Recently in Knitting Category

I finally was able to get Lantzilla his toque. He posted this photo this morning.

I'm glad that he likes it. And it looks like it fits great. Yay!

I landed back in San Francisco late last night. Man, I don't know what time it is or what day or anything. I've slowly been going through my bags, putting stuff away. I managed to pick up some crafty things on my travels, and thought I would share them with you all.

In Amsterdam, I went to this neat quilt shop called Den Haan & Wagenmakers. If you are ever in Amsterdam, I highly recommend you go! They are not far from Dam Square. The shop is chock full of their lovely fabrics, with lots of kits and examples of how you might put them together. There is also a cute little quilt shop right next door, which was more of traditional quilt shop, more like what you'd find in the states.

I picked up a kit, which included the fabric above. It makes a small wall hanging quilt of different squares. Should be quite nice when finished.

I also picked up this tile fabric and a set of fat quarters. They showed an example of the tiles cut with the fat quarters fabric as a border. I originally got this as a gift for my mother, by I love the fabric so much I may have to keep it for myself.

We past a cute little crafty shop while in Skagen, and I was sure to go back before we left in the morning. The shop was a strange mixture of yarns, fabric, cross-stitch kits and clothing. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for how things were organized in the shop.

I did find this Christmas tablecloth kit though, and decided that it was worth it. It seems to be a more traditional design. The woman at the shop commented that it was "a big project" but we both agreed that it will be lovely when complete. I may or may not stitch the words in Danish... might change it to English. We'll see.

In Copenhagen, I went to a number of knitting stores. One of the stores, Sommerfuglen, had yarn, cross-stitch and embroidery, as well as fabric for quilting. I almost got a pattern for a lovely cardigan, but I was afraid that the directions would be too hard given that they were only in Danish. They also had some lovely cross-stitched maps of Denmark that I was really tempted by as well.

In the end, I decided to get this book of cross-stitch wreaths and flowers. It's easy to follow the patterns, since it doesn't matter that they are in Danish.

I also picked up some yarn while I was at Uldstedet. This was a cute little shop with a fairly good selection, though not as large as Sommerfuglen. I went back and forth and back and forth over which yarn to get. They had a wide range of colors and it was so hard to decide.

In the end I settled on this denim blue fingerling-weight yarn. It's Alpaca, so it's very soft. I don't have a pattern to use it in yet. I'm sure three skeins will be either way too much or not enough.

In the Knitting Daily newsletter I received yesterday, there was a lovely picture of this:

It's the Dragon-Skin Wrap by Angela Hahn (shown here in bamboo-merino). I eagerly clicked through the link, ignoring the fact that the whole newsletter is devoted to what to make for baby. But sadly the pattern only appears to be in baby/child sizes.

I wonder how hard it would be to covert it to grown-up size? Probably not too difficult, but not something I should undertake with all the other projects that are in the queue.

But it's so pretty!

I often find that if I'm going to knit while there is something social going on, I tend to do better when it's an ultra-simple pattern (read, just knit stitch). But most of my projects are more complex these days. I've been doing a lot more knitting with cables and lace, and I'm getting better at paying attention to what I'm doing. At Craft Night this month I decided that I would work on Erik's Celtic Cable Scarf. I went in confident that I could talk and pay attention to what I was knitting.

When you look at the photos of the scarf at first they seem fine. But on closer inspection you will see that I have indeed messed up the pattern. The pattern basically goes 4 twists, 2 twists, long straight bit with 1 twist, 4 twists, 2 twists, 3 twists, 2 twists then back to the 4 and repeat. If you look at the bit near the needles, you'll see that I have missed the long part with the single twist.

Gah.

I pointed this out to the ladies at Craft Night and they all thought that I could make it work. "Just do that again and make it part of the pattern!" they said. But that assumes that I can deconstruct and figure out what I did where. Okay, I could certainly DO that, but it would take some time.

Alas I think I'm just going to rip it out. It really isn't that much. And I would prefer to have it right. I guess I should stick with my plain knit stitch sweater the next time the group is over.

Celtic Cable Scarf
Started: March 30, 2008
Completed:

I leave for a trip to Europe in a couple of weeks. I have my super-fuzzy hat, but I thought it might be a good idea for me to have a second hat, seeing how I often get cold. I LOVED the look of the Gretel Hat that I made as part of the hat series. The way the cables wound together was just lovely. So I decided that I'd make one of those for myself. I picked up a skein of Malabrigo Yarn Merino Worsted on one of my many trips to ImagiKnits. It was rather difficult to pick which color... there are so many lovely shades of pink and red. I ended up choosing a lovely hot pink with just enough red to go with my new red jacket.

This pattern isn't particularly difficult. It does have a unique cast-on and uses some more advanced stitches (like the purl in the front and back). But I made this once before, and I didn't have the problems then that I'm having now. Maybe I was just more careful the first time?

The cast on method involves using some waste yarn. So what do I do? Stitch 4 rows in the waste yarn when I was only suppose to use it for casting on. Frogging #1. I announce this and E looks at me with a quizzical look on his face. "Frogging?" I smile and say "Yup... rip-it, rip-it, rip-it." He laughs.

I complete the 2x2 ribbing and get to the point where you start adding stitches. The pattern just says M1. But how should I make one? I can't remember how I did it the last time, so I decide that I'm going to make one purlwise. I even look up online to see how to do so. I go all the way around, making one purlwise the whole time. On the next row, I have to M1 again. But this time it says K2, M1, K1, P1. Huh. I have 2 knits now 3 purls on my needles. Guess I wasn't suppose to make one purlwise after all. So, I frog the whole row out. Frogging #2.

I decided that I will just use the reverse of my handy-dandy making one purlwise stitch to make one knitwise. Why not? I go most of the way around the row and realize that oops! This method, while invisible purlwise, it leaves a nice hole knitwise. So, I frog the row again. Frogging #3.

I reknit the row, using my standard method of knitting into the front and back to add the stitches I need over the next two rows. It looks lovely. Must remember to make a note on the pattern so I don't have to go through this again.

I continue stitching, including getting through the first cable with out a single croak. I'm suppose to knit a basic row around (one of the "setting rows" as I like to think of them), but move the start of the row forward 3 stitches before starting the row of twists. Of course, we are knee deep in the episode of BSG that we are watching when I get to this row. I knit the whole thing and then move right into the twists. Without moving the start of the row. Get within 6 stitches of the end of the row, go to move the start and realize that I'm a row off. I have twisted right on top of the cables, rather than having them offset by 3 so the twists appear between the cables. *sigh* I call it a night.

The next morning I wake up and frog the whole twisted row. This wasn't as hard as I was afraid it would be. And luckily there are only 144 or so stitches at this point. But it's still rather tedious and time consuming. I back up enough to move over the row start and then twist the next row. Looks much better. Frogging #4 complete.

The purl into front and back (pfd) comes back to me much faster than I thought it would. I didn't even have to look it up again. This yarn doesn't do the "pop" that the silk blend did, but it's still kind of fun. So far I've managed to stick to the pattern and not have to frog anything else.

It's slow going though... all those cables. I looked up the trick on how to knit cables without using a cable needle. Basically you just move them to the other needle and then move them back. I'm a bit afraid that I'll drop the live stitches as I'm moving them. But it's suppose to be faster, so maybe I'll try it. I have a little less than 2 weeks to finish this after all.

Gretel Hat:
Started: September 13, 2008
Finished:

My friend Lantzilla commissioned me to make him a hat, like the lead character in The Professional wears. I did some web searches, and I found a pattern that both he and I liked.

I used Brenda Zuk's pattern for the Roll Brim Hat. It was easy to follow and very quick to do. I would have finished it sooner but I forgot to bring double pointed needles with me to Carmel.

I ended up using slightly larger needles than the pattern calls for, since the Merino wool was slightly finer. But the finished result is very nice. It's cosy and soft. I hope he likes it.

Lantzilla's Toque
Started: August 30, 2008
Finished: September 7, 2008

I received my first commission for something knitted this week. Yay! My friend Lantzilla ask me if I could make him something like this:

I think I can totally arrange that. It also makes me smile that the whole transaction was done over Twitter and with PayPal.

So, this weekend I'm off to pick up some yarn (he asked for Merino - good choice!) and I'll work it up this weekend. Yippee!

At some point last year, I picked up some Trendsetter Yarns Blossom yarn at Noe Knits. They had this lovely deep pinky-red color that I fell in love with, but they only had one skein of it. The yarn has flecks of other colors in it though, so I picked up two skeins of the white, since it has the same pinky-red in it. I figured I could make an extra-wide scarf out of it. I'd do a skein of white, then the pinky-red and then the white. It would be long enough so when I wrapped it around my head a bazillion times, it would look neat with the white-pinky-red-white.

However, as you can see from the image below, I did not end up with the lovely, cozy thick snuggle scarf that I had pictured. Sure, it felt nice. But it looked, well, horrible. And it was so thick that I ended up folding it in half first, which made it too thick when it was wrapped around.

A few weeks ago I started the laborious process of ripping out the original scarf so I could make into something that wasn't horrible. Maybe it's because I've been knitting so much in the round lately, but it seems that it's a heck of a lot easier to rip things out when I don't want to actually do it, than when I do actually want to. At a couple of points I was reduced to *gasp* cutting *double gasp* the yarn because I just couldn't get it untangled. Finally I had three balls of this fuzzy stuff.

The pinky-red I decided to turn into a hat. Sadly, this hat does not photograph well. But it sure is soft and cozy. I followed Dawn Adcock's pattern for a Chinchilla Chemo Hat, mostly because I didn't want to have to think about what gauge this stuff was or the best way to decrease the crown.

I did modify the pattern a bit. I have a big head, so I cast on 66 stitches instead of 60 (which added an extra 2 inches). I also started in the round with the first row. I just knit a row then purled for the first 6 rows. Seemed like extra work to knit it flat and then have to sew the edge at the end. I actually like the way this worked up in stockinette better than how it looks in knit. And it was super, super fast to do. The only reason it took me two days is because I started it at about 10 PM and just got too tired to finish it in one sitting.

Then I started on the scarf. The original monstrosity was about 30 stitches wide. This time I cast on 15 and worked it in knit stitch the whole way. At some point I must have done a yarnover and I was working 16 stitches, but eh. Whatever. It looks much better at this width and is a whopping 78 inches long.

This yarn is very soft, but it's not my favorite to work with. It sometimes feels matted instead of fluffy. And it's rather hard to read the stitches through all the fuzz. It goes nicely with my new winter coat through, and I think I will get much more use out of it now, in its new reincarnated state.

Chinchilla Chemo Hat:
Started: August 16, 2008
Finished: August 17, 2008

Knitted White Scarf:
Started: August 13, 2008
Finished: August 26, 2008

Dishcloth. Dishrag. Washcloth. Mapeen.

It doesn't matter what you call them. I seem to be obsessed with them lately. I finished another dishcloth last night. This is the same cotton yarn that I used for the Cap Karma Cap of The Hat Series, the Malabrigo Yarn 100% organic cotton. I'm almost done with the first skein, and I have another whole hank in the stash. I'm thinking there will be a number of dishcloths in my future.

This one was a bit slower to make, since there are two rows of knit 1, purl 1. It also didn't help that I had this habit of switching rows in the middle of a row. So I'd be working on a knit to the end row and half-way through I'd switch and start purling. *shakes head* I guess that's what happens when I try to knit in the car and aren't paying attention.

This one came out nice and nubby. The cotton yarn is so soft and spongy. It seems like it will be quite good at scrubbing. The pattern is fun to look at and feel.

Nubby Dishcloth:
Started: August 16, 2008
Finished: August 26, 2008

This weekend was the baby shower where I was finally able to deliver this sweater and hat to the parents-to-be. I finished this project a month or so ago and it's be driving me crazy that I haven't been able to post about it. But I didn't want to spoil the surprise.

The sweater is Baby Kimono from the book Start to Knit: From Casting On to Binding Off by Gina Macris. It's actually a very easy pattern, as it is knitted in one piece. Here it is being blocked.

The edging is made by slipping the first stitch in the garter stitch edging. It took me awhile to figure out the point of this, but the effect is quite nice. Here it is blocking, as well as afterward with the ties sewed on. The ties are actually knitted... one row that you then bind off.

I made a matching hat to go with the sweater.

The hat is the Gooseberry Hat, a pattern I found on Ravelry. This was the first hat that I ever made. I was a little unsure when it came off the double pointed needles, but it came out just lovely. Especially after some massaging while blocking.

Baby Kimono:
Started April 6, 2008
Finished July 17, 2008

Gooseberry Hat:
Started July 17, 2008
Finished July 26, 2008