one scarf, two scarf

…green scarf…

…blue scarf!

Sometimes, when I want a particularly soothing project to work on, I go for a scarf or shawl. They can be complex enough to take my mind off of my troubles (like the Swallowtail shawl, top) or simple enough to keep my fingers busy while I watch a relaxing movie (like the Lacy Baktus, bottom).

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark, from Fall 2006 Interweave Knits (but now available free)

Yarn: Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in Ivy, one skein (with 9 g left over), frogged from this sock

Needles: US 5 Addi Lace (I love these needles!)

I wasn’t a bit sad to frog the sock; it was too tightly knit to go on my foot and the pattern wasn’t reading well. The yarn works much better in lace, because it drapes beautifully and the limited elasticity doesn’t matter. As others have noted, this shawl is an extremely quick knit. I had that end-of-a-good-book feeling after I cast off–it was finished too soon! I’ll have to knit another.

Pattern: Lacy Baktus, by Terhi Monotonen

Yarn: Handmaiden Fine Yarn Casbah Sock in Ocean Currents, one skein (about 1 yard left over), from the 2009 Loopy Ewe Sock Club

Needles: US 5 Clover bamboo straights

This yarn is really spectacular, and I’d love to get some more. The colorway was beautiful, and the base yarn was deliciously soft and squishy.

As much fun as I had with the sock club, I won’t be joining again this year. I loved the yarn and the extras, but somehow none of the patterns really spoke to me. Instead, I’m looking forward to this shipment, as well as to a good year of knitting from stash. Sometimes the best yarn shop really is my own cupboard!

miss muffet

Pattern: Tuffets from Schnibbles by Miss Rosie’s Quilt Co.

Fabric: from this charm pack (I could easily make five more; the tuffet uses very little fabric), and stash brocade backing

Notions: walnut shells & dried lavender (from the heartbreakingly discontinued Trader Joe’s dryer bags) for stuffing

On a recent trip to Nashville, I visited a few quilting shops, including the delightful Quilting Squares, where I bought the pattern and materials to make this little tuffet. This was a fun project and quickly finished in a couple of hours. Even if you’ve never done foundation piecing before (I hadn’t) you shouldn’t have any trouble. The instructions were very clear and easy to follow. Two things I learned:

• My scant quarter-inch seam is really more like a generous eighth-inch! There should be at least one more “step” on every side of the tuffet. However, I think it still looks nice.
• Even if the pieced top comes out a little skewed, you can fix it by trimming to size. Just align the center square so that it’s in the exact middle and trim all four sides to the desired size. Mine actually came out much more evenly than I thought it would before I trimmed it.

I’ve been excited to learn more about quilting, and I’m taking another class this Sunday. I’m hoping to finish my first quilt this year. Apparently my father-in-law has also begun quilting! With so many crafters in one family, it’s only a matter of time until we have the Professor doing cross-stitch or similar. I’ll keep you posted on his progress.

I am still knitting, and I have so many things to show you: a vest, musings on the sweater project, a new shawl and the beginnings of yet another shawl, a sad sad sock…

merry merry

…and to all a good night!

technocrat

A peek at the new scarf (or, why my argyle is still incomplete):

that “je ne sais quoi”

These are some scenes from our weekend in Montreal. The Basilica of Notre Dame (above and below):

The chapel above was behind the main sanctuary. Everything was made of elaborately carved and inlaid wood. It felt very warm, in contrast to the cool stone cathedrals we’d seen in Europe.

We saw the Olympic Stadium (with the Professor included for scale).

Our hotel was very near the modern art museum, but sadly we never got the chance to explore it.

After exploring Éffiloché (one of the best shops I’ve ever been in…Montrealers, you are lucky), we enjoyed the cafe culture.

And what did I bring back?

The obligatory but still gorgeous souvenir sock yarn, courtesy of Tanis Fiber Arts, and…

Some lovely fabric for my second quilting class (see the blue with the birds? It is Special To Me.)

It was a great trip!

One more little thing (to distract you from the lack of crafty content): have we all seen this kit? What a great way to try out Fair Isle techniques! And for $15, how can you lose?

season of mists

So I promised an update on the Autumn Rose.

I finished the knitting, crocheted my steek, cut, and tried it on…and the yoke was too large. By quite a good bit.

In true denial, I knit the neckband anyway, and then was somehow surprised to discover that the yoke was still too large. And this is no ordinary sweater, right? If the fit isn’t right, I’m not going to wear it, right? So I have to fix it, right??

So, I

• ripped out the neckline (this part was particularly painful)
• cut the black stripe just before the last red-orange band and removed everything above it
• recalculated the decreases from that point
• knit up from there (including a new steek), being extremely careful not to disturb the existing, already-cut steek
• cut the new steek
• picked up for neckband and knit that, thankful that Palette is so lovely and accommodating (the steeks stayed perfectly and it all blocked out)

I think it was worth it, though. This is totally my new favorite sweater.

And the October sweater?

I’m working on it.

Finished: Autumn Rose Pullover

Pattern: Autumn Rose Pullover by Eunny Jang

Yarn: Knitpicks Palette, in various colors (see my Ravelry project page for more details)

Needles: Addi Turbo US 1 16″ circular, Addi Turbo Lace US 2 29″ circular, Knitpicks Harmony DPNs US 2

Modifications: only two colors used in all corrugated ribbing, shortened yoke

More photos to come, and details of the surgical operation required to make this one work (don’t worry, doctor and patient are both doing fine).

Finished: mandu wrapper

Pattern: my own

Yarn: Zen String Serendipity (less than 1/2 skein used)

Needles: Knit Picks Harmony DPNs, US 2

Isn’t she the cutest model I’ve ever had? I never thought I’d knit a dog sweater, but Mandu has changed my mind. I’m thinking argyle. I’m thinking intarsia paw prints. I’m thinking…I can knit anything for eight inches.

I’ve been knitting up a storm (sweaters, a beaded lace shrug, dishcloths, a blanket), but no time to photograph! I’ll try to fix that this weekend, when my crack photo team visits.

And just for fun, here’s the photo my father sent when I asked for measurements so I could knit to fit:

Awww!

summer of my discontent

Did I finish the July sweater? Well, yes and no.

On Thursday night, I had it all seamed, ends woven in, ready for buttons…but where were the buttons? I looked everywhere and couldn’t find them. Finally I stuffed the whole thing into a bag and went off to bed in frustration.

Friday, while we drove to St. Louis (departure time: 5:15 a.m.), I knitted away on this:

What a lovely (though badly photographed) beginning of a striped pullover! Too bad that I’ll never make it to the sleeves without running out of yarn. I knit away, all the way home (return time: 11:30 p.m.), wondering where in the world I had bought the original yarn, and whether it would be remotely possible to obtain any more.

Meanwhile, this was sitting on my couch:

Yes, that is indeed the beginning of the Autumn Rose pullover, which I had waited to knit for months so that I could see the new Palette colors. I rashly cast on a few days ago, just before they released the new colors, which of course include one that might fix the overly-green cast of my medallions. The pullover is currently in purgatory while I consider whether to order a few new skeins and re-swatch.

Oh, and not pictured? That would be the Autumn Rose sleeve, which was about halfway completed until I noticed that I had used the wrong color for one of the rows just after the ribbing.

Regular blogging will resume when I find a project that is actually going well…

tutorial for the skinny-wristed

So, the July sweater: it’s Salina (rav link) from Rowan Vintage Knits (thanks to Indianapolis Public Library Interlibrary Loan department for making this knit possible). I’m loving it so far because it’s a stockinette-fest and perfect for work knitting, but the shaping gives you a feeling of accomplishment every 6 or 8 rows. You see the front and back in the photo above, with Kermit’s hood providing a backdrop (I realize that by coordinating my sweater color with my car color, I am exhibiting my oddness).

When I got to the sleeves, though, I realized that a small modification would be needed. Perhaps I have strangely skinny wrists (I also narrowed the cuffs on my Tangled Yoke Cardigan), but I definitely don’t need the 14″ cuff circumference that the pattern dictated for my size! Here’s how I did it:

1. Decide how long you want the sleeves to be; in my case, that was 18″, including a 2″ cuff added later. So, I needed to do my increases over 16″ of knitting.

2. Decide how wide you want the cuffs to be; in my case, that was 7.5″  circumference, keeping in mind that they might stretch out a bit.

3. Measure your gauge! I had already knitted and blocked the front and back pieces, so this was easy. I came up with 23 stitches and 30 rows to 4″ (or 5.75 stitches and 7.5 rows to 1″).

4. Do a little math. To find the number of stitches to cast on, just multiply your stitch gauge (5.75) by the desired width of cuff (7.5″) to get your cast-on number: 43 stitches (a side note: you can account for selvedge here if you want to, although I didn’t).

5. My desired number of stitches at the beginning of the sleeve cap was 79, according to the pattern (and I could have changed that too, but I would also want to change the armscyes to match), so I needed to increase 36 stitches over 16″. At two stitches added per increase row, that is 18 increase rows.

6. So, how to distribute those evenly over the sleeve? Just find out how many rows you need to knit to get the sleeve to the desired length (in my case, 16″) by multiplying row gauge: 16″ x 7.5 rows = 120 rows total. Then divide by the number of increase rows: 120/18 = 6.6666666…. What to do?

7. Well, I can’t increase every 6 2/3 rows, so I split the difference and chose to increase like this: every 6th row 12 times (ending with 67 stitches total and 72 rows knitted) and every 8th row 6 times (79 stitches total, 120 rows knitted). You can increase every 7th row if you want, of course, but that means that some of the increase rows will be on the wrong side.

Whew! I hope that helps another skinny-wristed knitter. It isn’t a difficult process at all (it took much longer to type up the directions than to actually do it), and it’s one of my favorite things about knitting: the ability to customize a project to better suit your particular preferences or desired fit.