Look, Ma, No Pattern!

I can't remember where I learned this stitch pattern - it's:
[k2tog, k3, yo, k1, yo, k3, ssk] with a selvedge stitch on each end, so you cast on any multiple of 11 plus 2. But I like it, and the yarn wanted to be in it, so I used the Phildar yarn I bought in France to make a cute little lace sweater... we're going to a 7-year-old's birthday party next week, so Emily is just a temporary model (albeit a cute one!).

I'm pretty proud of the outcome... I enjoy patterns, but successful winging it is just so satisfying!





Details:
Phildar Auteuil yarn, Iris colorway - 3 balls
10mm (US size 15) needles for cast on
3.75mm (US size 5) needles for remainder of project
~16 yards narrow polyester ribbon for edging
3.75mm (US F/5) crochet hook for edging

A Project-to-be

I feel like I've been rather sadly neglecting this blog of late. It's not for lack of knitting, though it is for lack of knitting show-off-able projects, and for lack of finishing much.

For instance, in Paris, I finished a pair of simple stockinette socks for my sister Mary, but they were on Lion Brand Microspun (which I have decided I hate), intended as a way to start an in-the-round project with my other, knitting sister, Sarah. They took about two days, and that's with ripping out several times to accommodate feet which apparently grew over the course of each day. I have a photo of a sock-in-progress, but I never did take a picture of the finished product... I'll try to remember next time I see her, but that could be months.


I did finish one yellow sock for myself, and it's neat. I haven't cast on for the second yet. But I carry it in my purse, just waiting for the proper enforced down-time at work or wherever. Emily does have a softball game tonight...

I've started a sweater for a friend's child, out of Phildar yarn (a result of our French yarn shopping), and her birthday is in a week, so with luck I'll have a finished project to show soon.


I went to the WEBS tent sale last weekend, and picked up a handful of single balls to experiment with, including a Noro Transitions and Noro Silver Thaw on good discounts, some funky hand-dyed ribbon yarn, and a bag of Rowan All Seasons Cotton in the grape colorway. It's just exciting to have, even if I don't actually have plans for it yet... I'll have to take a picture soon.

But the big thing on my mind is a project for which I have ideas, photos and a bag of yarn, but not yet a pattern. I'd decided, before we ever left, that my souvenir of France would be the purchase of yarn that I couldn't get (easily) outside of France, to make a sweater to commemorate the trip - a way of combining a shopping trip with a longer-term hobby, you know? And our first day there, we went to the Opera, and I was inspired by the complex mosaic patterns on the floor. So I want to take these:






...and some of this yarn (the off-white is part-cashmere, yum!):



...to make myself a sweater, in the spirit of a Norwegian skiing sweater, with patterning along the waistline and neckline/shoulders and possibly also the cuffs of the sleeves, and a fairly wide off-white stockinette band in the middle. I haven't had the time and focus yet to sit down and map it out, and I want to finish off a few pending projects so I have more mental space for this one. But soon. Soon.

Continued Cuteness

Honest and truly, I am still working on adult, non-cute things... but they take so much longer. I still have Willem's neverending fisherman's sweater on the needles, and I've recently cast on these socks in a bright yellow Regia Silk 6-ply for myself (Monday night), and this sweater in Angora Soft, also for me (yesterday). I normally try to limit the active projects, or at least I don't cast on two new projects on consecutive nights, but I needed a break from the Aran sweater and wanted to start a small, non-threatening project to do on the plane to Paris next week (!!), and wanted another one, heavy on plain stockinette stitch, to work on in the car this weekend when we go to New York.

What? Me, addicted? You think picking out my knitting projects long before I start packing my clothes is a sign of addiction?

Yeah, me too.

So, that's what's happening. In the meantime, I have finished off a few things, with a week's hiatus to be deathly ill - strep throat and a GI virus at the same time, how lucky am I? I was literally too sick to knit. But I've recovered, and there was much rejoicing.

Let's see... I finished a walrus for Miss Emma...


Then a moose for my sister Mary, who, if she reads this blog, will see her birthday present a day before she gets it. I can cope with that.



And then my first-ever foray into both making something up and writing down the pattern... a little tube dress with i-cord straps, for Lexi, who spends Monday evenings with us and is as cute as a button but much rounder. I did endless searching for "free knitting pattern toddler sundress" and couldn't find quite what I wanted, but Kerrie's Exotic Tank pattern gave me the basic proportions and then I just converted it to circular needles and changed the edges a bit. Only took about 6 hours, start to finish... not too shabby!

Lexi's Sundress (size 2T):

Materials:
2 skeins Caron Simply Soft, MC=heather, CC=lavender
4.5mm / US 7 circular needle, 24”
Darning needle
Size E/4 crochet hook

Gauge:
5 sts x 4 rows = 1 square inch

Body:
MC co 213, pm and join
k 2 rnds
k2tog, k1 1 rnd ----- 142 sts
CC k 3 rnds
MC k2 tog 1 rnd
MC k 5 rnds
CC k 3 rnds
[MC k 6 rnds; CC k 3 rnds] – repeat until piece measures 17” from first CC rnd

Neck shaping:
Staying in stripe pattern:
Next rnd k 51 sts, BO 20
Next “rnd”: BO 20 – now with 31 sts remaining, working back and forth for remainder of project.
All purl rows, p across.
Next k row: k1, k2tog, k25, ssk, k1
Next k row: k1, k2 tog, k23, ssk, k1
Next k row: k1, k2tog, k7, ssk, k1, BO 1, k1, k2tog, k7, ssk, k1 (22 sts remain, 2 straps of 11 sts each)

Left strap shaping:
[p across
k1, k2tog, k to end.]
Repeat until 4 sts remain in this strap.
Switch to i-cord, CC for length of cord – make strap 12” long, thread darning needle and pull end of yarn through live sts, pull tight and weave in end.

Right strap shaping:
[p across
k to 3 sts from end, ssk, k1]
Repeat until 4 sts remain, then complete as right strap.

Using CC and crochet hook, single-crochet edging along neckline. Weave in ends, and apply to nearest size-2T child.

A Touch of Cute

Lisa had asked, a while ago, for a hat in a certain pattern... and a few weeks ago, I found myself itching for a quick project. Well, to be honest, what I wanted was to finish something - I was hip-deep in the Clapotis and Willem's sweater but I really, really like having completed objects. So, an hour or so later (and a quick, innocent little trip to the local yarn store) and, viola! A hat!

Details:
Pixie Hat pattern, Artful Yarns Serenade in "Chance Are" colorway (about 1/2 skein), #5 needles.

The Birthday Lion

My Emily turns 7 on Tuesday. Seven. That's, like, a real person - no way I can get away with calling her a toddler, or even a truly little girl. Sigh.


She requested a stuffed, knitted lion. She helped pick out the colors, but then as far as she knows, I haven't had any more time to work on it...


I hope she likes it!


Details:
Pattern from Kath Dalmeny's World of Knitted Toys. Used Peaches 'n' Creme dishcloth cotton for the body (about one ball of yellow and 1/2 ball of off-white), and about 3/4 a hank of Araucania Pehuen in the Peach/Apricot/Strawberry colorway for the mane. Random scraps for the face and toes, and black glittery fabric paint on the paws.

Finis!

I finished my Clapotis late last night, and of course had to stay up later to block it. I've read of many others not blocking theirs, but the drop-stitch ladders seemed uneven and wonky to me, and blocking relaxed and evened them up quite a bit.

And, yippee, oh am I just the happiest ever, we got more snow today. Normally this would be more than enough of an excuse for me to get all cranky, but it actually wasn't a terrible thing... it gave me a good reason to wear my new creation to work!

Without further ado...
Clapotis in Rowan Tapestry, potpourri colorway on size-7 KnitPicks Options.


Photo courtesy of Emily, age almost-7, my Wednesday-night in-house photographer.

Over the weekend, I needed faster gratification than I was getting from the Clapotis or from Willem's sweater, so I threw together a pair of socks for Jacob's 2-year-old toes. He wore just one sock to bed the first night, so I had to stay up late and finish the second one lest the other foot feel neglected. Somehow I don't have pictures of the socks actually on the little toes... ah, well.

Fraternal Twins, Nate pattern on size-3 bamboo double-pointed needles, with Marks & Katten Clown yarn.

And oh by the way, I did finish the entrelac bag I started the other weekend... it just went into immediate use, so I forgot to take a picture before now. Entrelac front, slip-stitched back and strap, in Southwest Trading Company's Karaoke yarn (LOVE this stuff!) on size-8 straight needles.


Whew. Much finishing, it's a good feeling. Now I really, really need to buckle down and finish Willem's sweater, because I just got a big box of yarn from Webs and I promised Willem I would finish his sweater before I start one for myself. This is a serious sacrifice, and being a non-knitter he totally lacks the proper appreciation.

Aspirations

Someday, I will make myself a Mr. Rogers sweater. I have photos of it (taken in-person, sort of), and when I get motivated enough, I'll find more.



But I'm not quite ready to design a sweater on my own just yet. I also have ideas for a breastfeeding sweater and kids' pajamas... so much crowded into my little head, I tell you.

Instead, I've been working on Clapotis, a scarf/wrap from knitty.com, in Rowan Tapestry, and so far am liking it (even though my knitting-uneducated husband pronounced the drop-stitch sections to "not look right")...



And I also spent the weekend learning how to knit in the entrelac style... sounds all fancy and requires a fair amount of attention but wasn't too hard. I'm making a little pouch/purse sort of thing, just big enough to carry my wallet, cell phone and keys. I know, I already made one - does anyone really want to question a woman's need for more than one bag?

Purl THIS!

In other exciting news, aside from socks marking my first foray into the realm of double-pointed needles (DPNs, to the already-initiated), that project was also my first effort at using Continental-style knitting. As I posted in my other blog, I knit weird. Here, I'll copy it here, seems like it belongs here anyway:

January 4, 2007
I just had an epiphany.

I knit weird.

I was - yes, I understand, by admitting this I am baring a truly geeky and uncool side of my soul; I am at ease with this - watching a show that is so insanely faux-trendy and irritating that it's like having Grandma's gaudy ceramic turkey salt and pepper shakers on the table, where it's so bad that it's actually kind of sweet and comforting, called Knitty Gritty...

...I'll just pause while you fight off the nausea that the cutesiness of the name inevitably incites...

...and I happened to notice, "Hmm. That man is knitting differently than I do." It's subtle, and I had already known that my way - which I believed was the Continental method - looked different than how my sister and a few of my friends knit. They knit in the American method (I know it's the same page as the last one, scroll a little!). I'm a mere beginner - I learned the basics about 3 years ago, and have only really been into it for the past few months, with my first project, a really loud blanket, finished in April 2006 - but I can knit pretty quickly, and without looking at the needles. The purls and the knits just feel different. Shut up, it matters to me.

Anyway, it was interesting to me that I had learned the Continental method, which isn't rare but it's less common than the American method, at least in America (I tend to think there's something about the naming convention that would suggest this to me, but I can't think what). Interesting because I learned from my great-grandmother, whom everyone called Grandma O. You'd have called her Grandma O, too, if you knew her. This is not cute blog-shortening to protect her identity, that's actually what we called her. We're Irish, she had an O' last name... you get the idea.

I miss her so much, and somehow more this year than last, likely because I was in such a deep dark depression this time last year that no one thing stood out as a stronger sadness than the others. (I must have been SUCH fun.) Growing up, I spent two or three weeks every summer with her in the Adirondacks, in this kitschy summer-only trailer neighborhood thing that we all referred to as "Camp." She was 70 years older than me, almost, and being the much-oldest grandchild, I was mostly there with her alone. So we talked some, more her than me, and we just sat together. She gave me a lot of freedom and trust, and taught me how to crochet, and cook without using recipes, and build a decent fire.

I can't put it into words well, other than that I am so unspeakably grateful to have had her in my life, and I ache for my children that they won't know her. How many other 80-year-old women do you know who got kicked out of an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day, for lecturing the cook on how to properly make Irish stew while her traveling companion - my other great-grandmother, Grandma B - was demonstrating an Irish jig, on the bar? How many other people consider Parcheesi to be a full contact sport? She died in June 2005, just days after our last visit.

But, like I described here, I did not learn how to knit at Camp. Dunno why, just never did. So the fact that I found the time and motivation to learn from her later, in a nursing home, while she was still coherent and herself, is a point of pride for me. And now my only regret is how clueless I was; I didn't even realize there was more than one way to knit, much less that there was anything unusual about the way I was learning. I didn't know I should ask her how she learned that way.

So, back to the present. I was watching my dorky show, and realized that the guest knitter (ah, yes, a new life goal) was doing it differently, and since my laptop was right here all wifi'ed up and ready to go, I went to my favorite knitting website (shut up, it's got videos) to investigate. And it turns out that I don't knit American - I knew this - nor do I knit Continental. Instead I use a rather obscure and unusual method called Combination knitting.

I had no idea that such a thing even existed, much less that I was doing it. HOW did Grandma O learn this way? Who taught her? Why can't I be twelve again, sitting on the porch at Camp, listening to the rain and one of three channels on the TV ("just on for company") and another Grandma O Story?

And, to step out of the maudlin for a moment, how weird is it to learn something like that about yourself? This may not seem like a big deal to those of you who don't knit, but it's a bit like suddenly learning that everyone else holds a pen between different fingers, or ties their shoes up-side-down, or something. I barely even recognized myself in the mirror.

The end result is the same, as far as I can tell, but the process is different. How's that for armchair couch philosophy?

Anyway, so, yeah. Apparently it is possible to knit Combination on circular/DPNs, but I wasn't having much luck with it, and thought I might as well learn a new method anyway. Turns out, it's not appreciably harder OR slower than Combination, when knitting. The purling, that was another matter. I was just clumsy and ineffective with it for the longest time (read: 45 minutes or so, until I got tired of it and went online for help). I returned once again to knittinghelp.com for purling wisdom, and scrolled yet farther down to the Norwegian purl. And after watching her little video about 400 times, I finally got the hang of it, and can purl *almost* at a reasonable speed. I can do it almost as fast as I knit if I don't let myself think about it too much, but as soon as I stop and pay attention to what I'm doing I get all tangled up and confused again.

But the moral of the story is, I can now, officially, say that I can knit Combination or Continental with comparable effectiveness. Go, me.

Bags 'n' Socks

...and a scarf, a completed and - if I do say so myself - very nice scarf, too. Here are a few views, including actual modeling by Nisa, herself. It's Firebrunette's Candleflame scarf but in Reynold's Whiskey yarn on size-4 needles.





Mary's bag is done! Hooray! It's not quite what I initially envisioned, but what patternless project ever is? I like the colors and the shape and the plastic-canvas lining gives it some rigidity without being bulky or high-maintenance. I really hope it fits her and her wheelchair as needed... there are plenty of buttons for adjustableness.
Please note the evenness of the top flap - initially, after felting, the edges shrank inwards quite a bit, but Sara the Felting Goddess saved me from inwardly-shrunken edges. A close call, that one.



I also sent a bag for Sarah, one of my adventures in felting that came out a bit smaller than I needed for myself... but it just exactly holds a bag's worth of Hershey Kisses.



...and then I succeeded in making the right sized bag for myself, just something for wallet and keys and cell phone.


And, last but not least, on Friday night, after finally finishing Nisa's scarf and wanting to start something new but not feeling mentally competent for too much of a challenge, I decided to break out the sock yarn and double-pointed needles, and after about 6 hours of knitting (not all at once, but only because I didn't start until 11:30 Friday night and fell asleep while knitting), viola! Socks! And let me just say, these are truly magical, miraculous socks. The pattern I used, here (but without the knit/purl pattern at the top, because I'd never used DPNs before and wanted to keep it simple), had nothing to do with the yarn (Marks & Katten's Clown), plus I altered the pattern to accommodate Emily's almost-7-year-old feet, and the yarn colors have a fairly long pattern - totally by coincidence, it turns out that one Emily-sock is precisely one repeat of the color pattern, and the two socks match *precisely*. This is astounding to me every time I think about it, and my only hope is that there is someone out there who can properly appreciate this miracle, because the ones I live with just don't.

Anyway - look, I can make socks!

Renegade Yarn Crisis Averted

A few weeks ago, I got a hank (skein? wound-around pile?) of hand-dyed yarn from a friend, and thought, "Oh, since it's just wrapped in a nice circle here, I'll just lay it gently on the floor, clip those little ties off it, and wind it into a ball!"

SIX HOURS LATER I was done untangling the horrible nasty knotty mess, and swore I would never do that to myself again.

So, last week, I picked up more of those loopy hanks of yarn at a close-out sale, and today I decided it was time to get brave and attempt to tame them into balls. And this time I laid the circle-loop-things around the back of an office chair, and viola! No tangles! No mess! A lovely little pile of center-pull balls! Halleluia!

Four down, four more to wind... someday, I may be grown-up enough for these mysterious swifts and winders that I hear about, but for the moment, this works just fine.

What? How does one make center-pull balls? Well, what do you know, I know the answer to that! It's much easier than it looks in writing...

• First, drape the hank of yarn around the back of a chair or something comparatively sturdy and stable to prevent it from declaring civil war and attacking itself.


• Then, clip off the little ties, and find the ends. It doesn't seem to matter which end you use.


• Open one hand - I use my left, because I'm right-handed, but it would really matter - and place about 6" of one end between two fingers. I put it between my ring and pinky fingers.


• Hold your thumb and index finger vertical, and start to wind the rest of the yarn around them in a figure-8 pattern, clockwise around one and then counterclockwise around the other. Pull the yarn over the top of the chair/yarn-holding-device as needed. Keep doing this until you're up to about the top of your thumb - whenever it feels like you've got a bunch of yarn and your hand is starting to feel weird.


• Carefull slip the yarn off your thumb/index finger and hold it around that center part where the yarn crossed for each figure-8, making sure that the 6" end stays on the side it started and doesn't get caught up with the rest of the yarn as you continue to wrap (one of these times, I left too long of a tail at the beginning-end, and wrapped it around my wrist to keep it from getting wound in)..


• Start wrapping the rest of the yarn perpendicularly around that which is already wrapped, as close as you're comfortable getting to the loops that were around the thumb and pinky, trying to distribute the yarn somewhat evenly. It'll start as a flat/cylindrical shape. Enough wrapping and it'll form a sphere.


• When you get to the other end, the end-end, you can tuck it into the already-wrapped yarn to secure it. I prefer to tie a simple slipknot, through which I tie the yarn's label for future reference..


• Resist the urge to grab that beguilingly loose end and puuuuullllllll - trust yourself that you make a nice center-pull ball and if you unravel it you'll just have to ravel it all back up again..

There are good tutorials of different techniques in various places online, I just don't have my camera here to shoot this one.

Sara, Goddess of Felting...

...totally deserves a shout-out and I totally forgot to do so until now. She suggested, in a comment, that a felted object can be loosened if soaked in white vinegar and then washed out and reblocked. I'm not totally 100% convinced it was the vinegar that did it, only because I haven't tried any other methods yet (like just plain water), but she gets credit for raising the idea that a felted object CAN be loosened in some way... thereby doing very nice things for the final, finished product which is my sister's bag.

Which I don't have pictures of yet, in its fully-finished form. Must remember to take some before I mail it off...

Evidence of Addiction

On Thursday night, I wanted to knit, but by the time I could start something I was so exhausted from the previous few days (work, child with projective vomit, you know... the usual) that I didn't dare work on Willem's sweater or Nisa's scarf, both of which require some minimal level of attention and focus. So instead I decided to throw together a quick hat for Willem, with a matching scarf... and what with him being a math geek and all, it seemed that the only appropriate scarf pattern, when keeping in mind the constraints of "simple" and "quick," would involve the Fibonacci sequence of rows to create the stripe pattern. The hat is a simple pattern off the back of a yarn wrapper, knitted on flat needles in a 2x2 rib and then stitched together. Three days later, viola! Math chic!




It wouldn't have taken three days to knit, but on Friday night we suddenly remembered that Jacob had a birthday party to attend on Saturday, and the weather was crappy so we didn't feel like going out then. So instead I adapted the same hat pattern and a simple flat-knit mitten pattern to make a toddler-sized set. And, of course, I had to use my in-house toddler-sized model to size them, but we don't let him stay up till midnight... so I had to take advantage of his ability to sleep like a rock, and I snuck in his room, accosted him with knitwear, and then took pictures. Just because I could.



I also took awake-pictures the next day, just because I could.

On the Needles

In an effort to bolster my own confidence, because I'd really like me to just work away on these things instead of finding new projects to start, here's all I have on the needles at the moment:

• Willem's fisherman's sweater.
  Someday, I want to make one with much more intricate, braided cables, but I thought that for a first effort I should keep the pattern a bit more manageable on the theory that this way I might actually finish it. I can't remember when I casted on; around the end of January, call it the 30th. So, if it took a month for the front, then I should finish the whole thing by.... May? I hope.
  
  


• Nisa's scarf. Started last Sunday, 2/18. I'd guess I'm about 1/6 of the way done, give or take a bit. I plan on just knitting to the end of the yarn, unless that creates a 10-foot-long scarf. I'm following this pattern, but with much finer yarn, so it's on small needles and coming out narrower. Very soft and snuggly... I will give it to her, honest and truly, I will...
  
  The front:
  
  The back:
  
  
  
• And another version of the same scarf, which has sort of stalled, largely because I don't know who I'll give it to and the coloring isn't good for me (I can't get away with olive green, unless the motif I'm going for is Early Jaundice). Maybe if I had a target in mind, I'd get fired up about it.
  
  I love that this pattern has such different appearances on the front and back: