Pretty thing (also halloween things).

So I joined the ravelry hysteria and cast on for a wildly popular cowl called “Pretty Thing” (which you can see and purchase, if you like, from Ravelry or on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s blog here). Ordinarily I don’t bother with cowls. In fact, I’ve never knit one. I started a lacy cowl with handmaiden sea silk a year or so ago, even took it back and forth to doctor’s offices as we were visiting doctor’s quite frequently back then, and eventually unraveled it and that yarn later became a lacy scarf instead which I gave to my almost mother-in-law which is an action of charity that I regret nearly every day (no almost about THAT). The moral of THAT story is not to give beautiful handknit items to old cranky women who have no appreciation for handknits or delectable yarn. I learned my lesson.
Anyway, back to the cowl. I started this mostly because it seemed like the best use for the qiviut I bought in Alaska last year. I bought it in Ketchikan and thought then that I’d prefer quality over quantity — which I agree with even now — and could only afford one ball of yarn (it is $93 per ounce, or it was at the time). After settling the balance of my cruise card I actually could have afforded about 13 balls of qiviut (I drank their equivalent in vodka and raspberry puree). I am thinking that this will be the perfect use for this small, precious amount of fiber.
Here is what I have so far, about 18 rows in:

There is a soft halo about the yarn that I enjoy and I also rather like the openness of the eyelets and scallops so far. I don’t like the fact that the yarn is almost the exact shade of my harmony needles and thus difficult to see without natural or bright light.
Also, get this: I began knitting with yarn that we purchased on our last cruise the VERY SAME NIGHT that Stacey began looking to book our cruise for next year. Creepy, eh? We’re all booked for the eastern caribbean in 2010.

Stacey and I carved jack-o-lanterns today (still waiting for the pumpkin beer at the local brewery called Jacques O’Lantern, but I digress). Here they are, on display on the stoop:
This is mine. It’s supposed to be a haunted house with a ghost. Clearly I need to work on my carving skills.

And Stacey’s, which is clearly a witch in profile:

And lastly there is the matter of the cookies. In the spirit of halloween festivities, I thought I’d try this recipe for pumpkin blossoms. This is a remarkably cake-like cookie with candy corn kisses on top. The recipe warns that the kisses have to be frozen and the cookies have to be popped into the freezer to prevent the candy corn ooze. I found this to be true. In fact, most of the kisses dissolved into a puddle of yellow-orange oil at the top of the cookie. Delicious but not attractive. HOWEVER I suppose it is in the halloween spirit and will think of it as the gentle ooze of a zombiefied candy. The cookies are dense and are more like little cakes or muffins than proper cookies (but I like a thin and crispy cookie, so your mileage may vary). Interestingly, the recipe has a yield of 40 but I ended up with 72 cookies. I’m not sure how this happened but now I have 72 pumpkin cookies on my kitchen counter.
A few of the better looking ones:

That’s all. Tentative halloween plans: zombie crabs! In my belly!

Entrelac peek.

Still sort of waffling over what project to start — don’t have the right needles for this one, need a different fiber for that one, just not feeling this one, and so on and so forth. I am working on a couple things that can’t be displayed just yet but I *do* have the entrelac piece I alluded to in the previous post.
As I suspected, it wasn’t enough to finish. I got maybe 8 inches of entrelac out of it and that’s certainly not enough for much of anything (maybe a coffee mug jacket?).
It is pretty, though:

I will be casting on for a new lace piece tout de suite! Now I’m thinking maybe entrelac and lace?

FO: Travelling woman shawl.

I’m shocked to see how long it has been since my last post. I pledge to update my blog at least weekly (and hopefully more than that) for the month of October. I have an interesting project planned and look forward to getting started. More on that later, though.
For now, I will show you the finished travelling woman shawl. This took about 3 weeks to knit and it would have been much more enjoyable if I had sprung for a longer circular needle length. The longest I have is 48 inches and towards the end the shawl was so scrunched up that yarnovers were falling over regular stitches and it was generally a pain. Also it was sort of a shock to see how big the shawl had become when I had finally bound off.
So here we are:
Pattern: Traveling woman, available at the site linked or as a Ravelry download.
Yarn: Hand-dyed by my indie dyer friend who blogs here (not as often as she should).
Needles: Knitpicks harmony interchangeables in size 7. I bound off purl-wise with a size 8 to ensure a nice stretchy edge.
Mods: The stockinette section I completed as written. Completed 4 repeats of Chart A and a single repeat of Chart B.
Did I mention this sucker is huge? Difficult to get in one frame. Here it is, stretched out over the back porch railing:

The center spine and some of the lace detailing:

And here’s a final pic that shows the colorway a bit more clearly:

That’s all. This was an easy, mindless sort of knit although I did find the edging a bit tedious. I’m very pleased with the finished project although I still feel like an ass wearing a shawl. I’m not sure why exactly. That’s alright as this is a sample for the Fiber Festival and not a future wardrobe staple.
Right now I’m working on an entrelac piece with the extra yarn. I don’t think I have enough yarn to finish but I’ll carry on until I run out anyway. Right now I have about 5 inches of entrelac. My first! Maybe I’ll snap a pic tomorrow but it seems a bit pointless as it isn’t a ‘real’ project.
I’m part of a Ravelry-based starbucks swap that is proving to be a bit vexing and now I’m not sure if I should have signed up for it. I have lovely upstream and downstream partners but the group itself isn’t very chatty and I don’t feel like I’m forming any new connections. And that is sort of the point, isn’t it?
Also, because I like shawls but can’t wear them without feeling the aforementioned asshattery, I’ve joined a shawl exchange. So I can make one and mail it off to someone. I think I’ll ask for a stole shape. I can wear a rectangle. Or a shallow triangle as a scarf. It’s the circular, square, and large triangle shapes that vex me.

Travelling woman

I’ve been knitting a bit here and a bit there but not enough to have anything cool to show for it. I’ve been working on this travelling woman shawl (you can find it here), I made it through the stockinette section but finally made it through a repeat of Chart A last night. I’m using this great variegated yarn (dyed by my buddy Terri), fingering weight, with size 7 needles. Initially I thought the fabric might be a bit dense but now I like it. My tentative plan is to finish 3 repeats of Chart A and see how much yarn I have left.

And another one:

I rather like knitting these little shawls/shoulderettes. I think I may continue for some time. Hopefully I’ll find people who would like to wear them because I certainly don’t have use for eleventy million of them.

That is all. I’ve been wrestling with a pair of socks and I’m trying to decide to continue or to rip. Actually either option will include ripping because my stitch count is off (again!), so I’ll either rip and start over or rip and do something else with the yarn. More on that as the sock saga continues!

Owls and socks.

First up: the baby owl vest knit for one of the bartenders at The Greene Turtle who is expecting next month. I was looking for a nice, easy gift that wouldn’t stretch on forever (like a blanket, I hate knitting those) or have a billion seams to sew up. This was a nice compromise.
Details:
Pattern: Owl baby vest, free, you can find it here or in PDF format on ravelry.
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in avocado, I think it took about a skein of it.
Needles: Size 6 and 7 circulars; size 6 double points for the armhole ribbing.
Dates: Cast on 07/28/2009, cast off 08/10/2009.
Mods: None, really. I kept the stitches at the neck and armholes live but still had to pick up a lot of stitches for the ribbing.
Front:

And a pic of the stockinette back:

Notes: This was a super easy, no sew pattern. It was knit in the round from bottom up, past the owl pattern and then divided for fronts. The shoulders join with a 3 needle bind off and stitches are picked up and knit in a k2p2 rib for the edging. I’d definitely make another one and am thinking of modifying it into an adult-sized pattern.

Next: Hedera socks by the always fantastic Cookie A.
Pattern: Hedera, found here.
Yarn: Malabrigo sock in violeta africana
Needles: KP harmony DPNs in size 2.5 (3.0 mm), set of 4
Dates: Cast on 07/06/2009, cast off 08/17/2009



Notes: This was a fun, sort of mindless knit. The first one took a long time because I was splitting my attention between a few different projects but the second one flew off the needles. This pattern was published in 2006 and there’s a significant error once you get to the heel flap (number of stitches held for front is incorrect). I would think in the 3 years since it has been published the folks over at Knitty could have corrected that or added errata to the pattern page. In the end I went with what I thought was correct and it worked out beautifully (no fussing around with stitches when it came time to graft the toe, either).
On deck: more socks and a bigger project knitted as a sample for the local fiber festival in October.

FO: Percy shawl

I finished this a couple of days ago but this is my first opportunity to update with pictures. So, here is a recap:
Pattern: Percy, available for free as a ravelry PDF
Yarn: Knitpicks Bare, 100% merino wool laceweight
Needles: 3.5 mm, US size 4
Cast on: 07/04/2009
Cast off: 08/05/2009

Pictures:
In artificial light, on my dining room table. You can clearly see each component of the design here. The edging, chart 3, was definitely my favorite part of the pattern.

In natural light, on my back porch.

And here it is, draped over the railing of the back porch — the stitch pattern is slightly obscured but I greatly enjoy this picture:

My thoughts on knitting it are conflicted. This was my first non-scarf lace pattern (although I made a small shoulderette/shawlette version so I suppose it could be called a triangular scarf, if one were interested in semantics) and it was a rather difficult pattern. If I had my first shawl to do over again I might pick something simpler. There was lace patterning on both the wrong and right sides in chart B and that was tedious. I did a fair amout of ripping back but was using lifelines which saved me more than once.
I loved the final chart and not just because it was easy. It was much more intuitive, and my first nupping experience, and I was happy with how they came out although I used only 3 loops instead of the 7 that the pattern called for. I mentioned in a previous post that this was part of the BLK group on ravelry and I don’t think I could have gotten through it without their help.
All of that aside I am beyond pleased with the finished product. I had planned to dye it — or have a friend of mine dye it, I should say — but now I think I may keep it the way it is. It’s a bit stiff so I intend to soak it and give it a more severe blocking and pin out really fantastic points along the edging.

My other projects are coming along and I hope to have new pictures to post soon. I will be casting on for another pair of socks, a shawl for a fiber festival sample, and perhaps a sweater. I saw a striped sweater I’d be interested in making and I think it would be a good stashbuster — I have a lot of vintage wool to be used, but not all in the same color or dye lot.

WIP round up.

It is nearing the end of July and I’m still working on the July KAL with the BLK group on ravelry (the finest group of ravelers one will ever have the pleasure of interacting with, incidentally). This is, of course, the Percy shawlette. I had a moment of near-histrionics yesterday when I couldn’t figure out the nuts and bolts of chart C but they talked me off the ledge and now I’m back to grooving along. I’ve completed row 6 of the 31 row chart. I’m considering ordering some proper blocking supplies. I probably will, along with a sweater’s worth of yarn. More on that later.
The blob shawlette isn’t much to look at but it is getting bigger:

In other news, I’ve cast on for the baby owl vest for Keri’s little bambino. This is following the disaster that was the ribbed jacket. That was the only Debbie Bliss pattern I’ve ever knit and I wouldn’t do it again. It was the seaming that killed me. The cast on and off created stair step increases and decreases along the sleeves and it was impossible to seam them neatly. If I were to do it again — and I’m not saying I would — I’d leave those stitches live and do a three needle bind off for the seams. Anyway, this is knit in the round which means minimal seaming, the owls are a cable pattern. I’m about 3 inches into the body here:

Another inch or so of stockinette and then I’ll start the owling. So to speak.

Oh, and remember the socks I was working on? Oh, you’d forgotten? Apparently I had too. I got past the gusset decreases yesterday and am working on the instep. This is still the first one.

I’m still in love with the malabrigo sock yarn but I can’t help but think it’s almost too soft for socks. I wonder how durable they will be. I guess we’ll find out in the near future!

On deck is something with this yarn, hand-dyed by Terri. I’ve gone through a few patterns but haven’t settled on anything yet:

Suggestions? It is fingering weight, 400+ yards.

Lazy Saturdays are the best.

It’s after 5 pm and I haven’t done much of anything today. Partly this is because I worked last night and spent most of the day sleeping. So I’ve only actually been up a few hours. So far I’ve had a pot of coffee and am about to get back to work on Percy. Tomorrow is knitting group, and I’ll be working on the socks there, so I’ll see how far I can get through chart B today.
I finished the first pass through chart B. I snapped a quick pic on the porch for the blk group on ravelry and I’ll throw it up here as well:

This is the correct orientation; the garter stitch tab is for the base of the neck. You can sort of see the tulip pattern emerging (or I can, if I squint, but that might be wishful thinking — remember those stupid magic eye pictures from the 90s?). I’m going to try and accomplish something so I can show it off tomorrow.

The hedera socks are the same. I’m at 10 lace repeats in, so 4 more to go before gusset/heel turn. I am truly loving the pattern and yarn combination now.

And, while we’re talking Cookie A. socks, I finally took some decent pictures of the monkeys I finished. Holy crap this is a popular pattern and I can see why. It is easy and fun to knit and the finished product is beautiful.

A close up of the pattern:

A note on the yarn: this is essential tweed from knitpicks (linked a couple posts down for the curious). It has flecks of other colors and random fuzzies. I think it’s fine but it seems to bother some people.
Some anally retentive people.
Just sayin’.

Now to reclaim the lace from the kitty (every knitter needs a cat, right?):

Lace lace everywhere.

My Percy shawlette is still in the same state. I’ve completed chart A and am moving on the chart B today. Here’s a pic of where I am so far:

And here is a close up of the lace:

I’m also working on the first of a pair of socks. I chose to go with Hedera, another Cookie A. pattern. I’m using malabrigo sock in a dark purple colorway. So far it is going well. The yarn is unbelievably smooshy soft and I can’t wait to wear them. This is 8 lace repeats in:

On deck: Liesel (is it really wise to have 3 lace projects going at once?) and maybe some baby items for a friend of ours who is expecting.

Percy shawlette, the beginning.

Today I cast on for Percy as part of a KAL with the beginning lace knitters group on Ravelry. This is my first foray into lace with shaping. I’ve done lace scarves and lace socks but never anything with shaping and multiple charts. Initially I thought it was a bit outside of my skill set but decided to go for it anyway. After all KALs mean lots of help from more experienced knitters and it is a BEGINNER group.

It was my first provisional cast on. Have you done this? Casting on live stitches to waste yarn. I scoured the internet and found eleventy million different ways to do it and finally settled on a long-tail provisional cast on which was similar enough to my standard long tail cast on. It took a few — ok several — tries but I finally got it on there and picked out the live stitches later for the garter stitch tab. I’m using the only wound lace I have, knitpicks ‘bare’, and size 4 needles.

This is where I was at the end of the set up chart and repeat #1 of chart A.

I just finished repeat #4. I’m making the smallest size because I want a short, pointy scarf and not a long dramatic shawl so after this I will move on to chart B. I’ll leave that for tomorrow though because my eyes are tired and I don’t want to muck it up.

Tomorrow I’m meeting Terri at Panera for some public knitting and I think I’ll start on another pair of socks. I haven’t yet decided on a pattern.