So easy a 4-year-old can do it

Jack and I made pom-poms today:

 

I got these Clover pom-pom makers today (the large and small sets), and Jack and I had fun with some yarn scraps. We watched a YouTube video, and it really is super easy (the video is a bit long, so I admit I kind of skipped some parts of it). He's 4 now and he did most of his pom-pom all by himself, with only a little help with the scissors.

And since he picked the very biggest one and it took awhile to wrap, I made myself a whole bunch of smaller ones out of small bits of handspun:

 

Needless to say, this was a super fun way to use up small bits of yarn. Now I just have to figure out what to do with a bunch of pink pom-poms ;).

Frogging success

I had this project on the needles for at least 7 years:

I created the project in Ravelry in late 2008, though the niece I started this project for was born in 2006 so it may have been cast on even earlier than that. I was trying to make a little jacket, designing it as I went, and for whatever reason I just never finished the sleeves (I think this was back when I had a habit of leaving a lot of projects with only the sleeves left to go).

So I finally frogged that project that was never going to be finished, and I made the yarn into a super soft blankie for Rosemary:

I did not enjoy working with this yarn (I understand why it's discontinued!), but the finished blankie is pretty nice. I'm not sure how well it's going to hold up, so I guess we'll see!

Anyway, I didn't use a pattern to make the blankie. I just divided my yarn in half, and I worked a garter stitch square from one corner with a KFB at the beginning of each row until I got to the halfway point of my yarn, then I worked K2tog at the beginning of each row. Just in case you want to make a super simple blankie of your own :). At a bulky gauge on size 11 needles, this took me less than a week to make, and I didn't even have a ton of knitting time to work on it, so it's quick in addition be being easy.

One of my goals for 2016 is to either finish or frog all of my old WIPs this year. Over the past 2 years, I've been much better about finishing projects and being semi-monogamous with my knitting, so I haven't added too much to the pile of hibernating WIPs, but I never really went back and cleaned up all that stuff from the past when my knitting was much less focused.

So, in January I'm trying to frog all of the old stuff I know I don't want to finish, and then I've got the rest of the year to finish the other projects. So far I've frogged several projects, but this is the only one that's been made into something new already. I have a little bit more frogging to do, then I need to work on finishing the rest. Wish me luck!

 

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Happy WWKIP Day!

Happy Worldwide Knit In Public Day!

I spent the morning yesterday knitting in public at one of our local farmers markets with my knitting guild. It was a lot of fun, and I hope you did something special for WWKIP day, too!

The project I had on the needles is one of the many tiny things I'm making for my baby girl. This one is my Little Sisters Dress, knit in some Koigu KPPPM I've had in my stash for awhile. It's currently drying after blocking, and then it just needs buttons and final photos to be done (along with at least two baby sweaters).

I've got no more than a month left now until the baby comes, and I'm trying to finish up all the little knitted things in newborn and 3-month sizes, since I'm not sure how much knitting time I'll have immediately after she comes!

I'm also working on a baby quilt, which is a story for another post someday soon...

 

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Must. Knit. Faster!

Happy Easter, everyone!

So it turns out that I'm expecting a baby girl this summer, which means that my Ravelry queue has exploded! It's a combination of being able to make cute baby girl stuff (which I obviously didn't get to make for Jack), and the fact that I'm not having any more babies after this one so I feel like this is my last chance to make all the cute, tiny stuff I like (never mind that there will always be babies to make gifts for!)

And then I went on the LA County Yarn Crawl last weekend and acquired a bunch of yarn for projects in my queue:

I made it to 10 or 11 shops total, which I think is more than I've done any previous year. And I was shopping with a detailed list of projects from my queue that needed yarn, so all of my acquisitions have a specific purpose!

Now I just need to find time to knit all the great stuff in my queue... Wish me luck!

 

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Done and done! (And done and done...)

It's been a good week/weekend for finishing knitting project around here.

First, my NaKniSweMo sweater is finished (in only 12 days, not including time for it to dry during blocking):

• Pattern: Stonington
• Yarn: Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Long Johns

Then, I actually had some daylight yesterday to sew the zipper into Jack's Moera:

• Pattern: Moera
• Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in 3 colors (all leftovers from other projects)

Today I also finished up Jack's Solstice Hoodie:

• Pattern: Solstice Hoodie
• Yarn: Patons Classic Wool (the red and some of the gray), and the rest of the gray is some Brown Sheep Nature Spun that almost matches the other gray (if you don't look too closely)

And I got the monkey buttons sewn onto his Greener Pastures:

• Pattern: Greener Pastures
• Yarn: Swans Island Merino that's been in my stash for awhile

Now I'm working on my first project for the Indie Design Giftalong... More on that later! (Though do check out the giftalong group, even if you don't want to join in on the KAL you can get some fantastic indie patterns on sale!)

 

 

 

 

 

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Happy November!

I realize it's supposed to warm up again later this week, but for now I'm enjoying weather cool enough to wear some handknits:

Handknit socks, finished earlier this year but not worn until now. Pattern: my own toe-up sock recipe, with a 2x2 garter rib. Yarn: Dream in Color Knitosophy, sadly discontinued but beautiful nonetheless.

I'm also participating in NaKniSweMo this year as part of the 2014 Knitting Challenge. This idea is to knit a sweater with at least 50,000 stitches during the month of November. I'm knitting Stonington from CustomFit, in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter that I've had since last January (which, for my stash, is actually a really recent vintage!). So far it's coming along pretty well (yeah, that's a really crumpled-up WIP photo!):

 

My hope is to actually finish this sweater by the 15th so I can double-dip with the CustomFit Fall Festival KAL. Which means I need to stop typing and get back to knitting...

Happy November knitting, everyone, and here's hoping the weather is finally cool enough for you to wear your handknits!

 

 

 

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Spinzilla Wrap-Up

I survived another year of Spinzilla!  I know, I should have posted this a week and a half ago, but I've been recovering...

Left to right: Unspun fiber; Jack "helping" spin on my Ashford Joy; me spinning on my Spinolution Hopper in the backyard; over 2000 yards of yarn spun and plied during one week of Spinzilla!

I ended up with eight 4-oz. skeins (so 2 lbs.!) of yarn spun, for total credit of 6078 yards (4052 yards of singles plus 2026 yards of plying).  My goal was to beat last year's yardage, which was 2152 yards of singles, since plying didn't count last time.  So I almost doubled my singles yardage from last year, plus I have 8 fewer bags of unspun fiber in my stash, which is a definite "win" in my book.  And the yardage officially puts me in the Monster Mile club, too (I actually got almost 3.5 miles spun!).

The fiber for seven of the eight skeins is from The Dyeing Arts, which I am happy to see is still around, since the fiber I spun this year has been in my stash for at least 4 or 5 years.  I spun up a bunch of Merino Dazzling Duos, which are superwash merino rovings in 2 separate colors (2 oz. of each color), and I plied the two colors together.  The effects are pretty amazing--I call the photo below my "color study" (unintentional, but cool anyway):

Top to bottom: unspun fiber; first singles yarn; second singles yarn; final plied yarn

Left to right colorways: Cheshire Cat (purple/pink); King of Hearts (green/pink); Queen of Hearts (blue-purple/pink); Caterpillar (blue-purple/green)

The lighting on the singles photos is a little weird (because I was just taking pictures as I was spinning, I didn't have time to wait for daylight!), but the pinks are all the same, the blue/purples are the same, and the greens are almost the same.  The effects in the final plied yarn are pretty cool, and the lighting on those is consistent--with one ply identical between the first three yarns (l-r), the final yarns coordinate but are completely different.

I still have to finish the yarn and figure out what my final weight is so I can try to pick some projects... but I've been busy catching up on knitting:

This is the Moera I was having such trouble with in my last post.  I finally successfully cast it on last weekend, and now the knitting is almost done.  I'm trying to finish up this sweater and another one for Jack by the end of the month so I can start my NaKniSweMo sweater on November 1st:

This is my swatch for a CustomFit Stonington in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Long Johns.  The color is not quite so bright in person (someday I will figure out how to get reds to look okay in my photos!).

Which brings me to the 2014 Knitting Challenge... it's almost over!  I am currently debating whether or not to start a 2015 Knitting Challenge.  More on that in a future post--but if you're interesting in joining me for a 2015 Knitting Challenge, please leave a comment and let me know.

Until next time, happy knitting/spinning, everyone!

“Wants” vs. “Shoulds”

I recently took a career workshop focused on women and work, and we discussed how we should spend less time worrying about the "shoulds" in our lives and more time worrying about our "wants" (or, at the very least, being able to identify which is which), because things we think we "should" be doing are not our own "wants", but probably someone else’s (or at least what we THINK someone else wants us to do). Bottom line: We shouldn’t be neglecting actual needs, but we should be cognizant of what we actually want for ourselves vs. what we think other people want from us.

Now, despite my having a blog and everything, knitting falls firmly into the "hobby" category for me, and therefore I feel it should be made up of FAR more "wants" than "shoulds" (so when I start thinking about my knitting in terms of what I "should" do instead of what I "want" to do, I need to take a step back and reconsider!) Case in point: here’s an example from the past few weeks of my knitting life…

The pattern is Moera, for a Knits for Boys KAL in October (though it’s okay to start early, which I was trying to do). The yarn is left over from a sweater I made for my husband a few years ago (Berroco Ultra Alpaca). The gauge for that sweater was the same as this new pattern calls for (5 sts/inch), so I thought I could use the same size needles (8) and skip swatching (more on that later!).

Keep in mind: I’m not a huge fan of bottom-up sweaters with one-piece yokes. So I decided to start with the sleeves, since that’s my least favorite part (especially doing stripes in the round). With stripes, I have to do the sleeves one at a time (otherwise the yarn gets hopelessly tangled, especially with 3 colors!).

I got a few inches up the first sleeve before I realized my stripe pattern wasn’t going to work (in terms of having the right proportion of each color, according to the yardage I have available). So I ripped back to the ribbing and tried to start again, then decided to work on this instead (a 2014 Knitting Challenge project, so it’s easy to justify this one):

 

• Yarn: Dream in Color Jilly, in the Finally, Spring! colorway (my Mother's Day present from this past May)
• Pattern: Let your heart unwind, from Joji Locatelli

I finished that shawl (sorry for the crappy blocking photo, I haven't had a chance to get good finished photos yet), then decided that I didn’t really want to do the sleeves of this sweater bottom-up, so I ripped out what I had left.

I thought about re-jiggering the entire pattern to knit it top-down (I’ve actually done this before, so I know I can do it!). I realized that this is probably a silly idea since I paid for the pattern so I wouldn’t have to essentially design it myself. I decided that I could do the body bottom-up, then do a provisional CO for the sleeve stitches, finish the yoke and hood, and then do the sleeves top-down (as a bonus, this should make it easier to match stripes between the body and sleeves).

So I started casting on for the body and ran out of yarn for the long-tail cast-on about 2/3 of the way to the stitch count I needed. I started over again with more yarn, and ran out ~10 sts before the count I needed (and decided I didn’t want to fudge it with a knitted cast on for the last few stitches, because it was enough stitches that you would have noticed it right on the front of the sweater). Then I cast on a 3rd time, and ended up okay, but with a huge length of extra yarn left over (!).

The I knit the body ribbing, and started on the stockinette, and thought it looked a little big. I took a rough gauge measurement and realized I’m getting more like 4.5 sts/inch instead of 5 sts/inch. Then I remembered that my husband’s sweater in this yarn was knit entirely in the round (steeked—which I don’t really want to do with this new sweater), and my flat gauge tends to be a bit looser, so I need to start over and go down a needle size :(.

• Photo of the ill-fated start of this sweater body.

THEN I realized that my needles one size down are busy in another project (for another KAL making ANOTHER sweater for my son)… yes, I have other needles, but my ChiaoGoo Twist interchangeable set is my absolute favorite, and I don’t like using my other interchangeables as much (and size 7 isn’t a size I keep fixed circulars in).

So, the final "Want" vs. "Should" analysis: I’m pretty sure I still want to make this sweater for my son, in the yarn I’ve already picked out (I forgot how yummy this yarn is to work with!). I feel like I should finish it before the end of October for the KAL… and that’s where I need to cut myself some slack (it’s not even the kind of KAL where there are prizes for finishing on time!). Also, we live in Southern California, and my son already has a drawer full of handknit sweaters, so it’s not like he NEEDS more knitwear anytime soon!

So that’s when I decided to cast on a shawl in my own hand-dyed yarn:

• Yarn: my own hand-dyed yarn, in a superwash merino/bamboo blend
• Pattern: At dawn, also from Joji Locatelli (she had a sale recently, so I stocked up on patterns!)

I dyed this yarn awhile back with the thought of making a shawl with it, but it’s been sitting around since then with no definite pattern in mind (mostly because I originally started with 3 colors, and didn’t like the way one turned out with the others, so I scrapped my original plan and ended up with only 2 colors). Then I picked up some awesome patterns on sale in the past few weeks, and found one that would work.

I’ll come back to Moera later (maybe in October for the KAL, maybe later than that). Jack is excited about having a sweater in colors to match Daddy’s sweater, and by the time I get back to it maybe the weather will cool down enough that he can wear sweaters again (though I’m making it big, so it will fit for more than 5 minutes, and there’s no huge rush).

Up next: Spinzilla, October 6-12!

 

 

 

 

 

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Quick Update

Just to let you all know I haven't disappeared or anything like that.  I'm still busily working on the 2014 Knitting Challenge (and updating the Challenge page periodically), so keep going if you're joining me!

My Challenge summary so far: 19 knit/crochet projects completed, 1 in progress

• 4 sweaters for me
• 4 sweaters for Jack, plus 2 hats and 1 backpack
• 2 baby sweaters for gifts
• 6 shawls, plus 1 scarf
• And some spinning for Tour de Fleece, too!

Total yardage is something over 10,000 yards so far (I haven't updated all of the projects with the exact totals yet, so this is approximate).  I also don't have decent pictures of everything yet... but here's a quick collage so you get the idea:

Now I've got to get back to my current project, Hitofude for Camp Loopy Project 3.  Happy knitting, everyone!

March Madness: so close, but not quite!

Well, I almost made my goal for March Madness...

I finished the first sweater for Jack:

Pattern: Weehistoric Cardigan

Yarn: Tosh Sock in Damp

 

You'll notice that this isn't a cardigan like the pattern. I wasn't thrilled at the idea of getting Jack to stand still for long enough to button up 8 or so buttons, so I made it a pullover instead. This involved doing an intarsia dinosaur in the round, which didn't turn out quite as nice as I had hoped, but this will probably only fit Jack for 5 minutes, so we'll deal with it.

As for my second March Madness sweater, I got the body done, but I didn't get the sleeves started at all before the tournament was over Monday night.

Pattern: Limepop

Yarn: Malabrigo Rios in Bobby Blue

 

I've gotten quite a bit of the sleeves done since Tuesday, though, and my plan is to finish this sweater as soon as possible, so it's done before the next Knitting Challenge event starts next weekend!

The buttons (of which I only need one) are from the Yarn Crawl last weekend, purchased at Slipt Stitch. I'll post an Yarn Crawl update soon--note, however, that both sweaters above are from yarn purchased during the 2013 Yarn Crawl!

 

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2014 Event #2 (Iknitarod): Finished!

The Iditarod is done, so the Iknitarod knitalong is also finished!  My goal was to finish a new sweater (Driven), and I made it!

Pattern: Driven
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Gaea in Midsummer Night

I actually knit the sweater in 10 days, and even though the goal of the Iknitarod was to finish before the final musher crossed the finish line, I actually finished (the knitting, not the finishing) before the first musher finished!  And I got the ends woven in, the blocking done, and the pictures taken before the Red Lantern, which is awesome.

The yarn was pretty good--the color is beautiful, the yarn is soft without being too delicate, and the yardage is excellent (it was only 3 skeins for the entire sweater).  However, every single skein had at least one knot in the middle, which meant I had twice as many ends to weave in as I expected, which is not cool, especially for a hand-dyed yarn that is definitely not cheap.  The yarn had been marinating in my stash for almost 4 years, so I'm really glad I finally used it (on a totally different pattern than originally planned), but because of the knots I'm not completely sure I would buy it again.

Anyway, I've got a few days of break time here before the next event (March Madness, starting up on the 18th).  I've finally posted a page of all the events and projects I'm planning for the year, so please join me for one or many of the events, if you're so inclined!

2014: The Year So Far

Yes, it's been way too long since I last posted, as usual. If it makes you feel any better, I do think about my poor, lonely blog a lot, even if I'm not posting as often as I'd like!

I've had a pretty eventful 2014 so far, in terms of knitting...

I spent several weeks in January organizing my yarn stash and projects (both FOs and WIP), and updating Ravelry with all the latest. I've even got most of my books in my Ravelry library, though I haven't gotten to the magazines yet, and my unspun fiber stash is another story altogether... But even so, I made fantastic progress on organizing things in a more useful (i.e., Ravelry-enabled) way. Here's a small sampling of my yarn photos (for more, or to see some of the yarn I'm currently trying to de-stash, check out my stash on Ravelry):

Then I participated in the Ravellenic Games in February (I think this is my third Games, if I remember correctly!). My goal was to finish one sweater for Jack:

Diplodocus in Malabrigo Rios

But the first sweater went so quickly that I also managed to finish a second one before the Olympics were over:

Necco Wafer Hoodie in Takhi Cotton Classic

And I got two medals for my efforts!

And then I was so proud of myself that when my friend mentioned the Iknitarod starting in March, I decided to go for it, and as of today I'm almost done with the body of a new sweater for me (sleeves to come next...):

Driven in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Gaea

And then I was so inspired that I've planned out a whole 2014 Knitting Challenge, where I'm going to knit along with major sporting events throughout the year! 

Thanks to my January stash organization, I've got my yarn all catalogued and I've got projects queued up based (mostly) on yarn that I have in my stash, so I'm all set for a bunch of productive knitting this year. (I'll put up a separate post with the dates and sporting events I'm going to be knitting with this year, in case you want to join me, or just track my progress.)

Also, coming up in a month is the LA County Yarn Crawl! I've decided to be more strategic this year about what I'm buying (since just how much stash I already have is very fresh in my mind), but I'm definitely planning to get out and visit some yarn stores, especially some ones I haven't been to before. I hope to see some of you there!

Happy knitting, everyone!

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Catching Up

Yeah, it's been awhile (again). I'm still here, don't worry, and I'm still doing all kinds of fun stuff, it's just really hard to find time to take good pictures and then write up a decent blog post to go with them... Anyone with a full time day job and a toddler should be able to relate! Plus, Jack has taken a liking to my iPad (which he calls a "book", adorably), which means I really can't work on blog posts until he's asleep. But enough excuses, let me show you what I've been up to.

I went to France in September (without my husband and son) for a class I took at UCLA, and while I missed them a lot I had a great time. I can't wait until Jack is old enough for us to go as a family. There wasn't a lot of knitting-related stuff on my trip, but I did get to see a lot of cool stuff in Paris, and a few things in Normandy. Here's Mont St. Michel up in Normandy:

It's a monastery that looks like a castle, mostly surrounded by water. It's very cool, and I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area.

I did Spinzilla at the beginning of October, and here's what I ended up with:

I ended up spinning 2152 yards in the course of one week! The fact that it was a competition definitely helped, but I also spun it all woolen, which is super fast (in relative terms, of course). Compare that to the ~1300 yards of worsted-spun singles I finished over 3 weeks of Tour de Fleece, and that gives you some idea of how much faster it is for me. I'm now making myself a sweater from some of my Spinzilla yarn--I was going to save it for NaKniSweMo next month, but I couldn't wait!

I took a small break during Spinzilla to see Clara Parkes herself on her Yarn Whisperer book tour:

And of course Jack had to sneak in ;). Clara is at least as entertaining and engaging in person as she is in her writing, so if you have a chance to hear her talk about yarn anywhere, take advantage of it! I also ended up with a "claramel" of my own to bring home, and I hid it away so I wouldn't eat it too soon. I will have to take a picture when I finally taste it (I was dying to ask for the recipe, because I love making caramels, but I of course was too shy).

And there are the most interesting things I've done in the past two months. I hope you're all enjoying the cooler weather and the knitting opportunities it provides!

 

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Summer Wrap-Up

Yeah, I've been meaning to post a "Tour de Fleece Wrap-Up" for about a month now, and it's been long enough that I decided it's now really about what I've done with the rest of my summer.

I did finally finish the Seawool I originally started spinning for Tour de Fleece 2012:

I ended up with 1300 yards of a laceweight-ish singles... No wonder it took what seemed like forever to spin! I originally started spinning this in 2012 with the goal of getting around 400-500 yards of a fingering weight singles for a shawlette, but given the lighter weight and much greater yardage I ended up with, I elected to reallocate this yarn to a more appropriate pattern: the Citron Grand. I should have enough yardage to do 9 sections, so hopefully it will be big enough to be a comfy size.

I worked on my handspun Citron Grand at the Dodgers Stitch-n-Pitch game:

And guess who was sitting right in front of us? Barry Klein from Trendsetter Yarns (and of course I'm too shy to say hello, or to take a picture!).

I'm now into the 5th section of the shawl, but as of a week or so ago here's how it was shaping up:

I'm a bit surprised at how the yarn is striping in the shawl, because I didn't feel like there were really long blocks of color in the roving. I really like it so far, though, and I'm enjoying the color clarity and stitch definition of the singles. The rows are now getting long enough that I've got a good bit of autopilot knitting in between increase rows, so hopefully I can sneak in some more rows here and there and have a finished project before I know it.

We also took a family trip to the Renegade Craft Fair, which was fun (and, thankfully, overcast, so it wasn't completely roasting). I got some handmade soap, some hand dyed roving, and some delicious food truck gelato. Jack even almost let us get a good picture:

My little boy is growing up so fast you wouldn't believe it. He's too active to want to look at the camera long enough to take a decent picture these days, so I end up with a lot of blurry photos, or pictures of the back of his head. I still think he's the cutest thing ever, though.

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer, and happy knitting!

 

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Progress (at a price)

The boys in front of Griffith Observatory, where we hiked last weekend.

I've made good progress in the first week of Tour de Fleece:

It's surprising what can happen when you actually make time for something! It hasn't been without a cost, though... The time I've spent spinning has mostly come out of sleeping time, so I've now come down with some kind of cold in the middle of summer :(. And going from no spinning for an entire year to spinning for, on average, an hour a day for 8 days in a row has done a number in my wrists, and I had to take my rest day one day early. But I spun some today to make up for it, and I'm now almost done with the first half of my roving:

The roving is Sea Wool from Creatively Dyed, and it's been in my stash probably since the summer of 2008 when I first started spinning, so I'm honestly not even sure if you can get this stuff anymore. It's a wool and SeaCell blend (which is mostly tencel, if I remember correctly) and it's pretty much like spinning any kind of wool/tencel or wool/silk blend, with some nicely blended parts and a few places where you get a glob of the silky fiber that doesn't draft well with the rest of the fiber. The colors in the roving are gorgeous, but with the amount of light-colored fiber it's all ending up a little more muted in the yarn.

Anyway, I'm spinning an approximately-fingering-weight singles, S-spun (because of the two times I've knit with my handspun singles, the Z-spun singles fell apart and the S-spun singles knit up nicely), with a worsted draw at roughly a 4:1 ratio on my Spinolution Hopper. I originally started this spinning last year for Tour de Fleece with the idea of knitting up a shawlette I saw in a knitting magazine last summer... But we'll see if that's what this yarn wants to be or not when it's finally finished.

I can't wait to finish this spinning project (which, at my current rate, might actually finish up in another week), because here's what I have waiting to be spun next:

More about this fiber later. Happy spinning this week!

 

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