An easy baby blanket

I really enjoy projects where I start with a few new balls of wool, and by the end of it, I've used it all up. That way, there are no pesky leftovers that you feel obligated to keep because there's too much to throw out (and for me, more than a foot of yarn is too much to throw out). This is why, when I decided to knit a baby blanket for my friends J&A's baby shower, I went with Lion Brand's Baby Love Diagonal Baby Blanket, which has a stupid name, but an interesting principle.

I bought two balls of James C. Brett Marble Chunky (in the Adobe colourway) and started by casting on 3 stitches, then increased one stitch per row until I'd run out of yarn from the first ball. Then I just had to attach the second ball and decrease until I got to the opposite corner. You don't have to worry about how wide or long the blanket is going to be to get the optimal usage out of your yarn because the thing will always turn out square.

I modified the first few rows by doing a knit-front-back-loop until I had 6 stitches, and then started the increases with the yarn overs as written. For the last few rows, I only did the yarn overs until 6 stitches remained and then I just decreased by doing one knit two together per row until I had 3 stitches left and bound off. I found it made for a much nicer square edge.

I was really digging the ribbon some people had threaded through the eyelets created by the yarn overs, and so decided to give that a try. After unsuccessfully knitting a really long icord and running out of yarn before it was long enough, I caved and bought a pretty green ribbon to use instead. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the greatest solution, and if I were to do it again, I would go for the icord. As it turns out, satin ribbon isn't very stretchy, and garter stitch fabric is. This means that whenever I'd move the blanket around the ribbon would slide around in the eyelets and the blanket would stretch in weird ways.

Besides the ribbon, however, I'm pretty happy with this blanket. The yarn is so soft and squishy, which is only accentuated by the garter stitch, and the colours are beautiful. I would probably make this pattern again.

Slinky skinny lacy beaded scarf

Lately, I've been doing that thing people call "burning the candle at both ends", a condition brought upon by deadlines for grant applications and generally having way too much on my plate with the start of classes. As a result, I'm sick for the second time in two weeks, most likely the end product of getting fewer than 5 hours of sleep most nights and not eating regular meals... and maybe some stress thrown in there. For not getting sick in a whole year, I'm certainly making up for it now.

Anyway, enough about my health. Let's talk about pretty shiny things. I like pretty shiny things, things like my new pretty slinky skinny lacy beaded scarf. I started it during the Stitch 'n Pitch in July and finished it up during my trip to the Townships in August, and it was my first attempt at knitting with beads, which, I'll admit, was a little annoying. At least, having all 200-something beads strung on the yarn beforehand and having to pull the yarn through them all is pretty annoying. I would find another way to do it next time.

The yarn however, some Dye-Version Bamboo Sport I bought at the Purple Purl way back in August, 2009, was an absolute joy to work with... So silky and smooth...

I used the Twin-Leaf beaded scarf pattern by Jeanne Giles, which was pretty easy to memorize after a few repeats. I did 51 repeats in total, which made the whole thing over 6 feet long... pretty sizable. Again, knitting the beads was slightly annoying, but kind of neat, and I absolutely love the end result. Enough that I'd do it again in a different pattern. Anyway, I didn't make any major changes, so without further ado, here are the pretty pictures:

Buffy/Zero Punctuation Pot Holders

One of my primary reasons for visiting the Townships last month was to attend a good friend's wedding party. They got married in early July, but didn't have the reception until later for logistical reasons. At any rate, it was incredibly fun, and I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in ages.

As has apparently become a tradition for me, I made them double-knit pot holders. She is a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and he's really into video games, so for one pot holder, I used the chart from this scarf pattern to make a Buffy B, and for the other, I decided to make my own chart for the demon from Zero Punctuation, a hilarious video game review site that I know he enjoys. Both turned out as well as I could have hoped for.

I have never seen any Zero Punctuation knitting patterns on the interwebs, and so, here is my ground-breaking foray into this neglected area of geeky crafting. If you want to make your own double-knit ZP pot holders, follow the basic instructions for my Star Trek Pot holders, but instead of using the Star Trek chart, use this one:

You'll also have to cast on 29 stitches instead of 30, and knit for 44 rows instead of 46. Enjoy!

Savta

I was looking through old photos on my computer, searching for images I might have taken of astronomy public tours for our new image gallery. I didn't find many, but I did this little gem:

This was taken on April 11th, 2009, and it's my grandmother, Savta, as seen in the rearview mirror from the back seat of my parents' car. It was her birthday, and she's wearing the beret that I crocheted for her. I don't think I was satisfied with the picture when I took it, which is probably why I didn't post it back then, but I did some judicious cropping, and now I can't stop looking at it. Savta looks like a ghost... Maybe more so because I feel so guilty for not visiting her in such a long time... I should get around to that.

The Pinnacle

About a month ago (how time flies when school gets started!), I spent almost two weeks in the Townships visiting my parents. I had a really nice time visiting old profs, seeing old friends, partying down at a wedding reception, and most importantly, relaxing. One highlight of the trip was hiking up the Pinnacle in Baldwin Mills. It's a fairly easy hike (we were able to do it with a 7-month pregnant lady in our party), and the scenery pay-off is pretty fantastic.

Without further ado, here are some of my favourite pictures from the hike. I hope you all become envious of the beautiful place I grew up in.

A beautiful cabled sweater

My last couple of posts have been real downers, so I think I'll have to write about something super awesome and happy. How's about a new sweater that I absolutely LOVE. Way back in March, I started the Cable Luxe Tunic from Lion Brand, and I just finished knitting it, weaving in the ends and blocking it about a week ago. And it turned out wonderfully... really, I couldn't be more happy with it!







Before I get into the long technical details of how I made this sweater, I'll just say that it was knit with 3.75 skeins of Araucania Nature Wools Solid in the smoky purple colourway. It's a very nice yarn to knit with and the finished product isn't too itchy, even though it's 100% wool. One complaint would that even skeins in the same dye lot didn't have the same range of light to dark, some having very saturated dye and others with a smaller gradient. Not a big deal, I guess... it certainly felt organic and unpredictable.

Now, I made a LOT of changes from the original pattern. The thing is worked more or less in one piece, starting with the cabled yoke which is worked flat with the two short ends sewn together. Then, stitches are picked up for the body and arms, which are knit downwards, and then more stitches are picked up from the other side of the yoke to knit up a collar. The first change I made was to knit these picked-up pieces in the round instead of flat.

For the body, I knit the back up to where the armhole shaping ended, put it on waste yarn and then knit the front to the same spot and simply joined them together on a circular needle. This meant I didn't have to pay as much attention to keeping my gauge even or pay as much attention to the waist shaping. The fact that the pattern says to knit the front and the back flat and then seam them together actually seems pretty retarded to me. I also did the sleeves in the round, using the magic loop technique for the first time. All this meant was that the only seam I had to sew was under the arms. Woohoo!



I also added a considerable amount of shaping. The original pattern actually calls for increases to make it look more like a dress or something, and I wanted it to look form-flattering. I decreased 16 stitches for the waist, and then increased 12 stitches for the hips, skipping three rows between each decrease round. I did this in the reverse stockinette section under the arms, and decreases barely show. I also decreased 20 stitches for each arm to have a fitted sleeve, and did 2x2 ribbing at the end of the sleeves and at the hips. The original pattern just has a rolled hem. Finally, instead of the garter stitch collar, I did a k2 p3 ribbing, decreased every other p3 section every 6 rows until it was 2x2 ribbing.

In conclusion, my sweater is way more awesome and pretty than the original pattern!

RIP Purple Lacy Hat...

Today started out a little chilly, in the 15 degrees Celsius range, and so I decided to wear my pretty purple lacy hat because it was warm enough to keep my ears toasty without being too heavy. A good transition piece, as they say. Then, as I was leaving the office this evening, I noticed that my hat was no longer in my jacket sleeve... I had gone to dinner, completely forgetting I had stuffed it in there, and my hat must have slipped out of my sleeve either on the way to or at the restaurant.

On my way home from school this evening, I completely retraced the path I took to the restaurant, searched the patio where we had been sitting, and asked the restaurant staff if they had seen it, but no luck. My hat is gone forever, and I'm sad. It's not like it was my favourite hat, but it was the first really complicated lace project I had made and it was knit from a lovely soft angora cotton blend in my favourite colour. It's probably not going to be the last creation that gets lost or destroyed, but the first one probably hurts the most. I hope that someone found it, and that whoever that might be will get some good use out of it.



I'll miss you pretty purple lacy hat...