Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a great time during the holidays! Time has flown by. Although I haven't blogged about anything in over a month, I've been busy with all the holiday hustle and bustle. Seems all I did over the past few weeks was eat, eat, eat. Not that I'm complaining.

Onto the knitting. I managed to cram in a lot of knitting, whenever I could. It's my way of keeping calm and centered.

Old business first. This is my first felted project ever. I made Meema's Felted Tote Bag from the first Stitch N Bitch book. Knit on 15s with 3 skeins of Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes Bulky in Grape.


Finished knitting within days back in October, but the felting process took me a lot longer. Since I only have coin-op washing machines in my building and can't control the speed, I hand felted the bag. Taking advice from my friend, Annika, the felting queen, I had super hot water ready, dish soap, and rubber gloves. Now, being the smartypants that I am, I decided to use my silcone oven mitts (way too big for my hands, by the way), so I wouldn't feel the boiling water as I pummeled the poor wool into felt fabric. Well, I managed to rub the skin off my knuckles because of too much movement inside the silicone mitts. EEEWWW. So, that set me back at least a week before the stinging subsided. Anyway, after the bag dried, I wanted to lose more of the stitch definition, plus shrink it more. A month and a half later (I was lazy), I re-felted the bag in hot (not boiling water) and didn't need gloves after the water cooled a bit.


Pre-felting bag dimensions: length x width x height, 11 inches x 6.5 inches x 16.5 inches
Final dimensions: 10 inches x 5 inches x 10 inches
Decreased ~40% vertically and ~15% horizontally


Next, I made a cowl from yarn I bought at Stitches West 2008.

It's super luxurious cashmere silk from Argosy. Haiku 4ply in Blackberry. I took the shell lace stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's First Treasury of Stitch Patterns, calculated for a 20 inch circumference, and knit til I used up all of the yarn, ~200 yards. Feels great against my neck.


There's more but that's all for now. Happy 2009!

Let's Skate!

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Now that I have my new top ready, I can go skating to work off my turkey dinner.

After three months of work, I finally completed my Skater's Top, the overtop. This is really a two piece set- a lace short-sleeved overtop and a plain stockinette long-sleeved undertop. The long sleeve top does have interesting cables on the sleeves. Although I wasn't planning originally to knit the undertop, I am now interested in making it to wear separately, not as a set. The weather here is not cold enough to merit wearing both simultaneosly. For me, a thin layering tee is enough to wear under the short-sleeved top.



For the overtop, there are two main lace charts to follow to make the pattern, the tree pattern and the little fir cone pattern. Things were fine until I had to decrease at the sleeves to shape the cap, etc. With my stitch count off everytime, I slowed my knitting between rounds, counted stitches, and decided how I would proceed while maintaining the stitch pattern yet decreasing here and there. Basically, I winged it but didn't write down my alterations (sorry). Luckily, it fits! As I knitted the last few rounds, I suddenly worried that it wouldn't fit and that all my work would have been wasted. Knowing that lace can stretch, I consoled myself that it would fit somehow, unless it had to stretch to frumpy proportions.

On Ravelry, I am one of the few people who have not used Rowan Kid Silk Haze, the recommended yarn, to make my top. Instead, I chose Valley Yarn's Colrain Laceweight, a wool and tencel blend, which I bought at the WEBS booth at Stitches West earlier this year. Lovely yarn. It felt smooth, running through my hands as I knit. Although it doesn't give off that "hazy" halo look as in the Kid Silk Haze, I think the clear stitch definition from this yarn works well for this top too. And I only used about 120 grams of the yarn, so I have half of the cone left! Need to think of something to use that for...



Pattern: Skater's Top, overtop
Book: Knitting Classic Style by Veronik Avery
Size: 38
Yarn: Valley Yarn's Colrain Laceweight, used ~770 yards (120 grams), blue grey
Needles: size 6 (4mm)

Completing this top was my goal for November's Knit a Sweater Month (NaNiSweMo). I'd been working on this for so long but allowed myself to work on many other projects at the same time. When the November challenge came up, I decided to finish the top and not let it drag out for more months. Anyway, it's done. So are my Fawkes socks (Belated Socktober). So many things suddenly reached a happy end recently. After months of slogging through WIPS and never feeling like I'd made progress, I finally made it to the end. Including things at my real job, last week really marked the culmination of a lot of work with knitting and non-knitting. I can fully enjoy the holidays! Now, what to knit next?

Belated Socktober

Better late than never! Originally, I meant to finish these in October for the Socktober challenge, but it didn't happen. Oh well, I completed these last Friday, about a month after my start date.



Pattern: Fawkes Socks by Monkey Toes
Yarn: Superwash Sock Yarn (merino wool/bamboo/nylon) by Mary Jane's Attic
Color: Bananarama
Needle: 2.75mm

The pattern was inspired by Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, in the Harry Potter series. And yes, I realize I didn't use red or orange yarn to go along with the flame theme. I might try out a few of the other Harry Potter inspired sock patterns by the same sock designer- Nagini and Bellatrix. Fawkes reminded me a little bit of Cookie A's Monkey sock pattern but had narrower curves. The flame pattern is pretty cool, although I'm not sure how clear it is to see in this particular yarn colorway.

By the way, I chose this colorway because it's different from anything I'd usually buy. It's kind of crazy, and I really like it. The yarn was hand-dyed by Jamie of Mary Jane's Attic, who happens to be a childhood friend of my cousin. Small world! Recently, she opened her own fiber store in San Francisco, Urban Fauna Studio. Check it out! You can also see her yarn at the San Francisco Bazaar Bizarre this Sunday, November 30th. A cool indie craft fair that sounds similar to the Renegade Craft Fair I went to this summer. Can't wait to go!

Recycled Plastic Bag

In an effort to be less wasteful, I'm interested in ways to re-use/recycle items at home. By using my own cloth bags at stores, I've reduced the amount of plastic and paper in our bag pile. That's fine, but, as a knitter, I want to go a step further and make something out of it. I can't help wanting to turn those plastic bags into something useful, other than garbage bags. Recently, I came across the Re-bag pattern by Cocoknits. It's a knit tote bag made out of chopped up plastic bags. It's a great idea, and she includes a tutorial on how to turn the plastic bags into yarn. Looks cool and crafty! I wonder how sturdy it is?

Socktober!

It's Socktober, in case you didn't know! I joined an October challenge to knit down my sock yarn stash. The goal amount varies for each knitter, but I've pledged to knock down 500 yards, which is roughly 2 pairs of socks for my size feet. Last Saturday, I finished my first pair of the month.

Pattern: Nutkin Socks by Beth Lapensee
Yarn: Baywood Yarns, Sock
Color: Jewels
Needles: 2.75mm
Loved the curved lines in the stitch pattern! However, I made several modifications to the pattern structure, due to my personal preferences. I started with 2 inches of 2x2 rib cuff. For the heel, I made a slip stitch heel flap, instead of a short row heel. For the toe, I decreased on each side, rather than knitting short rows as written.

Don't these look like Christmas socks? They will be a gift for my mom this year. I'm glad I won't have to stress knit these towards the Christmas day deadline. The colors are fantastic. The red is so deep. Really lovely. The wool is super soft and squishy too. Great to knit with and wonderful to wear.


As of today, more than half the month has passed and I'm not sure if I will achieve my goal of 500 yards. An eighth of the way through, I've begun the Fawkes socks, but we'll see how it goes.

Sunday Hodge Podge

More Elizabeth Zimmermann? I really had an EZ-influenced summer. BSJ number two. I began knitting this in late August and finished sometime in early September. However, I totally lagged on buying buttons, and when I eventually purchased some, I let them collect dust for a while. I love to knit, but I fall down when it comes to sewing. Anyway, tonight is the non-shower baby party for my friend and that was enough to motivate me to finish off the jacket.



Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Knitpicks Swish DK (100% Superwash merino wool), less than three balls
Needles: size 6, 4mm
Size: 9-12 months, 18 inch circumference for chest, 11.5 inches from shoulder to bottom

As I mentioned before, I've been knitting hats for charity. This weekend, I will mail my donation for the 7long project. I made four new hats and am including two hats I knit years ago but never wore. The patterns are: two basic hats, Fake Isle, Ganomy, Three-Cornered Tam-o-shanter, and the Beehive.



I know this last picture is out of focus, but it was the best I could do before my camera gave up and died. The video screen has been wonky for the past month- blurry, distorted live images. However, that didn't affect the photos. Until yesterday. It was hit or miss- sometimes I'd get a picture and sometimes it would be a blank black image. Oh well. It was a good little camera and served us well for years.

Hats!

These days, I've been churning out hats, hats, and more hats for the 7long project. The Stash and Burn girls are collecting hats for a pediatric oncology ward at UCSF in my old neighborhood. It's a good cause and very local to me, so I'm happy to do this. On a selfish note, I get to try out all sorts of hat patterns :)

I must be on an EZ kick these days. Mittens last time. Now, I've knit two more patterns from The Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann. First up, the Ganomy hat. It's supposed to be gnome-like. For adults, it looks a little funny. At least, how I made it. If I were to knit this again, I would make it smaller and lessen the pointiness on top. I can see how it can be fun for children to wear, like a costume hat. I hope they see it as a fun, playtime hat! Otherwise, I just made a very uncool hat.



This is an example of my old stash. I bought this green acrylic yarn from Walgreen's back in 1994. Yes, I know this because the receipt was still in the bag. And yes, Walgreen's must have sold cheap yarn way back then. It's not great yarn, but it's not as rough as Red Heart. I've never given it away or thrown it out because that would've been wasteful. Couldn't do it. Anyway, I knit this Ganomy hat on size 9 (5.5mm) needles to get gauge at 4 stitches per inch.

Next, the Three-Cornered hat/beret/tam, also from the Almanac. If you follow EZ's sizing directions, this hat will be HUGE. My husband laughed at me as I modeled the hat and said it looked like a spaceship sitting on my head. Plus, it covered half my face. Not a good hat to donate. So I frogged it and sized it way down. Started with an 18 inch circumference, instead of 20 inches. Now, it looks less spaceship-like and won't swallow some poor child's head.



I used Vanna's Choice acrylic for this hat and size 8 (5mm) needles. Less than one skein. Haven't used this yarn before, but I recommend it if you're looking for acrylic yarn. Soft and thick (aran weight). Nice colors too.

Additionally, I've knit two more hats, just haven't taken pictures yet. Another Fake Isle hat and a basic ribbed brim hat. These are instant gratification projects. I can make them within two nights, which is speedy for me. (I know others can bang these out within a few hours.) Currently, I have a lace top on the needles as well, but the hats are more fun.