Finish all the things and start a game

I finished Dad's vest in time to give it to him on his birthday! and it fits! and he likes it!

My apologies for using so many exclamation points, but this project has been weighing on me for almost three years and now it's done and all is well!  I have to find a new project to promote into the drawer it has been occupying.  Probably this year's Christmas stocking knitting.

Finishing this project, and having been monogamous to it for about three weeks, seems to have inspired me to finish up several other things.

2012 Washcloths May edition:

 Ribbed chevron pattern, April 27 from my pattern-a-day calendar.  This was a hard pattern to "read" - I had to keep the pattern on hand for a long time instead of just being able to follow the knitting.  It used my regular dishcloth yarn of Sugar 'n Cream.
Purse socks:

 Universal toe-up formula with 2x2 ribbed legs.  I started these sometime last fall, which may mean that my purse sock speed is increasing.  My brother gave me the yarn for Christmas a few years ago.  I've already cast on the next pair of purse socks.  These will be top-down and for the husband.  A nice dark green yarn that seems to be a single ply.

Baby socks for the Lil One:

The pattern for these was Toddler Socks from the blog Creating a Family Home.  I used the yarn left over from the pair of socks I knit several years ago to learn the two-at-a-time technique (on dpns).

 I have recently discovered the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry.  I had heard about it in passing before, but this past month I listened to a description of it on an older episode of The Well-Knitted Life podcast, and checked it out.  It's a game where knitters join in, are sorted into houses as in Hogwarts, and earn points for their houses by knitting or crocheting.  Each term is three months long, and each month there are eight classes offered; each class gives a homework assignment, usually with several options.  You have to knit (or crochet) something within that month and make an argument that it meets the homework requirements.  The idea is that each student turns in at least one class assignment per month to qualify to get sorted and keep playing next term.  There are also Quidditch teams, challenges, WIPs can be turned in to detention, and so on and so on.  After getting sucked in and wandering around all the discussion threads and links for quite some time, I joined the group.  Because I joined after term started, I didn't get sorted into a house and my status is "Not Quite a First-Year" -- points I earn don't count toward any house's total, but they could help me earn priority for sorting next term.

It's all very complex, but also a lot of fun.  If you like the Harry Potter stories and might like to use that world as a framework for some knitting challenges, I encourage you to check out the group.  They do a much better job of explaining things than my little outline, and everyone is happy to answer questions and help newbies get started.

So anyhow, I joined and I'm really enjoying it.  I turned in the squishies for the assignment in Care of Magical Creatures.  May's prompt was about studying thestrals and abraxan (two kinds of flying horses), so one of the options was to knit something using a worsted weight "workhorse" yarn.  The squishes were knit out of worsted weight, and I knit them entirely within the month of May, so they qualified.  The toddler socks met the Mini-sock Challenge for Quidditch -- no more than four inches tall and long, and knit between May 18-28 -- so I turned those in as well.

Hopefully this trend of knitting efficiently and finishing things will continue!

Yarn Along - More diamonds and a dog (and cat)

I'm joining in Ginny's Yarn Along again this week.  Check it out to see lots of great knitting and books.

There hasn't been much to report over here. Just lots and lots of diamonds in this green heathered yarn that I can't seem to photograph accurately.  I've been remarkably monogamous with this vest project.  I made the back in 12 days, at which point it became remotely possible to finish in time for Dad's birthday, so I've spent every knitting opportunity working on it.

I think I may be able to bind off the front and block the pieces today.  Then the plan will be to sew the seams and have him try it on this weekend when we celebrate his birthday (with a trip to the Rollerderby!  I'm excited for my first derby).  That way I'll know if more work needs to be done before I knit up the bands around the neck and armholes.

I've made this iteration quite a bit smaller than the previous one.  Above is the back with the yarn that used to be part of it but wasn't needed this time.  Below is how much of the front I was able to make with that yarn; almost two pattern repeats.

I think I'll have an entire skein of Encore Worsted left over when I'm done.  Hopefully I haven't made it too small and it will block out exactly right.

In the past day or so I inhaled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.  I've read this book once before and it went really quickly then, too.  It's one of those that sucks me into the world of the story and the only way to escape is to plow through.  We're reading this in our book club, and I'm looking forward to discussing it this weekend.  Such a different way of seeing the world.

Yarn Along - Bowling Avenue

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.  I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. 

I'm joining in Ginny's Yarn Along again this week.

A couple of weeks ago I saw that Ann Shayne of Mason-Dixon Knitting fame was offering free promotional copies of her soon-to-be-released first novel to the first 50 commenters on the post updating the book's progress.  I thought it was way past the 50 mark, but I left a comment anyway, to say that I'm really looking forward to reading her novel.  About a week later in a rare moment of actually reading my e-mail, I was amazed to find an e-mail from Ann with a PDF attachment.  I am so excited to have gotten a freeola copy of Bowling Avenue.  It absolutely made my day.  I didn't have time to read it just then, and am finally getting to  now.  Very intrigued so far.  I'll probably write more about it in another Yarn Along post soon.  And gosh, that Ann Shayne sure is attractive and friendly.

On the knitting front I've been blasting away on the do-over of Dad's vest and am almost done with the first skein.  Thankfully I took some good notes on Ravelry the first time I knitted this, and am not having to repeat some of the fiddling I tried before.

Do-Over

I made my dad a sweater vest for Christmas.  This was back in 2009.  It was a perfectly fine vest, but it came out too big.  It wasn't a gauge error, but mis-estimations and too much rounding on my part.  The project has been in time out for two full years now.  Dad has a major birthday coming up next month, and I've been thinking of fixing his vest in time for his birthday.  Now that I've thought about it long enough that I probably don't have enough time, I've gotten started.

I ripped it all out.  This is the first time I have taken a finished project and frogged it.  It may have been possible to cut the vest and sew it together to the correct size, but I've never done that and didn't have enough confidence that it would come out well.  I do know that if I have the yarn back, I can knit a smaller vest.  So I unraveled the ribbing around the neck and armholes, picked out the seams, and frogged the entire back. 

Now I haven't done this before, but I have the impression that it would be a good idea to wash the yarn to help it relax and undo some of the kinks.  So here it is tied into skeins and ready for its bath, and then soaking in the sink.

When I hung it up to dry I tried using clothes hangers to weight down the skeins.  It worked fairly well, but I think I would have needed more weight to take out all the kinks.  It made for a strange set of wind chimes in our bathroom for a few days.

Yesterday the yarn was finally dry and I wound it into center-pull balls.  Here it is with the yet-to-be-frogged front of the vest, and the first two rows of the second attempt.  This time I have a vest of his that fits him well, so I'll be constantly comparing to that, instead of working from a sticky note of measurements.

I'm hopeful.

Spring Sorting

It's been a beautiful warm spring day today. When I got home from a lovely picnic with the husband, I decided it was time for my stash and I to have Words. Now I did not have Words with the entire stash - just the canopy of the stash. This is the more active part of the stash, which lives in the living room; the rest lives in a trunk on the sun porch. The Words I intended to have were words like "organize" and "what the hell happened to my size 6 double points?"

Between Olympic knitting and marathon baby blanket knitting, I've fallen behind on the orders I took for fingerless mitts back in January. Babies, it turns out, are not very accommodating about moving their birthdays around for knitting purposes. Now that it's time to get back at the mitts orders, I couldn't find the size 6 dpns I had been using for these projects. I knew that they were stuck in the beginnings of a mitt, I just didn't know where that was. So I pulled all the "active" stash and project bags out onto the sun porch for a good spring sorting. Here is where I started:

Here is what I found and organized out of all that. First, some fairly self-contained projects.
Some miscellaneous finished projects - including hats to give away and my Olympic totem person.

The cabled cardigan I'm making for myself. This is the second of the two front pieces, and my goal is to have this done by fall.

My Dad's Christmas sweater vest. It's too big. I think I'll try blocking it again, but I think in the end I'm going to just have to do it over. Working on coming to terms with that, and hoping to do it in late spring/early summer.

This little mess is on its way to becoming an amigurumi jackalope. I actually really like this project, but had to abscond with the size 5 and 6 dpns for the fingerless mitts. Due date June.

Then there's my Olympic Knitting project. A Dale of Norway baby sweater for my cousin's first baby. Liam Knight was born on March 20, and as soon as the sleeves are sewn in, the nose and whiskers of the seal are sewn on, and it gets a final, thorough blocking, this will be in the mail.

The Hempathy guitar strap for my brother that has been on the needles seemingly forever, but actually only since July. I promised him this would be the first thing that got my attention after the Christmas knitting was over. It was, too. Just not for very long. There are one or two more feet left to go. On size 1 dpns, cabling every 4th row. Also a summer project.

After I pulled out and re-bagged these projects, I had a bunch of yarn to sort into categories. First, my sock yarn and a few other yarns that were Christmas gifts:

Then the stash of Plymouth Encore that is mostly designated to become amigurumi:

The drawer full of yarn for baby sweaters, toys and blankets:

The dishcloth cotton stash, including a few completed dishcloths:

The small portion of the Christmas Stocking Stash that was at the bottom of the living room stash. This has since gotten packed away into the trunk with its brethren.

Finally, the small stash of alpaca and merino that I'm using to make the fingerless mitts and few other things that people have ordered from me. See the navy blue on the bottom right? Its partner skein is the one that has begun to turn into a mitt and contains the elusive size 6dpns.

So at this point, I'd sorted most everything and gotten quite organized, but still hadn't found the needles that were the reason for this exercise. After racking my brain for awhile about all the bags I've touched since New Year's, I went to a purse that I haven't carried in a month and half, and in which I'd completely forgotten that I put knitting:

And of course that's where they were. Along with the little scissors I've been wondering about, too. So now my Spring Stash Sort is complete, my living room is tidier, and I have a nice basket full of the supplies to finish the orders from January, as well as a few little gifts, and something (someday) for me.

Catching up on Pictures

Here are some of the pictures I promised in my previous post.

Mom's Christmas present Fetching:

A rusty red shade of Misty Alpaca worsted weight, knit on size 6. I adjusted the pattern to be a bit smaller - I worked 8 rib repeats around instead of 9, and the thumb has a few fewer stitches. I skipped the picot bind-off. She'll be wearing them at work to type all the time, and it seemed like that might get in her way.
Toys:
Loch Ness Monster for Nephew S.

This is knit on size 5 needles in Encore worsted colors 1604 (upper body) and 555 (belly) and snippets of brown for the eyes. He loves dinosaurs so this seemed perfect. The pattern is in the book Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh. A great book!

Nursery Balls for Nephew R. and Niece S.

You can't really see in these pictures, but on the blue and white ball the white sections have two pink hearts on them. These were made from my stash of leftover baby yarns. The pattern is in a knitted toys book that seems to have wandered away from me just now. The pattern calls for making each section separately and then seaming them together. I did that for the white & blue one, but I made the green and yellow one in one piece using intarsia. It worked fairly well once I got it started, but I wouldn't try to do that with striped sections or anything.

There will be more pictures of toys to come, and now I'm working away on MANY fingerless mitts, so there will be lots of that in the near future.

Christmas Reprise or the Return of the Camera

My goodness, but I've been having a hard time blogging without my camera. It's been returned now and appears to be working.

Review of Christmas knitting:

The major secret project for this year was a vest for my dad. Diamonds for Him, Plymouth Encore Worsted in 0668, a great heathered green. He loves the vest, was totally surprised, and it is in exactly his style. I took measurements for it from a vest he already has, so there was some estimation, and the yarn stretched more than I expected in the blocking - so it did turn out a bit too big. I'm going to sew the seams again so it is a bit smaller around. Pictures to come when it fits just right.

For my mom (who got her sweater last year), I made Fetching in Misty Alpaca, a rusty red color. (This picture is in her camera and will be added later)

For my two new nieces I made Mary Maxim Candy Cane Christmas stockings - here's one:

I also made toys for the other nieces and nephews, and one for my little brother. Those pictures are also in Mom's camera and will be added soon.

For nearly everyone else I know, I made washcloths:

I believe the final tally was about 27. Pictures of each will be uploaded to my Ravelry account soon.

My first finished object of the New Year was a pair of Fetching for myself, already done except for weaving in the ends. I am now embarking on a sweater for myself - a large cabled coat-type cardigan being done as a class at my LYS. I do love gift knitting, but I'm also greatly loving knitting for myself for awhile.

Washcloth Extravaganza

I've been sick some this week, which means that washcloth knitting has been about the right level of mental activity for me. They're short, entertaining, and don't take much exertion. So I've been working my way through my stash of Sugar 'n Cream.
First, here are two Ball Band washcloths I did a while ago.

The "mortar" for both of them is the Sunkissed colorway, and the colors for the "bricks" are Cornflower and Yellow.
The washcloths I've been making this week are ones I've created from stitch patterns in a little book I have from Leisure Arts, "Beginner's Guide: Knit Stitches & Easy Projects." I've just been adding garter or seed stitch borders and selecting a number of pattern repeats that will result in a stitch count between 40 and 50. Here's the first one:

Horseshoe Print in Key Lime Pie. I really like the scalloping that happened on the cast on edge, and I might try blocking this one.

Next is a Trinity Stitch pattern in Cornflower. This is a great bumpy stitch to use for washcloths, but I can't do it for very long at once. The pinching-and-pulling motion I do with my left hand when I "purl 3 together" gets pretty stressful for my thumb. I need to practice knitting this with looser tension.
I've started one more in a Saxon Braid stitch pattern using Yellow. After that I estimate that I'll still have enough Sugar 'n Cream for 4 to 6 more washcloths. I've already done 10, and I think 15 is the minimum I'll need to give them as gifts for Christmas. Here's the current supply:

There's definitely a color scheme here.

Fall Yarn Acquisition

Over my two weeks of vacation -- one at Leadership School, and one truly on vacation -- I have done quite a good bit of knitting. But before I show that, I'm going to give the details of the yarn I bought in my fall yarn binge. This binge missed my LYS's fall sale by two weeks (note to self: plan a little more next year), but I was seriously low on projects going into vacation weeks, and that just couldn't be allowed.

First, the yarn for the 2009 Christmas Surprise Project:

Plymouth Yarn Encore, worsted weight, 75% acrylic, 25% wool. I needed to pick a machine-washable yarn, and on the only day I had allotted for shopping for this, there happened to be not a huge selection at the LYS. I am, however, very happy with this yarn, and probably would have chosen it even from a much larger selection. The color is named 0668 and is a wonderful heather green with lots of light orange, and little hints of blue.

I swatched for this project on Vacation Week 1, going back and forth between size 8 and size 9 needles. I forget now what I decided and Leadership School took enough of my mental energy that I neglected to write it down at the time. I believe size 8 will be what works best. I have yet to sneak satisfactory measurements for this project, so work has not yet begun in earnest. The picture may or may not show all of the yarn - I'm trying to keep even the size of the project secret. Last year's secret went very well and I'm hoping to repeat that performance.

Next, the yarn for the Guitar George Strap and for my socks:

On the left is Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy (designer's choice), approximately sock weight, and 34% hemp, 41% cotton, and 25% modal. This color of orange (named 015), is just the right shade for my brother. I'm significantly modifying a belt pattern to turn it into a guitar strap, so the amount of yarn was a bit of a stab, but I think it will work well.

One skein of this has already transformed into the beginnings of a strap. That brought me to a point where I needed more information on guitar straps and it looked like I was nearing some decision points, and it felt easier to start my socks.

On the right above, Malabrigo sock yarn, 100% Superwash Merino Wool, in color 204 "Velvet Grapes." On my monitor, this picture looks significantly darker than the yarn. I absolutely love this yarn. I spent a long time choosing it and I'm very pleased. I'm making knee socks, so I needed to buy two skeins, making them quite the most expensive socks I've ever owned, but they are definitely going to be worth it! I finished the first sock on Vacation Week 2, and am almost at the end of the calf decreases on the second sock.

Also in this fall's acquisition I bought a set of 6 Brittany double pointed needles - size 1 and 5 inches long. These are the right size for both the guitar stap and the socks, so my brohter's gift is being pushed back a little more while the socks are on the needles.