Category Archives: knitting

Improvised ruffle scarf

knitting,

My son and I wanted to give something to his pre-school teacher as a thank you to all she’s done for him over the last year and a half. So, he picked out the yarn, and I knitted her a (surprise, surprise!) ruffle scarf.

As always, even with repeated projects, there is a lesson for me – this one is that when your yarn runs out while you are halfway into binding off (binding off!) a busy, ruffly project, you can actually bind off the stitches without the extra yarn. Meaning, out of desperation, I simply stopped using the working yarn, and just took the stitches straight from the right needle onto the left, then bound them off in the usual way. Redbeard could not tell where I had started this foul (er, I mean, inventive) deed, and so I think that it worked out okay, in a desperate-times-desperate-measures sort of way.

Here’s the final scarf:

Hurricane hat

knitting,

I thought I had just about wrapped up my Christmas knitting plans (not the actual projects, mind you, just the plans), when I came across this pattern for a hat. A hurricane hat. I always try to get my (wonderful and joking) step-grandfather something quirky for Christmas, and this was too good to resist. (For next year I’m thinking of this.)

Why? Well, when Irene hit Vermont earlier in the year, my mom and I had to pause and consider the sheer weirdness of talking about hurricane damage to places where she lived. Truly all that was normal in the world had been turned upside down when her Florida-dwelling daughter was sympathetically listening to the list of (thankfully largely minor!) damage in Vermont.

So, I couldn’t resist making my step-grandfather a hurricane hat, to commemorate this strange, strange year. And help keep is head warm. Here it is!

A tale of two yarns

knitting,

I had fun knitting these two mini-scarves for the twin daughters of a friend of mine, who have some beloved stuffed cats that would love them.

In order to make them as to scale as possible, I used sock yarn. And in order to make them similar, yet different, I knitted one vertically and one horizontally. I am fascinated by how different the same yarn can look, depending on the row lengths.

Button holes, smutton holes

knitting, ,

I just finished the manly-button scarf! I’m not sure that I did the cast-on part correctly (in fact, I’m certain that I did not do it the way that I was instructed to), but  even still I am shocked at how easy it actually was in the end. After some poking around online, I went with this set of instructions, and all went smoothly, almost.

My mother once told me that she would gladly do whatever was necessary to not have to parallel park, even if that meant walking five miles in the snow up hill both ways. I never quite understood this until yesterday, when I realized that I feel the exact same way about casting on. I know exactly one way to cast on (long-tail). And, I’m really, really happy with this cast-on. I will go to great lengths (ha ha) to use this cast on, even when asked to cast on 100+ stitches.

Looking at how to do the “required” cable cast on for this particular button hole has not changed my mind. I spent a fair amount of time saying “oh, no no no” as I watched the instructions unfold. Then, I spent way too long trying to figure out how to use a long-tail cast on. In the end, defeated, I sort of flailed around with the needles in a way that is sort of like a cable cast on – I didn’t make a slip knot, but just took the next stitch, knitted into it, then pulled that stitch onto the left needle, knit into it, slipped it back on, etc. I don’t think it would work for very many stitches, but it worked for the 4 that I needed!

I don’t have a good picture of the button hole itself, but I’m pretty happy with it. Here’s a picture of the final scarf, folded up and ready to wrap!

Button scarf

knitting,

As I mentioned before, almost all of my projects are currently gift-related and so I’m reluctant to say too much about them. That said, the “beer” tag is threatening to overshadow the “knitting” tag, which I simply can’t allow to happen. I’m thinking that of the likely gift-recipients who might read this, the men-folk in my life are probably lower in the rankings. But, just in case, anyone of the grandpa persuasion who might be reading this in New York needs to stop now.

[…]

[…]

I mean it.

[…]

Okay, I’ve started working on another scarf of my own design, this time a manly scarf that’s short, with a button to keep it fixed in place. That means I have, looming large on my horizon… button holes (cue thunder and lightning and lone wolf howl). In meantime, I’m bopping along, seemingly oblivious and quite happy with my little pattern:

I’ll let you know how the button hole turns out. I think there is 100% certainty that I will learn a lesson or two.

Why I need to do two socks at a time

knitting,

Christmas knitting season is upon me and so I may have to go dark with reports on knitting projects, since almost all of them are Christmas projects. But, I do have at least once more recent project that I can talk about.

I recently finished a pair of “wristers” for my daughter, in her favorite color:

These are from a pattern in 60 Quick Knits. Can you pick which one I did first? Here’s the funny part (and a turning point for me, I think): I did better with the first one. I just lost steam on the second, and then lost count of my rows, and then just kept on going because I needed to finish. There was at least one hole big enough to cause comment from my daughter (on the increases for the thumb gusset) – so I just patched it up with some extra yarn.

Lessons learned:
(1) I’m not ready for prime-time cabling yet.
(2) I am developing strong opinions about increases.
(3)  I need to knit socks in tandem or I will have a lot of orphan socks.

Hat improvement

knitting, ,

Don’t let all of Redbeard’s posts about beer fool you – there is also knitting going on. (Okay, mostly along side the drinking – in fact, right now I’m looking longingly over at some lovely roving that I got from Earth Guild while drinking a Pumking as part of a pumpkin beer tasting that Redbeard and I decided to do tonight.)

I finished another Elf hat. This one is for the son of a good friend of mine (and novice knitter, another one joins the fold!). I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of joining the sides. I’m not sure I’m doing a mattress stitch, but I’ve decided that I don’t care. Here’s a close up of the seam:

Not exactly seamless, but then I don’t think it can be with this pattern. Even with the strange join, I still really like this pattern.

Another Earth Guild purchase that portends more knitting:  Melissa Morgan-Oakes Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks. I’ve been interesting in knitting socks for awhile, and there is something really, really appealing about (a) starting with the hard part first, and (b) doing both socks at once. So… now I just need some sock yarn. Yay – field trip to my LYS!

 

Resume spinning

Spinning,

After a brief, frustration-related hiatus, I have returned to spinning. Everything was going so well with my beginner roving, but when I tried to pretend I could really spin it all fell apart. (Literally.) Luckily, my friend and fellow spinning novice could see what the problem was: I was trying to spin roving that was too thick. Turns out beginner roving is already thin enough to spin, but grown-up roving is meant for people who know enough to pull apart the roving into thinner strips. People who were not me, but now are me, because now I know to do this!

And the magical process by which stringy fluff becomes yarn can continue…

So, I’m now figuring out how to spin steadily, instead of parking the spindle to twist the fiber. While it is more of a juggling act (and so I’m sure much more entertaining to watch), the quality of the yarn is surprisingly better – my width is a lot more consistent and I over-spin much less.

Also, my friend now has a spinning wheel. As I told Redbeard about this, I made to sure to reassure him that I’m not ready for a wheel yet. He replied that he has already “resigned” himself to making room for one. So…. does that mean I can have one now? Because I think I really am ready.

 

I know what a LOT of people are getting for Christmas this year…

knitting, , , ,

I am trying my best to show a little restraint when it comes to this hat pattern a friend gave me. But, oh sweet knitting gods, it is hard.

This hat is so cute and knits up insanely fast because you knit flat and then sew it into shape. What’s not to love?

Oh, that’s right, here is what is not love:

Way down at the bottom of the pattern, looking innocent, is the instruction to “mattress” stitch the ends together. I’m not sure why it’s called mattress stitching, though my current theory is because it makes you want to go lie down after you try it. Good thing this first hat (because oh yes there will be more, bed-related stitching or not) is for my daughter, who is not yet discerning enough to care about what a complete hash her mother has made of the mattress stitching on her new hat.

Of course, it doesn’t help that this first attempt is on a diagonal (the tutorials only show horizontal and vertical… how dare they not envision every possible orientation?). I’m making my son one next… it will give me another chance to see if I can work out how to join these things together.

Quick side-scarf

knitting, ,

I have so much love for thick yarns. I had a sudden, birthday-related need for a scarf. Fast forward roughly 4 knitting-hours, and I’ve got a warm, wooly scarf.

The color on this picture is way, way off. It has a lot more red in it than is shown here, but otherwise I think this nicely shows off the seed stitch that I used. I just sort of winged this scarf, and decided on the fly to do something a little more fancy that a garter stitch.

Even though this was an easy project, I still learned something (2 things, in fact – how embarrassing!):

(1) This scarf is 21 stitches across, size 13 needles with “super bulky” yarn. I should never, ever make a scarf this wide again. I ended up having to run out and buy another skein because it would’ve been way too stubby with just the one I had. If I had had the time, I would’ve started over with maybe 15 stitches.

(2) In my head, here is the pattern I decided to make:

CO 21
Rows 1-4: K21
Rows 5-??: K3, [k1, p1]* repeat until three stitches left, k3
Knit last 4 rows then BO

Okay, so in my head, this would give me a 3-stitch garter border. In reality, this gave me a 4-stitch border because, duh, K3 then k1… yes, that is K4. Plus, because I correctly figured out that I needed an odd number of stitches, the seed [k1, p1] actually ends with just a k1, so… yep: K4 at the end of the row. To be fair, I got what I really wanted, which is being able to knit the same exact pattern every row and still get a seed stitch with a border. The border is just a little bigger than I planned.

A lovely side-effect of this project (because I can’t learn three things from a silly scarf that took a few hours) – I can know really tell the difference between how a single knit stitch and a single purl stitch looks. I am ridiculously proud of this.