Catching up on 8 months worth of knitting projects: Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of this catching-up-on-my-knitting instalment! We begin with some projects I knit purely for myself, 'cause really, I'm the one who appreciates my knitted gifts the most. As before, I'm linking to my Ravelry project page for each project in case you want more details.



Clockwise from the top left, we have some stripy legwarmers knit in Knitpicks Chroma, a super-soft Koolhaas knit in Berroco Flicker, some fingerless mitts knit from various leftovers, my Morning Dew sweater knit in Lanificio di Milano Mohacril (vintage), a super-awesome dice bag in Cascade Heritage (because I'm really cool now and play Dungeons & Dragons), and a wonderfully soft and warm hooded scarf knit in Diamond Luxury Collection Baby Alpaca Glimmer.

The yarns for most of these projects were wonderfully luxurious to work with. The Berroco Flicker, for example, I was at first attracted to because of the shininess, but then when I touched it, it was so soft that I couldn't put it down and it just had to come home with me. I think a similar situation happened with the Diamond Luxury Collection Baby Alpaca Glimmer (now that's a mouthful). The Knitpicks Chroma isn't quite as soft as baby alpaca, but it was still lovely to work with and the resulting legwarmers are super soft and warm. Boy are we lucky to live at a time when so many awesome yarns are available!

And now, some baby things!



Starting in the left corner and going clockwise, we have some baby socks in Patons Kroy 3-ply (discontinued), a cute baby cardigan in various scrap sock yarns, and a baby surprise jacket, swirly hat, and baby socks in what I think is Punta Merisock Hand Paint (it was a gift yarn, so I can't be sure). The three items knit in the Merisock went to my friend Ellie, who's due to have a baby any second now, the multi-coloured cardigan went to my friends Shanna & Gordon and their lovely little girl Beatrice, and the pale blue socks will likely go to my sister-in-law's baby. I love knitting baby things! They're so cute!

Now, I did say last time that I would also talk about wedding knitting, but perhaps I'll save that for a future post because there's still one more wedding to go to this season and I have plans to knit something up for that too.

Catching up on 8 months worth of knitting projects: Part 1

I know that one post won't properly sum up all the knitting I've done since Christmas time, but I'll attempt at least to give you a rough overview in this two-part blog post. Using my rudimentary photoshop skills, I'll try to sort of group projects into themes. I've included links to my Ravelry projects pages for each of these in case you want more information.

The first theme is socks! I love knitting socks, and I love wearing hand-knit socks. They're great portable travel projects and can be as complicated or as simple as you like. And nothing is as warm and squishy as a hand-knit sock hugging your toes.



Clockwise from the top left, we have my Twisted Mockery socks knit in a mystery gifted yarn, my Nutkins knit in Austermann Step, my Johanna socks knit in Jojoland Melody Superwash, my Turtle Toes socks knit in Turtlepurl Yarns Striped Turtle Toes, and my Double Helix socks knit in Cascade Heritage and Fiber Charmer Chris Sock.

I'm always a fan of interesting heel construction, and with the Double Helix pattern, I was able to try an innovative spiral heel which turned out beautifully. On top of that, the Twisted Mockery socks provided me with the opportunity to knit my first heel flap! Can you believe I'd never knit one before? I can't say it's my favourite, but at least I've expanded my horizons. I'm always in the market for cool new sock yarns too, and the Turtle Toes socks are knit with my favourite sock yarn concept to date. You might have noticed that the stripes on the socks match up perfectly, and that wasn't an accident. The yarn came in two skeins that were dyed together so that the colours would show up at exactly the same place! What they can do with science these days, let me tell you...

The next theme is stuff I've been knitting for others!



Again clockwise from the top left, we have Evenstar gloves I knit for Ellie in madelinetosh dk, Evenstar gloves I knit for Daphne in Araucania Nature Wool left over from my Luxe Cable sweater, a toque I knit for Yeddi in various leftover yarns, a super cool dice bag I knit for Miranda in a mystery leftover sock yarn, and a catnip-filled hamburger I crocheted for Nick's kitty out of random scraps.

You probably noticed that I've knit the Evenstar pattern twice in the above picture, and let me tell you, I'd gladly knit it up again! The cables are just so addictive in that pattern, and the result is just stunning. The first pair I knit in the madelinetosh was so amazing (that yarn is worth every penny) I was immediately hooked. This was actually the third time I'd knit that toque pattern as well, and I had knit a dice bag for myself before I knit this one for Miranda. I used to hate knitting the same pattern twice, but I guess I've now found a collection of patterns that I can fall back on when I want to knit a certain type of gift.

And next up we have patterns I've test-knit for the Happy Seamstress. Joanna has been very prolific over the last few months, and I've been lucky enough to get first dibs at knitting them up!



Clockwise from top left, we have sushi I knit from a kit Joanna had given me, the Cafe Tank which I knit from Knitpicks Galileo, and my bright pink Bat Hat which I knit from Bernat Roving. The latter was part of my Halloween costume. I was a pink cat woman type thing.

By the way, Joanna is having her patterns featured as part of the Independent Designer Program on Knitpicks, so you should definitely check that out!

There's more, of course... Next time I'll talk about baby gifts, stuff I've knit for myself, and wedding presents. Hopefully that will cover almost everything!

Playing catch-up: a summer of knitting

I haven't really been a dedicated knitter this summer. Much of my knitting time during the school year is while on public transit or sitting through seminars. I've been riding an e-bike around since March, and so have only had to take transit a few times, and the seminars are much less plentiful during the summer. Still, I've managed to complete a few projects over the last few months while watching TV shows with the boyfriend, or during a much-needed break from coding or paper-writing. Here are five projects that I've neglected to write about over the summer.

Besides the wedding knitting from the previous post, I've mostly been working on small quick projects because I haven't had the attention span for much else. One of these, my Jayne Hat from the show Firefly, I actually finished in just one day in March. I used the Knitting Ninja Edition of this pattern by Allison MacAlister. The yarn is Cascade 220 held double, and I still have enough yarn to make another one, so that's totally happening. This is the first hat I've made that the boyfriend would actually be happy to wear, so I'll have one for each of us! How cute!

Next, these socks, which I actually finished in December, but never got around to blogging about. They're simple toe-up, short-row heel, knee-high socks with calf shaping, using the same basic pattern as for my Lightning Socks. The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in the colourway Botany (now unfortunately discontinued), which is quite lovely and soft.

After knitting those Mario Mushroom Mitts for Ellie, I figured I was capable of making some gloves without a pattern, and believe it or not, I succeeded! I used the leftover yarn from those mitts, and then, of course, ran out of yarn, so I had to finish the fingers on the second glove with something else... figures. Anyway, I didn't let it phase me too much, and I'm calling them my patchwork gloves.

For Christmas, Joanna had given me a couple of her knitting kits, and I finally got around to knitting one of them in February (ok, still not summer, but I hadn't gotten around to writing about that either). This was one of her cupcakes from the Cherry on Top pattern. It's actually a whole lot simpler than it looks, and the entire thing is knit in one piece, except for the cherry on top. It only took me a day to make. Mine is a chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting!

Finally, another pair of socks that I really enjoyed knitting. I'm always interested in interesting sock construction, and when I saw the Carousel Socks by Louise Robert, I knew I had to make them. I also just happened to have the perfect yarn from my recent Etsy purchase! The colour changes in Green Progressions Dye's End worked perfectly with this pattern. I think if I were to do it again, however, I'd try to modify them with calf increases so I could have knee socks.

And now I've finally caught you up on all my finished projects! Next time, some adventures in dying (the good kind)!

Knitter's Frolic Goodies!

Ugh... Yes, I know the Knitter's Frolic was almost a month ago, but as mentioned in my last post, I've been a terrible blogger of late. Part of it can be attributed to two major public outreach events only a week apart, and the other part can be blamed on committee meetings, paper deadlines, and all that other graduate student stuff. Anyway, let's put that all aside and think about the fibery goodness from the Knitter's Frolic instead!

I was actually quite restrained when it came to buying things. I really wanted to get an ornate drop spindle from Gemini Fibres and to buy ALL THE CASHMERE from Roving Winds Farm, but I was a very very responsible shopper.

My first purchase was these gorgeous handmade buttons from the woodlot. I totally can't remember what kind of wood this is, but I just love the pattern that the wood grain gives. You should check out some of their other buttons in their Etsy shop... so pretty!

I also got a big fat bag of fibre from Hopeful Shetlands. The mix I got has a lot of lamb's wool in it, so it's veeeeeerrrrrryyyyyy soft. It was a pretty good deal too...

Speaking of fibre, I also got a Fleece Artist braid from the Rose Haven Farm Store. I just couldn't resist the colours. For some reason, my palette preference is moving more towards the greens and yellows, where I've always preferred blues and purples. At any rate, I have a lot of fibre to spin with... and I guess it's time for a fibre diet too, until I get around to spinning up what I have.

Finally, as an early birthday present (and it's my birthday tomorrow, so I get to open it!), my Mom bought me this delectable sock kit from the SOAK booth. It includes a jar of Peppermint Heel Foot Cream and a skein of Lorna's Laces Solemate sock yarn. It's so luxurious, I'm gonna have to find the perfect pattern for it...

Other highlights included the Fleece Artist tasting booth, where we were allowed to knit with all sorts of crazy beautiful and luxurious yarns, and strange bacon and egg yarn (found on the internet here) and textured felted weirdness from The Black Lamb's booth:

Goodies!

I have been extremely well behaved of late when it comes to yarn purchases. I haven't bought anything new for myself since November, when I went to Victoria. And really, that was travel yarn, so it barely counts. At any rate, I certainly deserved a treat. My friend Sherry pointed me towards a few Etsy shops that sell gorgeous hand-painted yarn, and I couldn't resist buying a few things from Fiber Charmer's shop. I mean, the yarn was on sale, and the roving was fairly cheap... totally justified.

Impatiently, I waited a week for my goodies to arrive, but finally yesterday they did! I was so excited that as soon as I got home, I just ripped open the oversized envelope without even looking at the custom's label. Had I done the latter, I would have realized that I got a little bit more than I paid for...

It turns out I had been lucky enough to be Fiber Charmer's 300th sale, and so she included a lovely hand-written note, and a few extra little goodies! First of all, she gave me this adorable little hand-sewn pouch from Etsy seller Hot4Handbags.

It's the perfect size to fit all my notions, and so I immediately transferred them from the little crochet pouch I was using to this one.

She also sent along some mini skeins of Shangri-la yarn in Emerald and Black & Blue. I'm not sure what I'll use them for, but they're so cute!

Ok, on to the juicy stuff. I'm sure you're just dying to see what I actually ordered. Well, what attracted me to Fiber Charmer's shop was that she had tons of beautifully hand-dyed yarns for extremely good prices on sale. Like a $12 4-oz skein of sock yarn kind of extremely good price. I narrowed my choices down to two skeins of sock yarn, the first of which was this absolutely gorgeous hank of Chris Sock in "Green Progressions Dye's End". I was just swooning over that blue melding into the green and into the yellow...

Next up I got a skein of Chris Sock in Mood Ring Red Brown. It looked a little redder on my computer screen than it does in real life, but it's still super gorgeous. I'm thinking a sock with travelling stitches would be perfect for this one.

Last but not least, I couldn't resist ordering some spinning fibre. Fiber Charmer's hand-dyed fibres are amazing (seriously, check them out), but I was attracted to this lovely braid of 70% silver alpaca and 30% silk. Oh man it's soft... I just want to rub it against my face all the time. I don't know what it's eventually going to become when I spin it, but I'm sure it'll be gorgeous.

And because I'm a fibre nut, here are some more close-up shots:

Pay-It-Forward socks (or two down, two to go)

I'm slowly working my way through the projects I agreed to do for that Pay-It-Forward thing. I finished these socks for Joanna back in September, but I guess I just never got around to blogging about about them. In exchange, Joanna made me some pretty sweet pants (which I unfortunately don't have pictures of).

These were made using the Ornamental pattern by Nuoska on Knitty. I love the heel construction best of all, I believe... that cable that goes around the back of the heel just looks so cool.

The yarn is Mary Maxim's Step It Up in the Oxford Blues colour-way. I actually quite like this yarn... it wasn't as soft as some sock yarns I've used, but the colours are lovely, and it gives quite a nice finished sock. The yardage is quite good too... with the leftover yarn, I was able to make a pair of short socks for myself.

I used the Bloody Socks pattern by Kimberly Dijkstra from Vampire Knits, though I made a couple of modifications. I did a short-row toe, and an afterthought heel because I didn't want to break up the colour changes on the top of the foot. I also added an extra 3 stitches to the lace pattern and to the bottom of the foot because my feet are a little wider. And, I tried to get the colour changes in the yarn to match up on both feet, but as you can see from the above picture, it didn't work. As Brenda Dayne once said, "This way lies madness."

Lemon skewers

I think it's become apparent that I am, indeed, a sock knitter. It was only a matter of time before I tried this fabled "magic-loop technique" for knitting socks toe-up, two at a time. And of course, I can never pass up a cleverly-constructed garment. So, when I saw the Skew pattern by Lana Holden from Knitty's Winter 2009 issue, I knew I was just going to have to knit it.

The construction is especially interesting because it's knit on a bias. This makes for a very cool-looking fabric, even more so when knit with a variegated yarn. I found, however, that this made modifying the sock to better fit my feet a bit more of a challenge, especially since I have wide feet, ankles and calves. In fact, I wanted to use up all of the yarn, so I made these mid-calf length, and figuring out the increases for the calves was super annoying. Even more annoying is the fact that they're still a little tight.

The yarn I used was Lion Brand's Sock-Ease, which I must admit I'm not entirely happy with. The colours are super fun, but it feels kind of scratchy, and even after a good washing, the socks are still a little itchy when I wear them. On the other hand, it does feel really sturdy.

I shouldn't sound like I totally don't like these socks though. The toe and heel construction totally baffled me at first, and I didn't really understand them until I was actually knitting them. It was one of those "just trust the pattern" instances. I had a wonderful Aha! moment when the heel magically folded into place. And the heel actually fits really well. It's nice and snug around the ankle where it might otherwise slip down my foot.

All in all, it's a very clever pattern that I'm glad I tried out, but that I probably won't work again.

More finished objects

Gosh, it's been a while! Please forgive me for my sporadic posting... All I can say is that I've been busy with school.

Pay-It-Forward update: Thanks to everyone who commented on my Pay-It-Forward post. I will be giving awesome hand-made gifts to Tas (who has an awesomely named blog), Eleanor (my mom), Ellie (a fellow grad student in Toronto), and The Happy Seamstress (my partner in crafty crime). If you still want to participate, there's still room for one more comment, so feel free to leave one.

Now on to the interesting stuff! I've actually been quite crafty of late, though you'd never know it from my lack of posting. I'll go over my latest finished objects in more or less chronological order. Warning: some of these date back to January... Eep!

First on the list is another Baby Surprise Jacket, the legendary pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I knit this one out of S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes, which is quite a lovely yarn to work with. This one took me a little longer than the last one (a full week instead of 4 days), but I certainly enjoyed it just as much. This pattern is strangely addictive. I knit this for little Eleanora, the beautiful daughter of my friends who got married a couple of Halloweens ago.

Next up is a pair of mittens for me! This is the Chevalier pattern by Mari Muinonen. I used a couple of skeins of Misti Alpaca Merino Worsted, which is a wonderfully soft yarn, though there were several cuts in the plies of the yarn in the balls I got. That was annoying, but I managed to hide most of the errant strands. Even though I did fewer repeats than were called for in the pattern (because I have very small hands) I still ended up running out of yarn when I got to the tip of the thumbs. You can see from the photo that I've got a different colour yarn there. I was pretty pissed at first, but now I kind of like how it looks. The boyfriend calls my "thumbs" when I wear them. I knit these using the magic loop method, which was ok, but I think I still like my double-pointed needles better.

I haven't given up on crochet either. I have a lot of dresses that leave very little to the imagination when it comes to cleavage, so I figured I should make myself a modesty panel. It's quite an ingenious design, the Lacy Cleavage Cover by Linda Z. O'Halloran. I used some good ol' Royale Crochet Thread which was probably a little thinner than the pattern called for, but I managed to make it wide enough with a little improvisational edging.

I'm a pretty big fan of the fastening mechanism for this thing. It attaches to my bra with those little elastics.

Next on this lengthy list of finished objects is an awesome pair of socks for my friend Daphne. She requested a pair of thick, comfy socks, and when I asked her what colour she'd like me to make them, she simply said, "Oh, I don't know. Make them wild!" And so I did. I used a skein of Bernat Satin and some random scrap yarn for the stripes, and I knit them using a generic short-row toe-up pattern. I made my first attempt at knitting one sock inside the other on double-pointed needles by first creating two short-row toes and then putting one inside the other and continuing with the double-knitting outlined in that awesome Knitty tutorial. I'm pretty happy with the result (and so is Daphne), though my gauge was a little looser than I usually like for socks.

Last but not least is this wonderful little tote bag, which I made using Elisa's Nest Tote by Purl Soho. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the seaming in this pattern last time I made it, and I was looking for a slightly sturdier bottom, so I decided to make it a crochet/knitting hybrid. The bottom was crocheted in the round in double-crochet and increased to 80 stitches, which I then picked up with my circular needle and knit in the round in pattern. I therefore didn't have to bind off before doing the applied i-cord edging. The latter caused the opening of the bag to be a little tight, but I can live with that.

Well, that's about it for now, folks! Let's hope my next entry appears a little sooner than a month from now.

Big socks, small socks, short socks, long socks

One of the major advantages of having small feet is that knitting socks for myself tends to take much less time than it does for the larger male friends of mine. This became very apparent earlier this year, when I knit a pair of socks for the boyfriend that took about 6 weeks and a pair of socks for myself that took less less than 2 weeks. Mind you, the socks for myself were stockinette knee socks and the ones for the boyfriend were covered in mock cables, but that's besides the point. The boyfriend's socks are much more interesting, so I'll talk about those first.

Ever since I showed him June Oshiro's DNA cable scarf pattern, the boyfriend has wanted me to make him a pair of DNA socks (since he doesn't really wear scarves). It took me a while to get around to it, but I started the first one during the X-mas holidays and managed to finish at the beginning of last month. The wait was totally worth it, apparently, because he wears them regularly (which is more than I can say for some of the things I've knit for him... sigh).

I decided to go the toe-up route because I'd already tried it with those X-mas socks, and as I said then, I'm not going back to top-downers. I cast on 40 stitches (for a total circumference of 80 stitches), so that the central cable would take up one quarter of the total stitches, and so I'd have an even number to do 2x2 ribbing with mock cables on each side. I even made the second sock have the mirror image of the cable pattern so that they would be symmetric. When I got passed the heel, I continued the mock cable pattern all the way around the leg, but I had to finagle something in the back of the sock, with a 2x2 cable and an increase of two purl stitches, because it was no longer symmetric. I finished off with a 1x1 rib and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, which worked great. The yarn is something called bbbperCALZE, which I picked up at the Creativ Festival in October and deemed manly enough for boyfriend socks.

The socks I most recently knit for myself were infinitely simpler. I more or less followed the Knee Socks! pattern by Diana Parrington, with a short row toe and heel. I did the calf increases as indicated, and finished off with the super-stretchy bind-off again. Being simple stockinette, I was able to get passed the heel turn in the first day (mind you, I was sitting through talks at a conference all day), and the rest of it came together in about 12 days.

The yarn is a couple of skeins of Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Fancy Free that I managed to pick up in the bargain basement of Romni Wools for cheap. It's a merino-alpaca-nylon blend that is just so soft and wonderful... and the colours are pretty awesome too. I love how the calf increases caused the yarn to pool differently along the leg of the socks. I'm calling them my Lightning Socks because of the yellowish pooling pattern on the blue and because of how little time they took. These are definitely my favourite socks right now, and I'm itching to make myself another pair!

The long overdue X-mas knitting post, part 1

Yes, I know. It's February. I should have posted about what I knitted for everyone's Christmas/Brumalia/Newtonmas presents at least a month ago... Well, better late than never, right? Right?

I'd like to start off with socks. I like socks. A lot. They're pretty much the perfect project. Simple enough to work on while watching TV or sitting through a lecture, yet small enough to be portable, and with that heel-turning in the middle they have just enough of a challenge to keep me interested. And after inheriting a drawer-full of hand-knit socks from my grandmother, I know the awesome squishy comfortableness of wearing them.

This X-mas, I tried my first toe-up socks and ohmygod I'm so not turning back. I love the short-row toe because I always manage to do my Kitchener stitch too tight. And of course, you can try it on as you go, and knit until you run out of yarn. I also tackled my life-long (ok, maybe a few months-long) fear of doing serious stranded colourwork. I'm still not a fan, but at least I can say I tried it.

Sing it with me! Spidey Socks! Spidey Socks! Friendly neighbourhood Spidey Socks! These are totally the coolest thing ever, by the way. The pattern is Even Big Guys Love Spidey Socks by Terri Frid (Ravelry link) and I made it for my brother. It was quite a challenge for me because I wanted to make sure the floats wouldn't catch on bro's toes, so I ended up twisting the yarns together every two or three stitches. It's a work of art, I tell ya... I wish I'd taken a picture of the insides.

Also, then ended up being a little long in the foot for the bro, mostly because I took his shoe size and based the sock size on that without actually measuring his foot. Well, I'll know for next time and he said he'd wear them anyway. And hey, they might shrink a bit in the wash! Then again, the yarn I used is mostly Knit Picks Stroll, which is superwash merino, and likely won't shrink... sigh...

So you're probably wondering what that thing between bro's Spidey Sock-clad feet is. Well, I'll diverge a little from the sock topic to tell you that it's just the most awesome beer cozy ever! It's the Booby Coozy by Keesha Arthur. I made mine an ebony-skinned Amazonian, not only because that was the only yarn colour I happened to have on hand, but because I thought it would look cool against the yellow bikini.

Warning! The following image is not work-appropriate! Teeheehee!

Ok, back to socks.

For my friend Stevie, I also made a pair of toe-up socks and didn't ask for his proper foot measurements and made socks that were way too big. Ah well, he promised to wear them as well. I made them from a lot of left-over yarns I had lying around. I used the left-over Stroll from the Spidey Socks for the blue, and an unknown gift yarn for the brown, and then some leftover red from my Monkey Socks and green from a new ball of S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes.

And that's a long enough post for now... next time, the parentals!