while trying to reorganize my craft closet I came upon two projects which I have ignored for a while. One is a baby sweater, worked entirely in seed stitch in cream Encore Worsted.

When I first seamed the sleeves, the yarn had a strange color change which made it look almost yellow in one spot.

I started to rip the seam on the discolored side, and made a huge mess, so I put it away for several months. Then one day I was reading about dyeing with Kool-Aid, and thought it might be a fun solution to my yarn discoloration problem, even though the acrylic content of the yarn would prevent it from absorbing a lot of the color. So I took the sweater out and restitched the mess, and then put it away again since I didn't have the time to try dyeing it then. Now that it has made its way out again, I plan to try dyeing it, even if the color is only absorbed enough to disguise the discoloration. Wish me luck!

The other project is a cable purse which I knitted about a year ago from some leftover Reynolds Lopi. When I went to sew the handles on the bag, for some reason I suddenly felt allergic to the Lopi, so into the craft closet it went. When I tried again this time, I didn't have an issue.

I knew that this bag would not be very useful without a lining, so I took the bag to JoAnn and found some coordinating fabric and thread.

I'm sure the process would have been much easier if I had done it before attaching the handles, but considering it was my first attempt at a lining, I don't think it is horrendous, and at least the bag is usable. I also got some fabric to line the ruffled Sophie, so I am curious to see how that works out.

Felted Purse and Impromptu Scarf

I decided to make a felted purse for the silent auction at my son's preschool. The last time I made a Sophie bag I had just discovered felting, and it was a great project to get me started. Even though my skills have advanced since then, I still appreciate the brilliant simplicity and thriftiness of the pattern. I had some Patons Classic Merino in Rosewood which I have been wanting to destash, so away I went.

I knew I wasn't going to do the handles from the pattern, so when I reached the top of the bag and had a lot of yarn to spare, I decided to knit a flap. I worked it by binding off all but the back stitches, knitting straight for about 25 rows, and then binding off 2 stitches at each end until I liked the shape of the flap - probably 8 rows with the decrease in all. I learned in a past felting calamity that flaps often become skinny and wonky when felted. I decided to try and prevent this by adding an edging. Luckily I happened to have some brown Patons which miraculously matched the Rosewood. I used it to pick up stitches around the flap and worked 6 rows in garter stitch.

Now I wasn't sure what to do about a handle, since it is difficult to know just how small the bag is going to get when felted. And, in my experience, Patons Merino goes from 60 to 0 in about 5 minutes. So in preparation for the unexpected, I made 3 30" long i-cords over 6 stitches.

As you can see, the bag did felt down quite a bit, from 13" wide and 10 1/2" tall pre-felting to 8" wide and 5 1/2" tall post-felting, and the i-cords shrank about 10". Happily, the edging did its job on the flap, and it retained its rounded shape. I braided the 3 i-cords (they were still a little wet when I did, so hopefully they will dry thoroughly) and sewed them to the sides of the bag. I'll definitely need to do a better job of securing them, but I couldn't resist taking a few pics beforehand. I haven't decided whether or not it needs a button or snap.

While the bag was felting, my 4-year-old decided that his new friend, Toa Hahli (a Happy Meal Bionicle toy that he chose from the treasure chest at school last week) needed a scarf to keep her warm. With i-cords fresh on my mind, I quickly whipped up this little number. Isn't she lovely!?

One down

I managed to finish sock #1 today during the boys' rest time. It is rather thick, but comfy, and I could easily see the pair ending up as a favorite to wear around the house, whenever I finish the other one. I can see how knitters would be enthralled by making socks. They take a relatively small time to finish, they are a great project for travel, using luxury yarn would not break the bank and the measurements can easily be personalized, making them a special gift unlike anything you would find in a store. But before I toot the sock horn any more, lets see if I actually finish the other one.

Dual purpose sock post

I am trying out "my blogs" in Facebook, and for some reason it is only showing a blog entry from a while ago, so I figured I would post my sock progress and see if it would show up.

I have about three and a half inches to go before toe shaping. This sock is going thick enough to enable me to wear my husband's size 13 shoes!

Garter stitch ensemble preview

Here is the garter stitch cardigan with matching hat for Kate's baby boy, modeled by Abe.

Garter stitch works well for growing babies and children because it makes such a stretchy garment. I hope the recipient will be able to get a lot of use out of this ensemble.

I am chugging along on my sock, while trying to convince myself that working with dpns is fun. At least I figured out, after a little ripping, that I wouldn't get ladders in my work if, when moving to the next needle, I knit the first stitch onto the previous needle, not the empty one. I am interested to see how the heel works, so there is incentive to get to the end. Who knows, maybe when this project is finished I'll join the ranks of the many sock knitting addicts.

Progress and a new project

The Garter Stitch Cardigan has been blocked, and I finished the matching hat yesterday at Knitting Night. I'll post pics once I have found and attached some buttons. I should start working on the fronts and sleeves for my mom's Bristow, but instead I have decided to use up my last skein of Cascade 220 Superwash #847 and knit my first socks. I'm using the Cozy Armchair Socks pattern from Weekend Knitting, and it looks very basic, so we'll see how it goes. Maybe spring (and thus spring cleaning) is in the air, or maybe I have been affected by The Story of Stuff, but I suddenly feel a strong desire to use the yarn I have piled up in the closet. Whatever it is, I'm sure it won't last - especially when the weather warms up and the wool sales begin!

My friend Stephanie does beautiful cross stitch and also does amazing things with a sewing machine. When Bran was born, she gave us onesies on which she had cross stitched teddy bears. Whenever I dressed Bran, and later, Abe, in the onesies. I always thought of her and how special the gift was. So when she was pregnant with her first child, I wanted to make something to reciprocate the gesture.

I knew I needed to knit something small if I was to have any chance of finishing it, since Abe was only a few months old when Lorelei was born. I came across Miss Dashwood and it was just what I was looking for.

I wanted to make a larger size, so Lorelei would be able to wear the hat for longer than a month, and I wanted a sophisticated color, since I had a feeling she would have a personality to match it. And I am happy to see, now that she can wear it, that it suits her quite well!

My good friend Kate is expecting a baby boy at the end of April, so naturally I wanted to knit something for him. I started the garter stitch cardigan from Knitting For Baby, but didn't have time to knit the sleeves before her baby shower last week. After debating whether or not to bring the unfinished cardigan to the shower, I decided to do so, and, after seeing her reaction, I'm glad I did. Now I have more time to complete the cardi, and I may even make a hat to go with it. Here it is, unblocked and buttonless:

We took a trip up to the homeland last week so I finally gave my sister her almost 2 month belated birthday gift. And here she is in her skinny Midwest Moonlight scarf with matching cap. I wasn't sure if the cap was going to work until I saw it on her - it is amazing how much better she looks in that color than I do. Happy Belated Birthday Meredith!

My son's school has a fundraiser in April and parents are asked to donate arts and crafts to be sold by silent auction. Last year I donated a felted purse and a pet bed (which had started out as a felted purse). The purse sold for $25 and the pet bed for $10. I was happy that the pet bed sold at all, but I was a little disappointed that the purse only brought in $25 after the hours of work that I had put into it. So, for the auction this year, I wanted to make something unique that would be very quick to knit, and for which I could use yarn that I already had in my stash. I went to the local library for some ideas and came out with One Skein by Leigh Radford, which has a great pattern for felted bowls.

I cheated on the using yarn from my stash part of the deal since AC Moore was having a sale on Patons SWS, and I had been wanting to try it out for a while. Here is what I made from one skein of it.

For my next bowl attempt I used one skein of variegated Patons Classic Merino from stash. I made the larger bowl first, and then started a new one where I had ended the last one. I like how the pattern of the yarn changed for the smaller size.

I have a lot of feltable wool in my stash, so I plan to make a bunch of these for April's auction. I'm tempted to see if I could make a set of three nesting bowls, although I may not have enough yarn if I stick to stash.

Train hat becomes simple stripe hat. My 4-year-old loves trains, so I set out to design a hat for him that would match his winter coat and also have a picture of a locomotive on it. I brought his coat to the Knitter's Cottage, and after looking around unsuccessfully, the shop owner brought out the Dale of Norway Falk color card, and the colors were perfect. I ordered the colors that were not in stock, and went home to design the train for the hat. Using a chart made in Pages, I used x's to draw a locomotive. By the time the yarn arrived, I had the chart ready, I had swatched with the Falk, and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Well, the best laid plans....

I based the structure of the hat on the Luggy Bonnet from Weekend Knitting. Somehow, even though my gauge was smack on for the swatch, the hat grew immensely during the knitting process, and ended up being way too large for my 4-year-old, and large enough for my husband's huge head. Unfortunately he is past the age of someone who would desire a train hat. If it were made of non-superwash wool, I would probably try to felt it and see what happened, but it will most likely be frogged and made into a mitten. I may reuse the train design for a sweater, so not all is lost.

Here it is.
Since that didn't work, and I needed to finish a number of projects for Christmas, the hat ended up being put on hold. Now that Christmas is over, I have a little more time, but the weather is suddenly freezing, so I figured it would be better to make him a simple hat so he has something to keep his head warm. This one was based on the Fish Hat from
Animal Knits, except I made earflaps for the largest size and the body of the hat in the smallest size, so I didn't end up with gargantuan hat again.

Here it is on the silly recipient.

I just got my invitation to join Ravelry. I added my name to the waiting list on December 18, so the wait wasn't too bad. I haven't had much time to look around yet, but I put in a search for Tilted Duster, and 383 versions come up - very cool! I'm going to go look around some more before quiet time is over.

Here is my FIL wearing his new vest.












And this was his beautiful gift to us.












And here is my MIL in her Tailored Scallops.












And my GIL in her Flower Basket Shawl.












I started Bristow for my mother in royal blue Cascade 220 superwash. I thought about adding cables to the back, but decided that simple stockinette would be better for travel.

Here is the Classic Camel Vest for my FIL, all blocked and ready to be wrapped. I'm still not 100% satisfied with how the buttons look, but after 4 tries, enough is enough. I plan to bring along my blocking pins and iron when we visit in case it is a little small for him. He gave me measurements, but they were based on a suede vest, not a knitted piece, so we'll see. The trusty Cascade worked beautifully for the project, and although I would look like walking vomit in this color, I think it will look good on my FIL. The pattern only took about 4 and a half skeins of yarn, so I have one and a half left to use for another project. The gold would make a nice accent color.

Also newly finished is this Flower Basket Shawl for my Grandmother-in-law.
I used 4 and a half skeins of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK and long size 8 Addis. The superwash was sometimes a little slippery on the needles at the beginning of a row, but otherwise the combo worked well. I did 11 repeats of the lower basket chart. I probably could have done at least 13 considering the amount of yarn I have left, but I have limited time, and was anxious to finish everything for the Christmas deadline. Unblocked, the shawl measured 50" x 24", and after a Eucalan bath and blocking, it measures 66" x 36", which will hopefully be a good size for my GIL. If not, I'd be more than happy to keep it for myself!

This is a great pattern, one that would be good for a first lace project. I didn't feel the need to use any lifelines and could even pay attention to a movie (not subtitled) while working on it. I had started this just after getting into lace knitting, but then put it aside for over a year. It was nice to pick this project up again and discover that it felt much quicker and easier than it did when I started it.

Blocking this was much simpler than the Swallowtail Shawl I did a while back because I used the Yarn Harlot method instead of trying to keep the top edge straight with a million pins.

Here is a close-up of the yarn threaded through the top.
It also helped to have a new blocking board, a.k.a. our old bed that we recently replaced and put in the guest room. I had been blocking everything on a towel on my bedroom carpet, and this always prompted my DH to complain that he might get up in the night and impale his foot. I always said I thought it would be unlikely since the T part of the t-pin is the part he would step on, not the point, but he never believed me.

I hope to get pics of all gifts, including the Tailored Scallops, being modeled by their recipients.

Instead of having our typical Tuesday knitting night last night, my group had a holiday hors d'oeuvres party/ornament exchange. Lucky me also received my birthday gifts from Kim. She gave me

this sassy little bag













with this gorgeous knitted bracelet inside.













It even has a Clever Clasp which makes it a cinch to put on and take off. Kim said she wanted to make me something that I had never made before, and since I have never knitted with wire or beads, it was a perfect choice. I am definitely interested in having her show me how it is done.

This was the final gift from the 2007 secret birthday gift exchange. It was a lot of fun to see what everyone decided to make, and it is always fun to knit for people you know will appreciate the work. We chose names for next year's secret holiday gift exchange last night, and I look forward to seeing how it all turns out next year.

Here is the fifth gift from our secret birthday gift swap, and it was made by Sheila and given to Maureen. It is cool that it worked out so that Maureen and Sheila were each other's secret gifters.

This was Sheila's first felting project, and it turned out to be really cute. The pattern is from Felted Knits. She had a bit of an adventure though. Here is her story:

"The pocket saga . . . I thought that the yarn I used for the pocket was the same as the yarn for the rest of the purse. I had used it for a teddy bear sweater and it was fine. However, when I went to felt the bag, the main part of it felted great, but the pocket didn't seem to felt at all. I gave it more time (hence the smaller size of the bag) but nothing. When I took it out of the machine, my cute bag had this big wet mess of yarn hanging off it. I had to cut the pocket off and make a new one. I felted it by hand in my sink and it looked okay. Problem two . . . it was really hard to sew it all the way around after it was felted. I went out and bought a metal thimble, but there was no way. The woman in JoAnn's suggested that I try liquid stitches so I did. As far as I know the pocket is still on the bag!"

The group decided that for 2008 we would do a secret holiday gift swap instead of birthday. That will give all of us an equal amount of time, and almost an entire year to create something special.

Scarf show. Here are pics of the finished gift scarves for 2007. There is another Misty Garden which I posted about a few weeks ago that is also part of the group. Surprisingly, I have not sworn off scarf knitting after completing this run of gift scarves. I do look forward to getting started on something different though, once the remaining gift knits are done. Maybe some socks...

Bad blogger, good knitter. The blog has taken a back seat for a few weeks while I have been getting all of my gift knitting done for the holidays, plus dealing with everyday life and all that jazz. At least I have a bevy of FO's to show now that the hiatus is over. I don't have photos just yet, and the vest and shawl still need to be finished, but here is the list of gifts for Holiday 2007:

Tailored Scallops for MIL
Classic Camel Vest for FIL (still needs to finish blocking and get buttons)
Ruffles scarf
Skinny Here and There Cables
Midwest Moonlight in red
Midwest Moonlight in magenta
2 Cable scarf (my own simple design)
Misty Garden purple/pink/brown variegated
Misty Garden pink/red/orange/brown
Flower Basket Shawl (still needs 1-3 repeats of lower baskets, plus edging and blocking)

I wasn't sure how much I would use Scarf Style when I got it. It has now proven its value in my knitting library. Many of the projects are the type that look difficult to the recipient, but can be easily executed by the average knitter - a great thing when you need an impressive gift fast.

I also continue to be amazed by the power of wet blocking a lacy wool scarf from 40" to 69", (even longer if using superwash) a practice which enabled me to make some of the scarves with only one skein of Patons Classic Merino, which I bought on sale at Michaels for $3.50!

I am hoping to sit down tomorrow and crank out at least one repeat of the FBS. There are already 235 sts (9 repeats) on the needle, and I just know that it is going to be tempting to end it at 10 repeats unless I want to be knitting during every free moment I get this week. And those moments are not coming as often, especially now that my 4-year-old is no longer napping.

Here is the finished Tailored Scallops. The color in the picture looks like hot pink, but the true color is more purplish-pink, like magenta. I'll need to block the seams again before I gift it to my MIL for Christmas, but since my trusty iron just died, I figured I would go ahead and post a photo. The knitting part of this probably took a week and half or so, but I left it for a while before blocking and sewing it, so all together it was 2 months from starting time to finishing time. The pattern was enjoyable and easy to memorize, and went very quickly on size 9 and 10 needles. I still have about 2 and a half skeins of Cascade 220 leftover from the 8 I had purchased to make this sweater. It is great to be done with a big Christmas gift so early, but I am anxious to see how it fits her.
Next on the list to be worked is my FIL's Classic Camel Vest. I finished the back a while ago, but when I started a front the other day, I realized that I must have decided to use a bigger needle for the ribbing than the pattern calls for, because the ribbing on the front looked much smaller than what I had done on the back. So I need to figure out what I did. It is amazing how much more crucial it is than ever before that I keep notes for myself. Is it having children or just getting older?

Here is Tiana wearing the Midwest Moonlight I made her for the secret birthday gift exchange. It is fun to knit things for people, particularly when (a) they appreciate the work, and (b) the work actually looks good on them. I wondered if the 7 foot length might be a little long, even for someone tall like Tiana, but seeing it on her, I am happy with the way it turned out.

And here is another beautiful secret birthday gift, knitted by Tiana and given to Erica, who is happily modeling it. I need to find out where she got the pattern. There are still two more gifts to be given before the end of the year. I am excited to see what they are, especially because I am one of the recipients!