Knitting

I’m not feeling very inspired by my knitting projects lately. After I finished the bag for the knit mitten kit swap I decided I’d try to finish up some things that had been languishing in my knitting bag for a long time. The first thing on that list was my scarf, hat & mitten set. I’m making the mittens/fingerless gloves/whatever up as I go along, and I’m not sure I’m all that happy with how they’re turning out. But I want to finish up this project before I start anything new. So…I’m avoiding knitting at the moment.

But all bets are off on February 1st, when Project Spectrum 2.0 starts. I have two cardigans (one me-sized, one Carrie-sized) and at least two pairs of socks that could fit into the blue/white/grey color scheme for February and March. Think I can knit two sweaters and two pairs of socks in two months? OK, maybe not, but at least it will be a goal. Technically, the cardigans will also have a fair amount of green, so if they stretch into April and May that would be OK. I’m still pondering some non-knitting projects to do with that color scheme.

And if I really apply myself, I bet I could finish those mittens before Thursday so I can start all those new projects guilt free!

Carrie’s all set for winter now – I put the finishing touches on her hat, scarf & mitten set last night. Of course, I still haven’t finished mine…

Or, why it’s occasionally a good idea to actually read the pattern..

I think I’ve done something to anger the knitting gods. And it all started with a quest for a hat to match Carrie’s winter coat. I had no idea when I bought it that every shade of pink yarn in my stash would clash horrifically. As a matter of fact, I scoured three yarn shops for the perfect shade of pink in some sort of wool or wool blend, and finally had to settle for using an acrylic/cotton blend. Carrie showed a preference for a striped hat (vs. a cute little solid colored cabled hat) when I showed her some options, so I found four pretty heathery colors (but still, acrylic?!?) and bought one skein of each. Here’s the set as of this morning:

So far, I’ve had to knit the hat twice – despite swatching the yarn and measuring the head in question, the first attempt turned out way to small. The scarf…well, it’s a scarf. It will hopefully look OK when it’s on. The weird wavy edge is entirely my fault, since I figured out after the first stripe that I’d never finish a striped stockinette scarf and just started randomly using various stitch patterns without worrying about whether they would pull in or bow out. I think if I knit fast enough I may be able to finish the second mitten before I run out of pink yarn. (Yes, I know how that sounds.)

Except.

I discovered last night, as I was halfway through frantically knitting that second mitten, that I had made it identical to the first. The first mitten. Which was the right mitten. Yes, folks, these are handed mittens. And since the last time I checked Carrie has one right hand and one left hand, it’s something of a problem that I knit two identical mittens.

Sigh.

This is not a good way to start out my 2007 knitting year. Maybe I should go work on a few quilts or something…oh, wait, my walking foot broke before Thanksgiving. OK, maybe some weaving? No…I broke the warp on my loom and have no idea how to fix it or re-warp it…

I think I’ll go read a book.

This could be a new game show! I have the following for your consideration:

The face cloth on the left has been knitted 1.5 times. I was able to get the suggested gauge on the suggested needles. The reason I ripped it out halfway through was because (believe it or not) it was even more monstrously ugly, huge and crooked than it is now, so I went down a needle size. The face cloth on the right is more what I was going for (and is a different pattern). I am willing to give that one as a gift and actually sign my name to the card.

But unless someone comes up with a really compelling reason to not rip out the other one – such as “I have an incredibly frightening purple face cloth that looks exactly like that and I couldn’t possibly live without it!” – I’m going to enlist my mom’s help to rip out all 4 hours (that includes the ripping and re-knitting I’ve already done) of ugly knitting and re-knit that yarn with the other pattern.

I think it’s the (slight but important) difference between giving a “handmade” gift and a “homemade” gift.

And while we’re at it, does anyone have any suggestions for really fancy soaps or lotions that aren’t highly scented, as I don’t know the recipient’s preferences for fragrances?

I finished sewing the buttons on Devan the second this afternoon. Sorry for the really horrid indoor lighting picture. As far as I can tell the rain is going to continue until…well, probably until it snows. No more sunshine until next summer!

The baby this sweater is intended for is almost two months old. Luckily I didn’t plan for it to be newborn-sized!

This is the second time I’ve knit this pattern, and I still love it. However, I have learned three very important lessons:
1. Baby gifts should generally be knit out of something heavier than sock yarn. Otherwise they do not qualify as “quick knits”.
2. Navy blue (which is what the entire back of the sweater is) is a really boring color to knit.
3. The only thing more tedious than knitting navy blue yarn is sewing it up. Seriously, I thought I was going to become permanently cross-eyed trying to weave the seams.

But it turned out so cute I can’t be really all that frustrated with it!

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I mentioned some entrelac socks that just weren’t working out? Well, I ripped back and tried again in stockinette, and that didn’t look good either, so I temporarily abandoned those. Instead, I cast on for these two Sundays ago:

This is that luscious merino-tencel blend I bought at Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm at the fiber festival last month, and the pattern is from there as well. I love the way they turned out, and they were a really fast knit!

And literally, just as I was hiding the last end, the mail truck pulled up. And what was in it but my Hot Socks swap package from my pal Camilla! Yes, I got this lovely package all the way from Denmark:

There’s two skeins of lovely blue cotton/wool blend sock yarn, some very interesting looking cocoas, dark chocolates, a book of Hans Christian Andersen stories to share with Carrie, and some pretty little bangles for Carrie to wear. The cocoa is basically chocolate on a stick, which you put into your mug and pour hot milk over – I’ve never seen anything like it, but I can’t wait to try it! I’m also really excited about the solid colored sock yarn, since I seem to be on a lacy sock kick lately. Thank you, Camilla, for such a lovely package!

Unfortunately, some gift knitting – both Christmas and otherwise – needs to be accomplished before I can cast on another pair of socks. In the meantime, I’ll have to go in search of the perfect lacy (or cabled?) pattern to use my pretty blue yarn for…

Speaking of Christmas gifts, I have 11 gifts completed and 4 more so close it’s almost ridiculous to consider them unfinished. (I need to go buy two sets of 30″ shoelaces and they’re done.) There are 6 more gifts in the works, and then I may try to fit one or two more in there if I have the time. By Thanksgiving, anything that isn’t done, reasonably close to done, or is more than a day’s worth of crafting time to do is not getting done. That’s what Amazon is for, right?

Ack! It’s 36° right now – that’s 36° Fahrenheit, not Celsius! It was 64 this morning, just barely sweater weather. And now it’s almost freezing and Carrie doesn’t have a hat yet, because I just started knitting it yesterday. It’s snowing just a half an hour west of here! For heaven’s sake, it’s only October 12th! This is all because Carrie’s Halloween costume is the thinnest, flimsiest thing ever, isn’t it? (And it has wings, so she can’t actually wear her snowsuit over top of it.)

But back to the hat: I’ve gotten to the crown decreases, but it’s almost midnight and my head hurts trying to figure out where to decrease. See, I’m using a pattern, but I couldn’t get gauge (by a lot) and I adjusted the stitch count, and now I have to do some complicated math…and…I think I have to sleep on it. Not to mention that even if I finished the knitting tonight it’s a striped hat and there are at least four thousand ends to hide.

Poor Carrie. I wonder if last years’ hat still fits?