Persistent Knitter

I mentioned in one of my last posts a poncho my friend Judy created. You can see a picture of it here. (Yes, Ingrid and I exist just to link to each other’s blogs all the time)

It’s a really cute poncho, in a 6-12 month size. (We tried it on Alex, and it fits Gargantuan baby just fine, so we figure it’s good on non-Gargantuan babies up to a year). We (our knitting group) convinced Judy that it was so cute and such a good combination of yarns that she should publish the pattern and sell kits for it. As part of that, I will create a larger size as a model (conveniently to fit my 3 year old) and put together the pattern.

Design decisions

So yesterday I went over to Judy’s and we got to play in her “stash”. Well, technically it’s her store’s stash, but it was really fun! We pulled out different colors of yarn, trying to find the right balance for a different colorway. In discussing yarns & colors we were pinning down why the poncho she made is so darned cute.

1) It has a variety of yarn textures in it. Specifically a good balance between fluffy eyelashy type yarns and smooth plain yarns, both in matte and mercerized finishes.

2) It has colors that coordinate and are bright and cheery and would look good on an infant/toddler. Kids are fun to knit for because they can wear color combinations that adults shouldn’t.

So we pulled out some different yarns for me to use in the larger size so she can have a sample showing a different colorway. While we were there, we got so into it that we created two more colorways. Here are the yarns I’m going to use:

The other two colorways are a mainly purple one (with deep blue and green accents) & a primary colors using red, blue, yellow and green. I didn’t have my camera with me, so no pictures of those yarns, but trust me they were great looking.

I still need to decide what order to do the yarns in. I know that the eyelashy yarn with the three different colors in it (there are two balls in the pic) will be the last yarn. It’s a really thick, soft & fuzzy yarn and I think makes and excellent edging for the poncho. Then I need to figure out how to write a pattern up for different yarn combos in different sizes.

Pictures
I’ve been really dissappointed with my pictures of Mike’s secret-socks. It looks like I’m knitting a large black sock because the light is always so bad. This morning I braved the outdoors and got some great indirect daylight to take these pictures.

See how pretty the colors are? I’m using Trekking XXL doubled for these.

And the cuff:

I have progress to report!

Sleeve:

Sock:

I had to rip back a tiny bit on the sleeve. I thought I needed to finish the current ball of yarn before moving on to the pattern in the upper sleeve area. When I rechecked the length I had gone about 4 rows too far.

The sock was done last night, except for grafting, but I decided to have Mike try it on first. It was TOO short. This yarn doesn’t stretch as much lengthwise as the other sock I was using as my "model" sized sock. So ripped the toe back and am adding another inch and a bit before restarting the toe.

Mike wore last years Christmas socks this morning, which he calls "happy socks". I guess it’s worth making sure they fit. :)

After searching high and low (and all the way across town) I was unable to find the Noro Knits book anywhere locally. Fine! *pout*

I ordered it from The Knitting Garden. I just got email this morning that said “Sorry, we are out of stock on this item, but expect more in next week”.

I think, given the difficulty of me even finding the #@@%^^*&( pattern for this, I might not be destined to knit a Noro sweater for myself. At least right away.

And Joann offered this sweet comment:
And don’t forget, you may have to get new needles to work with the Noro!

I wrote her email calling her Evil. Then emphasised her evil-ness in person on Saturday at our knitting group.

Other Comments and Replies

Judy made this comment on Katie’s birthday cake:
You did a great job on Katie’s cake! Fondant icing looks so intimidating to use.

Actually – it’s really easy to use. I was worried as well, because it seemed so fancy. It’s just like using playdough! You use the Wilton dyes to color it whatever color you want. You knead it with your hands (just like bread dough, but a bit stickier) Roll it out with a rolling pin, and voila! Beautiful cake.

I’d recommend anyone give it a try. And for those on the hunt for pre-made Fondant. You can buy it at your local cake decorating store. Or Hobby Lobby carries it as well (at least my local one does). I wouldn’t recommend buying the pre-tinted fondant unless you don’t have any Wilton dyes, because it’s really expensive to do that way. And for those who might want extra justification to go the Wilton dyes route: You can dye wool with them!

And thanks to everyone for the compliments on Katie’s socks. These didn’t go over quite so well as the first pair. Not sure why. She wore them once, promptly kicked them off and then asked for her “white” socks. (aka. Store bought). Owell. They are now in her drawer waiting for her to re-discover them at some point. When I left for work this morning she was wearing the first pair I made her, the red Opals. (Maybe because she helped “pick” the yarn for those. Hmm. Will have to give this more thought)

And for others at home keeping track Ingrid has finished the adorable baby sweater she’s been working on. I got to see it in person at the Boulder Knit Out and wow – it’s SO cute! Worth all the work on those tiny needles. That is one lucky baby.

And given that I have no pictures for today (sorry. I do have things to take pictures of. a Migraine headache last night precluded anything but sleep), I have to tease you with the thoughts of a totally adorable child’s poncho my friend Judy whipped together out of her stash. I’m in the process of bribing her to get me some yarn together from her shop so I can make one for my daughter.

There have been a lot of people (at least those with blogs!) lately knitting stuff with Noro yarns. They tend to be very striking as the colors are deep and beautiful, and the yarn has a long repeat so it stripes. Not to be a joiner, but I’ve definately been inspired by all the pictures of completed sweaters.

Originally I was thinking about Butterfly, but Hudson is really more my style:

I don’t really like the wide collar with butterfly, and would maybe modify that if I made it. I do like the one button closure style of butterfly more.

All of this is dependent on me being able to 1) Locate said pattern book and buy it (not so hard if I just buy it off the internet, but I’m trying to find it locally first) and 2) have a touch-n-feel session with the Noro yarns. I detest scratchy yarns and even if it’s beautiful I won’t wear it if it’s really scratchy. Not to mention the fact that Noro yarn is hideously expensive and I better be damn sure I’m going to wear the sweater after I make it :)

My daughter turned three last Friday. Her party was on Sunday. It’s just a small get together of us and a few friends so we can eat cake and give her some presents. It’s really no big deal. There was only one other kid there (who she has never met before) since her best friends moved to California last month. We’ll put up some streamers, some balloons and make a banner that the kids can color that says "Happy Birthday!" (The banner was a flop. they colored on it for maybe 2 minutes. Note to self – ditch the banner idea next time).

Katie requested that her cake have white and pink and purple flowers on it. Easy? Yeah, but I have to make things complicated.

I’m in the process of discovering a whole new way to frost and decorate a cake. Last year I bought one of those cool Wilton dye sets with the frosting tubes and funny ends that let you make flowers, leaves and all sorts of overly fancy stuff.

This year I’m inspired by a picture I see in, of all things, a kid’s food recipe book. Basically the frosting (which is called "Fondant") is made by boiling copius amounts of sugar and water until it reaches a certain temperature and then kneading it. So far I’ve made what looks like to me the worlds largest sugar cube! I managed to find some premade fondant in the store, and here’s her cake:

And in the knitting arena
Since I can’t manage to finish any of my own projects lately, I’ll cheat and use someone else’s project for blog fodder :) This is a beautiful sweater my friend Rebecca made Alex. She made it before he was born and was guessing a bit on the sizing. Who knew I’d have a gargantuan baby? Anyways, here it is blocking, with the width hopefully widened enough that it’ll fit him a little looser. When I tried it on him, there wasn’t hardly any ease in the body. Since this is such a cute sweater, I’d really like him to be able to wear it and I’m planning on taking pictures of the kids in 2 weeks for our xmas cards in their handknit snowflake sweaters.

Sometimes you just need to get a little momentum. (I’m still looking for more)

As I lose interest (momentum) in one project; I seem to pick up in another. Small sock projects are hard to lose momentum in because they are done so quickly. By the time you’d be bored with it, voila – you’re done! Right now I’m making good progress on Mike’s secret-socks. Mike’s not-so-secret sweater, Hardangervidda, is languishing in my knitting basket. I haven’t even opened it in a week or so. The poor thing.

I’m trying to get Mike’s secret-socks done pretty quickly, because I’m pretty bored with them. Compared to Lorna’s Laces, the yarn is pedestrian. It does have some great subtle tweedy colors in it (which don’t photograph at all because it’s such a dark yarn), but it’s definately not as soft. I got past the sticky-bit on the gussett. I decided to decrease to 55 stitches, (Cast on was 52, decrease to 50 for the cuff pattern, both in a larger needle size) tried the sock on him (ignoring that he said "neat!" since he wasn’t supposed be looking at them at all) and stopped the instep patterning as soon as possible. I did an inch or so of progress at lunch during a lively discussion about different types of fiber (Bunnies, Alpaca, Wool, Rayon).

Here’s the sock progress:

Hardangervidda was shouting at me for some progress. So Sleeve #2 aspires to be like Sleeve #1:

What is with this Sleeve Island I keep reading about on other blogs? Am I on Sleeve Island? If you have to ask, doesn’t that mean you aren’t? Or am I just deluded and I took a left turn instead of a right and I think I’m at Disneyland, but I’m really not? I don’t think I understand the metaphor, and I obviously missed the beginnings of this concept. Must do more thinking on this topic after getting more sleep. I’ll let you know in 18 years what I come up with.

Oh yeah
I actually got to wear Flashy Lace yesterday! Wooohooo!

I finished another project! Can you guess what it is?

And you thought I was going to say I finished Hardangervidda! Ok, you’re probably not that gullible. This is the latest pair of socks for Katie (who turns 3 on friday. Happy Birthday!) and she’ll get them at her birthday party on Sunday. How geeky is it to give your kid handknit socks? I don’t know, but I know she’ll love them.

So now I’ve got Mike’s secret-socks to work on, Hardangervidda (not a travel project), and moss-n-cable cardigan for Katie, which is so far a good travel project except for the fact that I haven’t memorized the pattern yet and get really confused when I go to work on it. That doesn’t sound like nearly enough things going on. I’ll finish the secret-socks pretty quickly if I don’t sneak in another travel project. Since I had the deadline on the rib-n-eyelet socks above for Katie’s birthday, I used my spare knitting time in the evenings on those. I will probably start to focus heavily on Hardangervidda so I can get it done. Thinking about the finishing on it: 3 more steeks to sew/cut; picking up stitches for the neckband, sewing in the sleeves. It seems a bit intimidating. I will get it done, and soon! I have more exciting sweaters to knit and finish.

Who Reads this Crap? :)

Every now and then I pop on over to the statistics part of my blog maintenance pages, to see who is reading my blog. In the past Ingrid’s blog has been the largest referrer, but a few clicks from this blog: The Spinning Goth, showed up today. I always love finding new blogs to read.

I was at work* today, washing my hands in the restroom as most normal hygenic people do, when another woman leaves the restroom WITHOUT WASHING HER HANDS.

I was disgusted.

Let me just say, I don’t know if she was doing something hand-washing-worthy or not. Frankly, I don’t care.

At least make a show of splashing some water on your hands before you leave the restroom. It’s just polite for goodness’ sake! While she did glance at the sinks as she walked by me and out, I don’t think that quite cut it.

I do not know this woman, other than having seen her ‘around the office’ once or twice a day. Needless to say I took a different route back to my office and tried to not touch any door handles.

Yick.

* This post violates the unwritten “don’t blog about work” rule. Frankly, I don’t care. If this woman reads my blog (which I really doubt), I DARE her to come confront me about her disgusting non-hand-washing habits.

I repeat: Yick

There’s something to be said for being able to knit something without a pattern in front of you.

I had to take my daughter to the doctor today for a check up. Since she wasn’t sick, she could play nicely with the waiting room toys while I knit. I grabbed the smallest & easiest thing in my knitting bag at the moment, which was some toddler socks. I was still working on the cuff & have the pattern memorized (very simple yarn overs and a variation of k3tog) so it was perfect. Usually when I have my knitting with me it guarantees that there won’t be a long wait because I’ve got something useful to do during it.

Not this time!

It was pleasant though – Katie was self entertaining herself very well, never out of arms reach, and I could knit. I soon realized that I was done with the cuff and ready to start the heel. Thank goodness I have my preffered heel flap pattern memorized, because with only a slight pause to count the stitches and make sure the pattern was fairly centered on the instep, I kept right on going.

It made me feel great to know that I’ve knit enough socks that I could keep going without having to look something else up. I think I’ve finally hit the sock-knitting comfort zone!

Not to mention toddler socks in sport weight yarn go really fast. See?

Didn’t I say something earlier about all I can finish is small socks?

I’ve since finished this sock, kitchnered toe and all. I need to weave in ends, but I think I’ll have Katie try it on first. The Lorna’s laces yarn is soooo soft and great to work with. The colors are really pretty. The pattern I picked, Rib-n-Eyelets, works well even with the busy variegated yarn. It creates enough interest in it, while still keeping it super stretchy. We’ll see how the yarn holds up to the abuse dished out by a 3 year old.

Or at least aiming for perfection.

I figured out another reason I’m not totally happy working on Mike’s secret-socks. They got fiddly right at the heel.

Fiddly
Pronunciation: Fidd – lee
Meaning: To be annoying just enough to make it impossible to work on without thinking

I like my instep to be centered. For some reason I was having a real problem figuring out where the 25 instep stitches should be so the pattern would still look good. Part of it was I was at my knitting group at the time and counting and talking just doesn’t quite work for me.

Then, I didn’t like the moss stitch heel. Rip Rip.

That wasn’t a biggie. Then I had to add a stitch for the standard heel flap (I think. I’d have to check my notes ala Riff). Heel knit, and turned.

Then I had to figure out what to add (or not) to the instep pattern to make it look right again. It would have had only one repeat in the center instead of three across the instep.

    |patt|

vs
|patt|patt|patt|

Only one pattern repeat would have looked, well , stupid!

So I decided I can use three of the gusset stitches to finish bordering the pattern and do my decreases below that.

I also switched needle sizes so the foot would be denser and therefore more durable. So now I don’t know when to stop decreasing because I’ll want more than the original 50 cuff stitches. And I’m already thinking about having to remember all the silly things I’m doing now for the second sock. Yes, I’m taking notes. For some reason this annoys me.

I’ll get over it. Right after I get the pair of socks done :)

Mitten suggestions
Joanne suggested:
How about slightly felted mittens with angora, alpaca or some other yummy material worked into them? Fuzzy cuffs, all that good stuff!

Ooooh! I even have some super soft ultra pretty alpaca in my stash I could use. It’s a variegated yarn though – and I’m not sure how well I’d like it in mittens. Maybe I’ll have to pair it with a solid yarn and use some kind of slip stitch pattern. Hmm.. that’d make thicker mittens. Of course I don’t think I have any solid yarn in my stash this would work with. I’ll have to dig through it tonite and see what I can find.