Eleven Stitches

Sock Yarn Projects

Now that most of my worsted weight leftovers have been used up, my eye has turned towards my leftover sock yarn.  That yarn can really add up after a while!

I currently have two projects that are chipping away at this particular stash.  First of all, there are socks.

These are the beginnings of Swedish Fish Socks.  I had this color scheme in my head ever since I saw the pattern, and I'm loving it so far. 

But I'm finding that the socks aren't really using up that many scraps, so I have another project that is doing a much better job at it.

I started another afghan!  This one is using individual squares of six rounds each.  I hold the sock yarn doubled so that it's approximately worsted weight.  This does use up the sock yarn quickly, so I put the project temporarily on hold until I'm sure I have enough of the solid colors I need for my socks.  This project is so fun!

So there you have it!  What's your favorite way to use up sock yarn leftovers?

Slow Recovery

I haven't been here in a while, partially because I had sinus surgery about 10 days ago.  I had been sick for a very long time, and surgery was the only way to fix it.  The recovery has been long and slow.  My ENT said that I would be able to go back to work on Monday (after a Thursday surgery), and I was planning to be back by Tuesday.  But here I am ten days later and still not ready to go back.  (I did try to go back to work twice, but both of those attempts were met with exhausting failure.)  It's hard to balance the guilt of not being back at work with my physical need to rest, but I've been fighting the guilt as much as I can.  And frankly, my body is helping me out by not letting me function correctly outside the house!

One of the perks of a long recovery is getting to spend so much time knitting, reading, and petting my cats.  I had almost finished my skirt for the ill-fated KriKniSkiMo before the surgery.

I had to stop and block it because the cables were making the skirt very tiny when I tried it on.  I wanted to make sure it still fit like it was supposed to.  Fortunately, the skirt blocked very nicely and I will be able to complete it without having to rip or make any sizing changes.

Isn't it pretty?  I love this color / pattern combination.  I have only a couple of 8-row repeats left to do.

Since the surgery, I've put the skirt aside to make some Christmas gifts for my family.  I might not be able to show those here for a couple of weeks!  In the meantime, I hope that I'll be able to finally get the energy to photograph some long-overdue knittind and sewing FOs.  Oh, and finish up the skirt :)

Two Conversations

Scene: A bus to New York City on a Saturday afternoon, about a week ago.  David is solving puzzles, Kristy is knitting away on the body of her Kirigami sweater.

Kristy: Originally, I had a goal of finishing this sweater in time to begin that skirt I want to knit on this bus trip. But now my new goal is to finish it by tomorrow night so I could start the skirt on Monday.

David: Oh, yeah?  Why is that?

Kristy: Well, Monday is November 1...

David: Oh, and then you could knit it for NaKniSweMo.

Aside: Even though David doesn't knit himself, he knows the lingo.

Kristy: Exactly.  NaKniSkiMo, maybe.

David: But wait, do they count skirts as part of it?

Kristy: Well, I don't know if "they" do or not, but that's what I want to do.

David: But then it wouldn't be national, would it?  It would just be you.  So it would really be KriKniSkiMo.

 

Scene: The living room at David and Kristy's house. David is reading blog posts, and Kristy is putting the buttons on a cowl she just finished knitting.  The Kirigami sweater sits sleevelessly next to Kristy's chair.

Kristy: My original goal was to finish the sweater so I could start the skirt, but I changed that a little.

David: Oh yeah?  Why is that?

Kristy:  Well, I had to knit a cowl for the new coat I just got. 

David: OK.  I see.

Kristy: So I'll start my skirt a little later.  But that's OK.  KriKniSkiMo allows for things like that.

 

Pattern: Chevron Neck Warmer by Veronik Avery
Yarn: Juniper Moon Farm Cormo, worsted weight
Needle: US 5
Time to Knit: November 2- 4
Modifications: I messed up the first four rows of the pattern, and I didn't rip back to fix it.  And I did a decrease bind off instead of a sewn bind off.

I really love this little cowl.  It hugs my neck, and it has enough body to stand up on its own.  It also can be pulled up to cover my nose.  And I got to use some buttons that I've had in my stash, which is fun.

My Rhinebeck Knit

I've been working hard on a project to wear at the New York Sheep & Wool festival this year.  I don't think I've put it on the blog yet, so let me catch you up.

I got the book Knitting It Old School at the end of August. Amazon sent it to me before the initial release date.  I got the book because I've met one of the authors and a lot of the designers, but I like it because the projects are a lot of fun.  I fell in love with Rally, and I got yarn for it and cast on within a couple of days.

I had a little problem when I got to the skirt.  I wasn't sure about the cream I had chosen as contrast color for the skirt, and I wondered if I should have used green instead. 

I ripped it back and tried it again in green.

And then I knew that the cream was actually the right choice!  So I ripped the green back and went with the cream all over again.  Yeah, I wasted some time, but my mind was at ease for making the right choice.

I finished up knitting the dress on Saturday night.

It's soaking right now, and I'll block it out tonight.  It's a good thing, too, because I'll be headed to Rhinebeck next weekend!

See that green fabric in the top left of the photo?  That's to make a shirt to go underneath the dress.  I have it mostly sewn up now, and it will be finished in the next couple of days.  I hope to show you both items very soon!

 

Running Out

I realized when I was getting to the yoke of my striped cardigan that I would soon be running out of yarn.  Out of all three colors of the yarn.  Since I started this sweater without much planning, I cannot say that this was a huge surprise.  It was inconvenient, however, because I really did want to finish the sweater.  Since the brown yarn was commercially dyed, I hoped that the color would not be too different between dye lots and ordered a skein.  (Fortunately, I was right!)  The pink and orange yarns were more problematic, since they were hand dyed by indie dyers. I decided that the corrugated ribbing had to go.

 

Since I started knitting up from the ribbing, I couldn't just frog it.  Frogging knitting from the wrong direction is fiddly and No Fun.  So instead, I snipped the yarn at the top of the corrugated ribbing and started un-knitting it.  I captured the orange loops from the row above on a needle as I went.

 

This was also fiddly, but I had a row of nicely picked up stitches at the end, and also a button band that was easy to frog.

 

I carefully took out all the pink and orange yarn, washed it, and knitted it into the yoke.  I didn't have quite enough to finish the entire yoke, but I'm OK with having a larger stripe of brown at the top.  I redid the ribbing at the bottom in solid brown, with a twisted 1x1 rib.

 

And now the sweater is ready for steeking! 

A Striped Cardigan in Progress, and a Request for Help

This is what I've been working on recently.

 

It's a bottom-up cardigan, using three sock yarns I've had in the stash for a long time.  I had originally planned to use all of these yarns for socks, but time in the stash changes things sometimes.  The bottom is corrugated ribbing, and I made the stripes half their height in the waist area, taking a cue from Tempest.  So far, so good.  I'm a few inches away from finishing the body.

I'm planning for this to be a cardigan, but I'm knitting it in the round and steeking it to make the cardigan.  Because of this, the jog of the stripes doesn't really matter; it will be hidden in the steek.

 

But I do seem to have a problem with striping yarns in the round.  I get a hole when I change yarns.  I'm not sure what to do about them or how to fix them.  Does anyone else get these, or know how to fix them?

I try to tighten up the yarns in the back after I have knit a few rounds, but the holes still exist and they kind of drive me crazy. Also, I'll have no reason to steek the sleeves, so it would be nice to fix this problem before I get to them!  I would appreciate any insight or advice that you could give.

A Projected Winner

So far, so great with my Olympic sweater.

I finished the body of the sweater last night, and I've got gold in my sights!  Also, I predict that this sweater is a winner as well.  It fits very well, and it will probably fit even better when I have button bands instead of safety pins holding the fronts together!  Yays all around.

Current Projects

I've got to admit, I haven't worked on Dulce de Leche at all since I last posted about it.  Here's what I'm working on instead.

 

I've wanted to make some Fiddlehead Mittens ever since they came out, and I finally got started on a pair.  Maybe I should have started sooner so that I could be wearing them in the cold weather right now!  I'm sure there's some cold weather left in store for me this season, and I think I've still got some time to finish up and appreciate them.

 

These are my current incarnation of purse/movie socks. I love these and I can't wait to finish and wear them!

 

I started these the other night because I didn't have the concentration to do colorwork (or crochet, as my Giant Granny is still in progress).  It's the leftovers from my Lucky Socks striped with some natural-colored yarn.  They're fun to knit, and the stripes make it knit up quickly.  I think it's that "one more stripe" mentality!

The Olympics are coming up very soon!  I have a great idea for an Olympic Knitting project, but I'm not sure if I'm in the right head space to do it.  It would be nice to finish up these WIPs just in case!

Dulce De Leche Decisions

First off, I decided to frog my Dulce de Leche sweater in December.  After the problem I had with Betty, I could tell that I was on the wrong track with DdL. But I loved the design and decided to try it again with a larger needle and a larger size. I finished knitting the body of the sweater recently, and it fits! But, if you look at the original photo and the modeled shots on Ravelry, you might notice that this has a pretty deep neckline. 

This might not have bothered me a few years ago when I was a computer programmer, but now I'm a teacher who works with children who are about 3 1/2 feet tall.  Necklines definitely need to be considered. Ahem.

So, what to do?  I see several options here.

1. Rip out the front part of the sweater and re-do the neckline higher. This is my favorite option, I think.  But then, do I continue the short rows to make the gathering at the placket?  If I don't continue them, will it look dumb to have gathering on the lower part and straight on the upper part?

2. Rip out to the beginning of the placket and start over from there.  This would take away the problems from #1, but that would mean taking out a lot more knitting.  Also, I assume the short row shaping from the placket accommodates some bust fit issues, and taking them out might cause problems. If I rip back this far (about 3 inches before armhole shaping), I could basically make any sweater I wanted-- patterned yoke, seamless construction, etc.  But I was looking forward to trying the sleeves as written, and I think I'd like to go ahead with that.

3.  Stop worrying about it, and finish the sweater.  I can always wear a shirt under it.  Nope, I'm not going to do this.  This option is mainly here to prevent getting this suggestion :)  I think it's a hassle finding the right shirt to go under such a sweater, and it would be more likely that I don't wear the sweater as a result.  Also, I want DdL to look like it fits me, not like I have to do something to make up for fit issues. The great thing about knitting is being able to modify projects to fit the intended recipient!

I think this might just depend on trial and error, starting with the first option, and moving to the second if I can't get the first one to work.  Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

Crochet!

I had jury duty a few months ago, and I thought it would be a great time to learn how to crochet. Fortunately, there was a lady in the jury room who already knew how to crochet, and she helped me make my first granny square. (I had a hard time realizing that with crochet you sometimes don't look at the stitches you've made, but look at the holes in between the stitches.) I made a couple of tiny granny squares, tried a hexagon or two, and then I went back to knitting after jury duty was over.

And then this group got started on Ravelry, the Giant Granny Crochet Along.  And I felt compelled to join. This looked like a great way to use up some left over bits and balls of yarn. Of course, I was in San Francisco and far away from my stash.  I went over to Imagknit and got some yarn just to get me started.

I only got four balls of yarn, and it doesn't take very long to do the beginning four rounds of a granny square. I decided to swatch.  A lot.

 

I decided that an H hook was the right size.  J was too big (I think I missed I somehow), and G was too small.  After that, I tried out 4 double crochets instead of the standard 3, and it didn't seem to be worth doing.  And then I bought 2 more balls of yarn so that I could add in 2 more rounds on my granny before I went home.

I crocheted almost all day on my first day back home!  And now my giant granny looks something like this.

I'm happy with how many partial skeins I've used up, and I'm planning to really decimate my stash of worsted yarn.

I'm thinking about adding crochet as an event in my Knitting Olympics.  You know, for when my knitting muscles get sore.  

How about you?  Do you crochet?  Does that Ravelry group tempt you, too?