Entirely too cute.

Any day now our newest nephew will be born, and in expectation of his arrival, I've been working on a little blanket for him. When we found out my sister- and brother-in-law were expecting, right away I knew that whatever I made would be gender-neutral, not only because it was too early to know the baby's sex, but because I thought the parents would prefer it.

You can almost tell what they're supposed to be.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to make - I've made plenty of hats and stuffed toys for my legion of nieces and nephews, but I was in the mood for something different, so I thought a blanket might be the way to go. And after a good, long Ravelry search, I hit upon just the right one: Villi Pohjola by Terhi Viinikanoja. It was so cute! Knitted abstractions of arctic critters in easy-to-knit squares. The only trick was that the pattern was written in Finnish, so I had one window of my computer open to the pattern text and another window open to Google Translate.

I think this otter is my favorite.

The animals on pattern were a bunny, a reindeer, a brown bear, a badger, a lynx, and a fox. Since this new baby was going to grow up in North Carolina, I decided to modify the pattern to show critters found there. I changed the reindeer to a deer, the brown bear to a black one, the badger to a raccoon, and the lynx to a river otter. All it took was a few sketches on the handy graph the designer supplied and I was in business. The knitting went really quickly as it was stockinette stitch in worsted-weight yarn. Since this was a baby gift, I chose Cascade 220 Superwash for its ease in care. I don't think that new parents are going to want to deal with anything that isn't machine washable.

The fox is pretty cute too.

Once I got the knitting done, the seaming went pretty fast too. I used my favorite seaming tutorial from Twist Collective, and had the blanket put together in short order. Appliqueing the eyes was a different story. I had been putting it off for awhile, because the size of the blanket meant that I was going to have to clean all the mail off my dining room table if I wanted the eyes to look right. Thankfully, a gloomy, rainy day inspired an idea: I'd take the blanket to the coffee shop and work on it there! The tables would be clean, someone else would make hot drinks for me, and I wouldn't have to clean my dining room. Awesome!

And who wouldn't love this sweet bear?

Once all the critters had eyes, it was a lot easier to get going on the noses and mouths. The noses were all done in duplicate stitch (except for the racoon, who doesn't have a nose) and then I used a chain stitch to get nice curves for all the mouths. I improvised the deer's antlers - the pattern called for crocheting them, but my crochet skills are practically non-existent, so I knit them in garter stitch to keep them from curling up. I added some black trim to the fox's ears and called the blanket done. It turned out to be just the right size for a stroller, so I hope he'll get lots of use from it.

I'm not sure the deer is happy to be here.

Well, that's it for now, Friends. I have to get this package in the mail!

Adventures in Stash Knitting, or, Another Lesson in "You Should Know Better By Now"

So, the whole point of knitting from stash is, you know, using up stash yarn. I mean, I have yarn. Not as much as some folks, but enough that I'm not going to run out any time soon. And as I've got all this yarn, I want to knit it up. I haven't gone cold sheep (it's like going "cold turkey," but, well, knitters) or anything, but I am making a point of being mindful about what I'm buying.

Anyway, some time ago, a couple of my friends were doing a little destashing, and  I acquired a whole lot of Cascade Eco Wool. A few skeins in cream from my friend Holly, a few skeins in chocolate from my friend Tonya, and a couple random skeins of each from my friends Colleen and Jan added up to something like 6000 yards of bulky-weight yarn. That's more than 3 miles of yarn taking up a whole lot of space in my stash.

The first project I made from this stash was the Walnut Snood from the awesome Japanese knitting magazine Amirisu. I ended up using a little more than a skein for this cabled infinity scarf. Looking over my project notes, it looks like it took me less than a week to complete it, and I've worn the hell out of it since then. It's my go-to scarf, and I love its versatility: on the occasions when I've neglected to wear a hat, it's come in really handy as a sort of hood and even as a balaclava. I can't say enough good things about it.

The next project was Streymoy from the Winter 2013 Knitty. I think I documented the sweater pretty well here, so you know all the trouble I had with it. But, really, the whole reason I chose that pattern was because I thought I'd be able to use up all this yarn. It used up quite a bit, but sadly, not all of it. I had to think about what I was going to do next.

I didn't have anything specific in mind, just using up this yarn! I did a Ravelry search based on the gauge I was knitting, the yardage I had, and the necessity for colorwork since I had two colors of this yarn. After looking through what felt like a million patterns, I settled on the Northern Lights poncho from a Vogue Knitting book. It had been published 10 years ago, so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to find it, but it turned out that my local library had a copy. It was a quick, fun knit. That, again, didn't use up all the yarn.

Ugh! Seriously, I was getting pretty sick of knitting so many brown and white projects (including the projects I made with some really cool locally-grown Shetland wool), but I was determined to use up this yarn. Since I didn't want to make another poncho, I got going on another Ravelry search, this time deciding I had just the right amount of yarn to knit Boreal by Kate Davies, and knit it in time to wear it for Christmas. Yeah, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, either.

Based on the amount of yarn I had in each color, I really should have done the sweater with the light color on the bottom, but I decided that for my body type, it would look best with dark on the bottom half. So with a little trepidation, I cast on. The knitting went quickly since there was so much stockinette. Once I made my way through the bottom half, I started getting a little nervous that I was going to run out of dark yarn for the top half. I had a bad feeling about it that only got worse the further along I got. On December 18th I ran out of the chocolate yarn. A week before Christmas! What was I going to do? There are only a couple yarn shops in the area that carry Eco Wool, so I was really sweating it. It wasn't necessary to have a new sweater in time for the holiday, but I really wanted one.

So one night after work, I braved the crazy traffic by the malls to go to the shop that I thought was my best chance of finding the yarn. I had a 20 minute window to get off the bus, cross something like 10 lanes of traffic, walk to the shop way at the far side of the parking lot, find the yarn, pay for it, and catch the bus to get home. The shop had exactly one skein of the yarn I needed. It wasn't the same dye lot, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to matter with the color work, so I snatched it up and hurried to the checkout where there was a woman ahead of me who had a million little individually-priced stems of fake wreath-making stuff and nearly as many coupons. All I had was the one skein, but I was 30 seconds too late getting to the cashier. After roundly cursing her out (in my mind, though, not out loud), I took a breath and hoped I'd be able to make my bus. It was a Christmas miracle! I paid for my precious, ran for the bus stop, and thanks to the ridiculous traffic, I had time to spare before the bus arrived.

Once I got going again on the sweater, I was able to finish it in practically no time at all. From beginning to end, the whole thing took 10 days. And I had yarn left over, which kind of bothers me, but I just can't bear the thought of yet another Eco Wool sweater. I only ended up using about 100 yards out of the new skein of yarn, so I still have a healthy 400 yards left, in addition to nearly a full skein of the cream. I'd really like to use it up, but I think I'm going to give it a year or so. It'll keep.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight. Thanks for sticking with me over my long holiday break, Friends. Until next time.

Stranded!

I seem to be knitting a lot of stranded things lately. Mostly, I think it's because the yarn in my stash lends itself to the technique: I have a couple different yarns in more than one color, but not enough of each color to make a whole project.

Having finished my husband's sweater recently, I've been trying to find an appropriate project to use up all the yarn I have left, something like 3 skeins of the brown and 2 skeins of the cream, in addition to the 1 skein I have of another cream colorway. After searching Ravelry for bulky-yarn patterns, I eventually came upon the Northern Lights Icelandic Poncho by Vedis Jonsdottir, who is actually from Iceland. The pattern called for a lopi yarn, but since I'm trying to use up the rest of my Eco Wool, the yoke design is knitting up with more distinct stitch definition and less fuzziness than I would expect to get from lopi. The knitting has gone quickly, especially with size 10 needles! I only cast on Thursday night and I've gotten through the yoke already. All that's left is the mile or so of stockinette and the seed stitch hem. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough yarn left at the end of this project to make another, probably with the colors reversed. I just really want to use up the rest of this yarn.

The other yarn in my stash that I've been trying to knit up is the Littledove Farm Shetland wool blend that I won at the State Fair a couple years ago. Last February, I'd knit up a hat with one of my friend's kids in mind, but it turned out that the kid wanted different colors, and his parents preferred it to be machine washable, so I've held onto the hat, trying to decide if I want to wear it myself this winter, or maybe give it away as part of a set. As this is a sport-weight yarn, I did another Ravelry search, this time for stranded mittens. The winner turned out to be a pattern I already had in my queue, the Squirrel & Oak mittens by Adrian Bizilia. For whatever reason, I was able to knit the pair of mittens over the course of a weekend. One of my coworkers expressed a liking for them, so I'm going to give them to her, and since I'm giving those away, I immediately cast on for a new pair, this one using a chart inspired by the wallpaper from Sherlock. I haven't decided yet whether I'll make the smiley face, but I figure that if I have some yellow yarn lying around, I'll go ahead and do it. Sadly, one hat and two pairs of mittens isn't going to use up my whole stash of it, so I'll likely be knitting a few more stranded things before it's gone.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight, Friends. Until next time.

What's next?

I've just finished the Hummingbird socks. Like, 10 minutes ago, I bound them off, tried them on, and took pictures of them. I haven't even woven in the ends. I haven't decided whether I'll do that on the bus tomorrow morning, or if I'll do it tonight. Actually, I think I kind of have. Decided, I mean. I'm not feeling it tonight. I'll do it tomorrow.

Of course, tomorrow evening is my Knit Night, so I'll need to have something on the needles to work on while I'm there. I was thinking about casting on for a stuffed toy of some sort - I still have plenty of that Rowan Handknit Cotton left over from making those hats. I've also been thinking about knitting a fall or winter sweater of some sort. I have a whole lot of Cascade Ecological Wool, but that might be a heavier sweater than I want to wear. It could be good for something for my husband; I'll have to check with him. And of course there's all kinds of sock yarn in my stash, so I could make more socks, but I'm not sure I really feel like another pair of sock so soon. (Surprising, isn't it?) I guess I'll just grab something and start swatching. The ennui! It's a killer, man.

Maybe next time I'll have a little more to say for myself. Until then, Friends.

Sick knitting

It's what I did when I had to stay home from work for a couple days last week. I had a pretty vicious cold, which is mostly gone now, having taken my voice with it. Right now I sound a little like a cross between Lauren Hutton and Joe Cocker.

Anyway, when I wasn't sleeping off the fever or coughing my head off, I was working on a fast, fun infinity scarf that I saw in the current Amirisu magazine. The Walnut Snood seemed like an ideal project because I had a natural-colored bulky-weight yarn in my stash, so all I had to do was buy the pattern and I'd be off.

After the provisional cast-on, I got started on the cable chart, which knits up fast, especially since it's bulky yarn and size 10 needles. So different from my usual sock knitting! Once I got going, it was easy to keep going, although I started getting bored after about the seventh chart repeat. I eventually completed all 11 repeats and was able to wash and block the scarf this weekend. It ended up being a little longer than the pattern's 67-inch length, but I think it will be fine for winding around my neck once it gets cold again. (It's 48 degrees F today.)

Well, that's all I have for today. Until next time, Friends.

Three, I mean, Four Things

First, I only have one project on the needles: a hat for one of my two trainers at the gym. They've both been really patient with me, as the clueless newbie in class. Thanks to the both of them, I managed to lose 5 pounds in 6 weeks. We start up again in January, so I should have this finished in plenty of time.

Secondly, I made a couple hats over the Christmas break. One was the purple hat for my other trainer. It was a really quick knit, on big needles with aran-weight yarn. I still need to decide if it should have a pompon on it. As I was finishing that one, my sister-in-law said how much she liked it and wondered if I could make another for her. As it happened, I had another ball of the Nashua Isabella in my project back, this one in topaz. Since we were snowed in, I was able to whip out another hat in time for her to take it home with her the next day. Yay for bringing along that extra ball of yarn!

Thirdly, my copy of Colours of Shetland arrived the day we got home from Christmas! I'm so excited. The photography is gorgeous and I want to make just about everything in it. The highlight of the book (aside from the patterns, I mean) is the accompanying text about the inspirations for the patterns. I love that the whole book is a testament to Kate Davies' love of Shetland.

Lastly, I have some yarn I haven't documented, so I thought I'd throw that in this post, too. It's three skeins of Cascade Ecological wool that I got in a trade with a friend. I'm pretty excited to have it, though I haven't decided yet what it will be. I've been thinking I might want to make another afghan or throw, but I'm sure I'll have to get more yarn. Of course, I have plenty of other things in my queue that I want to knit, so who knows where my fancy will take me?

So, short and sweet today. I'll see you all in January. Happy New Year, Friends!

Joy to the World!

I have my laptop back and can post regularly again, instead of shivering in a cold corner of the basement, trying to make do on my husband's desktop. It seems like ages since I've posted, and I've missed it. Every so often, I would think, "I should post that on the blog." But I didn't.

Anyway, I've been knitting Christmas owls like crazy since I was last here. Fourteen total. Fifteen, if you count the one my mom admired so much that I let her take it home with her after Thanksgiving. Six of them have eyes and beaks, which means I have to make 8 more sets in the next few days. This is achievable. At least I think so now. I'm not sure if I'll be singing the same song come Monday evening. Cross your fingers for me.

I also managed to finish my father in-law's socks (just yesterday!) and I'm really pleased at how well they came out. This is the first time I've ever knit socks on size 0 needles, and I think I might want to do more. That size needle is perfect for Cascade Heritage, and my husband is actually kind of coveting those socks, so I think he'll get a pair too. I can't believe I'm committing to making more stuff on tinier needles. I may just start getting manicures so I can get my hands massaged after all that fine-gauge knitting. I wonder if that would qualify for my health savings account. I'll have to check that the next time I'm in the office.

Now that the socks are done, I've cast on a project on big(ger) needles: Cabled Hat by Yuko Nakamura. This will be a belated gift for my trainer at the gym, whose favorite color is purple. The only purple yarn I had in my stash was one lonely skein of Nashua Isabella (now discontinued) in amethyst that I bought before the Knit Nook closed. Since that yarn only has 109 yards to the skein, I had to have a good look through the Ravelry pattern database before I found a hat pattern I could make with so little yarn. I'm really hoping I have enough! This will be a nice project to work on while visiting with all our family at Christmas, especially since it's on size 7 needles. I have one skein of the Isabella in topaz as well, which will come in handy if I finish this hat before the holiday is over.

One other crafty thing I've been working on is getting some art prints I've had for awhile framed and matted. Sometime last year, I bought this set of prints from my friends at Madpixel and have wanted them on the wall ever since. Finally, last weekend, I went to the art supply store, bought some mat board and got busy! I also managed to buy some frames and spent the weekend getting each print in a frame. I hung all the prints this afternoon and was so happy about how good they looked that I staged a little bourbon tableau and took the photo you see below. Of course, now that I've taken another look around their website, there are plenty more prints I need to have.

Well, that's all I have for now. Merry Christmas, Friends.

WIPs Wednesday? Alright, I'll play along.

I read a couple (read: many) craft blogs, and a good number of them do a WIPs (Work In Progress) Wednesday, so I've decided this would be a good time for me to do a WIP post. Since last time, I've cast on for a couple new projects.

First, I've cast on a new pair of socks! It's Stephanie van der Linden's On The Aran Isle pattern from her Around the World in Knitted Socks book. In a demonstration of learning from one's mistakes, I'm using a yarn with comparable yardage to what's recommended: Classic Elite's Alpaca Sox. I realize that even though it feels like summer here (90 degrees Fahrenheit today!) and that knitting with an alpaca yarn in this heat & humidity isn't exactly fun, the yarn was in my stash and it's the right weight & yardage. I also like the color and I think they'll be very pretty when they're done.

I'm really enjoying the traveling stitches - they're definitely keeping my interest up. I also like the picot hem at the top of the cuff, although it was very tedious working off the provisional cast on. If I were making these socks for myself, I'd probably add enough stitches for another pattern repeat  on the leg, as they're a little snug going around my heels. I think they'll be fine for Mom's delicate little feet.

For a more summery project, I've cast on Anna & Heidi Pickle's Lazy Daisy baby cardigan. I'm knitting it in Cascade Yarns Cotton Rich DK, which is a nice cotton in some very bright, vibrant, saturated colors. It's a free pattern on the Pickles blog (well, the 3-6 months size is free, you have to pay for bigger sizes). So far, it's been an easy knit. The stitch pattern is simple to memorize, and since it's such a tiny, little sweater, it should knit up pretty quickly. I have a couple friends who are expecting babies this fall, but I'm not sure this sweater will fit next Spring. I may have to hold on to it for someone who has a January or February baby. I'm sure someone I know will be having a baby then.

If I have enough yarn when I've finished the cardigan, I may just try to make the turban. It's almost a little too precious, but seriously, what's cuter than a baby in a turban?

I'm also still working on the Kusha Kusha scarf, but it's not as interesting as the other projects. It's just a whole lot of stockinette stitch on bamboo straights, so not a lot of fun. It's good to have during social knitting, so I might just take it with me to Stitch 'N' Bitch tomorrow night. If it ever looks like I've made any progress on it, I'll take a picture and post it here.

Looks like that's all I have for today. Until next time, friends.