My little sister is 18!

While I've not been blogging, my little sister went and turned 18 in October. I can hardly believe it. She's the first person I've known from baby to adult, and it's making me feel really old.

I'm not really sure what the kids are into these days, but I'm pretty sure my sister likes crazy socks. Us? Related? Apparently she never matches them, which is where the resemblance ends. Well, she'll probably have to wear these as a pair, since knitted socks are so much thicker. Oh but then maybe she'd wear different thickness socks as well as different patterns and lengths...shudder....I need to stop thinking about that. I would probably gnaw my own ankle off if I tried that.

Anyway, socks.



This is yarn I got in Switzerland, at the department store. One of the many wonderful things about Europe is that you can buy yarn at the department store. And the really amazing thing is that it is good quality yarn. Most of it is wool, there is superwash or not, it is available in solid colors, and most of the sock yarn comes with reinforcing. Amazing. This is some Opal sock yarn from Co-op City (apparently the "City" makes a difference - regular Co-op sadly does not have yarn.)

In Summary:

Yarn: Opal Sock Yarn, I lost the ball band, but typical wool/nylon sock blend with bonus! reinforcing
Needles: Size US 1 dpn
Pattern: K2 p2 ribbed cuff, k6 p2 ribbed leg, typical heel flap, typical toe
Time: A few weeks, lazily, in Europe
Cost: Not telling as it's a gift, but less than one would expect

Europe.

Yes, while I was away, I went to Europe. Sorry about not telling you that. A certain gentleman I like I lot has the misfortune to live in Switzerland, and I went to visit him. It was in part a working trip, I had thesis writing to do, but I also did all the things one has to do in Europe.

I climbed to the top of a cathedral. This was more exercise I'd had since ...the last time I climbed to the top of a cathedral. The staircases are narrow and winding, and the tops of them tend to be really high up.


This is Geneva, Switzerland.


We also visited Manchester, England, where I bought all the knitting magazines. There are a lot of knitting magazines in the UK, did you know that? I will not be telling you how much I spent or how much the resulting stack weighed.


I saw a cathedral there too, but you weren't allowed to climb it.


Since I apparently can't go anywhere without poking at my dislike of heights, we also went up on the Manchester Eye, a slightly smaller version of the London one. I was totally fine with it. Really.



I drank lots of coffee.


And my wool-dar led me to barge that was also a knitting shop.



The nice lady let me in, even though it was closed. She was a knitter, and she and her husband, a photographer, live on the barge and travel up and down the river selling knitted goods and photographs. I bought a hat.



And I saw my friend Mika, who I had promised a "wooly hat" a long time ago.



This is the Quantoid Hat from the Fall 2010 Knitscene. I think I bought the issue solely for how cool this hat was. It did not disappoint.

In summary:

Yarn: Some superwash wool I got from Stitches, 1 skein medium blue, 1 skein light blue
Pattern: Quantoid Hat from Fall 2010 Knitscene
Needles: Size 5 (3.75 mm) 16" circ, Size 6 (4 mm) 16" circ, Size 6 (4 mm) dpn
Time: A little more than a flight to Switzerland via a long layover in Canada
Cost: About $16, you count yarn used and not purchased. I have enough left over to easily make a contrasting one, if not the same hat again.

Oh, and we took cutesy pictures of ourselves. We're kind of disgusting.

Jaywalkers, Take 2

These are the first socks I've knit twice*. Here are the first pair, some of the oldest socks I own.

These are the first Jaywalkers, which were the third pair of socks I ever knit. I mostly knit them in Japan, in fact, so I always have fond memories of them.

Me in Japan.


Those Jaywalkers are totally in progress in my bag in those pictures.
They're some of my favorites and I wear them all the time. I love the variegated yarn in the Jaywalker pattern, but I kept seeing ones online where people had used self-striping yarns and got a cute chevron affect. I decided I wanted some too.

I got this yarn at Stitches....2008? Not last year, but some time ago. Maybe even the year before, who knows? But it sat in my stash wanting to become Jaywalkers.
Like the last pair, I subbed in an eye of partridge heel, because I think the peaks really go well with the peaks in the Jaywalker pattern.

For some reason, when you have a yarn and a project already picked out for each other, it almost seems like it's a real project. And when it's a real project and you're not working on it, it seems like a UFO.
So anyway. Cute chevron Jaywalkers. It's not like I like this colorway or anything.




* By that I mean the first actual pattern. Sure, I've made basic 2x2 rib socks or plain stockinette socks plenty of times, but this is the first time I've actually played by someone else's rules twice.

In Summary:
Pattern: Jaywalkers by Grumperina
Yarn: I'm pretty sure it's a German yarn like Schoeller and Stahl, but I lost the ball band. It's definitely 75% superwash with 25% nylon
Needles: US Size 1 (2.25mm) dpn
Time: A few weeks of intermittent work
Cost: Around $10

Exchange Bag

I'm a big fan of Debbie Stoller. When I first got the Happy Hooker book, I went on a major crochet spree. I think this was before I started blogging. This was back in Indiana, in fact, so a rather long time ago. Anyway, I made like 6 patterns from that book in a row. And then, for some reason, I got stuck on this one.

So, I just decided to go with it. I don't know if I followed the pattern exactly, I don't really care. I've got a cute little bag out of it.

I'm a big fan of this yarn, which I never would have found out about without the book. It's Hilos la Espiga, which is basically polyester twine. It's pretty water-resistant, so great for a bag, and it's really not annoying on your hands when you knit, as I feared it would be. I think it would make a great market bag. It comes in a lot of really brilliant colors.

In summary:
Pattern: Exchange Bag from the Happy Hooker (Stitch and Bitch Crochet)
Yarn: Hilos la Espiga in bright green
Needles: A crochet hook appropriate for worsted weight yarn
Time: Several years, in fact, but most of that was in jail. I think you could do it easily in a week or two, if you can read a crochet pattern better than I can.
Cost: Under $20, I'm sure

Icarus Shawl

So a little over a year ago, I knit this on commission, and it was beautiful.

I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to start knitting something similar for myself. Not this particular shape or pattern, but a pretty white lace mohair shawl.
I had this yarn.

You can't really tell from this photo, but it was a giant cake. It's the biggest single cake I've ever seen, and that's because it was about 1500 yards of mohair. In one cake.
I don't remember the brand of the yarn, I bought it at a neat little shop in East Lansing, MI. The lady there custom dyed things, but I wanted plain white, so she sold it to me off the cone like this. I have to say, I'm a fan of the giant cake. It means no awkward ends to weave in throughout your delicate lace shawl.
It was destined to become the Icarus Shawl (ravelry link). I thought it would look like angel wings. So, it was lovely, and I was really enjoying working on it, up until about 2/3 of the way through the body.

It pretty much looked like this, which was easy enough.
And then the second half of the original shawl story came into play, and I had to knit the second one, because the first one was stolen.
And after two and half white mohair shawls, well, this one was put in time out for a while.
In my post-Christmas UFO busting spree, this one was a good candidate, because I was now in love with the yarn and pattern again. It only took a year. And this is the result.

Pretty good, huh? It's gigantic, but I'm totally fine with that. This is a shawl with some heft to it, not one of those wimpy shawls that's pretty much a yarn necklace. Oh no, this is a shawl built for warmth. Just in time for summer. Oh well, it's out of the way, it's a gorgeous finished object that I'm actually going to keep, and it will be tres chic come fall.

In a crazy-cat-lady-in-training sort of way.
I finished the actual knitting of it some time ago. Okay, possibly a month or two ago. But, it's not finished till it's blocked, especially with lace.
Various closeups:

The peak

The edge
The really hard part was when I got to the end and there were 500+ stitches a row. It got to the point where if I managed a row a day, I was thrilled.
I'm not making a giant lace shawl again for a while though. The only lace I make next will be tiny.


In summary:
Yarn: 1300ish yards of white mohair (there's a tiny little cake left).
Pattern: Icarus, Interweave Knits, Summer 2006
Needles: Size US 4 (3.5mm) Addi Lace
Time: A little over a year, but much of that was in time out
Cost: Around $15, if I recall.

Christmas Round Part 4: Sexy Welshman Edition

I'm a planner, I like to plan things. I make lists, and have rough sketches of what I'm going to be doing months in advance. I planned my Christmas knitting in September. What I hadn't planned on was a certain Welshman, who happened in October.
Exhibit 1: Welshman

Oh yeah, also I'm a redhead now.
By the time it was clear that he had joined the top ranks of my to-knit-for list, I was already behind on the rest of my Christmas knitting. It was clear to all involved that he was not going to get a knit before Christmas, except maybe a hat,
Exhibit 2: Hat

I promised him socks when he got back. This meant that I started knitting Christmas Eve (the official deadline for family gifts), and had two lonely weeks to turn something out for him.
Now, I know what you're thinking. October. How can someone possibly deserve handknits from October to December, but I don't control these things. Sometimes you just have to knit for people.

He has impeccably good taste, and generally buy whatever he wants, and a good quality version at that. The only thing I could afford that was of incredibly high quality was handknits, and that meant I had to do the knitting. He loves texture in his clothes
Exhibit 3: Texture

so he needed texture in his socks; I couldn't just give him plain socks or ribbing. I picked some socks with a neat texture, the Yarn Harlot's Earl Grey socks. Luscious Luka made them for her dad, and they were a man-approved success. I even made them in grey. Again, I generally don't follow a pattern so closely as to use the same color, but grey is just such a practical color, and it doesn't harm your vision as much as black. (Other acceptable options include navy blue or brown, and those may appear in the future.)

They are a bit tight on his feet; I didn't really take into consideration how a big man might just not have big feet lengthwise, but big feet around. This is absurd, because I had, in fact, made exactly those considerations for my dad in the last pair of socks I made before these.
I blame the yarn. It's thinner than most sock yarns, and even some lace yarns. (I still love it, I'm just going to have to massively increase my stitch count if I use it again.) I thought I would need two skeins, but these came out of one with a tiny bit left over. If I had increased the stitch count like I should have, I may have had to break into the second ones. He wears his socks tight anyway, so hopefully it's okay. I suspect he'll be getting more socks in his future.
This is us on Valentine's Day, in which he cooked for me.


In summary:
Pattern: Earl Grey by the Yarn Harlot
Yarn: Cascade Heritage, 1 skein.
Needles: US 0, two circs
Time: Two weeks of frenzied, focused knitting
Cost: $12.95 for these, but I did buy the other skein and am probably too lazy to return it.

Block Party

Remember when I said I needed to block things? I wasn't kidding. This is what my front bedroom looks like now, due to two of the major offenders. My house smells like wet wool.


There are a lot of points on that shawl, and the sweater turned into an amorphous blob as soon as it hit water.
More on each of these coming soon, that is to say, once they dry and I can get reasonable pictures of them.

Christmas Roundup Part 2

My dad is a big man. For some reason, I decided to knit him socks. You will see this is not the last somewhat foolish decision re: large men, socks, that I made this Christmas season, but more on that later. No, I decided to make my dad socks.
At first I started out with this yarn.


I thought it would knit up like camouflage, which would be perfect for him. He even actually admired it in the skein when he was over one time. I was pleased to knit from my stash, and proceeded recklessly. Very recklessly, because even though I could see that it was clearly knitting up like Christmas socks, I got this far along. There is none so blind as she who will not see how clearly inappropriately this yarn was turning out.
Well meaning people told me it was okay, but I felt it niggling at the back of my mind. So finally, I asked my friend Michelle (seen in this post, modeling socks of her own), who is very much of the same no-nonsense country mindset of my dad. She declared them Christmas socks, and that no Real Man TM would wear them, confirming what I knew all along.

So, since most of my sock yarn in my stash was bought on impulse, meaning that it has obnoxious colors that would appeal to a 5 year old or me, I had to make an expedition for more sock yarn. Consultation with Michelle revealed that Military Olive Green is in fact, the best color to make socks for an ex-military man. I was worried about running out, so I decided to do the heels and toes in a contrasting color, Very Practical Brown.

Okay, these pictures do not do them justice, they simply do not. I do not own giant-man-foot sized sock blockers. Given my knitting recklessness of late, I may have to invest in some. But here they are, looking a bit silly and deflated. I assure you, they look much better on.
Luckily, he was incredibly pleased with them. He put them on right away, and nearly wore them the next day as well, but my mom vetoed that idea as they had started to smell. He commented, "You know how when you buy socks from the store, you have to wear them out a while until they stretch and fit you right? Well, these just fit perfectly right away." Yep. That about sums up the beauty of hand-knit socks.

I may have proved my point too well. He later asked if I would make him more, like 4 or 5 pairs more, and he would pay me for the yarn. I guess family gets labor for free. Speaking of, I really should get on that. Gulp. I'm so far behind in my mental knitting queue. I'm a little burnt out after churning through the Christmas list. The first pair will probably be the negative of these - Very Practical Brown with Military Olive Green toes and heels. At least that will keep the cost down.

In summary:
Pattern: 2x2 rib cuff and instep, afterthought heel, regular toe
Yarn: I....don't actually remember and am too lazy to go look it up.
Needle: Size US 1, magic loop method
Time: Several weeks of fairly mindless knitting
Cost: Well....he'll get two pairs for about $40, let's put it that way.

It's not finished till it's blocked

I keep telling myself this. It's not finished till it's blocked. Because otherwise I would have a sweater and a lace shawl to show you.
But I will soon. And also the Christmas roundup will continue. Especially if my mom sends me pictures of her sweater.

I can't show you

I finished a Christmas gift. But I can't show you, because you know, it's a Christmas gift. I'm trying really, really hard not to give it to the recipient already, but I think I'm going to make it.

But be proud. It's not even November.

Of course, that's not counting the partially done sweater for my mom that she already knows about. I've got a ways to go on that. It's something though.

Business Socks

You know when I'm down to my socks it's time for business, that's why they're called business socks.
I finished these a while ago, but since I got sick this summer, I really have let blogging go. Since I have way too many pictures of my cats, here's some actual knitting content.
I needed some dress socks, specifically black dress socks. I've knit them before, but honestly, they were boring and hard to see. So I decided there's no rule that dress socks can't have silver in them.

Yep, real 2% silver. At first I worried that it might come out in the wash, but then I realized if that happened, I would wind up with plain black socks, which was my goal in the first place. In the meantime, they would be more fun to knit, as I could occasionally stop and remark thoughtfully, "Oooh, shiny!"
I didn't have a stitch dictionary on me, so I just made up some vaguely lacy looking stitch in every other rib. I think it was k1, yo, ssk; k; k2tog, yo, k1; k, or something very similar.

It's hard to see in black anyway, I just needed something that was different enough to entertain me and not so complex that I needed to count rows really hard or anything.
Basic heel flap, I just continued the reverse stockinette portion that made up the other half of the ribs. It occurs to me now that a German heel (the kind with a garter border on the heel flap) might have looked really cool here. Next pair of socks may wind up with a German heel because of it.


In Summary:
Pattern: Ribbing/lazy lace cuff, reverse stockinette heel flap, regular toe.
Yarn:Kraemer Yarns Sterling Silk & Silver, 1 skein (420 yards, 63% Superwash Merino, 20% Silk, 15% Nylon and 2% silver)
Needles: Size US 0 (2mm) Dang, that sounds small, but I use it a lot for socks.
Time: I started them in March, then abandoned them for a long time. I think I finished them in about two weeks in August or so.
Cost: About $22 for the yarn

Spinning with Fire

Okay, this is not going to be particularly thorough. But it is going to be something. I spun this:


and I actually remembered to take a picture of it first.

It's a 80/20 wool/silk blend I got at Stitches last year.
Here it is on the wheel.

And here it is drying.

I totally have not estimated the yardage on it, but it's a decent amount.

I completely and utterly do not know what to do with it. Suggestions? I already have a ton of hats and scarves, and it's not much yardage. I haven't done anything with anything I've handspun (other than give some to a friend). I get bored of spinning easily so I don't want to commit to an epic amount. And yet I don't need any more small finished products. I'm going to have to get good enough to spin sock yarn.

Something to show you

Oh, I do have something to show you after all, and this post is long overdue. A couple of months ago, my Aunt Betty, who taught me to crochet when I was about 7, made me a giant crochet blanket. Here it is on my queen-size bed.


She describes it as a "history blanket," using yarns from many other afghans she has made over the years. And there were many.
When I was a kid, my family would all travel to Michigan together in the fall. My parents, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle would all go to the same hotel and explore southwestern Michigan. We would do all those fall-like things, picking apples, getting pumpkins, shopping hobby stores (okay, maybe that's just my family), and generally spending a weekend together in a mini family reunion. Sometimes we would even get adjoining rooms, and we could go into their rooms without even going out in the to the hall! When you're 6, this is amazing.
In the evening, after making great use of the hotel's indoor pool, we would all gather in one room and drink sparkling cider, eat apple donuts, and watch old movies on TV. I would crawl up on the bed next to Aunt Betty, who would always be crocheting some interesting new afghan, and pepper her with questions about it. Eventually she taught me (maybe to shut me up?), and I made a few little purses. I'm afraid I let it go for many years after that, but I picked it back up in college and haven't been able to stop since. Even though I knit more, I always have at least one of two crochet projects going.
And I can even make blankets just like Aunt Betty. The stitch is the afghan stitch, which is very fun to do, but I admit I haven't practiced much, and it's bordered by shells.


It's an incredibly warm blanket, and I love it, of course. The cats, on the other hand, simply adore it, and I can barely pry it away from them. If I leave it on the couch, there's always a cat on it. When I try to hang it up on the quilt rack (which I got for $5 at a garage sale) in the living room, Worfy will actually pull it down so he can sleep on it.


You can also see my crocheting in this picture as well. I'll show you that soon.

Happy Mother's Day

Last weekend was Mother's Day (in the US anyway), and so of course, I went home to visit my mom. And of course, I knit something for her.
But first, we had to get a birthday/Mother's Day gift for my grandmother, and we decided she needed some new flowers. Several hours at the garden center later, we put together this arrangement.



It's really vibrant and the pot matches their house. But I really couldn't get over how beautiful this dahlia is, and will probably have to paint it. (I dabble in painting. God forbid there be some craft I don't do. Mom is the real artist. Go see her blog. )


Anyway, just like when I was 5, I made her present for Mother's Day. This time, instead of involving cut up straws as beads for a necklace (I don't know, ask the Montessori school what that was all about), she actually gets pretty things. She asked for a little shawl, just big enough to throw over her shoulders, in a neutral color. It's the grown up's answer to a hoodie. Being for my mom, it naturally had to be cotton.
Here's what I wound up with. Somehow this picture turned into some classical art style thing, I'm not really sure.


I really should have thought this "simple" thing out before I started. I started with an idea for more or less a lazy Clapotis, rectangular instead of on an angle. I liked the dropped stitches and I liked the way the stockinette curled. Not that you could really get stockinette to do anything else. Unfortunately, you don't drop stitches until the end. The very end. Which meant that I wound up knitting a giant stockinette rectangle. I was doing a lot of travelling, so at least I could close my eyes and knit when I got nervous on the plane, but I wish I had picked a stitch with at least a little something to it.
But the finished product turned out really well. My mom really can't tell one side of a knit fabric from the other, and she picked it up and put it on backwards. I really liked the way the reverse stockinette looked better, and decided that's how I intended it to be. So not like a clapotis at all.



Should you wish to recreate this , it's pretty simple. Cast on as many stitches as you think you'll need to wrap around the body, bearing in mind that the dropped stitches will stretch. On size US 7 (4.5 mm) needles with worsted weight yarn, I cast on 100 stitches. It wouldn't have been a bad idea to do a little more. My mom is about a small/medium, so increase as necessary. In the first row [k5, yo] to last 5 sts, k5. Then knit in stockinette for approximately forever, or long enough to wrap comfortably over your shoulders. In this case, forever was about 2 feet and felt like longer. (If any new knitters happen to stop by, I'll remind you that stockinette is knit one row, purl one row.) Then the fun begins. As you're binding off, drop every 6th stitch. Bind off all the other stitches as usual. Unravel it all the way to the bottom to get those open lines.
I can't really describe how fun it is to drop stitches on purpose.You really just have to try it for your self. It's like you're making a run in pantyhose, but it creates a cool pattern.

In summary:
Pattern: See above
Yarn: Bernat Cotton Tots (100% cotton) beige/natural, 2.5 skeins
Needle: US 7 (4.5mm)
Time: About a week getting some good knitting time in