Charity destash

Joy, my friend and one of the greatest beings on this planet, is raising money for Team in Training by selling off her fabulous collection of yarn (you will need a Ravelry account to read the last link). Please join me in buying her stuff and raising money for a truly worthy cause. If you don’t knit or crochet, you can learn. I will give two free knit or crochet lessons to anybody who buys at least $20 worth of yarn from Joy. If you don’t want to learn (and why not?!), you can also just give the yarn to me. True story.

Sweaters-es

That’s not a typo. Just imagine Gollum saying the post title. I’ve become obsessed with kiddo sweaters, and have made three in as many months. They’re the perfect gift because 1) little kids need to stay warm; 2) they’re more likely to stay on than booties; 3) they’re faster to make than blankets; and 4) they’re more interesting to knit than just about anything else.

Pattern 1: Raglan Baby Cardigan (Top-Down)

The first sweater I made was for my friends who recently welcomed their first child. Can you guess their last name? I’d actually been playing around with this idea for years. Initially I thought I’d make them a blanket in these colors, but then I remembered that I’m still traumatized by the thought of knitting another baby sweater, and went back to the drawing board. I bought the yarn in March, before I knew that they were expecting. The color was exactly what I’d had in mind, and it seemed too fortuitous to pass up. Then I ended up needing more yarn for the sweater I wanted to make, so I had to turn to my fellow knitters on Ravelry. I was able to find more of this yarn, but the yarn I had was discontinued and the new yellow wasn’t as good a match for the colors of the Brazilian soccer team, which is what I’d been going for. Curses, universe! The color in those pics is pretty weird, since I took them with my cell phone (why couldn’t I have reached for my real camera?); the picture of the front of the sweater is most accurate, color-wise.

Pattern 2: Crossed Cardigan (not yet available)

The second sweater is one that I test knit. I made the 1 – 2 year old size. I didn’t get gauge on the completed project, and my model also experienced a terribly inconvenient (for me) growth spurt, so this one will be passed along to somebody else soon. This sweater was also done in one piece, but involved a lot of picking up stitches that struck me as too fiddly. The end result was lovely, though. I’ve decided that my current block-fu may not be working anymore, and finally caved and bought some blocking wires. Once they arrive, I’ll reblock this sweater and see if it ends up at the right dimensions. Even if this one doesn’t end up conforming to the suggested gauge, I think I’ll make this sweater again (the pattern includes directions for many sizes). I didn’t love all the picking up I had to do, but now that I know what to expect from this, I’m sure I could do it again.

Pattern 3: Sunnyside

I haven’t 100% of the way finished my third sweater, because I have yet to figure out how it’s going to close. I have a matching zipper I could put in it (learning that you can purchase $.27 zippers fixed something in my soul, btw), but since the buttons were the least of my concern with the Crossed Cardigan, maybe I should stop avoiding them.

Even my beer thinks it’s turtleneck weather

The fabulous Carrie made me this gorgeous beer cozy. Well, she didn’t make it specifically for me, but I did have the good fortune to claim it in the gift exchange. Yay.

She also made the star ornament that was tied on the outside of the bag in which she had placed the beer (also known as a cleverly folded page from Sunday’s Times, a little worse for wear after being toted from NYC to my house.).

How awesome. One gift, many gift ideas!

Mistake Rib Sweater

I made this sweater and gave it to the littlest Wagner, who is ADORBS.

I crocheted the flower pin to break up the mistake rib pattern. I learned a lot with this sweater: how to do a hood, how to convert a flat pattern to one worked in the round, and that I should have factored in the whole “stitch picking up” thing into my construction of the early part of this sweater. I also learned that I never ever ever want to do toggle button thingies again without somebody else’s meticulously-written instructions to guide me. I did the sweater in one piece until I got to the armpits (see, I’ve learned!), but from then on things weren’t 100% symmetrical. The problem with such a stretchy pattern is that the two sides stretched differently. I’d do a ribbed bottom for 6-8 rows to rein in this pattern’s tendency to spread.

Still, I’m getting better at sweaters, which can only be a good thing.

I think I’ll try to make this sweater again, and incorporate the things I’ve learned and the things that occurred to me after it was too late to do anything about them (i.e. MEASURE everything don’t just eyeball it).

I feel like I’m about ready to do a sweater with steeks (intentional steaks, not the kind that are placed as an afterthought when I’ve goofed).

Here’s a lower place

Just when I thought that the international mania surrounding the royal wedding couldn’t get any more ridiculous, I came across this gem: Knit Your Own Royal Wedding. That’s right, knitters: should the royal couple have forgotten to invite you to their zoo of a wedding, you can console yourself by knitting tiny representations of them. Because that’s not creepy at all. And the worst part is that, as of the time of this post, this book is #499 in Books. Not crafting books. ALL books.

Why didn’t I know this???

Over the last few weeks, I have come to realize that it is infinitely easier to make a baby a sweater than a blanket. Why did I have to make so many baby blankets before braving a sweater???? I may never make another blanket again. I feel like I should make sweaters for all of those babies and now-toddlers for who m I never got around to making blankets.

I made Porkchop a cute little sweater for her baby shower (the only picture I have is pretty awful, so I’m not posting it here), but wasn’t 100% in love with it as a first effort. There had been another sweater from that same pattern book that I would have liked to make, but I lost the book, and it wasn’t a huge enough priority to buy it again. Coincidentally, a woman in my knitting group had a stitch pattern that I liked, and I just decided that what worked for her scarf would work equally well for my next sweater.

So far, so good. Maybe I’ve found something to do with all that excess yarn I’ve been collecting over the years…

Here comes the hat stalker

The title of this post should be sung to the tune of “Here Comes the Hot Stepper” by Ini Kamoze. It’s what plays in my head now when I’m out in public, since I am now always on the lookout for cute knit hats. It’s like a sickness. I haven’t yet reached the point where I’m zoning out on conversations, but I can tell that it’s only a matter of time. The more hats I knit, the more I want to make.

Sometimes looking isn’t enough, and i have to take pictures. If I can do it unobtrusively, so much the better, but I’m not above explaining that I am a knitter and asking a particularly squirmy person to sit still while I photograph his or her headwear.

I saw this hat on the bus the other day and liked it for a point in the future when I am looking to make a simple project. The woman whose hat it was looked flattered, amused, and slightly creeped out, all at once.

The dangers of tv knitting

All in all, not bad for something I started after work on Tuesday

For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching Eureka as I knit. I tend to watch comedies (or really mindless dramas) when I’m knitting, because they require less attention on my part. I started a new hat today, and I’m feeling a wee bit victorious, since it’s stranded knitting, a style that I haven’t done before. I was finding it surprisingly easy, and really enjoying how fast this hat was going. I said was, because I ran out of Eureka episodes to watch, and switched to Damages. I spent the first half of the first episode watching intently and knitting on autopilot, and now have been unraveling my work for the next hour. Note to self: serious drama and Fair Isle knitting do not mix.

I read the season arcs/spoilers on the wiki, because I suspected that this show was too mean for me. I’m pretty sure it is. Ever character on that show is vile, and I don’t care enough about them to overlook it. I did see that the 5 most recent episodes of Eureka are available on Hulu, so I will catch up and then watch the remaining episodes there.

Everything is funnier when you’re sleepy

I watched this video the first time I made a hat with a pompom. I found these women hilarious and, even better, they taught me how to use my pompom maker, which was sadly lacking in instructions. I watched this video again tonight when I went to make a pompom for a new hat I finished. Perhaps because it wasn’t 2 am and I wasn’t coming off the high of finishing a hat that actually fit my head (as opposed to this monstrosity), I found the video a lot less entertaining this time around. Still, Hatapalooza 2010, or whatever I’m calling this thing, is going pretty well. I may actually finish all the hats I intend to make!

I am so over vampires

It’s a pity that not everybody agrees with me. Now vampire ridiculousness has infiltrated the world of knitting. I guess I should have known this was coming, what will all the Twilight groups on Ravelry. The sad thing is that I looked through the patterns, and a lot of them are really cute and have nothing to do with vampires! The taint of the Cullens is too strong for me to consider purchasing this, but I might borrow it from the library.