half of me is sky

 I think I basically got the size right on this little sweater, for once.  It was a remarkably fast knit, which I should remember.  It's the Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Gifts, knit in Spud and Chloe Sweater, billiard and beluga colors.  Because the yarn is a heavier gauge than the pattern, and because I was aiming for the newborn size, I did a little math to adjust the pattern.  (Details on Ravelry.)

 I like how the stripes turned out but will probably stick to single colors in the future for this sweater.  Because the sleeves are shorter than the body, it's hard to get the stripe pattern to match exactly.  (To address this, I just knit the sleeves to the body length and rolled the cuff up.)  I kept the placket entirely green which also required a little intarsia.

And this sweater has encouraged me to try a little harder to knit children things that fit properly, since it is fun to watch them grow into them but it is probably more fun to see a knit in use right away.  Here's hoping that your start of 2013 is full of well-fitting and warm knits!

Birds singin' in the sycamore tree

Not much progress on any knitting fronts with me these days, but I am a wash away from sending off the baby quilt I made for V.  Here are a couple of camera phone pictures.

 

Also made a really sweet little baby hat for A&C that I'm hoping to see in action very shortly!  It's Be Sweet yarn, and came with a handy little pattern on the back that I mostly ignored.

I also made a bearded hat for my brother-in-law for Christmas, but the pictures I have of it are WAY too embarrassing to share here.  Sorry folks.

And finally, though I know it belongs elsewhere, I have to rec this bread recipe.  It's a good weekend bread, what with the rising and punching and rising, etc that it needs, but it's delicious and pretty easy.  It has molasses and carrots and cocoa and coffee, but they all blend together to create a real flavorful but subtle bread. I've swapped out the rye flour for whole wheat and forgotten the caraway seeds and replaced the butter with vegan margarine, and it's been good everytime.  Oh, and the amount of yeast called for = one packet, if you buy your yeast in packets and not jars.

Black Bread

under them skies of blue

First things first: I arrived at work this morning to see that the fence surrounding my office's parking lot had been yarn bombed! It's hard to see in my photo, but someone has tied scarves to all of the posts of the fence along one city block. Needless to say, I was absolutely delighted. Perhaps it's the work of the knitty gritty committee, or of the person who works in my building and has a license plate cover that says "I'd rather be knitting." Either way, I'm hoping it lasts for a little while because it will make me happy whenever I pull into the parking lot.

Holiday knitting was a dreadful fail this year, even though I wildly scaled back my plans for it. The only thing I finished (sewed in the ends and steam blocked it mere hours before boarding a plane to return from vacation) was this sweater for a little girl who loves "hop hops". I'm hoping her love will continue until she grows into it since it is quite ample now.

Getting a picture of her was very difficult, so most of my pictures look like this.

(Since she is actually quite cute even when she is not in handknits, those of you who know my family may want to check out these pictures of her birthday celebration.) My fair isle still has a ways to go, but at least the bunnies are recognizable as bunnies. Thanks to Wamps for suggesting this pattern!

I used Spud & Chloe sweater, which knit at a much larger gauge than the pattern required. So I knit the stitch counts for the 6 month size, but used the lengths for the 2-to-4 year old size, which worked out well proportionately. I only had time to steam block before gifting, but plan to wet block it when I'm next at home. Since it's unlikely that she'll grow into it before then, I think that it's a safe plan.

Hope you've all had good starts to 2012 and that your holiday knitting was more successful than mine!

you act like you're hip to their tricks

I actually finished the knitting of this gift in time for the recipient's birthday, but then it languished as I thought that I had messed up the grafting. After deciding that it had to be finished over Thanksgiving, I realized that I had just pulled the grafting too tight, so it was actually fine after being loosened. (Apologies for everything that I said about the Knitty grafting garter stitch tutorial before that realization.)

Two attempts at weaving in the ends and I finally had a finished product that I liked well enough to gift.

It's the Millwater eternity cowl, made out of Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted in Dandy Lion colorway. I love this color and wish that it were one that I could wear. But gifting it is second best. Rav details here.
(wrapped double)

I am actually working on another gift that uses Dandy Lion in Primo fingering so I've had the chance to enjoy this color a little longer.

And now in a color I can wear, the Narragansett sweater in Primo Worsted Narragansett Gray.
I've yet to get a good picture of this one, but it is wonderfully soft to wear, even if it does fall off my shoulders all the time. I loved knitting this pattern, despite its long hiatus due to the summer heat, and expect that I will enjoy wearing it as well. I made the sleeves full length, although I'm not entirely sure that they shouldn't be three-quarters length for proportion's-sake, and I left off the hip detail. Rav details here.

And, finally, because handknits-in-action always make me happy: an action shot of that cardigan where it fits much better and where you get to see MRB's newly-discovered fish face.
Hope you all had lovely Thanksgivings!

but I never had to hold you by the edges

I've been very lucky over the last few months to get to knit for a dear friend who not only appreciates handknits, but is also not attached to traditional color schemes for children. (Indeed, I'm a little worried that the blanket above will have a little bit too much pink for her taste.) Lately, I've been attracted to incredibly simple knitting as a salve for too many things that are too complicated in other areas of my life. So I decided to scrap my usual (honestly, pretty simple) baby blanket recipe because I couldn't bear the thought of doing the math for the seed stitch sections. Completely pathetic, but I thought that it would work out just as well to knit more squares and seam them together. And it would also then be completely mindless. I did not change the yarn that I tend to use, sticking to the old favorite of Blue Skies Dyed Cotton (or Worsted Cotton, or whatever they're calling it this season).

However, the seams did not provide enough structure to avoid some serious curling. And one row of i-cord border (all that's needed on the regular baby blanket recipe) was not sufficient to fight that curling.

Above, you can see the edge with one row of i-cord (along the bottom) which is still entirely wonky. The edge on the left side shows the solution: a double i-cord border. I knit the first row of i-cord in one direction and the second row in another direction, which gave a nice garter stitch in between the two cords. (Since I always have to remind myself how to work attached i-cord, I found this purl bee tutorial very helpful.) It also largely dealt with the curling, although not all of the blanket's general wonkiness. Nonetheless, it will still be a cozy blanket for a little girl and I'm guessing she won't mind too much that not all of the squares are exactly, well, square.

The second project in the non-traditional-color-scheme knitting was a little cardy, attempted to be sized for a 2 year old. After blocking, I'm hoping that this kid is pretty broad shouldered, but hopefully, it will work out.
The yarn is Spud & Chloe Sweater, which may be my new favorite yarn for baby knits. (I don't feel too bad saying that in the same post where I've included Blue Skies Cotton, because they do, after all, have the same parent company.) Like the Blue Skies Cotton, it is incredibly soft and machine washable; unlike the Blue Skies, it is about half wool and half cotton. The wool gives the yarn a nice resiliency that makes wonkiness block out better, clearly something that I currently need.

I knew that I had to knit a stripy cardy, since this is the same friend who won a handknit sweater on another occasion and was then very committed to the idea of a stripy cardy, so it was a lot of fun to pick out colors that were out of the ordinary realm for a little girl. I'm hopeful that this will be one that can be passed down to other babies, regardless of their gender, since I think the color scheme works well for either. And if those babies happen to have linebacker shoulders, all the better.

but now the snow is gone

If I'd finished this before she started walking, it would have been much easier to get a non-blurry picture. As it was, I had to sneak up on her as she woke from a nap, pull on the cardigan, and hope that she was too drowsy to move too much.
It's an improvised design using Madelinetosh Sock in Rhubarb and Jade. I planned this one to fit her next winter and it looks like it probably will. That also allowed me to use similar sizing for another baby cardigan which should make its appearance on the blog by the end of the month.

whatever name it's got, it's got me circling

note to self: Think through whether color-block raglan sleeves can be knit in the round before you knit the body and sleeves of the sweater in different colors. Although, really, just having that thought process before the join round would be an improvement next time.

elf! and baby elf!

I don't have a better picture of these hats, but it's still fair to say that they were my most successful Christmas knitting, both for the reaction they inspired and because I actually finished them on time. It's the Pointy Elf Hat, from More Last Minute Knitted Gifts, a pattern that I can't recommend enough. I used Blue Sky Cotton held doubled and added the stripe, but otherwise knit as instructed for the toddler and baby sizes. I wish I had film to share with you of my nephew's reaction but it went something like this:

T: "Elf! And baby elf! On parade!" [marching, while urging his sister to crawl along behind him]

He then proceeded to wear the hat for the rest of the evening, despite the fact that he seems to usually be too hot and want to wear less clothing. My niece, who couldn't express herself quite so verbally, seemed equally delighted upon seeing herself in a mirror with a pointy thing on the top of her head and burst into laughter each time she was held up to a mirror. Considering that each hat took me about 2 hours, I thought that the pattern's time-spent-knitting-to-amusement-of-recipient-children ratio was pretty good.

Another Quicky Baby Sweater

This was for a baby shower for a young colleague. I posted it earlier, but she sent me the picture recently of baby Will wearing the sweater, which should still fit next winter. It was knit with two skeins of knitpick sock yarn. I like the way the zigzags (or lightening bolts) appeared.
My main project now is to finish the white linen summer sweater while it's still summer -I'm on the sleeves and will post soon, I hope.

things that I have actually finished

There aren't many, that's for sure. But here's one:
I actually finished this one before Christmas, but just realized that I never posted it. (Partially because I never got post-blocking pictures...) It's a baby blanket, made for Miss Margrethe, out of Blue Skies Alpaca Dyed Cotton. I modeled the project after one that I made a few years ago, but left off the patterned squares since I thought they would conflict with a more vibrant color scheme.

The wall of Dyed Cotton at Webs is handy for picking out color combos, and that's where this yarn came from. Dyed Cotton is a pretty darn great yarn for the baby knits, since it's machine washable and in a wide range of bright colors. It's also incredibly soft and knits up quickly.

Now that my Dyed Cotton ad is over, I'll move on to a more (and less) recent project:

This is a cowl/snood made out of leftovers from 4 Plucky MCN Worsted projects. I started it so that I would have something that I could easily knit in movie theaters (stockinette tube knit on #9s) and I stuck very strictly to only knitting it in movies. So I've been working on it since about this time last year and I'm not quite sure what I will do now that it's finished. But I really couldn't keep going. It's actually a little painful to wear as a cowl now because it's so tall and there's not enough drape. (It's okay as long as I'm not wearing a top that has any kind of neck. But a turtleneck plus this cowl? Ouch.) In order, the colors are Hazel Drive, Rock of Ages Fascination Series (#2), Nectar and Montgomery. Maybe I'll try to get a modeled shot.

But, first, I have a few other things to finish...

Baby Shower

I knit this quicky baby sweater out of superwash sock yarn for a baby shower I'm attending tomorrow for a young colleague from work. The most interesting part was watching the designs the striped yarn made. The first time mom to be is an engineer, so maybe she'll enjoy it. Instead of knitting the front and back separately I knit in the round up to the armholes, and I knit the sleeves in the round, too, to avoid seams.

handknits in action (Christmas day edition)

Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, in Plucky MCN Fingering, held doubled. Only mods were to add the stripe and to leave off the buttons. Since I wasn't doing the buttons, I sewed about an inch and a half of the placket closed. And, yes, that is the 4-to-6 year-old size on my 3-and-a-half-year-old nephew.
Umbilical Cord hat from S'n'B, in Rowan Cotton Glace. No mods, except that I was working from memory so I ended up making the newborn size a little long.

Group Shot

Happy Christmas!

thinking about leaving town

I had thought that I had packed all the knitting I could possibly need over Thanksgiving, but I found myself longing for something super simple and gratifying. Thank goodness for the lovely Lakeside Fibers and KZ's help picking colors for a quick baby hat.

I sewed in the ends as we drove to the airport for my flight back to the East Coast, so I could leave this cutie there just in case it's needed before I return.

For those of you who are traveling soon, what are your knitting plans?

change in the seasons

When this is the view from my window

(bedroom window)

(kitchen window)

is it any wonder that my knitting has also turned to fall colors?

(still on the needles)(off the needles but not gifted yet)(waiting to be wound)(next on the needles)

so much for doing well on deadlines

As my blog-silence may have suggested, I haven't really had a lot of time to knit this summer. Between the move-that-lasted-forever, the job-that-did-not-slow-down-during-the-summer, and many lovely trips and visitors, I had a hard time fitting knitting in. So when I take stock of my progress on summer knit goals, the picture isn't pretty. In fact, it's downright pathetic. I can't think of a time when I made less progress on a set of self-imposed goals. Here's the (limited) progress that I made:

I'm 11 rows away from finishing my end-of-August goal:I wish I could say that I'm as devoted to this project as Wamps was to her version, which clocked in at 150 rows. But I've decided that mine will be lovely at just around 100.

My save-my-sanity cowl grew, almost without me thinking about it:
It's still a-ways from being finished, but maybe that's for the best.

During the last weekend in August, an unusually long (since moving to the Beat, that is) spell on public transit produced this baby hat:
This wasn't one of my knitting goals, but since it's the closest I came to a FO this summer (only have two ends to sew in!) I'm including it anyway. It's the Umbilical Cord hat in Sheep Feet, Royalty colorway. Having rushed out the door without writing down the pattern, I counted on CH's memory to get me the right number of stitches. Luckily, that was a safe bet. What was not as lucky was how I felt about this yarn once it was knit up. In the skein, I thought it was beautiful, but I think the brown is much too dominant in the final knit. (EW, enter your massive protest here. I don't care. You can't see it in person, so you don't know how overwhelming the brown is.) However, the yarn was the product of my first-ever trip to Webs (which was also EW's first-ever trip to Webs). It is a miraculous place.

Also, I took Labor Day weekend off from everything, and that helped me to jump start some fall knitting.

This lovely is all finished except for the finishing: The yarn knit up just like I imagined, and I learned why so many people love one particular classic knit. You'll have to wait for details until it's gifted, though.

And I'm about halfway through another knit using these colors:This knit reminds me why Blue Sky Dyed Cotton is still high on my list of favorite yarns. All but the green were purchased during my second-ever trip to Webs.

Finally, today was the Coventry Farmer's Market's Fiber Fest. I actually went back to get the most amazing cod in the world, but I couldn't resist a little local yarn:It's the Painted Sheep's Shimmer Yarn in Merlot. It's a superwash merino/tencel blend and I think that I know just the knit for it.

What are you all working on this fall?

what are the rules about buttons on baby knits?

Someone reading knows and can enlighten me, right? Because while I think these are darn cute, I'd like to avoid the whole choking-hazard thing. (They'll go on a sweater sized for a 1 year old, although it hasn't been knit yet, so I guess I could make it smaller if necessary.)

way too many wips*

For some reason, I just can't focus on any one project right now. My most notable wips:

A very generous Raveler came through with replacement golightly yarn, so all is not lost!

Also in bright blue, I'm finally knitting a baby sweater that I've long wanted to try: the Kai Sweater from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms. I'm only a few rows in, but the stockinette back should be perfect for working on during knitting lessons tomorrow. I'm using some Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton, which is my favorite yarn for baby knits. I had other plans for this yarn when I bought it in the fall at Purl, but am repurposing it for this sweater.I'm working on a hat that caused a man on the 1 train to ask me if I was knitting in leather. No, sir, that's just some Plucky MCN Worsted that EW scored for me:
I'm designing the hat to match some wristwarmers that I designed; two projects that have taught me why ssk is far inferior to k2tog.** (Seriously, does anyone have suggestions for a better left-leaning decrease that can be worked in between two yarn overs?) The set is for an upcoming birthday, and, even though I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't read this blog, I'll wait to post pics of the wristwarmers until after they're gifted.

And then I've got some swatches for another few projects: a baby sweater in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport that CH helped me pick out at the new Loopy and a secret project:The Lorna's is superwash, so, showing that I can learn from experience, I'm going to toss it in the wash before measuring gauge.

I did manage to finally finish a baby sweater that has been long hanging over my head, and that taught me to never, ever claim that I could knit a baby sweater in a week. The worst part: I think the buttons are the cutest part of the whole thing:They are from Needleworks, Inc. The sweater is the Geordie Stripe Yoke Jacket from Natural Knits for Baby and Mom. (That book is getting a lot of use lately; all three baby sweaters in this post are from it.) I used Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed Cotton, which I loved knitting with. However, it didn't really hold the ends in, so I'm a little concerned about how it will hold up. I changed the stripe pattern to include two contrasting colors and to extend throughout the sweater. Deets here.

*RJ, in case you come across a real spy who knits, "wip" means "work-in-progress."
** "ssk" = "slip, slip, knit"; "k2tog" = "knit 2 together."