A Hat, A Plan, A Canal, Panama!

I have designed matching reversible hats for Sandy and I to wear at the Shamrock Shuffle this year (held in April of course).

The hat is designed in thirds with three simple celtic knots forming the bulk of the hat, with two shamrocks and the year in between the knots. The shamrocks and knots are regular double knitting where you have the mirror image on the reverse. The year is fancy double knitting where you can have different designs on each side.



Here you can see the bottom half of two of the knots, the year, and the chart.

Quick Update

I've been super busy, here are a few shots of what I'm doing right now.

Plain sock, knit with colorful yarn and contrasting heels and toes.

These were my train knitting, brainless and entertaining.

Now I'll have to come up with something else simple to work on while traveling.

I just started a swirl scarf, from the Swirl Shawl pattern that Mom gave me.

Knitting these little hexagons is probably not the best train knitting. They're easy enough, but don't seem like they'd be good for frequent stopping and starting.

More Sock

One down, one to go. No sign of the dreded second sock syndrome. The sock toe is actually very pointy, I have posed it for maximum roundness. And the sock is a bit short. Not by much. I think that my toes are longer than Ann Bud thinks my toes are. Oh well, I'll keep that in mind for the next pair. This second sock needs to be slightly too short with a very pointy toe. I am compulsive enought that matching is more important to me than fit.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a lovely time last night.  

Here's my sock progress.  I love them.  And I'm already planning future pairs to be knit.  I want striped knee socks!  

Merry Christmas Yarn

Josh's parents gift to me.  Some yarn money.  And my favorite downtown yarn shop announced a sale yesterday.  I ran over after work and grabbed these three skeins.  I'm very into the idea of fingering weight lace wraps.  I keep buying yarn to knit them, but have not yet started to knit any.  Odd.  Anyway, I love the color and the yarn is so soft, 100% merino.  Yum.  

Knitting Like the Wind

My sock!  I know it looks rather odd to you non-knitters, but it is actually progressing very nicely.  The part at the bottom where it gets a bit skinnier and has the needles in it is becoming the heel.  and the peach thread running down the middle is just to mark how far I've knit.  I'll pull it out when I'm done.  That is one day's worth of obsessive knitting interspersed with real life.  I hope to finish this one today and cast on for the next one tomorrow.  I do have to stay up until midnight.   

Happy New Years Eve! 

And a Hat

When I used up the second ball of yarn for Stephanie's scarf I checked the length.  It was longer than I am tall, and will probably stretch more when I block it.  Usually you make a scarf as long as the wearer is tall and I am a bit taller than Stephanie.  I sent her a quick email to see if she would prefer a very long scarf or a ridiculously long scarf.  She chose very long, and I offered to knit a hat with the remaining yarn.  This is the hat, as yet un-blocked.  

Blocking is a process where you wet down the knitted object and stretch it to it's final dimensions.  Depending on the type of object/garment you are blocking you will stretch it more or less vigorously, using one of many stretching/wetting techniques.  This guy was supposed to be wet down and stretched over a dinner plate.  The hat seemed smaller than a plate while dry, but once soaked, it grew on it's own.  The hat is now larger than a dinner plate, so I didn't bother with it.  I simply shaped it by hand on a towel.  Blocking smoothes out all the bumps and wrinkles you see in these pictures.  

The bottom of the hat, I'll weave in that loose strand of yarn.  The ribbing won't fold over on itself after blocking.  

Several Projects at Once

My techno-geek gloves, still very much in progress. These were sort of a prototype for gloves that I wanted to knit Josh. His gloves are pictured below. As you can see I am also not very far along on that pair.




Steph's scarf, also very much in progress. I'm almost done with the second ball of yarn (Stephanie bought three). So not too much more to go.




And some sock yarn I just bought for myself (I had cupons). It is a rather pretty self striping colorway, in a yarn that the Harlot speaks very highly of.





I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's site, and some Elizabeth Zimmerman books this past week. They've got me all worked up and ready to knit (I hadn't been working on Josh's gloves at all before yesterday). Worl wears me down, I arrive home in a semi-comatose state and get very little knitting done.


I've been spinning too, but it looks pretty much the same as the last photos. Today my clunky wheel repair kit arrived! I'm excited to fix my wheel, and a little nervous. I have to drill into the hub of the wheel to install the new axel. Taking drill to wheel is giving me pause. I'll work up the nerve soon.

Drop Stitch Stephanie

I'm using this beautiful yarn that Stephanie bought to make her a scarf. She found a really lovely dropped stitch pattern that she liked. It's my train knitting because it shouldn't get to big or too intricate to haul around.




I had almost three feet of scarf knit. On my lunch break the other day I lay it out to take a blog photo, when I noticed a giant mistake. And the giant mistake was only about a foot from the beginning. Argh. I had to rip back, it was a little demoralizing. Now that I've knit back to where I was, I can talk about it again.


The scarf pre rip. You can see where my circular needle is, way back by the beginning. That's where I had to rip to.




And the offending row. You can see how the scarf is all wavy lines and offset openwork. But mid frame there is a big honking straight line, where I did not offset the openwork. There was no way I could leave it.



This is actually very addicting to knit.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, all taken with my iPhone.

Goodies

Stephanie's yarn, I'm knitting her a cool dropped stitch scarf.  

My beautiful yarn!  So pretty I don't know what to knit with it.  I'm sure I'll figure something out.  

And my beautiful roving.  I'm waiting to spin it up until I've plied the brown and pink roving I've been spinning.  I need to see if my spinning style needs adjustment before I play with this so pretty.   

Brownish Noro Cash Island a cashmere blend from Japan.  

Greenish Noro Cash Island.  

Purple-ish Noro Cash Island.  

Kureyon Wrap

I just cast on for this yesterday. I'm knitting up another wrap with the fishtail lace pattern. This one should be smaller than my purple one, better to wear as a scarf.



I've been wanting to try Kureyon, but didn't want to purchase a sweater's worth. This, their sock yarn, was on sale at Loopy Yarns when I took my parents there this weekend. I might have to buy another ball, still cheaper than a sweater. I'm not sure that I want to commit to a whole sweater in these colors either. A wrap seemed like a good idea on several counts.

Swatching

An idea of what to do with my Happy Feet Superwash Merino sock yarn, that I'm going to knit a sweater out of.  

Plain stockinette with a seed stitch border?  We'll see.  I want something that won't compete with the yarn's color shifts, although those don't seem so very drastic.  Maybe I can do something more intricate.  Then again I only bought four skeins, I might have to stick to stockinette.  Time for some math!