good-natured ribbing

Over the weekend I finished spinning some of the roving I obtained at the Michigan Fiber Festival in August. It is a wool/mohair/silk noil blend – very tweedy and two-ply. It is purple with tweed of yellow, green, and white. There isn’t as much red/pink as the photo would lead you to believe (darn flash!). I have two skeins and a total of about 320 yards. The gauge is 4 sts/inch, using size 7 needles.

The big question: What should this yarn become?!
Won’t you help me decide?

I started knitting a little scarf with the cashmere I got in NY at School Products. The skein was a little tangled so I couldn’t us the ball winder – had to do it by hand. The 383 yards of lace weight cashmere resulted in a ball with about a 2.5 inch diameter. It is very fine – like knitting with a cobweb.

I’m using a fairly simple lace pattern and size 1 needles. It is coming slowly but will be fab when it is done.

…but not this much.

I’ve been practicing my newly acquired crocheting skills. The first thing I made was a giant hackey sack by following a pattern from a new magazine I picked up. Although it turned out pretty lumpy (because of the stuffing), Ava likes it because she can throw it in the house.

My next project is much more attractive. I started this hat just the same as with the ball but kept on increasing. Every several rows I tried it on Ava to see if it needed to get bigger. Amazingly enough, it turned out just perfect. I topped it off with a cute little flower (the instructions are in that same magazine issue).

Ava approves – we wore it out for a little walk tonight and she hasn’t taken it off yet.

I just ran a pair of my knitted socks through the wash and they seem to have gotten caught on something…

Can anyone tell me how to darn a sock?

According to the What Kind of Yarn Are You? quiz:

You are Mohair.
You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with others, doing your share without being too weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely refuse to change your position once it is set, but that’s okay since you are good at covering up your mistakes.

Hmmm, I would’ve thought I’d be a low-key woolly tweed myself, but what do I know?

As Christina mentioned, I copied her and made the same vest (one for me and one for Ava!). The pattern is from Briar Rose Fibers. They have some really great yarn and some patterns that were designed for the yarn.

You can see the original pattern here. And this is mine:

The yarn I selected was no where near the gauge of the recommended yarn – mine was much smaller. I used Berroco Ultra Alpaca (50% alpaca, 50% wool) in the color called Pea Soup! I also knitted in the round until the armpits instead of doing the whole thing flat. Instead of picking up around the arm and neck holes then binding off, I did crochet (crab stitch) edging – I just couldn’t bind off loose enough.

Continuing the baby and goofy hat themes…I recently finished some gifts for tiny people. The first couple of items are hats (great, and free, pattern from hello yarn – also the designer of the pirate hat Kira gave me). I absolutely loved the anime face when I saw it, so I had to make one right away.

I also did a variation on the hat for my niece, using Lorna’s Laces. She requested “bear ears, not bunny ears.” The pattern either runs a little small or my guage is off (which is more likely), so I don’t think the finished purple hat will fit her. Fortunately, there are hatless babies popping up like crazy around here so I should be able to find another recipient pretty quickly.

I also finished a baby blanket that I’ve been working on for a looooong time. It’s a pinwheel blanket, and I added the Leaf Edging from Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Embellishments. The color is much better in the left-hand picture – it’s Gems Merino Opal Blended in “Parrot.” The right-hand picture attempts to show the edging. The combination of the shape and edging reminds me of a sunflower, so I took the photo on a sunflower quilt Kira made me a few years ago.

i think we can all appreciate the timely value of this free pattern just in time for halloween.

You can’t escape the wrath of my goofy hats, especially if you are a tiny, defenseless baby.

So I finished up the hat I started knitting on the plane to NY last month…finally. I was being a total procrastinator on this, plus I knew I would once again have to look Kitchener’s stitch, because I haven’t managed to free up enough room in my brain to remember how to do it for longer than, oh, 3 minutes. In fact, I managed to mess it up so my hat looks like it’s got a few random perl stitches across the top, but I think I’m over that now.

Anyway, here it is, modeled fetchingly by my hand:

And here is the lucky receipient, my cousin’s newborn daughter Zoe Nicole Parker, taking a snooze:

My cousin’s baby shower is this weekend and I made these little numbers to add to her gift.

The hat pattern is from OneSkein and the baby mitts are of my own devising. Both are knit using Lush (50% angora, 50% wool) from Classic Elite. The colour is “wheat” in case you can’t tell. Super soft and great to work with!

While at the Fiber Fest, I bought a simple pattern for an interesting vest. You’ve seen it on Ava, you’ll soon see it on Beth, but for now, here it is on me:

(This is *not* trick photography! My head did indeed disappear in the second photo only to reappear later in a Taco Bell…)

I only made a few small modifications: I added an extra repeat of the “fake” cable, and I made the front larger than the back. I have my reasons.

I’m very happy with the result.

Coming soon: group vest photo!

Christmas stockings, that is! My goal is to finish Christmas stockings for the whole family this year, and I am 2/5 done, having finished the argyle Christmas stocking this weekend. Here are the steps I went through, knitting it with Tahki Tweed.

1. Knit the flat argyle sock, in a sort of rectangle with toe shaping at the end.
   
2. Sewed the back seam.
   
3. Sewed the instep seams.
   
4. Picked up the stitches and added an afterthought heel.
   
5. Managed to get a picture 30 seconds before Sophie jumped into the shot.
   

I had been wanting to try argyle socks, but this big stocking has satisfied my urge for that for a while. The great thing is that I have a ton of the tweed yarn left, and think I’ll use it to make a long multicolored scarf, the kind in which you cast on hundreds of stitches and knit lengthwise. The next Christmas stocking is going to be purple with Santa Clauses embroidered on it in duplicate stitches. The knitting part should go fast, at least. Onward!

Not necessarily in that order. First, I recently put up pictures of almost-done socks, and just to prove I really do finish things, I now show you these:

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With that out of the way, here is another project that I finished last weekend. I started this bag on the same weekend that Beth was immersed in her felting. Coincidence? There must have been some felting impulses being transmitted throughout the atmosphere. Anyway, I was trying to use up some leftover Lamb’s Pride and Noro, and followed, in a loose way, the market bag pattern in Weekend Knitting. Weekend Knitting, by the way, is becoming a tried and true reference for me. I am pretty satisfied with the way all the patterns turn out. So, here is the market bag in its iterations.

Also, and this time fully copying Beth, I decided to knit Corie a short row scarf out of some cushy yarn I got in Toledo.

I ran out of time last winter, or maybe spring came too soon, but I told her that this year I would knit her a scarf. I knit half of it — 30 inches — over Labor Day weekend, so think I’ll be able to finish it by the time it gets cold. The question I’m pondering is: to fringe or not to fringe? And if I do add fringe, how do I know how much yarn to save for it?

Ava and I attended a birthday party today for my twin nephews – Michael and Bobby. On Friday, I decided that I’d knit “the brothers” (as they are known) some hats instead of getting them more toys.

I stopped at the yarn store on the way home from work on Friday and picked up some Katia Mexico – one in the greys/black and one in the blues/purples. Using a pattern from my pattern-a-day calendar, I whipped up these little numbers:

They were gracious enough to try the hats on for me before diving into the pile of new toys.

And I just couldn’t resist posting these pictures of Ava in her little bolero I knitted a while ago:

Can you tell she had fun at the party?