Antidote


These were just the antidote I needed to all the brown and grey.

I took these pictures weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to blogging. I blame my husband being out of town for a week. And Ravelry.

But while I haven't been blogging, I *have* been knitting.




Caitie has been asking me for some fingerless gloves. (Actually, what she has been doing is wearing *my* fingerless gloves and folding them back so they're not too long). So I whipped up this pattern.

Of course after I did that, Sean wanted some too, and after that, Molly had to have some pink ones. I was working on the last pink one at a party and 4 people asked me if they could buy them from me.

I'm working on writing up the pattern. They're sized for toddlers to pre-teens and super easy to make. I've got pictures done so now I just need time uninterrupted to put the pattern together.

The problem is, they still need a name. I've got a few ideas, but I don't like any of them. Anyone got any good ideas? I'll give a free copy of the pattern or pair of them to anyone who comes up with a name I decide to use. I would really like a name brand kind of name (not just, you know, Mitts, or Kid's fingerless gloves). I love Sheepy Pants for that reason, but I also don't want to call them Sheepy Mitts, because that could get old really soon.

If you have any suggestions, email me!

Browns

Dear Kat,
I know you've been waiting (somewhat impatiently) for your wrap.

I hope it's worth the wait.







There are no cats on this blog, but there is my friend Kat, who did all the work on the web site.


I wanted to make her something for a thank you, and she requested a "fleckety" brown shawl.
The pattern is Stolen Moments by Amy Swenson. The yarn is Mei Mei chunky tweed wool. It's a bit scratchy in the ball but gets quite a lot softer with washing.
I think it qualifies as "fleckity." It's a beautiful rich, tweedy brown.
I also got around to finishing this pair of socks for the DH. Regia black-brown sock yarn.







Between that and Applewood Pi shawl (which is a simply gorgeous handpainted peach/tan/brown yarn) and the fact that it's been looking like this outside all week, and I'm really really sick of brown.

Pi

So the Pi Shawl and I had a little photo session today.

Details
The Pattern is Pi Shawl by Elizabeth Zimmerman, from the Knitter's Almanac.

I followed the instructions exactly (with the only exception that I did only 1 row of diamonds in the last section instead of 2, but I think that still counts. Stop laughing.)

This is an astonishing accomplishment for me, and could really only have been done with a pattern designed by one as great as St. Elizabeth. It is perfect.

The yarn is laceweight merino from handpaintedyarn.com. The colorway is Applewood (forcing me to have to resist the urge to call it Applewood Pi).

It is yummy yarn and I will definitely use it again some day. This shawl took exactly 1 skein (950 yards). Actually it didn't take all of it, I had exactly this much left.

I was not worried because I actually had another skein, but still. You can't plan something like that.

(BTW, if someone wants the second skein, I can't imagine wanting to use the same colorway again so it's available.)

This picture does not do it justice because of the bad light in the living room and the whole broken camera thing. But I figured I'd better try to get 1 picture of the whole thing.
I am deeply deeply in love

Obsession

Last Wednesday I finished the main part of the Pi Shawl and started working out a border.

I spent most of the evening knitting and ripping out until I came up with one I liked. Basically I played around with how faggoting and eyelet holes would look in different numbers of stitches of garter stitch.
I ended up with a 12 stitch, 4 row repeat that I liked quite a lot.

Then I got a little obsessed with knitting the edging.

I knit on it all night Thursday at knit night. It may have been the first time I've ever worked on only 1 project the entire night. We tried to figure out how long it would take. I asked my math friend who's bad at arithmetic to figure it out. We somehow came up with a crazy ass number like 7 hours.

Uh, no.

But I really really REALLY wanted to finish, so I plodded on.

It became kind of zen the way the Yarn Harlot was with her leaves. I knit nothing else (which is unheard of). Lots and LOTS of border stitches.

(By the way, in case anyone was wondering, there are 13,824 stitches in a 12 stitch border on a Pi Shawl.)


I finished it last night. Here it is blocking on my bed (which, conveniently has a round medalion pattern on it already)
Kind of cool, I thought, how the patterns overlap.
By the way, blocking wires totally rock. It took about an hour anyway, to get it all blocked out. I cannot even imagine doing it all with pins alone.

Pics of the finished project coming later when the light is good and it's not raining.

Eternal optimism

Molly has been exposed to knitting for her entire life. So I would think she'd get the general idea. She has seen me knit things. She wears things I've knit, that she saw when they were yarn. She's 7 (almost 8 yikes!) but she doesn't always think like a 7 year old. Sometimes it's hard to really tell how she thinks at all.

While in the hotel from hell on the way to Florida, we watched an episode of Higglytown Heroes where one of the little whats-its guys was knitting a scarf (in about 10 seconds). In the episode (called Shear Luck) she ran out of yarn and had to call a sheep farmer to shear a sheep, and spin the fleece into yarn, so she could finish her scarf).

Ever since then, whenever she sees me knitting she asks "Are you knitting my pink socks?" Nevermind that the knitting in question is usually brown, or it was blue for a while, or deep purple. None of it has ever been pink, or a color even close to pink. Most of it hasn't looked like a sock (except the purple socks). Surely she can't think a cream/tan/peach/brown lace shawl is a pink sock, right?

Apparently she's under the same sort of delusions as the Yarn Harlot's nephew Hank, and thinks that knitting is transformative, not just to the shape of the yarn, but to the actual color. And apparently to the already produced bits of knitting. If you know what you're doing, you can turn brown yarn into a pink sock. Now that's optimism.

Molly has never actually *asked* me to make her pink socks, but just says several times a day "Are those my pink socks?" ummm, nope, sorry, blue pants (red-orange-pink head scarf/purple socks/bulky brown wrap/brownish lace). But when I found myself at Mass Ave last Saturday I had to find some yarn for pink socks.
This hot pink Babyboo DK weight bamboo blend yarn seemed perfect. It is, by the way, so so so soft. I can't stop petting it. I am considering making myself a pair of socks out of it too.

Last Sunday we were going to spend the day at my dad's house with a lot of extended family to celebrate a birthday and watch the Colts beat the Chargers. I wanted some mindless knitting for football so I brought the pink sock yarn.

In the car on the way there I took at guess at the size, cast on 32 stitches, knit for about an inch. When we got there I tried it on, and it seemed right so I kept going. Vinatieri kicked a 47 yard field goal that put us in the lead. Things were going fine.

All afternoon I knit the sock, and watched the game. The Chargers pulled ahead, but we'd been down before. I tried the sock on for length or foot length. It seemed a little tight, but that was just because it was still on the needles. It's hard to put a sock on someone else's foot. I believed, both in the game and in the sock, right up until the very end.

All the way to the toe graft, when I held up the sock declared the victory.

Then I tried to put the sock on Molly again and finally had to accept defeat. Knitterly denial will only get you so far. While I CAN put it on her foot, it's just too small.

Damn.

Now I have to go watch the Chargers get the crap beat out of them by New England.

And start over with the sock.

Results are in

Contest Winners

Well I finally got around to figuring out who the winners of my contest were. I am amazed at how close some of you came.

I got out the scale and the calculator and did a little math for the yardage. The actual answers were 2,468 miles driven and 1,047 yards knit.

Mileage guesses ranged from 2,050 miles to 25,125 (which was revised to 2,512!). The closest guess was actually placed very early in the contest by Debbie D, who guessed 2,450, just 18 miles from the actual answer.

Yardage guesses were more wild, ranging from 675 to 2,122. Winner of this one goes to Emily S, who guessed 1,050 (even closer!)

Check your email ladies...