I started this hat & scarf set last year, right before I went into labor. I thought I’d like to have some mindless knitting to work on through contractions. Hahaha! Yeah. Didn’t knit a stitch during labor, so this got put aside until recently. I had finished the hat last year but I just couldn’t get motivated to finish the garter stitch scarf until now. I’m glad I did because I love this set! So simple, but so bright and soft and squooshy! The hat is “Kim’s Hat” from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and as I said above, the scarf is just garter stitch. Worked in some Malabrigo leftovers I had laying around, the orange is Ladrillo and the pinky-red is Amoroso.

Speaking of things that make me feel squooshy, thank you all SO much for all the sweet comments you left for June! Here’s the birthday girl sporting the crown I sewed for her the morning of her birthday (I got this great idea from the fabulous SouleMama!)

There were presents:

And of course, cake!

She was more interested in the frosting than the actual cake, but everyone else liked it! Thanks to my pastry-cook friend Devon for the great banana cake recipe that I used! It was delicious and super easy!

And finally, random.org says that June’s birthday contest winner is commenter #56! Which was…Kristen! Yay! Kristen, send me your address when you have a chance and I’ll get a prize package in the mail to you sometime this week! Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments for June, I am sure when she’s old enough to understand, she’ll appreciate all the the love

I can cross 2 of my 2008 projects off the list!

Pattern: Thrummed mittens from the Winter 2006 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Thrum Mitten kit in Amethyst
Needles: Size 6 + 7 KnitPicks 24″ circ, magic looped

Notes: For non-knitters out there, thrummed mittens are the traditional winter accessory of Newfoundland/Labrador. They have little tufts of unspun wool knitted in to provide a super warm & cozy fleece lining on the inside of the mitten. The Fleece Artist kit comes with yarn, merino roving for the thrums, and a patten, but I misplaced the pattern so I ended up using the pattern found in last winter’s Interweave Knits. I later found the pattern in June’s room (?) but had already started with the Interweave pattern so decided to keep going, even though I prefer the look of the Fleece Artist pattern.

These were a super quick knit, the first mitten was done in a day and the second would have been to if I hadn’t run out of roving. I was warned that the Fleece Artist kits are a little skimpy on the roving so to make my thrums smaller than I might think is necessary. Of course I ignored this advice and ran out of thrums halfway through the second mitten. Luckily Sarah was able to pick up some identically colored Cherry Tree Hill roving for me at Yarns in the Farms so I could finish them!

I really liked knitting with the Blue Faced Leicester! It’s unlike any other wool I’ve knitted before, sheepy, yet silky and soft and beautiful! I found the Fleece Artist BFL to be a little fuzzier than I’d like in a sweater (though I don’t mind it for mittens), so I ordered a couple other kinds of BFL to see if they are similar (for research purposes only, of course).

But getting back to those giant thrums, I really made them much, much too big. I seriously couldn’t get my hands into the mittens comfortably. I know they will felt down somewhat with time, but it’s not like they were a little too small inside, they were WAY too small and boxing glove-like. So I decided to give them a trim and now they fit a lot closer to how they should. These are VERY warm, best reserved for the coldest of days (like today, 15 degrees! Brr!)

Both the Harlot and Hello Yarn have great information on thrumming if you’d like to make your own crazy mittens!

I also finished Matt’s headband:

Pattern: Telemark Headband kit from Bea Ellis Knitwear
Yarn: Sandnes Garn Peer Gynt in white & navy
Needles: Size 3 & 4 Addi Turbo circs

Notes: I didn’t really care for the pattern or yarn in this kit. The yarn was pretty itchy and rough on my hands. The pattern accounts for this itch by having you knit a cotton liner for the headband. You cast on and knit 10 rounds in the cotton, then switch to wool, work the Fair Isle chart, then switch back to cotton, knit another 10 rounds and bind off. Then you fold both ends of the cotton lining to the back and sew it up. If I had been smart, I’d have worked a provisional cast on, then grafted the 2 ends of the cotton lining together for something seamless. Written as is, you end up with a big uncomfortable seam digging into your forehead. I decided to rip out cotton lining and hand sew a fleece lining and that worked out a lot better, but still the “one size fits all” pattern (and I did get gauge) is really small and too tight for Matt’s head. I am hoping it will stretch out a little so he can wear it comfortably. Meh.

Right now I’m working on a cabled hat (my first cables!) and then I’ll be casting on for another pair of mittens! If I finish those, that will be FOUR FOs off my list finished! I’m flying baby!

1. I finished our friends baby quilt! She was due with a boy on New Year’s Day but he’s still reluctant to emerge. Doesn’t he realize he has a cozy quilt waiting for him?? I was originally going to make a more complicated quilt from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book but when I actually realized the amount of time I had until the baby was born and the fact that it was also Christmas and I had a million other things to do, I scaled it down a little and went with this super simple (but still cute, I hope!) zig-zag style quilt instead. I used Kona solids on the front (Kelly & Grass Green) and some great Alexander Henry Zoo fabric on the back. Stitched in the ditch around all the triangles (excuse the rumpliness)

They are planning to name the baby Max, but just in case they change their mind when he’s born, their last name also begins with an M, so it will fit either way!

2. I finished June’s Drive-Thru Sweater and she seems excited about it!

Pattern: Drive-Thru by Wendy Bernard
Yarn: Cotton-Ease (1.5 skeins of Berry, small amounts of Lime, Snow, and Stone from Robyn!)
Needles: Size 8 (5mm) 24″ circ
Size: 2T

This took about 3 weeks of very on & off knitting, it’s a quick & easy pattern! I thought I’d dislike working with the cotton-ease but it wasn’t bad. It was kind of splitty, so there are a few snags/split stitches in there, but it didn’t hurt my hands like most cottons do and I’ve already thrown it in the wash & dryer and it came out looking great so I’d definitely use it again for baby/kids clothes. I had a little trouble with the short rows at the back for neck shaping…I’ve done short rows before but never had to do the whole “wrap & turn” thing and I must have done it wrong because I still ended up with holes that I had to sew up afterwards. I had to do the neck bind-off with sz 10.5 needles to make sure it fit over her head. I’ll probably make another of these next winter if she outgrows this one!

3. Phoe is have an awesome birthday contest! She’s giving away 10 secret prizes, many of them yarn & knitting related! All you have to do is leave a comment on her blog with the color of the package you’re interested in and she’ll draw names on her birthday towards the end of the month! Check it out!

4. Here’s the list of knits I’d like to accomplish in 2008, all of which I have the yarn for which should help be stick with my stashbusting goals (all yarn links go to my flickr):

-Telemark Headband for Matt (started this weekend) from Bea Ellis Kit
-Thrum mittens from Fleece Artist Kit
-Bird in Hand mittens in green & off-white Berrocco Ultra Alpaca
-Foliage in Alpine Pearl Malabrigo
-Clapotis in Sheep Shop 3
-Children’s Neck Down Bolero in Rowan All-Seasons Cotton
-Blank Canvas Child’s Vest from the yarn in the sweater kit June outgrew before I could knit it
-Finish Toddler Summer Jumper by spring for June in mystery hand-dyed local merino
-Endpaper mitts probably in Nature’s Palette
-Monkey Socks in Chickabiddy STR
-Finish picot koigu socks (leave in car for emergency knitting in case of traffic jams & other unexpected waits)
-Some sort of garment/sweater for me, even if it’s just a shrug or something
-Something cabled
I know other projects will work their way in here too, but that is what I’d really like to get done, in addition to another throw sized quilt for our couch and another quilt for June!

OK, so they’re not really baby owls, but they are small!

I made these ornaments for Amy’s handmade ornament swap.

They are made from hand-dyed wool blanketing I got at a local shop & vintage buttons. I used this Owl Pennant tutorial!

I had some wool left over so I also made this little banner to hang on June’s door. I pretty much love it.

In other June related news, I’ve knit her some quick thumbless mittens from this pattern.

This is Dream in Color Classy (I love this brand of yarn more than life itself) in “Visual Purple.” I only had a teeny bit of this color and thus ran out 2″ before the end of the second mitten (SO IRRITATED) and when I went to the store to get more, they were out of this color in the worsted weight version (SOOOO IRRITATED!) but they had it in the sock weight version, so I got that, double stranded it, and it worked. Since it comes in 450 yard hanks I have plenty left over for socks.

Delicious!

It may be a cold, gray November day:

But my feet are warm & sunny:

That’s because Phoe of Free Knitted Stuff and Sweaters for June fame sent me these incredible Koigu socks!

Koigu. Socks. Free. Did I mention the Koigu? Yeah. Phoe has had this Koigu for quite some time, knitting it up in a variety of unsuccessful forms before deciding that it looked best as stockinette socks. I’ve admired this yarn in all it’s previous incarnations but I have to agree that it looks best in this format. They fit as if they were knit specifically for my feet and I could not be more thrilled with them. She also sent me another piece of gorgeous jewelry (to which this picture does not do justice)!

Thank you so much Phoe!

I have another sock to show you, this time in giant, Christmas stocking form! That’s right, June’s stocking is done! Before I began, I sketched out how I wanted it to look:

(I bet you guys didn’t know I was such a killer artist)

And here it is finished! The front:

And the back, with my bekoigu’d foot for scale:

Pattern: Mix-and-Match Socks from Knit Christmas Stockings!
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Ruby, Celery, and White
Needles: Size 7 Addi Turbo 16″ circs

The pattern is basically a giant stockinette sock with a bunch of Fair Isle holiday-themed charts you can choose from and plug-in wherever you want. It’s knit from the top down with an afterthought heel. This was my first time making an afterthought heel and I really liked it (double the grafting! I love grafting! Shut up, I do.) I’d like to use this method on regular socks, but I ended up with 2 giant holes on the sides where I started the heel (which I sewed up) so I’d need to figure out a way to avoid that in wearable socks. This went really quickly. Aside from that little part I showed you last week, I knit the whole thing in a busy-with-other-stuff weekend (and I am a slow knitter)!

Now that I have finished the only Christmas knitting I commited myself to, I am allowed to knit whatever I want! I will be casting on for thrummed mittens and a Drive-Thru sweater forthwith! But we also have friends due with a baby boy in like, 3 weeks so I need to get a quilt made! Hopefully the rest of the fabric I ordered will arrive this week so I can get started on it this weekend!

Stay tuned for June’s 10 month post on Friday!

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in “Old Rose”

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So, I love the box pouches I had purchased for sock knitting from JapaneseHandmadeEtc and while those are PERFECT for small items such as socks, I had wanted a larger style of box pouch for larger projects. I have a million totes to choose from for large knitting projects, but I wanted something that zipped and was sized for hats, scarves, baby sweaters and the like. I have heard great things about the Piddleloop bags, but there were 2 small issues: 1. Even though they were bigger, they didn’t look quite as big as I needed and 2. Ribbon handles. I have a thing about ribbon handles and that thing is that I don’t like them. I am hard on bags and they just don’t seem sturdy enough for me. So, armed with a tutorial that Ashley linked to a while back, I decided to sew my own! And you know what? It turned out shitty!

Observe:

OK, I know it doesn’t look too bad in that picture but trust me, it sucks.  It’s the right depth and width, but it’s just a leeetle too short to comfortably fit my 10″ needles in there…

Also, the handle is too big, I didn’t use sturdy enough interfacing (I HATE working with interfacing, HATE IT) so it’s all floppity,  I didn’t use enough care in sewing my corners to exactly the same measurements because it’s all lopsided/uneven which you can probably see in this picture:

And when it’s stuffed full of yarn and stuff it looks even worse. Seriously, it’s a beast.

I like the fabrics (Amy Butler print on the outside, Crate & Barrel napkin on the inside) and I am pleased with the how the zipper came out which is good because I don’t always have the best of luck with zippers, but all in all,  I am disappointed with this project. I still need a good box bag but I am not up for making another of my own, so I dunno…maybe I will look for someone on etsy who can make me a custom one to the right size…

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In happier (or scarier maybe) news:

Operation Stand Up and Retrieve Forbidden Remote: Success!

I put down the knitting this weekend and finally picked up a copy of Bend the Rules Sewing! This book is written by blogger extroidinaire Amy Karol and is full of cute, simple projects. I was most excited by the kids section of the book and sewed up a few things for June: a “Woodland Elf Hat,” “Sweet Wee Jacket,” and the “Swing Swing Smock.”

The hat and jacket are made from a super soft wool-blend blanketing. They are a little big but that should ensure them lasting through the winter at least.

Mmm, dirt.

Here is the smock! Both the zoo fabric and owl trim are vintage. I have a few nice corduroy prints in my stash so I will probably make a few more of these for simple fall dresses.

Action shot! (she’s crawling all over the place now!)

Also, I was planning on having some sort of contest for my 1 year blogiversary at this domain, but I somehow missed it (9/7! Doh!) However, I should reach the 1000th comment milestone here in the next few weeks. Not sure if I am just going to go with a “whoever leaves the 1000th comment is the winner” type of contest or something broader, but stay tuned!

I know, the Saartje bootie pattern (pdf) is like the Clapotis of the infant crowd, but I simply could not resist it’s charms any longer. Knit at the suggested gauge, the pattern produces teeny newborn-sized booties, but knit in worsted weight yarn on size 5 needles, it makes a pair perfectly fit for a 7 month old. These were knit in Elsebeth Lavold Angora and were probably the quickest thing I’ve ever knit. I knit the first one during June’s morning nap and the second one during her afternoon nap. Verdict: painfully cute.

Also, do you like my new hand-knit sweater?

Isn’t it so cute? “Bertha!” you are probably thinking, “you didn’t tell us you were knitting a sweater!” True! That’s because I didn’t knit this. Do you want to know who did? Grumperina. Yes, THAT Grumperina. How did I come to own this awesome piece of knitwear? Glad you asked:

Kathy recently wrote an entry on her blog in which she admitted she is not a sweater knitter and that sometimes it makes her feel as if she’s not a “complete” knitter. I left a comment saying that I hadn’t knit a sweater yet because ever since I started knitting I’ve been either trying to lose weight or pregnant, so I didn’t want to invest all that time and money knitting a sweater until my weight had been stable for a little while. I also admitted that while I love the idea of knitting a sweater, I don’t generally enjoy the actual process of knitting. My favorite part about knitting is buying yarn. I also love looking at patterns, books, blogs and ending up with something cool that I made myself. But the actual knitting itself? Eh, not so much. It takes a long time, it’s often frustrating, it frequently involves my most hated of hates: numbers & maths…I am really only in it for the finished product. I am, in essence, the complete opposite of Kathy who loves the process of knitting and doesn’t really care so much about the finished product in the end. I admitted that sometimes I feel like less of a knitter because of this.

Kathy e-mailed me in response to my comment and asked if I’d be interested in purchasing some of her sweaters. I was a little (a lot) surprised by this, but it made sense. I love hand-knit sweaters, but don’t really have the desire to knit one of my own right now. Kathy has knit tons of sweaters, out of the love of knitting, but doesn’t wear them as she overheats easily and they are just sitting there, sadly unused. I was intrigued by this idea, but had a couple of reservations: sizing & pricing.

Kathy is a bit more petite than I am, so I didn’t think any of her sweaters would fit me right now, though I remembered one wrap sweater she had knit and thought maybe that would allow for a variety of fits. Kathy said this was the exact sweater she had in mind. She told me that she’d gained some weight since she made the sweater and it still fit her nicely so she thought it would work for me. So the first issue was resolved, but the second lingered on my mind. I couldn’t fathom the cost of owning a Grumperina original and formulated several discussions in my head about how I’d tell Matt we weren’t feeding June this week…While I will not disclose the price I paid, rest assured June remains well-fed.

If you want to read about the original details of this sweater, see Kathy’s post here. She designed this pattern herself so it’s a true original! As you can see, it does not fit me as intended! But the back, arms and shoulders fit perfectly, so I think on me it looks as if it was designed to be worn this way, like a cute little capelet style cardigan! I am, however, hoping to be able to wear it in it’s original format if/when I ever lose a “few” (right) pounds. Also, in real life it’s not all asymmetrical like that, it was just the way I was standing.

Kathy, I LOVE this sweater, so much. Whenever I am faced with a knitting crisis, I shall don this garment and feel the power of the Grumperina surging through me and will know what to do. Thank you!

(PS…if any of you reading this are more Kathy-sized than I am and might be interested in owning one of her sweaters, it would be worth contacting her…she doesn’t wear any of them (she never even wore mine once!))

The garter was finished on time…

The rain held off…

Friends celebrated with each other…

Two people joined in love…

With a long, but happy road ahead of them…

Alexis and Tony, may your marriage be as blessed as our friendship has been over these many years.

Orange socks given:

Pattern: River Rapids (link to PDF) by SockBug
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK - Potluck Brights

Needles: KnitPicks 3.00 MM (US 2) circulars

I finally finished my Sockapalooza socks, right at the deadline! My partner said she loved bright pink & orange so I think these fit the bill. I really liked this pattern, it was easily memorizable and fun to knit. It was my first time knitting from a chart and I am not sure why I was so anti-chart before, it’s easy! The only changes I made to the pattern was to replace all YOs with M1s to make them less lacy, and to omit a pattern repeat on the leg & foot because I was concerned about running out of yarn, and my partner has wee little feet. I love the colors of Cherry Tree Hill and I love knitting with the fingering weight supersock, but I wouldn’t knit with the DK weight again. I only used it in the first place because the pattern was written for sport weight yarn and I got gauge with this. It was so, so super splitty to work with and I cannot stand splitty yarn. Otherwise, they turned out nice. I mailed them off today, along with a fun Sock Monkey Pouch, chocolate, and a couple hanks of dye-your-own sock yarn and a bunch of Kool-Aid because my partner said she’d love to try Kool-Aid dying but can’t find Kool-Aid or anything similar where she lives overseas. I hope she likes them!

Orange socks received:

When I got home last night my own Sockapalooza package was waiting for me! I was so excited! I was lucky to have a very interactive partner who left me blog comments and emailed me a lot, so I was really excited to find out who she was and what she had knit for me. I was shocked when I opened up the packaged and discovered it was Friender! I’ve been reading her blog for months! Devon introduced us and she helped me track down a pattern I was looking for so I saw her knitting these very socks from the beginning! I loved them but never thought they were for me!  They are the wonderful Anastasia socks (which I was totally going to knit for myself, love this pattern!) knit in gorgeous Cherry Tree Hill (the good stuff!) in my favorite colors!

As you can see, she also sent an awesome sock pouch, a supercute doll for June, and some heavenly smelling Origins bubble bath! Mmm!

Jennifer’s knitting is superb and I cannot wait for the cooler weather to arrive so I can wear these! They are the perfect socks to wear with clunky shoes, peeking out under my jeans in the fall. Thank you so much Jennifer, you are the best!