Eleven Stitches

Playing With Color

There have been two projects that I have recently been enchanted with knitting.  The first is these socks.

Knit with some Gypsy Girl Transitions yarn, I was completely drawn in by the slowly changing color. And for the first time probably ever, I wished I could have made the socks a little longer so that they could have gotten a little more purple at the end. Maybe this will be a strategy I could emply when knitting socks for David?

Speaking of knitting for David, I started a sweater for him that I have been thinking about for years. It incorporates 11 different colors, and I roll a die to see which color to knit next, and whether to knit that color for 2, 3, or 4 rows.

I am in love with this project right now, and the allure of finding out the next color always makes me want to knit one more stripe. I'm loving how it is turning out so far.

I have finished things to show you, but maybe I'll knit a few more stripes first?

Sweet

I wanted to make a little something for my husband for Valentine's Day this year. He loves hedgehogs, so when I came across the Hedgehog Love Scarf, I tried to think of a way to use it.  This is the result.

This is just a little pouch with a single button closure. I continued the hearts pattern on the back.

I found trying to knit with 3 colors on a single row challenging, in that it was hard to tension the yarns carried behind the stitches. If I tried this again, I might have done more with duplicate stitch instead.

The inside is lined with some red and pink polka dot fabric, so that those yarn floats don't catch on anything.

This was a fun little project!

Olympic Update

I've shown you one of my finished Olympic projects. Let me show you another.

These are Mongolfiera Socks, knit in some Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light, in a delightful bright pink.  I got this yarn with a gift card to Imagiknit that a friend gave me for Christmas.  I'm happy that I was able to use this yarn so quickly!  

This pattern was fun to knit. It was originally a mystery sock pattern, written in four pieces. Even though I knew ahead of time what the sock looked like, the four sections made it easy to segment the work. I actually left off the last clue, and just contined the purl lines to the toe. 

And as for the sweater, it is done except for the neck edging, which I am working on now.

As it turns out, I didn't work on any more (older) WIPs, but instead decided to make a couple of new things. More on those soon.

Very Warm Mittens

David bought me some cross-country skis a few years ago, but we didn't have very much snow for me to use them often.  This year has been a big change, as New Jersey has had one major snowstorm after the other!

When we go skiing, I am bundled up in various knitted and fleece things, and since this is a hard workout for me, I usually get so warm that I have to un-bundle a little bit to stay comfortable. David, super athlete that he is, does not get so much of a workout and has been complaining of his hands getting cold even while wearing his glittens. 

Something had to be done.

These are a pair of RAGBRAI Mittens. I didn't take a long time choosing a pattern this time because I just wanted to have the mittens done by the next snow!  I like the bicycles on the pattern, though, since David usually bikes to work when the weather is nice. I added a braid because I love braids, and I changed the thumb to come off the side of the hand (as it actually does) instead of off the palm.

I used a variety of worsted weight yarns.  The constant color is some Ella Rae in brown, and the other colors are short leftover bits from different projects.  I divided them in half when I knit the first mitten, and followed the same pattern for the second.

These are a lot warmer than the glittens, as there is two layers of worsted weight yarn instead of two layers of fingering weight yarn. (Worsted is about twice as thick as fingering.) We went on one ski before both mittens were done, so David wore just one mitten and reported that his left hand felt much warmer.

Yesterday we went skiing again, and this time he got to wear both.

By the time we got back to the car, David admitted that his hands were actually a little bit sweaty, and I consider that to be a success.

Oh, and last Tuesday was my seventh blogiversary! I dropped out of blogging for several months at a time along the way, but I'm happy to be back posting regularly again. I can't believe it's been seven years!  See you again here soon.

Olympic Works in Progress

There was a thing started back in 2006 called the Knitting Olympics. The Yarn Harlot started it back then, calling for people to cast on for a challenging project during the Olympics' opening ceremonies, and to have it completed by the closing ceremonies.  I've participated almost every Olympics except for 2 years ago because we were in England at the time.

This time, I'm taking a more laid-back approach to the Olympics.  Instead of starting something new and challenging, I'm going to try and finish a lot of works in progress (or WIPs). This is kind of what I do anyway, with perhaps more concentration on finishing than usual. I'll also have more knitting time than usual, because we try to watch as much coverage as we can.

This is what I'm working on right now. 

These lovely Mongolfiera Socks. 

Some Very Warm mittens for David, which are almost completely done now and will get their own post soon.

And this Custom Fit sweater, which looks vey nice on my dressform so far.

I'm thinking that it will be relatively quick to finish these projects, so I might dig into some hibernating projects as well.  Exciting times.

Do you watch the Olympics? Any Olympic Knitting to go with it?

Dots or No Dots?

I've got two options for sashing my star quilt.  I like both of them, and I'm still trying to decide.  So I thought I would ask you as well!

Here is the original option, white sashing fabric. I'm estimating about 2 inches in between each column.

The other option is white fabric with lavender dots.

What do you think? I like both.

Almost Ready

I finished the final block needed for my star quilt last week on a snowy Saturday.  I kind of made this up using leftover strips of fabric.

 

This Saturday I laid out all of the quilt blocks to decide on placement.  Oberon helped a little.  They have since been sewn up in 5 long strips.  I want to sash in between the columns of stars.

I'm waiting for some sashing fabric to arrive in the mail. After four years in the making, it's a little strange to be waiting for fabric to arrive!

This is going to be an awesome quilt.

 

 

Note to Self

Several years ago now, I was part of a virtual quilting bee.  There were 13 of us, and each of us had a month assigned to us.  My month was towards the end of the cycle, in December 2010.  I mailed fabric to each participant, and she was to make 2 quilt blocks for me that met my specifications.  

I specified that each person should make blocks with a large star centered in it.  I didn't want to limit creativity too much (because that is the fun part of a bee), but I wanted something that would look cohesive.  I also said that I didn't care exactly how big the square was, anywhere from 8" square to 12" square was fine.  Once I got the blocks I added fabric strips around them to square them all up to 15" square. This took a while, so my quilt was on the back burner for a long time.

Here is a gallery of the ones I got from others. I made a few blocks here and there to supplement the ones I received. 

Over the summer, I made some assessments of what I still needed to make a queen-sized quilt. I worked on it a little more, and then set it aside again.

A few days ago, I decided to pull out those blocks again. I think this is the year I will finish this quilt!  I remembered making notes, and went looking for them.  I couldn't find them.

Oh, well.  I made a new star block.

I decided to start counting the blocks I had and re-calculate what I needed, when I did find my note. Thank you, Kristy of 6 months ago, I appreciate that note a lot.

So I have one more star block to make, and then I have to add strips to the outside of 4 more. (It was 5 but I did one since then.) I'm really getting close now!

Cowl x 4

Last October, when I was home sick for four days (One of them being my birthday!  It was sad.) I decided that I was going to knit some cowls for my co-workers for Christmas. I was feeling well enough to knit, but not much else, so Christmas gifts seemed like the perfect idea.  It worked out pretty well, as I had two gifts crossed off my list by the time I made it back to work again.

The first one done used some yarn that I bought at Rhinebeck this year.  I had been wanting an excuse to buy this yarn (Shepherd's Wool Worsted, from Stonehedge Fiber Mill), and I hadn't come up with a good one until I thought about gifty cowls.  Whew, excuse found.

This is (another) Yellow Brick Road cowl, which I enjoy knitting and I think always comes out great.  I used some vintage plastic buttons I got from my favorite vendor at the NJ Sheep & Fiber Festival. 

Next up, not exactly a cowl.

It's more of a kercheif I think?  It's a mini-shawl, with buttons on the end so that it can be worn around the neck, like this.

This is a Ginger Leaves Shawlette, knit in Malabrigo Sock, color lettuce.  I hadn't knit lace like this in a while, and it was fun to revisit this kind of knitting.

Third, a Leafy Wreath Cowl. 

This was knit up with some Koigu that I got as a gift from one of my students a few years ago. I hadn't done much with it because the colors weren't really my favorites, but they seemed to suit my idea of what my co-worker would like.  The cowl is cast-on provisionally and knit from the middle out, and then you pick up your cast on stitches and knit it the other direction.  A little fiddly, but also a fun effect.

And finally, here is An Accidental Cowl.

It's a simple feather and fan type pattern, knit out of Madelinetosh DK. 

I think I'm at a point in my knitting where I need to make things for other people so our house doesn't explode from knitted things.  It was fun to try and match pattern and color to what I thought my co-workers would like, and you can see I chose a range of colors and styles!  All gifts were well received, and I've seen them worn, which is a great thing.  

This concludes my blog posts about Christmas crafting.  Are you tired yet?  I kind of was, but now I'm off again on new projects.  More of those to come.

Blue Incursion

This summer, my brother texted and said that he'd like me to make a quilt for him to hang in his office. I was flattered, of course, that he would choose to have his office artwork be something I made.  

We talked about what he might like, the main thing being that he likes orange a lot.  I showed him a pinboard I made of quilts that he thought he'd like, and he chose one of them.  (He liked Sedimentary best, except with more orange.) 

I got the orange message pretty clearly, so I bought several orange solids and geometric prints online and made this stack.  He approved.

I tried to follow the Sedimentary basic shape at first, but I wasn't happy with it.  Probably because it wasn't something that I was creating myself.  So I cut up what I did and sewed it together and made a 15 x 11 square that I liked.  I did that 11 more times to make the bulk of the quilt.

I made sure each block had at least one place where a 1/2 inch strip of blue was inserted, thus giving me a name for my quilt and also a little bit of interest. I wasn't sure about whether to sash the blocks or not, and I decided on just two vertical sashes to empasize the length of the quilt.

After some foundation quilting, I added some curvy lines to contrast with all of the straight piecing.

The back was made mostly with large leftover pieces from the quilt top.  Although that orange at the top didn't quite fit with the other oranges, so it only appears on the back.

I'm happy with how it turned out, and my brother seems to be as well. I asked him to send me a picture once he gets it in his office.

(For the record, this is my penultimate Xmas gift post. More knitting to come.)