We Now Disrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Almanac...

When I found out that a dear friend of mine was getting married, I knew I had to knit her something.

Anne Hanson had just released the Fernfrost pattern back in August and I was inspired. I decided to use the remainder of the silver silk from another wedding gift, and it gave the whole project a very frosty feel.

But while this is really a pretty pattern, I wish I’d picked one of her other patterns that is just as pretty but with a little less fiddliness. Really, pattern on every row and twisted purls? It took me about two hours per repeat, depending on my level of attention. 

Imagine my surprise that the thing fit in the palm of my hand after washing! All that work for something so tiny!

I made 14 repeats, and the scarf is 55” long and 8” wide. And, for the record, I wish I had blocking wires.

I added a fringe of twisted yarn, knotted together artfully, about 10”. The twisting and fringing was fun, and a new experience for me. I found it hard to believe it would work at first, but it really does. Just double up the yarn, twisty twisty, and carefully allow it to double back on itself again, then knot the ends. Et voila, fringe.

And if you read any blogs from northern regions, I'm sure you are sick of hearing people complain about the lack of decent lighting all winter, so I'll spare you. But really, this was the only decent picture I got outside...

but pretty enough, and I hope the bride likes it.

Next up on this blog: the Knitter's Almanac year-in-review. Stay tuned!

July Pi

Back in July, this:

turned into this

and I took it here

and once I got all those people to get out of the way, we were able to take some nice picutres

it does look like I had a little run there, but I think I just poked it too much with my fingers as I was flipping it around. Yarn: cashmere and silk from Colourmart. Yay colourmart!

Episode 3: Revenge of the Baby Sweater

I was delighted to knit this sweater again. The first time I used a heavier yarn and modified the stitch count a bit. This time I used a DK (and on the skinny side, even for DK) and it turned out a great 3 - 6 month size. My daughter is about 1 month old, and it is still a little large on her.

 

I do like this pattern. It's pretty easy (once you are used to EZ's general "pithy" style). The only thing I had a problem with was making up the sleeves. First I just sewed the edges along the perimeter: the initial stitches together, then extra cast-on stitches to extra cast-on stitches, and then arm edges to arm edges. And as you can see this made a pretty stupid looking silhouette there. On my second try, I gathered up the extra cast-on stitches and sewed them to the body. This makes a normal-looking sleeves and more ease in the underarm area. Surely this is what EZ intended, and maybe I'm just an idiot for doing it wrong the first time. But I know I'm not the only one who finds her directions "open for interpretation", so I hope this might help someone else.

 

I didn't have an opportunity to run out for the perfect button, so the button stash had to do. The contrast of the oatmeal color of the button is perhaps a little strong, but it went nicely with the burgundy and matches the natural colored soakers that usually grace the bottom half of my model.

Co-worker Gifts

For thoroughness's sake, here are three more gifts that I knit for coworkers. First, a My So Called Scarf, started a looooong time ago, but too turquoise for me to have ever kept it, and thusly it became a gift knit. I enjoyed the pattern well enough, though I got right sick of it by the end. Also I think I did it wrong, twisting the knit stitches instead of knitting them regular. The yarn is from handpaintedyarn.com, knit on 4 mm needles.

  

Next, the super fastest knit, Fetching! So fast they were off the needles and given away before I could get a really decent picture of them. Knitted on 3.5 mm needles with ColourMart 100% extra fine merino 15/44 NM. I felt like these were a little short around the fingers, so I added 4 extra rows before bind off on the hand and also lengthened the thumb a bit. 

And, the funnest gift knit: a mini-Casino. Knitpicks Shadow knit on a 3 mm needle. Horribly photographed due to the northern latitude that I live in. Knitting this started out a little slow because you start at the long side, but it flies along as you get towards the pointy end. It took about 5 days. And the blocking... ah, the blocking. That's seriously fun. Except for when my cat slept on it, with the pins still in it. My really heavy cat who I couldn't manage to lift off of it without snagging it.  

But anyway, blocking is magic! 

Delayed Isabella

Isabella was begun last summer, and set aside for a more pressing project, and then for more winter-appropriate garments. I forgot to get her back out again at the beginning of this summer, indeed only starting again in August. I didn't have too much more to do, though, just one armscye modification and a sleeve.


After knitting the body (modified to knit in the round), I discovered that I miscalculated where the sleeve needed to begin and the armscye was much too deep. It's always something with me. Being too lazy to rip back and redo the under arm bit, I did a cheaterish thing. I picked up stitches across the bottom edge of my malformed armscye and ribbed a couple of rows and then used simple short row shaping to create a curve. It looks nice, I think.

All in all, I'm happy with the product. A little worried about the drape of the cotton (or droop, rather) but so far it's behaving well.

Bonus: Isabelly! First belly shot on the blog...

I forsee baby knitting in my future...

Warning: Graphic Content

Those are the stitches that were violently wrenched off the needles in my toddler's attempt to "knit". I still cringe looking at them, even though I got them all back on and straightened out and I finished about 15 rounds this week. I got a lot a lot a lot of knitting done (like 5+ hours each night) because my Man was back in the States all week. I got so much done on the lace I feel comfortable giving some time to Isabella, which I've opted to add sleeves to. I might be able to get it done before summer is over -- though the weather has been so crappy here it feels like it's over already.

We had a lovely Stitch-n-Bitch last night at a new location. Despite warnings that it was too snooty for knitting, no one complained or even looked at us funny. We sat in a well lit corner and everyone left us alone. Literally. The service was horrible.

Data, something's got meeeeeeee!

Row 142. It's really getting big. It's bigger than it looks in the picture -- but I didn't really want to pull this stunt more than once! This really is all-consuming. I've dropped all other projects. Isabella is still without sleeves. I'm starting to get worried I won't finish it. I did a few more calculations a few days ago. At my current rate of progress I've got 100 more hours of work. I can get about 3 hours of work done per night (little more during the day), so that's about a month of work. So I might be done by the end of August, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Oh Noes

Problems... big problems in lace land. I got a snag last night. A huge snag. I managed to work some of it back in, but it's still a loop about 15 cm long. I'm hoping I'll be able to work it back in during blocking. In the meantime, I'm having a small heartattack.






I also dropped a stitch somewhere, and discovered it about 30 rows down when I was trying to work back in the snag. I managed to pull it up, but I had to get creative.


Third major issue: while I was downloading these pictures, my toddler gleefully exclaimed that she was knitting... the lace. I turned to see she'd pull a whole section off the needles and it took me about 45 minutes to get all the stitches back on properly.








Lastly, some dramatic numb3rs: 24 sections, 35 stitches each = 840 stitches per round. According to my calcuations (based on high-tech chart square counting), the inner chart equalled 7,936 stitches, and the outer section as far as I've gotten is 36,384, for a total of 44,320 stitches so far. Out of a goal of 110, 928. Shitzor. I'm not even 1/2 way done.

Row 90

I finally got my cotton Isabella off my long 2.0 mm needle, freeing it to take up the ever-growing lace.

I draped it over the cone of remaining yarn, and it completely engulfed it. I wish I'd thought to weight the yarn plus cone before I started, so I could see how much I've used up so far. Oh well...








Another shot of the lace on long needles... it looks kind of like a dead, deflated cephalopod, which I taunted by tying yarny bits to it.

Yup, pattern's still there.

Teh Stitchz and the Bitchz

We revisited an old favorite cafe for Stitch-n-Bitch Monday night. I was working on round 84. The stitches are getting really crowded on the needle, threatening to pop off the end at any time.

the lovely pattern is still there, with about 3 inches of feather-and-fan action

69, d00dz!

I'm rounding the 69th row now. It is getting larger, and I know it with grow with blocking -- but I'm worried it'll be a little small. The pattern calls for 2.75 mm needles, and I'm using 2s. And now on to the pr0n...

on the cone
(red bits are yarny stitch markers -- I have 24 sections and I just didn't have the patience to make 16 more nice stitch markers)

in a bunch

with spidey

I gotz patternage!

i gots m4d skillZ

The shrug was just too big. The lace pattern (if you can even call it that, it was so boneheaded... yo, k2tog) was suuuuper stretchy and actually ended up about 2 inches too wide. Yes, yes, the Swatch Gods smote me again for ignoring them. Being the lazy ho I am, I did not want to rip out the arm (again) and reknit it.

So guess what! I just chopped it off.

Then a little grafty magic (guided by some very coherent step-by-step instructions)...

and I ended up with a very serviceable arm-covering. It does still bunch/sag a little at the neck, but overall I find that acceptable.

No, it's not really a hair net...

Nor is it a glove...

It's a lace shawl being knit in the round. Started on double pointed needles of the devil, I switched to this much nicer slick round needle at the earliest possible time.

0wn4ge!

It took a couple of false starts (ok, like 5... or maybe 11, depending on how you count) for me to get this thing right. And I didn't even really get it *right* so much as got it to work.
Basically, those bamboo double pointeds you see SuX0r! Too sticky, and my toddler broke one while I was running towards her in slow motion going "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" so I had to use a set of 4 instead of 5.
I ended up knitting the first 10 rounds or so flat and then joining (will seam before blocking) because I just could not get 2 itty bitty stitches on these itty bitty needles to behave. Don't you love my pretty stitch markers, though?

Over the years I've received these things as decorations on wrapped presents (the red one is Korean, the wooden ones Japanese) and kept them not really knowing what to do with them. When I tried my regular metal/bead stitch markers, it weighed down the piece considerably and snagged the fabric. Enter: fabric/ribbon stitch markers.









What am I knitting, you ask? A lovely hair net! You can see it draped over the cone from ColourMart. 100% silk, laceweight, color silver. One cone should do my job.

Salema

My budding interest in lace and our fantastic vacation in Portugal inspired me to make this small piece. It hangs from a piece of driftwood. Arty. Svigerinne teased me about reinventing macrame. Hey, /\/\4cR@m3 is t3h uber R0XX0Rz!