It’s been a while since I did a June picture post, so I thought it would appropriate to do one today. Here are some random pics from the last couple months.

Lookin’ pretty.

Rocks and seaweed are two of the many treasures you can find at the beach.

She’s pretty much obsessed with spoons.

And figuring out how to blow bubbles.

She LOVES the see-saw.

And swimming.

Fun with doggies!

And kitties.

“I laugh at your cabinet opening prevention devices!”

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas, and children of mommas!

OK, I know it’s proper blogging etiquette to post one’s works-in-progress on Wednesday, but always one to fly in the face of tradition, I’m posting them today. UnFinished Friday? Yeah, let’s go with that.

WIP # 1: This is the Gloria cowl that’s sweeping the internets. This yarn is heavenly. Handmaiden Casbah in Ivory.

WIP # 2: Socks for meeeeee! I’ve never knit a pair of socks for myself! I’m rectifying that now. The variegated yarn is Hello Yarn Fat Sock in Sand & Sea. I’d heartbreakingly missed out on this color when it was released, but was able to get 1 skein via a swap on Ravelry. Normally you’d need 2 skeins to make a pair of adult socks, so I’m attempting to squeak out a pair of anklets with contrasting heels and toes (Koigu Kersti in a slate blue color). Hopefully I’ll have enough! The pattern is Afterthought Socks by Amy of MadelineTosh.

And finally….

I know! I can’t believe it either! Please don’t laugh at my sadly misshapen granny square, I’m so proud of it! You have no idea how long it took me to do this.

I’m normally not a big fan of teh crochetz, but I’ve recently been wooed by the likes of Babette, Larger than Life, and most recently, Butterscotch. Which is especially odd since I am usually not at all drawn to crocheted garments. I think I like this because it uses sock yarn, so it’s done at a really fine gauge and I think it will be more flattering. I first saw this cardigan when Brainylady queued it on Ravelry, and didn’t even realize it *was* crochet! When I looked closer and realized it was, I was totally bummed! But I picked up a copy of the magazine and noticed it was listed as an “easy” pattern. So I decided to take the hook by the horns and give crochet a shot!

Note that some people will try to tell you that crochet is easier than knitting. These people are filthy, rotten liars of the worst kind. This crap is hard, dudes. I was expecting it to be a lot more similar to knitting (and maybe it is if you’re a continental knitter) but it’s totally not and my hands keep wanting to do knitting type things when I’m trying to do crochet type things, and it’s totally frustrating! I don’t think crochet is going to be something I do super often, but I think it will be a good skill to have in my crafty repertoire.

OK, that’s all I’ve got! Hopefully a couple of these WIPS will be FOs by the end of next week and I’ll have some Juney pics soon too!

I don’t have any Fluvogs so my old Docs will have to do.

Pattern: Vog On - Summer 2007 Knitty

Yarn: Mama Blue Sea Merino in ‘Girl’

Needles: 12″ addi turbo US 2

I had been secretly planning to knit a pair of socks for Sarah’s birthday when she asked me if would knit her a pair of pink socks someday. I decided to let her in on the plan so that I could be sure to pick a pattern she’d really like and this is what she chose! I’m glad she did because I really liked this pattern! The picot cast on is different from other picot cast-ons I’ve used and I found it super pain-in-the-assy & fiddly. But once I got past that, these were a breeze! The 4 row lace pattern was super easy to memorize and the fact that they are ankle socks made them go pretty quickly! The lace pattern is also pretty stretchy, I made these to fit Sarah’s wee little feet, but they stretch enough to fit on my feet fairly comfortably. Since Sarah’s feet are shorter than mine, the cuff will probably come up a little higher when she wears them, allowing them to peek cutely out of her shoes.

I’ve expressed my love of Mama Blue yarns before and I’ll do it again: I loved working with this Mama Blue Sea Merino. It’s super squishy and shiny and gets even lovelier after a wash. And I have enough leftover to make something pretty & pink for June. I also liked using the 12″ Addi. I normally knit socks Magic Loop style or with 2 circs, but Phoe recommended the 1 short circ method so I thought I’d give it a try. It took a little while to get used to knitting with such a short needle; my hands were kind of cramping up at first because I couldn’t figure out the best way to hold them. But eventually I got used to it and these seemed to fly off the needles. I didn’t have to add a second needle to the mix until it was time for the toe decreases! I don’t know that I’d knit complicated socks with a short needle like this (something with twisted stitches or lots of cables), but for plain stockinette or other simple socks, I don’t think I’ll go back! Thanks Phoe!
Happy birthday Sari! I hope you love the socks as much as I loved knitting them for you!

Thanks so much to all of you who left such nice comments about my sweater! Unfortunately Wordpress rudely didn’t send any of them to me so I was unable to respond to them individually. I’m looking forward to finishing it, hopefully in enough time to wear it this summer!

Since I’ve been laid up at home most of the week with strep throat (oh dudes, the pain, it is incredible) I managed to get a little sewing done!

In the hopes of encouraging spring to hurry the F up, I thought June could use a couple summer dresses.

This orange fabric is some Heather Ross that I’ve had in my stash a couple years. The pattern is McCalls M5562 which is super easy for an inexperienced garment sewer such as myself.

I made these in a size 3 and the tie shoulders allow for some size adjusting so these should hopefully fit for a while!

This fabric was leftover from the backing of our friend’s baby quilt.

I was inspired to use it when I saw Beatrix’s lovely dress!

It only took about 45 minutes each to make these, so I’ll probably make a couple more before the summer is over (if spring ever decides to arrive!)

Are y’all aware of Knotions, the soon-to-debut online knitting magazine? Like Knitty, it will be published quarterly and full of free patterns, articles about knitting technique & product reviews. Knotions is the brainchild of Jody, aka Savannahchik, and I’m really excited about it! A little while back, she put out a call for test knitters to provide feedback for her inaugural sweater pattern. She needed test knitters to knit the yoke of the sweater for each bust-size the pattern offered, so I volunteered for my size. The yoke needed to be done within 2 weeks which I thought would be a good challenge for me. Maybe it would be the kick in the pants I needed to finally knit that first sweater?

Let me be clear that the forthcoming whining has nothing to do with Jody’s extremely well written and simple to execute pattern, and everything to do with my not being a sweater knitter (which I’m trying to change, which is why I wanted to do this in the first place)!

Well, it started out easily enough. The pattern is a short-sleeved, mock-wrap top-down raglan. The pattern called for DK weight yarn with a gauge of 5.5 st/inch. I had been planning to use some Silky Wool in my stash, but I couldn’t get gauge, so I went to my LYS and picked up a new yarn from Classic Elite called Cotton Bam Boo. It’s a 52% cotton, 48% bamboo blend. I got perfect gauge on size 6 needles and loved this pretty raspberry color:

Even though I had 2 weeks to knit this, I figured it wouldn’t take that long so I put it off for a week, opting to work on Sarah’s birthday socks instead. Finally, the middle of last week I decided I really should work on the sweater, and began to knit a few rows here & there, figuring I’d finish it up over the weekend. Sunday night was my self-imposed deadline. This was the amount of knitting I had to complete:

If you’re familiar with top-down raglan construction, you know that there’s a lot of increasing happening with that yoke. You may look at the cast-on number of 72 stitches, and at the final end-of-yoke stitch count at 372 stitches and not think much of it. This will be your downfall. Oh my God you guys, why didn’t anyone tell me how long each row would take once I got further into the yoke? At the end, it was taking almost 30 minutes per row! I know that doesn’t sound very long all typed out like that, but when you’ve got like 30 rows left and you’re just dying to click that row-counter, it’s agony!

I don’t know why it was taking me so long. It’s true that I’m not the fastest knitter, but I really think it was the purling that killed me. Since this is a v-neck, the yoke is knit flat & not joined until the bottom of the V, hence the purling. What is it about purling?? Why do I hate it so much? It’s not as if it’s ANY more difficult than knitting! I might be a slightly slower purler, but still, if the knit rows were taking me 25 minutes, the purl rows were only taking 28 minutes, so that’s not *that* much of a difference. But oh, how I dreaded & hated those accursed purl rows.

My hands and wrists were totally killing me by the end too, probably the result of the cotton yarn & desperately trying to knit faster so it would be done. I did not meet my Sunday night deadline, or even my revised Monday night deadline, but I did finish it around midnight on Tuesday. The added pressure of trying to finish this on time is also probably what made this project so difficult for me. As it turns out, I probably didn’t need to worry since most everyone is still test knitting! Phew.

Once the yoke was off the needles, it was time to try it on. Even though I got perfect gauge and knit it exactly as specified for my size, I was not convinced it would fit. I don’t always trust my knitting to do what it should. But behold:

The yoke fits perfectly!

So what now? Jody asked if I planned to finish knitting the whole sweater, and I’m just not sure. While I love the intended design of the sweater, it’s meant to be fitted and I’m actively trying to lose weight. Being a slower knitter, I wouldn’t want to spend all that time knitting something fitted that (hopefully) will be too big to look flattering. Also, this yarn is kind of on the heavy side. Not as heavy as a 100% cotton would be, but I have a feeling a solid stockinette sweater would get saggy at the end of a full day of wear. I don’t want to frog the yoke since it represents so many hours of my life, so I came up with an idea.

There’s a pretty popular sweater making the rounds on the internet known as Juliet. I’m thinking of taking the yoke of my sweater, doing a few more rounds, then adding the bottom part of the Juliet sweater. I’d need to figure out how to modify the bottom part for knitting in the round so that it’s a pullover instead of a cardigan, (see a nice example of this here for the Ravelry inclined, and a flickr pic here.) and do some gauge maths since I’ll be using a sport weight instead of a chunky yarn. With any luck, it will look something like this:

Except, you know, not crappy. I’m still not sure I’ll ever be cut out for grown-up sweater knitting. I’m too impatient for long-term projects. But I think now that the sweater has moved to the round (no more purling!), and now that the sleeves are off the needles (removing over 150 stitches from each row, phew!), and since I’d be knitting something a little more interesting than stockinette, maybe I could pull it off!

For now, back to the sock mines!

The title pretty much says it all, but keep reading anyway.
Let’s start with this: Are you all familiar with the popular Knitted Babes book? It contains patterns to knit 5 dolls & outfits for them, and they are super, super cute. I’d wanted to make one for June for awhile, but hadn’t gotten around to it because despite the success of last week’s knitted bunny, I generally suck at knitted toys. But Stacee had made a couple for her daughter & daughter’s friend, and they were so cute that I really thought June definitely did need one. I was wondering where I’d fit it in to my very tight knitting schedule (ha) when lo & behold, I received a package from Stacee in the mail! I wasn’t expecting anything from her so I was puzzled until I opened it up and found a Knitted Babe inside! With a teeny matching bathing suit (perfect, since June starts swim lessons again this weekend)! I tried to hide it from June until I could get the camera but she immediately saw it and started squealing “A beebee!! A beebee!!” and commenced dragging it around by her hair the entire evening. She’s now taken to calling it “dowy” (dolly?) and it rarely leaves her side. Here they are chilling on the couch together after an afternoon of coloring:

Thank you SO much Stacee!! What a great surprise! I’m definitely going to sew some little dresses for her!

Speaking of mail from awesome people: For her birthday, Phoe splurged on some of the most decadent yarn ever, Hand Maiden Swiss Mountain Cashmere & Silk. This yarn is 65% cashmere, 35% silk, 100% incredible. She made herself the cowl from Last Minute Knitted Gifts & it turned out gorgeous. In a cruel, cruel twist of fate, it turns out that when knitted up, this yarn is too itchy for Phoe to wear. What?! How can cashmere & silk be itchy? I don’t know, but this was a serious bummer for Phoe, as it would be for any of us, but even knowing that she couldn’t wear it, I was shocked when she wanted to send it, and the leftover yarn, to me. I was hesitant to accept it knowing the value of the yarn, but she couldn’t wear it and didn’t want it to go to waste. A swap was agreed upon and I sent some sock yarn her way. I’m now the proud owner of the softest item on Earth, and almost cursing the imminent arrival of spring (almost).

(I swear I’m happier about it than I look in this picture). Thank you so much Phoe!! I will try to resist the urge to sleep in and/or make-out with it.

Even more yarny delights: A few months ago I got some Arucania Nature Wool on clearance at WEBS for $2.99 a skein. On my monitor it looked like a pretty spring green. What arrived looked like this:

Mmm, mustard water. Except for the ‘mmm’ part. I knew I wouldn’t want to knit up yarn this color, but it was such a good deal, a sweater’s worth of yarn for $20! Enter the super great Adriana! She dabbles in the yarn dyeing arts so another swap was set up. I sent up some more sock yarn from my stash, and the 6 skeins of ugly wool. What arrived in my mailbox Wednesday was this:

Beautiful, gorgeous greeny-bluey prettiness! So much better! I’m thinking I may copy Phoe and knit up something like a Brompton with this…we’ll see! Thanks so much Adriana!

Finally, looking for a gift for the knitter in your life (especially if the knitter in your life is you?) I was reading turtlegirl’s blog a while ago and she had mentioned this great yarn bowl she picked up. The bowl keeps your unruly yarn contained while you knit, and looks pretty doing it. I was intrigued at the time, but the only problem is that once you threaded your yarn through the hole and started knitting, you couldn’t remove your project from the bowl until you were ready to cut the yarn. I tend to favor portable projects, so this would be impractical for me…until NOW. Enter the NEW & IMPROVED yarn bowl!

It’s got a little slot in there now! So you can take the projects in and out as you please! So perfect! As soon as I saw this I bought one right away! They are handmade by The Knit Witch and while I purchased a smaller bowl, she also makes larger ones (like turtlegirl’s) that are perfect for Fair Isle! Not affiliated, just a happy customer!

Oh, and the sock you see being knit out of that yarn bowl up there? Finished! I’ve already cast-on for the second one to avoid second-sock syndrome.

Super Grover is pretty excited about it too.

1. Intarsia

2. Sewing together 3 dimensional knitted body parts

3. Making pom-poms

Despite all that, I think this little project turned out pretty cute!

Who’s that peeking out from June’s Easter basket?

It’s a bunny!

With a butt-pom!

My friend Katie wrote up this Easter bunny pattern and asked me to test knit it for her! (The pattern should be available within the next couple days, I’ll link it on my Ravelry projects page when it’s up). This was a super quick knit, finished over the course of 2 evenings. I used “Moda Dea washable wool” in Raspberry for the body & Rose Pink for the ears, nose, and tail. This is a squishy superwash merino and it’s surprisingly nice for something available at the big-box craft stores. It’s not exactly priced like a big-box craft store yarn at $7.99 for 166 yard skeins (seriously?) but I had a coupon so it was cheaper. I probably used less than a 1/3rd of the raspberry & teeny amounts of the lighter pink so I’ll probably make a stripy hat for June with the leftovers.

I knit this tightly on size 5 needles to keep the stuffing from showing, and I didn’t stuff the ears because as I mentioned earlier, my intarsia sucks and I had some holes on the sides of the color changes that stuffing would have highlighted. I think he looks kind of cute and rakish with his floppy ears anyway! I hope June likes him!

I have some other test-knitting to do in the next week, but while I’m waiting for the pattern I’ve been working on Sarah’s socks. Is there anything prettier than an eye-of-partridge heel? I don’t think so.

I’m not usually a big charity knitter. I’d generally rather give my money than my time, as awful as that sounds, because I just have so little time for my own things right now. But when my friend Rob approached me to spread the word about his baby hat contest, I was happy to knit a little something. Baby hats practically knit themselves anyway!

Rob’s contest couldn’t be any easier. Knit or crochet a baby hat, get entered for a drawing to a win a $50 gift certificate to his online shop! He stocks some great high-end yarns like Schaefer and Blue Heron! The hats for this round need to be sent in by 3/31, but he’s going to run the contest quarterly! All hats will be donated to Beverly Hospital in Beverly, MA (where June was born)! Good luck!

In other knitting news, I’m making a pair of socks for my friend Sarah’s birthday at the end of April! She’s requested Vog On socks, which I’ve wanted to make for a while, so I can’t wait to cast on this weekend! I’ll be using my newest yarn crush, Mama Blue Sea Merino! Dudes, this stuff, is so, so gorgeous. I’ve already scooped up 6 skeins and more is inevitable. I first learned of Mama Blue when Ashley raved about her BFL sock yarn. Nikki is the master of semi-solid sock yarns and the sea merino (70% superwash merino, 30% seacell) base is SO squooshy and incredible! And if you finish a project in her yarn and send her a picture, she’ll take $5 off your next order! Which is good for me because I’ll definitely be ordering again and again and again, forever. I can’t wait to try her BFL and regular merino too!

For the birthday socks, this colorway is called “Girl,” perfect for Sarah who loves all things pink:

Have a good weekend!

Pattern: Blank Canvas Child’s Vest

Size: 2T

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Cool Fire, Giant Peach, Strange Harvest, Spring Tickle, Happy Forest, Blue Lagoon, Some Summer Sky and Wisterious.

Needles: US 7

Notes: I bought the ever popular Dream in Color Tulips baby cardigan kit when June was but a wee one, but it was only for a 6-9 month size and I didn’t get it finished (um…started) before she outgrew it. So I decided to make a vest instead! The front uses the yarn and striping sequence from the cardigan and the back & trim are the leftovers from my Lucky 7s hat. Pattern was straightforward as all of Cari’s patterns are and the results were super-cute!

Speaking of rainbows, Danielle came up with an awesome idea, to knit a rainbow of socks! A pair of socks for each color of the rainbow! I thought I would co-opt this idea for myself as I think it would be a good way to start working through my, um, adequate sock yarn stash. I find myself overwhelmed with choices about where to start, so this should be a step in the right direction! Danielle is going to try to knit the colors in order, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to do that, so I’m just going to try to have all 7 colors knit up within a year. 7 pairs of socks in a year, seems doable?? I have a few other socks I want to knit up first though so it will be a good challenge! So here’s what I’ve dogeared for the project (subject to change):

1. Wollmeise Sockenwolle in Indisch Rot, 2. Koigu, 3. Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop in Respect, 4. Sunshine Yarns Sock Yarn - Emerald Isle, 5. Zen Yarn Garden merino/tencel sock in Cool Teal, 6. Dream in Color Smooshy in Midnight Derby, 7. Madeline Tosh Sock Yarn in Logwood

Hooray for rainbows!