Bleh.

One of the pharmacists at work recently found out that her first grandbaby (a boy) is on the way. I told her long ago that I'd be happy to make her a baby sweater when the time came. So I went through my pattern books and found Debbie Bliss's Shawl Collared Jacket. I'm a sucker for shawl collars, and since this was in a book called "Baby Knits for Beginners", how hard could it possibly be? So one night while watching a movie I started on the back. I knit about 4" or so - pretty quickly, since she picked out an aran weight yarn - and started thinking "Gee, this looks kind of big."

According to garment sizing standards, an average 6-12 month baby is going to have a 17-18" chest. Now, in baby clothes even moreso than adult clothes, I understand the importance of ease. But the 12 mo. size in this pattern calls for a 25" chest. 7" of ease? Really? I guess all the extra is so you'll have to buy more Debbie Bliss yarn to make it. So I ripped it out and started over again, aiming for 9.5" for the back. (Here's the difference between the two.) But then I got frustrated because I was going to have to refigure the decreases, plus I found a frayed spot in the yarn, so I ripped it out again. So have I been rewriting the pattern to suit myself? Of course not:





Pattern: Robin's Egg Blue Hat by Rachel Iufer

Pattern mods:

- 68 sts for the band
- 56 sts for the hat itself
- Garter stitch band with no point
- Decreased 4 sts per row every row: k12, k2tog, then k11, k2tog, etc. until there were 8 sts left.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky, in M47 Tahiti Teal and an unknown color, about 3/4 of a skein of each that I inherited from my grandmother.

Buttons are from Joann's. These are going to go to charity - I like the style, and they fit me, but I think the spot where the band overlaps itself looks a little funny because it's so thick. Eventually I'll make myself a hat with a wide garter stitch band and just sew a button somewhere on the brim.

I really do need to get going on the baby sweater again...the baby's due in September. I know that's still a while away but, well, I have a tendency to procrastinate. :)

Done and blocking!

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert

Yarn: Mirasol Chirapa, purchased at Twist Yarn Shop in Wichita, KS., on New Year's Eve when Mr. Nekkid and I went up there overnight. Colorway 703, barely more than 4 skeins - it can't have taken more than 700 yds.

Blocked size: 70" x 18", which makes me wonder how much larger my other Clap would be if I blocked it.

Started January 2, 2009, and finished April 30, 2009...obviously with some hibernation time. :) All told I'd say it would have taken me about 3 weeks if I'd worked on it straight through. I absolutely love it and I hope we have at least one more chilly evening before summer takes over and makes me wish I were dead, or at least in Antarctica.

I also made Mr. Nekkid's hat...luckily I finished in time for him to wear it a few times. I am really, really pleased with how it turned out.



Pattern: Yar! by Michelle Booher

Yarns: Cascade 220 in 8886 Royal Purple and Patons Classic Wool Merino in 00225 Dark Grey Mix. I used slightly less than half a skein of each.

I made a few small mistakes, but they really aren't noticeable. If I were making it for myself I'd be disappointed with the size, because it's slightly too small for me. But since Mr. Nekkid shaves his head, it fits him perfectly. I'm still trying to figure out what my own double-knitted hat is going to look like. I really wanted to make one that's just plain with the Cheesylove heart motif around it for a stripe...but the repeat isn't a good number of stitches to make the right sized hat and it's not easily resizable. I'll figure out something, I guess.

Quickie

Apologies for the radio silence. I slipped and fell on the ice and sprained my wrist at the end of January, so there was no knitting for me for nearly a month. And then I was just lazy for a while. :) But I recently finished a darling hat and I had to share. I think it only took me about 4 hours, and that was stopping and starting.

Pattern: Brangelina Hat by Laurie Perry
Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver in Pretty 'n Pink
Yarn and color were chosen by the recipient :)



Meanwhile, we're having some belated winter today. Here's the view from my front porch as of about 10 minutes ago:



See all the snow piled up on the back of my car? I just drove it less than an hour ago, and there was no snow at all accumulated on the rear windshield. Heck, I stopped at Braum's for breakfast and was there less than 10 minutes...and had to run the defroster for almost 5 to get my windows clear enough to see again. It sure is pretty, though. :) Here's a link to another, slightly larger pic. Look how large the snowflakes are! I swear some of them are the size of large marbles.

Next up: convertible mittens to match the hat, followed by a double knit hat with a pirate motif called Yar! Special request for Mr. Nekkid...and since the library book is already at least a week overdue (even after renewing!) I guess I'd better get cracking. :)

The world is right again

I have more than one WIP! First, I finished the Pea Pod:



I love that pattern.

No pics yet of the new WIP, just notes on what I've done so far:

Cascade 220 & Mystery Yarn, sz 7 circs (KP options)
Gauge: 9 sts/inch
CO 180
All stitches slipped purlwise, wyib
Round 1: *K1, Sl1*
Round 2: *P1, K1*

I'll be at that for a while...

Startitis

According to Ravelry, I only have ONE project on the needles right now! Okay, so I technically have three unfinished projects - my latest Clapotis, Pea Pod Baby Sweater #3, and Mom's Calorimetry - but since the last two lack only buttons, "Clap Happy" is the only thing I have on the needles right now. Time to cast on!

Mr. Nekkid and I drove to Wichita for New Year's Eve. The timing was coincidental - we just both had the day off so we decided to head up there. We'd hoped to hang out at Watermark Books, but they closed early so it didn't happen. I went to Twist, and picked up some souvenir yarn:



Mirasol Chirapa, in colorway 703. I bought two hanks without really having plans for it...but as soon as I got home I realized I had to have a Clapotis out of it. Two hanks wasn't nearly enough, but the kind folks at Twist are shipping me four more hanks (which should leave me with nearly two left over). Here's where I was a couple days ago:



I finished row 5 of increase repeat 7, so I have 13 more rows to go to the straight rows. It is ridiculous how excited I am at the prospect of dropping the stitches in this section.

I finished Mr. Nekkid's gloves, but I only have a WIP picture:



He's very happy with how they turned out.

I also made a pair of convertible mittens for my supervisor's sister:







Kindly forgive the crappy quality - after all the times I ripped them out and restarted, I just wanted the damn things out of my sight. They are made out of the incredibly luscious Joann Sensations Dreamweave, a 75% wool/25% silk blend. The red is not as bright as the picture would have you believe, but it's still a nice color.









My supervisor's mother is a knitter, and I guess she decided she wouldn't use this stuff, so she gave it to me. From the top:

- W bar M Merino variegated laceweight, red-orange-pink, approx 250 yds.
- W bar M Merino fingering (?) weight, pale yellow, approx 250 yds.
- Two skeins Cascade 220 in orange
- Mystery Yarns: these were unlabeled. The blue-purple yarn feels very similar to the W bar M laceweight, so it may just be another colorway of that. The other one is definitely wool, probably aran weight. I'm going to make a striped hat out of it and the orange Cascade.

I think I'm also ready to start swatching for Twist + Shout. I received the 3 additional balls of Tesoro from the kind lady on Ravelry, so I want to get started. Maybe it'll be done by next winter. :)

Quick update

Have I mentioned that I'm a flake, who finds it difficult to follow through with things? Anyway, here are a couple things I've been working on:



Yarn: Colinette Cadenza in Velvet Bilberry.

On the left, a Calorimetry that lacks only a button. It has lacked said button for about a year now. On the right, one half of a pair of fingerless gloves. I was actually within an inch of finishing the second one when they were put away to hibernate. I pulled them out last week to finish for Mom's Christmas present...and found a hole waaaaaay down practically at the beginning. I have no idea how it got there. I suppose it could have been a moth, but why would there only have been one small hole? Anyway, I had to frog the whole thing, and it makes me want to throw up when I think about it so I haven't started over just yet.




Yarn: Art Yarns Supermerino in colorway 138, varying shades of purple and a little dark grey/black thrown in too. About 2.2 skeins for a scarf that's about 3.75" x 66".

Pattern: Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf. Love love love this pattern...I fully intend to make more.

The lovely little closure is by Romi. Great investment - it holds the scarf in place to close that little gap that always seems to be between whatever's covering your neck and whatever's covering your chest. I can't wait to get one of her shawl pins...I'm finally getting into wearing my Clapotis but find it awkward to keep throwing it over my shoulder.








Yarn: Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK in colorway 0055, which feels and works up very much like Debbie Bliss Rialto (which I used for PPBS #2). The color is truest in the pic of the yarn itself.

Pea Pod baby sweater #3, for a baby that's now nearly a month old. Oops. I expect to finish it this week, though, and it should still fit her just fine.




Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet in colorway 18. This is also somewhat washed out by the flash. This is intended for a pair of fingertip-less gloves for Mr. Nekkid as soon as the baby sweater is finished. I'll be winging the pattern, because he has crazy skinny wrists but an otherwise normal-sized hand. I want them to fit him really well, so I may even do a wide rib on the hands...something to make them rather form-fitting. I don't expect to need both skeins; in fact, I'm hoping to have enough leftover to make myself a pair too.


Bigger, longer term goals that will require much more concentration and attention to detail:

- make Twist + Shout in that lavender Tesoro I've had forever. I have 22 balls, but would need about 3 more to make the size I need...well, a very kind Raveler is sharing hers with me. It's even the same dyelot! I'm expecting it to take a good long while.

- make Leo for Mr. Nekkid out of my Paton's Classic Merino in Chestnut Brown. I haven't decided yet...I may add a cream stripe across the chest.

- perhaps make Retrofit for Mr. Nekkid as well, although I'd do black and grey. This style would look great on him, but I'm quite intimidated by the prospect of installing a zipper. Seems like Grumperina had a really good zipper-installing blog post a while back...I'll have to see if I bookmarked it.

Oh yes, non-knitting-related update:



Meet Felipe (left) and Andi (right), our ferrets. Felipe is an adolescent male (about 6 months), and Andi is an adult female (about 2). The cat still doesn't know what to make of them.

Mangyle

For this, I may have to learn to do colorwork.

Baylie's scarf

At Thanksgiving dinner, my niece asked me to make her a scarf to match her new hat and gloves. At first she just asked for brown and pink, but when I looked at the hat I realized it was actually brown striped with light pink, a darker berry-purpley-pink, and cream. I toyed around with several different ways of incorporating all these colors and finally settled on a length-wise stripe pattern. I think it turned out pretty well.



Finished size: approximately 58" by 3" (it's a little longer than I was aiming for, but no biggie)

Gauge: approximately 2.5 stitches per inch, but it's not crucial. It's just a scarf.

Needles: US 15 (I used two cables from my Boye Needlemaster set to make one really long cable)

Yarns:

MC: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in 129 Cocoa
CC1: Red Heart Soft Yarn in 3729 Grape
CC2: Jo-Ann Sensations Tesoro in 954 Pink
CC3: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in 99 Fisherman

I estimate that it took about 160 yards of MC, and maybe 20-25 yards of each CC. All yarn was held doubled.

CO 150. Follow stripe pattern:

2 rows MC
2 rows CC1
2 rows MC
2 rows CC2
2 rows MC
2 rows CC3
2 rows MC

Bind off. (I used *K2tog tbl, slip stitch back to L needle*)

Unfortunately, I should have knit one more row in MC before binding off, because it wound up looking a little lopsided. But I don't think she'll notice. All in all, it took about 4-5 hours, and I think she'll like it. I also think I have enough of the MC left to make her Build-A-Bear a matching scarf.