It's Time to Light the Lights

Two more scarves for the kids:

I was looking at an example of the clasped weft technique in one of my old weaving magazines, a while ago, and had an epiphany, that I could use it to make a cool zig-zag scarf.  It didn't take long to get from there to the idea of a Kermit the Frog scarf, emulating the little green pointy collar he has around his neck.  The technique worked perfectly and was so easy!  Maybe I'll use it again sometime to do something more harlequin-y.

Having done a Kermie scarf, I thought the pink and purple one I followed up with might suit Miss Piggy, since it made me think of her purple opera gloves.  I chose a bunch of colours for evenly spaced stripes in the warp and then did a two-colour stripe for the weft.  It's nicer than this, in person, I just couldn't get the colours right in the photo.

More to come!

Tenth Doctor Scarf 2.0

Lest you think you're seeing double, this is actually a second version of the previous scarf I wove.

As I mentioned in the last post, I decided the first scarf might be a bit on the itchy-wool side of things, so I wanted to weave the same pattern in something softer.

Believe it or not, I had the two exact right yarns just sitting in my stash (it really pays to have too much yarn, sometimes.)  I have a little basket of SweetGeorgia yarn (mostly sock yarn, and yes, a whole basket just for her yarns) and I realized that I had two skeins of Cashluxe Fine in there, in the colourway Bison, that were just the absolute most perfect brown for this scarf.  And with 20% cashmere, definitely on the soft and luxurious side of the spectrum.  Then I remembered I had a skein of Tough Love sock in the Mist colourway, which is an almost ideal shade for the pinstripe - I was aiming for a cornflower blue, and Mist is just a skosh more purpley, but pretty darn close.  So, voila!  A second Tenth Doctor scarf from my stash. 

You can see that the Mist is a bit variegated, which gives some nice visual interest to the stripes, and the Bison is fairly solid, which makes a nice even background fabric.  It's soft and drapey and wonderful and I really couldn't be happier with the end result.  Hopefully the recipient feels the same way!

L is for Lightning

I decided to start using up some of the leftovers, for this scarf, and picked a simple 2/2 twill with Oxblood for the warp and Lemon Yellow for the weft.  I thought it would make an interesting scarf if I did a bunch of random back-and-forth with the twill, and it did.  Then I realized that I was going to run out of yellow before the scarf was long enough, so I had to throw in a bunch of natural yarn to make up the difference, and I did it randomly in amongst the random twill.  It made for an interesting effect, overall.  If I had the choice, I would have rather it was just yellow, since I think that colour combination vibrates less, but as Tim Gunn would say: make it work.

Embers Socks

While working on my shawl design, I wanted something mindless to knit on. I pulled some Knit Picks Stroll out of my stash and began one of my usual striped toe-up socks. The grey (Basalt Heather) actually has a bit of red heathered through it, but that's not so obvious when it's next to the red (Firecracker Heather) yarn. They knit up fairly quickly (mostly since I've been enjoying the simplicity of knitting them more than I've been enjoying the complications of charting out a lace shawl.)

I did an afterthought heel on them, since that makes them as mindless as possible, and the regular stripe pattern makes it easy to make the two socks match - the heels went on the 20th stripe up from the toe. Simple. I also did a three-needle bind-off on the end of the heel; it's a bit less fussy than kitchener and adds a sort of cool-looking 3-D design element.  Or maybe I'm just telling myself that.

I used almost every inch of the grey yarn, making them nice and tall, but I had a fair bit of the red left over. I could make the toes longer or make a longer ribbed cuff, if I really wanted to use up all of both colours. Even now, this pair is taller than my usual socks, so I am very happy with them. The colours, like burning coals, will surely help to keep my feet warm on a cool cloudy spring day.

Caprica Socks

Sometimes when you're working on a bunch of complicated projects (be it stranded knitting or lace knitting or fancy weaving) you crave some simplicity. At times like that, it's nice to have a couple of balls of self-striping sock yarn laying around in the stash, because you can just cast on a simple toe-up stockingette sock and knit around and around and around while your brain unwinds.

These ones are from Knit Picks Felici fingering weight, which is a slim and hardwearing sock yarn. Over at Knit Picks, they change up their colourways pretty regularly, but this particular one is called Caprica, hence the project moniker. (Sorry it's not something cooler, Battlestar Galactica fans.) Using Judy's Magic Cast On and an afterthought heel makes them super mindless, since I can just knit a long tube sock and then open it up later where I need a heel. Matching the starting spot for the cast-on also means the socks match up pretty well. I did a bit more ribbing than I intended (since I started it a bit earlier than I should have) but that just makes for a nice long cuff, and there's nothing wrong with that.


Chalk up one more pair of comfortable, practical, well-fitting socks. Not to mention a few days of easy and relaxing knitting.

A Bevy of Shawls: Cladonia

The final installment of This Year In Shawls Draped over My Sofa is a bright and colourful Cladonia.


Back in my self-striping sock yarn phase, I picked up a few balls of Knit Picks Chroma fingering weight. I knit one pair of socks with one ball, and had planned to do another variation of my Zauberball socks with the other two balls, alternating colours. When I was at this summer's Sock Summit, however, I attended a lecture by Clara Parkes on the properties of different types of yarns, wherein she mentioned how singularly unsuitable a single-ply yarn is for socks, as it won't tend to perform well under pressure and friction (i.e. exactly what a sock undergoes day after day.) So what to do with these two lovely balls of fingering weight single-ply yarn? Obviously a Cladonia shawl.


It knit up very quickly, partly because I was enjoying the colour changes so much. There are a few places where the changing colours clashed with each other, so by the end of the shawl, I was splicing sections out, to make some colours predominate while eliminating others.

I think it ended up pretty cute, though I have to admit that I haven't worn it a lot, yet. It takes a certain joie de vivre to pull this one off, n'est-ce pas?

Felix socks

I mentioned, a while ago, that I stocked up on self-striping yarn, so I could quickly make a bunch of stockingette socks. This is the second pair from that group, from a Canadian yarn dyer in Quebec: Biscotte & Cie. It was their little kitty logo that caught my attention, the fantastic self-striping colourways that caught my eye, and the experience of knitting with the yarn that caught my heart. This particular one is Felix, 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon: it is soft and fluffy and makes a really nice fabric for socks. The colours are really spectacular, too, as you can see.

Another simple toe-up stockingette sock, using Judy's Magic cast on and a standard toe, and another afterthought heel - this time, I changed the shape a little, by making it curvier and less pointy, which I think gives it a much better fit to my actual heel, which is not terribly pointy.

I know it looks like all I'm doing is socks, lately, but I assure you that isn't the case. Other projects are on the horizon.

Unicorn Socks

Okay, so I still don't have photos yet of the kool-aid dyed shawl, or various other things I should have photos of. I'm going to ease myself back into being a good blogger by showing you a very simple and mindless pair of socks.


These ones are the simplest of toe-up socks, using some self-striping sock yarn to add interest while allowing me to make some very quick and easy socks. I went through a little spree, recently, of buying self-striping sock yarn, when I decided I was running low on socks and would need to quickly replenish my drawer before I had to start wearing (gasp) store-bought socks. This particular pair uses Knit Picks Felici, in a colourway they call Moonlit, but I think looks like the palette of a little girl's room decorated with unicorns and mermaids. Or maybe I'm just revealing a bit too much about my childhood. I found the yarn to be a bit splitty, but very soft. It is a wool & nylon blend, so hopefully it will stand up fairly well. (I just wore a hole in the bottom of a pair of socks from Knit Picks Stroll, which were about a year old. I think I'm going to darn them, since they are otherwise in really good shape.)


For these socks, I used my standard: the Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula, but by now I just use the numbers from the formula and make the sock however I like. In this case, I did Judy's Magic Cast-on and a standard toe, then knit the whole length of the sock to the cuff before returning to open it up and knit an afterthought heel. I did the afterthought heel rather than a short-row heel because I didn't want to muss up the pattern of the stripes as the foot transitions to the leg, and also because I thought it would be nicer to have stripes around the heel rather than a block of one colour for the bottom and another block of colour for the top. If you've ever worked short rows in self-striping yarn, you know what I mean.

End result: a comfy and soft pair of socks in pretty stripes. Gimme the marker, Dude - I'm marking it an 8.

B&B Cardigan

I suppose I've made you wait long enough for photos of my Black & Boysenberry cardigan, and since I finally managed to throw together a few half-decent photos, today is the day.

I'm sure I've laid out the details before, but in case you don't remember, I used EZ's percentage system to knit the cardigan entirely in the round on circulars, with a steek in the front that I cut to add the buttonbands at the end.


The sleeves were also knit in the round, two at a time, and then attached at the underarms so that I could continue knitting the whole thing in the round. I used a set-in sleeve shaping and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I think I had knit the shoulder width a bit small, according to my knitting gauge, but it blocked out pretty wide when it was wet, so it actually turned out just about perfect.

I also did v-neck shaping with a steek, which made the work-in-progress look pretty weird, but after cutting, the shape is just right. I am really happy with the depth and angle of the v-neck - it really pays to measure and get out the calculator and a pencil. With an eraser.

The sleeves lengthened a bit more than I anticipated, with blocking, as well, but they are still a comfortable length. I fold the cuff back once if I want to keep them out of trouble, but otherwise, they are cozily down around my hands, keeping me warm.


As you can see, I couldn't pick just one type of button at the fabric store. It's not entirely my fault - the store didn't have eight buttons of either of the styles I wanted. It was my mom who suggested that I get four different types of buttons and mix them up, two of each. I agreed that it was just enough to give the otherwise simple cardigan a bit of personality.

The only thing I don't love is the corner where the buttonband turns to the v-neck. It is a bit floppy - I guess I did too many increases there, since I was guesstimating how many I would need. I could try to reblock them flatter, but I'm not sure it would work, anyway, since they were pretty flat while blocking the first time. Having the top button a bit higher would probably help with that, too. Live and learn.

I'm super happy with this one - it is just the size I wanted, comfortable and warm. I've been dreaming of a wide-stripe v-neck since forever, it seems. (At least since then.) I finally have one.

Almost a Cardigan

I put a lot of time into the striped cardigan this week, and it's paid off. I attached the sleeves to the body on Monday, and this morning finished the shaping and got ready to cut the steek. As you can see, it ended up looking a bit weird, since I did decreases for a v-neck on either side of the steek, on the upper half. That way I could keep knitting in the round and do all the shaping at once. The set-in sleeves worked really well and look good, although you can't really tell in the photo, since they are all squished together by the neckline shaping. I loved having a chance to customize where the seams sit, even if it meant doing a bit of math last night when I was planning it.

This afternoon I sat down at the sewing machine to stabilize the sides of the steek, so none of you have to worry about my sweater unravelling. Then I carefully cut it apart along the dotted line, and picked up a million stitches for the collar and buttonband. I should have the knitting done by tomorrow (dare I say tonight?) and then lay it out to block for a day or so.

The scariest thing about knitting with steeks isn't even the cutting; it's not being able to try the sweater on to see how it fits. You have to rely on your gauge swatch, your skills with a measuring tape, and knitting math. I'm not gonna lie -- I tried it on right after I cut the steek, since I was pretty nervous about it, and I'm really excited about the fit. Hopefully it will look even better with buttonbands and a good blocking.

Getting Somewhere

The problem with having so many projects on the go at once is that progress moves slowly, overall. I've been plugging away at several of them, but only really getting anywhere on one or two, this week.


I decided to pick up the socks and do some more work, since socks are fairly quick to finish, and I would be able to get one project off the roster. (Let's not point out, just now, how I always start knitting a new pair, having completed the old one.) As you can see, I have one completed sock toe, which means one completed sock. The linen stitch suits this yarn, I think, and the star toe is not my usual, but I like it, too. The second sock is moving along, as well, but this week, I have started putting more time into the stockingette cardigan.


I cast on some sleeves on Tuesday (two-at-a-time, to make sure they're matchy) and have been going around and around since then. Having stripes helps me to keep going, since I get that "just finish this stripe" feeling while I'm knitting. Then I get the "maybe one more stripe" feeling, after that. I am really loving this cardigan, and can't wait to see the finished project.

Unselfish Hat

Despite my generally selfish crafty nature, every once in a while I get a soft spot in my heart for someone who requests an item from me, particularly if it's a quick and simple project like a toque.


A year ago, one of my coworkers asked me for a hat. I asked for specifics, and he said he'd think about it. A week or so ago, he finally sent me a photo of a hat and said he wanted that one. I got some appropriate yarn (elann's Peruvian Highland wool, one of my staples for worsted weight wool) and knit it up.

It's just a really basic hat, with about an inch of 1x1 rib at the bottom and then stockingette stripes: 4 rounds natural, 4 rounds green, 4 rounds natural, 1 round brown.

Simple, easy, done.

Sunshine on the Loom

I decided a while ago to try my hand at weaving some dishtowels, so I found a draft on Webs and ordered the yarn to go with it, thinking I might give them away for the holidays.

The yarn is a nice cotton linen blend, so hopefully will make for nice thirsty towels, but I won't know that until I finish them and get them off the loom to give them a try. It's the first time I've woven with a linen blend, and I'm liking it so far. Linen can be tricky to weave with, apparently, especially in a pure linen yarn, since it is stiff. This yarn is half cotton and half linen, and while it has some of the stiffness and scratchiness of linen, it also has a lot of the softness and ease of cotton, so I am having a pretty easy time of it.


I chose four colours -- a nice bright yellow for the background, with red and orange and blue stripes. I was aiming for some bright primary colours to make some happy towels. The orange turned out to be a bit too close to the red (in the photo, the orange is the wide stripe on the side, and the red is in the narrower stripes. Clearly they are awfully close.) I'm also not so sure about putting the blue through the middle of the orange stripes. When it comes to colour planning, live and learn. Other than that, I think the design is turning out to be what I wanted -- happy and stripey and cool.

I am over halfway done the first of three towels. If they turn out well, I may just tie on another warp and make another set using some different colours. Or I may try something completely different, instead.

Worth a Thousand Words

Another completed project, because I have no better way to spend my time, besides knitting. There is only one sock in the photo because it's really a lot more trouble than it's worth, right now, to put the other sock on my other foot. The photo is blurry because it's also hard to pose that one foot for a good photo, when I can't really bend the other leg.

Please note the piles of CDs and DVDs and a pile of empty boxes -- something I would be spending time on, if I could. Yeah, that's just me feeling sorry for myself again.

How about a snack to cheer up?

Still Casting On

"I can resist anything except temptation."
Oscar Wilde

The other day, as I was walking to work, I thought of what lovely weather we were (finally) having, and how nice it would be to have a new little project to work on as I walk to and fro in the sun. Once I got home, I grabbed up the two balls of Elann sock yarn I had waiting for just such an occasion. I cast on for my go-to Universal Toe-Up Sock, with my usual 3:1 ratio for a striped sock. As you can see, I really shook things up, this time, by making the darker colour the background, with the lighter colour for toe/heel/cuff/stripes. I know, crazy, right? They are flying off the needles -- the first one is past the halfway point, already -- and then I guess I will pick a slightly more challenging pattern for my next pair of walking socks.


In the meantime, I have made some more progress on the little crocheted hexagons. I haven't even made much of a dent in my sock yarn leftovers, and I already have a couple dozen of these little guys done. Not nearly enough to make a blanket, of course, since each one is only a few inches across, but still, a nice start. They are so squishy and soft and colourful -- makes me so happy to look at that bright little stack!

Frog Stripe Socks

Thusly named because the colours put me in mind of frogs and ponds and lily pads.

This is a super-basic toe-up stockingette sock (knit from -- guess what -- my ubiquitous Universal Toe-Up Sock formula, but using Judy's Magic Cast-On (love) and a basic toe, instead of the crocheted cast-on and short-row toe.)
I had pretty much a full skein of each of these colours left over from my Invader Yoke pullover, so when I was having a mental meltdown toward the end of the Honeybee Cardigan, I decided to cast on these mindless yet entertaining socks to save my knitting sanity.

Nothing fancy -- a three-row stripe of the two colours, with toe/heel/cuff in the third. I played with the various permutations of colours, and was intrigued by the one that was granny smith & grass stripes with a mermaid blue toe/heel/cuff, but something about it was weird, so I went with this combo, instead. They are warm and comfortable.

There is also a hidden agenda, here: I have read on Ravelry that some people found their KnitPicks Stroll in the grass colour has felted upon machine washing, and I figured if I'm going to test whether mine will felt, I'd rather it was on a pair of stockingette socks instead of on my Invader pullover, ya know?

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Socks

I spent a few days with my HLM at my folks' place, this week, celebrating a slew of birthdays and -- oh yeah -- the holidays. Rather than taking along one of the various projects I already have on the go (because they are too complicated or are right on the verge of becoming too complicated) I decided to grab some sock yarn from the stash and make another super-simple brainless pair of toe-up socks (from my standard pattern.)

The working title when I started these was Briar Rose, since the rosy pink and the woodsy brown made me think of rosebushes. As I knit further along, the brown started to look more like dark chocolate, and the pink started to look more like raspberry filling, until they reminded me of raspberry-filled truffles, more than anything. Or maybe I've just been eating too much holiday baking.


As I said, there's nothing new here -- in fact, I did almost this exact same thing once before, but this time I added a slightly longer solid toe before starting the stripes, and made the cuff at the top a little longer. I have the yarn already in my stash to make another pair of these in brown and blue, so don't even think you're done seeing this pattern, though admittedly it won't be right away. So many socks, so little time.

Lace-Tipped Striped Scarf

I'm back to making some progress in my life -- I managed to finish off a couple of the lingering books, as well as the sweater sleeves. I've made a bit more progress on the second Knetted sock, as well. Most importantly, I have finished the stripey mohair scarf.

I've been working on this pretty much exclusively at the pub knit night, which explains why it took so very long to complete it. It is a bit curly, of course, being stockingette, but less curly after blocking it. The stitches evened out nicely and the lace opened up... Overall I'm pretty happy with it.


The blue yarn is the mohair blend; the yellow yarn is a merino silk cashmere combo. The two of them make for a deliciously soft scarf. It will make a lovely Xmas present when the time rolls around. (But not for you -- the recipient doesn't read the blog. Sorry.)

Limbo

I am in a strange state, right now, where I feel like I'm making no progress with all the various things I've been working on. I've been reading the same books for ages, and working on the same projects. In fact, it might be the sheer number of them that is keeping me from getting anywhere with any in particular.


Take my knitting, for example. I am still working on the leg of the second Knetted sock, as you can see on bottom left. I have doubled the amount of completed ribbing for the Honeybee Cardigan but still haven't quite felt motivated to start the more-complicated lace pattern. The best progress I've made is on the little stripey mohair scarf -- that piece you see is the second half of the scarf, for the record. The two halves get grafted together in the middle when the knitting is done, to allow the lace at either end to be identical.

Then there's the sleeves for the black yoke pullover. They are truly the black hole of my knitting. Not only have I been working on them forever, but now, as I finally near the underarm seam (the point where I can put them aside on stitch holders until I knit the body of the sweater and then join everything together) they are somehow making no progress at all. I tried them on a few nights ago, and decided they were about 10 rows from the underarm. No matter how many times I knit 5 rows and try it on again, they are always 10 rows from the underarm. They are defying the laws of physics. Maybe just 5 more rows will do it...

Freddie Krueger Socks

Although I am less of a fan of Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street than I am of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince's Nightmare on My Street, I still had a lot of fun making these socks. As you can see, my HLM is also a fan of them, and having put them on, he now seems to understand why I prefer handknit socks.


These are the first pair I've knit him, and you won't be surprised to hear that they are my usual: Knitty's Universal Toe-Up pattern. In sport weight yarn with a nice thick ten-row stripe, they knit up incredibly fast. It's the first time I've used Knit Picks Stroll yarn, and I have to say I really liked it: nice and soft and fat and squishy -- hopefully it holds up as well as it starts out.

Having finished these, I have already cast on some lacy frippery from Ysolda... can't wait to show you.