Knitting

Craft, Knitting

Knit: KnitPicks Holiday Sale Haul

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I think I may title all of my knitting related posts from now on “knit: blah blah blah” so that non-knitters can totally ignore the posts. It’s okay. I know it’s incredibly boring to read these posts when you aren’t part of the Wooly Coven.

SO! Remember when I said I had fallen back into the loop? It is on! When I was thinking of pulling together my Etsy shop, my mind went directly to KnitPicks as a potential yarn source, even though I haven’t ordered from them since college.

As usual, my mind wandered, and I ended up getting quite a bit more than what I had planned for. In the picture above, I’ve got (clockwise):

  • 10 balls of Biggo in Cobblestone Heather, which is this really gorgeous dark grey. It was 50% off, which made it a steal at 4.50 ish a skein.It’s 50% merino, 50% nylon, which is actually heavenly.
  • 1 ball of Brava bulky in a Dove Grey (100% acrylic, it looks kind of cheap and crappy, but it was only a buck fifty)
  • 1 ball Wool of the Andes Superwash in Haze Heather (really great heathery lavendar)
  • 2 balls of Swish bulky superwash merino in Potion (forest green)
  • 2 balls of dishie cotton yarn in linen and kenai (cream + beautiful teal/blue)

I’m mostly going to mess around with the yarn that I bought, but those 10 balls of Biggo? Those are going to become the lovely Cozy Weekend Sweater, which I found on Ravelry. I’m casting on tonight, and looking forward to working on it over the holidays.

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Craft

Recent Knits: Easy Breezy

I don’t know what it was about Thanksgiving, but my knitting mojo is back in a big way since the long holiday weekend. For the cold snap I’ve been turning to simple chunky knits in alpaca and silk blends.

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I love making and wearing cowls, and yet I didn’t have a simple ribbed one in my collection.

For the cowl above I…

I know, it’ s pretty mindless. But the yarn is exquisite and it worked up fast. Some days I wear the cowl up to my nose. Others I flip it in half and enjoy a doubly squishy turtleneck. Mmmmm squishy and warm.

For the hat I used the Hill Country hat pattern (again) in Marisol Sulka. You can’t keep that pattern down. It makes a great slouchy beanie with minimal yardage (100 yards or so… 1 skein). The only problem with the pattern is that it’s a pain for the first 15 minutes or so, as it’s knit from the top down, with only 8 stitches on 4 really big needles. I may make it again, but in a trinity stitch.

Last but not least… I made the ever popular Hooray for Me gloves, with a few size alterations. When I first set out looking for a pattern for a men’s glove knit in sock yarn I was shocked at the dearth of options. Thankfully the Hooray for Me pattern was written clearly enough for me to wrap my head around sizing adjustments.

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The yarn is Dirty Panther by Madeline Tosh. Ain’t it great?

Other things currently on my needles: I restarted the Sunday Swing socks, and I’ve been testing prototypes for knit coffee sleeves (thinking about selling them on Etsy). Also, trying to learn this “arm knitting” phenomenon that is all the rage on Pinterest.

Life, Style

Selfie Time: November

Lanterns

Stumbled across these W.T. Kirkman oil lanterns the other day while walking to the yarn shop. They were just sitting on the sidewalk. Aren’t they great?

I joked to Ryan that I felt like a character in an LL Bean catalogue, living my “rustic” Martha Stewart life (minus a few horses). Taking a look at this picture, I think it does sum up this phase of fall.

I love fall but it scares me. Quite a few years in a row I’ve fallen prey to seasonal affective disorder. So since 2009 or so I’ve tried to have an active “fall plan” so that I don’t drift into a hole of depression once winter hits. Doesn’t that sound pathetic?

So I do what I like. I’ve been knitting a lot. Cooking delicious fall food. Wearing big sweaters and favorite boots. Watching movies and tv endlessly. Listening to opera full blast on Spotify. And being totally antisocial when I want to.

I think it’s working so far.

Knitting

Knit, Rip, Repeat

For some reason non-knitters think knitters are zenlike grandmas, peaceful and shit all the time. This is true sometimes, as knitting is a form of meditation, but sometimes knitters can get real crazy. Just like grandmas. Because sometimes knitting sucks real real hard. Like set the house on fire with a boxed wine molotov cocktail and jump out the window screaming hard.

Tonight was one of those times. While watching Clinton’s DNC speech on YouTube I frogged not one but two projects that I’ve been working on for weeks. Scorched earth, people.

Read on and feel my perfectionist pain. Or stop now if you don’t knit, because you will be bored to tears.

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Little rip:::

**So I was so dissatisfied with my first Hill Country Hat that I decided to try again, in another yarn. Something in me said that I had to get it right, damn it. I picked up a bulky merlot colored alpaca blend that Jill had given me at least four years ago and had at it. Things went swiftly since this time I knew what I was doing, but I got too confident.

About 2-3 hours into the hat I noticed that I’d knit an extra row several inches back, making a dent in the hat’s surface and ruining the pattern. Ugh. I was about an hour or two away from finishing the hat so it was painful, but there’s no way that I could go through life with another janky Hill Country hat. I demand perfection.

 

Big rip:::

**I’ve been trying to step up my knit game and the Betty Minisweater seemed like a good choice to get me out of my funk. Also at only two balls of Cascade 220, it was super affordable at about $18 for the whole project. So, with few reservations I cast on, got gauge, then  committed to the whole shebang, starting the back of the sweater.

Forty four rows in, I realized that something looked funny with my lace. I’d knit an extra row and gone off pattern. Hrm. This seems to be a recurring problem for me. I tinked for a few rows, then got impatient and decided to rip back. I looked up a few pictures of other people’s projects on Ravelry for an idea of where to stop. Suddenly I realized that my sweater looked nothing like the pictures. Even if I blocked the fabric, it was never going to look like that pattern. I had royally messed up the Roman Stripe pattern and it was beyond repair. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I tore it out in a huff.

Part of me wants to give up and move on to this pattern (by the same designer as the Betty pattern), but I just don’t know.

Yarniad’s Cloudy Sunday

Knitting. Sometimes it sucks.

Knitting

FO: Hill Country Hat

First FO (finished object) in knitting land in a loooooooong loooooooong time. Here’s to a healthy knitting season because August in San Francisco has turned cruel. Everyone I know is sniffling and I’m running for pho.

Pattern: Hill Country Hat

Yarn: Rowan Cocoon (80% Merino, 20% Kid Mohair) (Good bounce, hand and warmth, questionable stitch definition)

Gauge: BULKY

This one knit up super fast. It took me one craft night and maybe 2 or 3 sittings here and there, a few hours in total. It’s knit from the top down on double-pointed needles, and the pattern is simple without being boring.

Gotta say, Rowan yarns are always exquisite, but I’m really disappointed with the stitch definition of the Cocoon . Normally merino is awesome for that, but the mohair obscures all the hard work I did. Also it would have been more striking if I’d used a lighter color, but oh well. I knew what I was getting into.

Other issues: I added an extra repeat to the pattern and extra rows of ribbing at the end, but I really should have switched that- done maybe 2-3 extra pattern repeats and maybe a half inch less ribbing. But this is just my personal preference for proportion. Once you throw the hat on you forget it all, but in my head it drives me nuts.

I think someone’s going to be very happy with it!