A Few FOs

I have a few FOs to show off (2 of mine and one that my sister made while she was here). Let’s start with the one my sister made, shall we?

My sister is an early intervention and preschool special educator which means she spends a good deal of time working with kiddos in their home or preschool environment. She mentioned that she had seen a fabric memory game on Pinterest. There were a couple of different ones, but we ended up following this tutorial. Instead of using a printable icon of some sort, she just picked out one semi-solid fabric to use on all of the squares.

Adorable, right?

I let her go crazy with my scraps and she fussy cut 15 different fabrics for 30 total squares. She also made a drawstring bag for all the squares.

Next up is another sample knit for Stash:

Pattern: Turbulence Cowl by Laura Chau

Yarn: Shibui Merino/Alpaca in Suit and Ash

Modifications: Why, oh why am I always running out of yarn?! I aimed to knit this cowl in one skein of each color, but I ran out of the main color (Ash) with 4 rows left of the cowl. Instead of breaking into a second skein for 2 rows with that color, I bound off 4 rows early. I think the culprit was using a yarn that is more dense than the suggested yarn. At any rate, if I hadn’t pointed out that there were 4 rows missing, I doubt anyone would notice.

Yes, I realize it somewhat resembles a tube top. However, it is not. 

I actually made my blogging debut over on the stash blog today, and you can read more about the Turbulence Cowl and the fabulous Shibui Merino/Alpaca yarn over there!

And last, but certainly not least….a new pair of socks! I knit these as part of a Knit-a-Long at Stash and finished them up just in time (the deadline is Wednesday)!

Pattern: Paper Moon Socks by AnneLena Mattison from Knitty, Deep Fall 2011

Yarn: Sweet Georgia CashLuxe Fine in Savory (I think…I’ll have to double check at Stash)

Modifications: No intentional modifications. But honestly? The gusset and heel flap directions could have been more clear. I did what I thought the pattern was telling me to do, but my gusset looks a little bit different and I think there was an extra row that resulted in a little hole (which I closed up by picking up a stitch from the row below and knitting it together with the next stitch). I’m pleased with the finished product, but I think next time I would start with fewer stitches, as the toe is a bit boxy for me.

I love the look of the garter stitch on either side of the cables.

 The Sweet Georgia yarn was a true pleasure to work with. The resulting fabric is really soft and squishy, but seems like it will hold up over time. One of the socks survived a trip around the yarn in Sailor’s mouth today, so I consider that a win. And the colors are gorgeous. I think I’ll be picking up one of the other colors we have at the shop to make a shawlette or possibly even a summer sweater.

Perfect St. Patty’s Day Socks, I think! 

In other knitting news, I’m still plugging away on my Julissa sweater and am finally working on the sleeves. Tragically, one of them needs to be ripped out because the yarn I started using is much lighter and it’s pretty obvious. Thankfully it’s only about half a sleeve’s worth of ripping and not the whole thing!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Featherweight Cardigan

Awhile back (ahem, november, ahem), Sonia (the owner of Stash) asked if I would knit a lace weight cardigan for the shop. Of course, I agreed, since the pattern was simple and straightforward and the yarn was GORGEOUS. I honestly thought this would be done fairly quickly. It wasn’t. I had a disagreement with one of the sleeves which had me start and stop the same sleeve at least 3 times. Once that sleeve was finally finished and I moved onto the second sleeve, the sweater was done in a mere few days. Anyways, it’s now finished and I even have photos to prove it!

Pattern: Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig

Yarn: Sweet Georgia SeaSilk Lace in Tourmaline

Modifications: Since this was a shop sample I made very few modifications. I wouldn’t have many any, except that when I went to start the first sleeve I had a huge gaping hole when I picked up the amount of stitches called for in the pattern. I knit a few rows somehow thinking it would magically go away (it didn’t…shocking, I know), and when it didn’t I ripped back to before I picked the stitches up and tried again. This time I picked up more stitches than called for and decreased to the correct number on the following row. All good, right? Wrong. The underarm looked great, but after a few rows I realized there was a stitch that not been unpicked correctly, and I had to drop the stitch down a few rows to fix it. The other issue I was having was with my needle choice. I was using my Addi Lace Clicks, and while I generally love them, the lace yarn was snagging in the join. I happened to have a set of 24″ size 6 Addi lace needles and once I switched to those things went MUCH smoother! literally. The only other modification I made was to the front band. I was so close to being able to finish the sweater with one skein, it seemed kind of silly to break into a second skein if I didn’t need to. I cut the band short by about 1/2 an inch. After binding off, I realized I probably could have gotten a few more rows out of the yarn, but it would have been really annoying to run out on the bind-off! I knit the sweater to the specifications in the pattern, but it grew like crazy length-wise. It ended up about 2″ longer than the pattern calls for, but it still looks nice.

Let’s talk about the yarn for a minute, shall we? The Sweet Georgia SeaSilk Lace is made from 60% seacell and 40% silk. The blend takes the dye beautifully and the yarn has a wonderful sheen to it. Knitting lace weight yarn on larger needles in stockinette stitch was a new experience for me. At first I was really frustrated because my stitches looked sooooo uneven. It was making me crazy. But blocking is magical. I had my doubts, but my stitches appeared much more even after soaking and blocking. And the yarn totally transformed. Don’t get me wrong, it was lovely before I soaked it. But the drape is amazing and it has a wonderful light and silky feel. My only complaint? The yarn bled. A lot. Strangely enough, it didn’t bleed on my hands as I was knitting with it, but it bled like crazy when I washed it. Not a huge deal since I only used one color and I would never wash it with anything else. However, I can see it being a problem if someone wanted to pair it with a lighter colored yarn in a project.

The pattern was very well written with easy to follow instructions, which is always awesome!

The other exciting thing going on a casa de grey poodle is that we’re adding a bathroom to our house! My father-in-law is here to help us turn our laundry room into a laundry room/full bathroom! I forgot to take a picture before we started tearing it apart, but here’s a pretty good representation of it:

There was a cabinet above the counter and there was a carpet on the floor. 

Those pics make it look pretty scary. It wasn’t quite that bad. I’ll be sure to post updates as we go!

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Couple of Christmas Hats

This year there were quite a few hats on my Christmas knitting list. Hats are relatively quick to knit and really, who doesn’t need a hand knit hat for the chilly weather? One of my brother-in-laws lives in NYC and the other (and his wife) love to ski…so I thought hats would be the perfect gift for them.

Pattern: Wanderer Cap by Jared Flood from Weekend Hats

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in colorway Gray Tabby

Modifications: None. I actually managed to knit two of these (one for each brother-in-law) out of one skein of DIC Classy, which is fantastic. The pattern is easy to follow and the resulting hat is a great mens or unisex hat. It knit up very quickly, which is always a bonus!

I love the way the crown decreases look! 

I really can’t say enough great things about the book Weekend Hats. This was my first knit from the book, but then I went on and knit the Leaves Long Beanie as well. There are a bunch of other patterns from the book that are on my short list of “hats to knit soon-ish”!

Now onto my sister-in-law’s hat!

Pattern: Cranberry Sauce by Brittany Taylor

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Superwash Chunky in Riptide

Modifications: None. The Sweet Georgia Chunky was a dream to work with and looks fantastic in the cable pattern of this hat. The yardage is generous and I probably had enough leftovers to do a pom pom or ear flaps (so in other words, one skein can get you a cabled, ear-flapped hat if you so desired!). This hat will definitely stay on my “last minute gift” list…I had at least two people try and steal it before I could send it off (I’m looking at you Aimee and Teena!).

The Sweet Georgia color palate is just to-die-for. When the shipment of the Sweet Georgia Chunky came into Stash, I drooled over all of the colors but was particularly drawn to Riptide. Thankfully I was able to snag a skein before they all sold out! There are plenty of other gorgeous colors, too, but for some reason Riptide called to quite a few knitters!

How about one more hat before I go? This one went to one of my cousins….I had a really hard time deciding what to knit for her. She lives in NYC and has a great sense of style…I wanted to make sure I made something she would wear and that would fit her stylish lifestyle 😉

Pattern: Rosebud by Jared Flood (Yes, I do love his patterns…)

Yarn: The Plucky Knitter Primo (Merino/Cashmere/Nylon) in Garnet Martini

Mods: None! I followed the instructions for the shorter/less slouchy version of the hat. I have to admit, this was a tough hat to part with! Thankfully I have plenty more of the yarn in the same exact color and I’ll definitely be making myself one in the very near future.

How gorgeous is that humongous cable?! And I love the detail of the two smaller cables on either side of the larger one. And in Plucky Primo? A match made in heaven, I tell you.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! I know we sure did. Unfortunately, something happened to the memory card in my camera and I lost all the pictures I took yesterday of our Kenyan/Polish/Swedish Christmas dinner that we shared with some good friends of ours! I’ll be back in a few days with some more Christmas gift knitting!

Camilla Pullover

I know I say this about all the sweaters I knit, but WOW…I love this. The yarn is glorious, the fit is perfect, and I love the style of the sweater. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Pattern: Camilla Pullover by Carrie Bostick Hoge

Yarn: Quince & Co. Osprey in Storm, purchased at the lovely Purl Diva while I was back east for Rhinebeck

Modifications: For the body and sleeves I followed the pattern exactly as written. But then came the raglan decreases, and all sorts of problems arose. Not with the pattern, with my super-shortness. When I knit top-down raglans, I usually have to omit a few rows in the top so that my resulting sweater doesn’t have saggy armpits. The Camilla sweater is knit bottom-up, so it’s harder to gauge how many rows to omit and it’s certainly harder to try it on as you go. I started by doing the initial decrease rounds every third row TWICE (instead of 3 times) and then I decreased every-other-round until row 12 of the pattern repeat. According to the pattern’s directions I was supposed to have another entire fan repeat before binding off. There was just no way that was going to work for me. So after row 12, I decreased EVERY round until the end of the pattern repeat as well as during 3 rows of garter stitch. I’m happy to report that the neckline is perfect and my sweater isn’t saggy under the arms!

The Camilla pattern was really well written and very easy to follow. The sweater doesn’t have any shaping at all, so once you get the fan pattern down, it’s a pretty mindless knit (which is a good thing!). If I were to knit it again, I would potentially consider some shaping in the sleeves. Maybe cast-on less stitches and do a couple of increase rows. Or even maybe make the sleeves long instead of 3/4 length. And there is definitely a possibility that I’d knit another one in a different color. It knit up SUPER quick…2 weeks from start to finish and there were a few nights of no knitting or knitting on something else during that time.

And the yarn…oh! the yarn. I knew I loved Osprey already, since I made my Solstice Cardigan out of it, so this just confirmed my love for knitting with Osprey. First of all, it knits up sooo quick! It’s soft enough to wear next to your skin (or at least I think it is!), the colors are gorgeous, and it’s affordable. In fact, I love it so much I’ve already ordered another sweater quantity of it in Gingerbread for either the Trail Jacket or the Scouting Jacket. I probably won’t knit with it immediately, but it’ll be nice to have it here when I get the urge for an instant gratification sweater!

Like I’ve already said several times….I’m really, really pleased with the way this came out!

I’ve been doing some other knitting, of the secret kind:

What?! You can’t tell what that is? Good. 🙂 Alls I’ll say is that I’ve been thrumming.

And then there’s the knitting of the not-so-secret kind:

Please excuse the slightly horrible picture, but it’s going to be an Featherweight Cardigan in Sweet Georgia SeaSilk Lace. It will be calling Stash it’s home once it’s done!

There’s also been some holiday decor crafting around these parts.

I’m actually thinking this might end up as an inside decoration. The whiteness of the wreath is making the door look super dingy and dirty (not that it isn’t dingy and dirty, but I’d like to not make it that obvious!).