Collar Fail

I was actually looking forward to October all year. My son had earmarked this pattern as one he would appreciate and wear, with the addition of a kanagroo-type pocket at the front. The yarn is the lovely Laines du Nord Cashsilk, paired with an old wool-silk blend that was actually one of the first yarns I ever bought in my second knitting stint in 1999. Yikes, 10 year old yarn!

I feel like I've made it through a lot of EZ's patterns, mostly without difficulty, sometimes with some head-scratching, but always made it in the end. She has a unique style of instruction (as many before me have commented), but once you get used to it, it encourages independence and intelligent consideration of each pattern. These things can only make one a better knitter.

The instructions for the top-down collared sweater in October, however, might as well have been written in Jaffa (kree!), for all I understood them. If this book wasn't older than I am, I would suspect some pattern errata... but I do see some people on Ravelry managed the top-down version, so it must just be me.

This is as far as I got before I realized something wasn't quite right:

That's actually the back view, and I managed to delude myself into knitting the rest of the body and a sleeves before I really faced the fact that the crazy pouch like thing on the front cannot be steeked in any way to resemble a open-neck placket.  The collar is knit from a provisional cast on, and you are supposed to pick up stitches to knit a facing for the collar and the placket. Yeah, it sounds reasonable like that, but look...

Here's that something that's not quite right:

I think it's salvageable, I can steek an opening in the front, and knit on a placket. Then I will probably frog it from the cast on (at the collar) and knit up a collar from a reasonable point around the neck (minus that crazy pouch thing). At the end of the month, though, I just shoved it in the basket and moved on to the November socks.

September Hot Pants

Ok, these are "hot" in the sense that they will keep little legs warm, and that they are hot pink, not in the B-52s sense of the phrase.

I knit the September longies for my daughter a) because she needed wool pants for recess at school and b) I did not want to admit how much yarn it would actually take to swath my post-3rd-baby behind in wool.

The yarn was a birthday gift from my mother-in-law, bought during our family vacation this summer in Stavanger. There was a charming little store called Bånsull close off the main square by the cathedral.

This pattern was a typical opaquely worded but highly customizable EZ design. Everything went swimmingly, except (in a typical move for me) I made two left legs. The increases above the knee are designed to hide discreetly on the inside of the leg, so the legs should be knit mirrored. Wait, it's just a tube, can't you just rotate it 180 degrees? you say. No, not with the charming calf shaping. Well, anyway, the increases are in the wrong spot and plainly visible if you look for them, but no one cares but me.

The pants still fit comfortable despite the wonky shaping, they are warm, and most importantly, they are pink.

June Round Up

Added to the June pile: Ganomy

Knit in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, a very servicable nice wool. I held it double to closer match the stated guage in the pattern which is rather large. I did run out of yarn for the last few yards, so I used a matching green bit I had left over from something else. I rather liked the method for making the little bobble at the top. It's a nice alternative to pom-poms, tassles, or just a bare peak. I didn't use a ping-pong ball as suggested, but just a little leftover ball of somethig-or-other.

I added a line of embroidery just above the brim in green, to match the top of the bobble. All in all: a simple, solid pattern that I would be happy to knit again.

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Also knit in June, but not yet photographed: a mini fisherman's hat that is totally adorable on a baby head.

May-June Mashup

After Ruby's mittens were finished, there was plenty of yarn, and when I was browsing the June hat patterns, the three-cornered tam seemed very similar to the construction of the mittens. So, I had the bright idea to make a matching 3-cornered hat for Ruby. Of course, with the Rauma 3-ply Strikkegarn the guage was all off from the pattern, but it's a fairly simple construction and I was able to translate it succesfully.

In my opinion the head band of this was way too shallow, and after the hat was all finished, I picked up the stitches and knit down another 5 rows or so. And as you can see, it's still rather shallow. I knit one other hat with this same pattern, different yarn (which was more to the guage of the pattern) and it was also too shallow.

the awesomeness of this hat is this big

Reincarnation

What was this


Has become this

and is much happier in its new life.



Du Store Alpakka (tynn), about 2.5 skeins.


Well, really less because I didn't bother to unravel the back of the shrug, I just cut it out and knit up the arm/leg until it was long enough to join. The arms-cum-legs had enough width that I didn't even need to shape for the butt any. The fit is a little wide-legged, but I'll tell myself it's fashionable. She loves them!

Little Boy Blue

A dear friend of mine is expecting her second little boy, and it took me the better part of her pregnancy to decide what to knit for her. I finally decided the project should have two special elements: 1) it was to be my first Baby Surprise Jacket (truly a milestone) and 2) it would be knit from yarn that I bought while I was with her, so long ago, before either of us were considering having babies (more than in an abstract sense anyway).

I bought the yarn in Munich, not even at a proper yarn store, because I was not even enough of a knitter to seek one out. It was a department store in Muenchner Freiheit... I can't even remember the name it was so long ago! The yarn was intended to be my first pair of socks (having already knit 1.5 socks, I thought I was ready for two!). The pattern was beautiful but ill-fated as a sock, not stretchy. I had to frog it off of my foot after the first time I tried it on. So I hope this is a better fate for the yarn.

And, knitting the BSJ for the first time... it reminds me of the first time I ate a mango. I couldn't stop. And I could not get enough (indeed BSJ #2 is en route right now). A truly delightful experience.

There's a third special aspect about this project. I've had two wonderful birth experiences, both at home in the water. The same midwives attended both births. During my second birth, the senior midwife was knitting through most of it. It felt so serene... just right somehow... like "just another normal birth, nothing to get excited about, I guess I'll just knit". It gave me confidence to feel she was so relaxed that she could knit! Two days later, she gave us the finished product: a perfectly beautiful BSJ. The first time I'd ever seen one, and I knew it was a special pattern right away. It turned me on to Elizabeth Zimmermann, and started me on the path to being a better knitter.

Ravelry Ate Me

Ravelry is an incredible tool for organizing and encouraging my knitting. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a progress bar. It's been a little consuming lately, but I've been very productive in the knitting realm.

Annetrelac Socks
Regia Design, Kaffe Fassett


sweet baby Djevellue
silke-alpaca


My So-Called Scarf
colonia 140 from handpaintedyarn.com


and some coldie-pants of my own pattern (basically)

Also we had the most amazing Stitch-n-Bitch this last Monday. We got some exciting baby-makin' news from one of our members, and met two new members. Emily has a beautiful blog and makes adorable little babushkas and gives them super-scandinavian names like "Vilde". Esther didn't have a blog but she's making charming baby hats... you'd have to see them to understand... I'll try to get a picture next time.

These are some pants I experimented with knitting this winter. The blue ones were from the knitty.com pattern "Blu" but sized up because my little one isn't so little. It had a 2-inch turnable cuff, to turn down when he grows, but as you can see he grew in between me measuring him and finishing the darned pants, so the cuffs were immediately turned down. They were a little tight in the bum, but he likes em.




The stripey ones used self-striping yarn, which usually doesn't come in colors I don't hate. But I found a nice blue combo, so I gave it a go for the baby girl pants. I made the waistband and the ankles in cotton yarn. This was sized up from a diaper-soaker-longies pattern I got a long time ago. I should have put shortrow shaping in the butt or just knit it up further because it really pulls down at the center seam. Why the heck wasn't a diaper cover designed with a fuller butt?

Innaugural Post

Hat (under the hood, the stripey face mask) and scarf knitted by the original 1337 knitzor, 4unt +h3|m@. Red Heart: pwnt.