Turn a Square for Claire

Well, my hilarious Knitting Olympics hopes of gold, as expected, about as viable as those of my Olympic boyfriend Johhny Weir (totally robbed btw). The FLS is about 1/3 of the way done. Which is fine--I'm loving the pattern and Cascade 220 was such the right choice. So, sometime next week when the name 'Lindsay Vonn' is but a distant memory, I will be sporting this baby in style.

But fear not--I did actually complete a project during these auspicious games. A hat for a five year old mind you, but hey, it's done and I'm quite happy with it. Several weeks ago I made a hat for Meredith's son Ellis, and so it was only matter of time until I obliged his big sister, Claire. Enter the most adaptable hat pattern ever, Turn-a-Square...

The Specs:
Pattern: Turn a Square by Jared Flood
Yarn: MC Malabrigo Worsted, 1/4 a skein in 'Shocking Pink'; CC 1/3 of a skein of Mochi Plus in 'Strawberry-Lime Rainbow' (the name is gag-worthy, but the yarn works).
Needles: size 5 & size 6
Mods: Because this was for a 5 yo, I went down several needle sizes and cast on 88 sts. At the increase round, I only added 4 sts for a total of 92 sts. I knit 3.5 inches from the cast on before the decrease row.

I wanted to use some crazy pink Malabrigo remnants for this pattern and was delighted to find out that it matched the Mochi Plus gauge-wise perfectly. Both are single ply yarns and look perfect together.

I think I might have a new go-to baby knit. This pattern is so easy to adapt, and rather than get sucked into to the vortex of the Baby Surprise Jacket (which always takes about 2x longer than you think it should), you could pound these out for the Dion quintuplets in no.time.flat.

Space Dust Monkeys

Sounds like a new illicit drug, right? If only. I could use a newer, cleaner buzz these days as the whole hourly dosing of caffeine + lifesavers routine is getting harder and harder to maintain. While I contemplate my options (Swedish Fish and Red Bull?), please to note that I have completed a pair of socks.

The Specs
Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A.
Yarn: Socks That Rock Mediumweight, "Space Dust".
Needles: Size 1.5 addi turbo
Time: October 2008-February 2010

The Wayback Time Machine of Ravelry tells me that I started these socks back in 2008, so these only took oh, 16 months. To say that my sock enthusiasm has waned would be an understatement. I don't know what it is, I'm just not feeling the sock love anymore. I thought that by picking these back up I might rekindle the joy but no. I feel nothing. Socks are dead to me. If you happen to see me buying sock yarn at Maryland Sheep and Wool, Rhinebeck or some other yarn venue, you have my permission to accost me & engage in some sort of ritual shaming. I would in fact undertake a destash of epic proportions were it not for a. shawls and b. the desire to not deal with cheap ass mofos whose bad manners, lack of follow through and 'I'll PayPal you when I get off work' promises crush my tender heart and get my goat.

Not only does sock knitting feel like some remote interest, like the 5 minutes in 2003 when I was interested in stamping (Babs will never let me forget that unfortunate hobby), even the socks themselves don't quite ignite my interest. When doing the photo shoot for these today at work, my model Sandrine noted how soft and comfy they were. I instantly gave them to her without a second thought. "Oh, you want 'em?". What is wrong with me?

My knitting interests seem to reside elsewhere--because I am hauling some major ass on my February Lady Sweater. I mean this project is firing on all cylinders, and I am so motivated to finish it. Every time I'm on Ravelry I spend at least 20 solid minutes trolling through the gallery of finished projects and thinking "...mine....soon I will have one of my very own that will be MINE!". So, my new knitting motto is this: it's better to concentrate on projects that make you feel hopeful rather than deaden you soul.

(Reading the) Tea Leaves

My latest FO is destined to be in my Top Ten Pantheon of All-Time Sweet Ass Knits®. I am talking about the Tea Leaves Cardigan, the most legendary viral cardigan to hit the Intertubes since the FLS (see below). Babs is responsible for this particular mania--she and I had a flurry of texts about this pattern a while back (what--you don't do that?) and I became officially obsessed. I knew that this most perfect cardigan and I were destined to be. But what yarn? What YARN?

Excessive, non-specific MDS&W yarn purchasing to the rescue! Luckily my craven little lemming heart was just desperate to nab some Mas Acero in the Brooks Farm booth, and as it turns out, this is the perfect yarn for this project. Variegated--yes, but not dizzyingly so.

The Specs:
Pattern: Tea Leaves Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre. If you don't know her designs, you should pre-order her upcoming new book, New England Knits. It's going to be huuuge.
Yarn: Mas Acero, 3 skeins of 9 MA (?--I'll never understand their naming system)
Needles: Size 6s and 7s
Size: 42
Mods: Only mod was that I was afraid of running out of yarn, so the sleeves were made maybe 2 inches shorter than I would have liked. As it turns out I was right to economize, I only had a smidge left.

This project was a true pleasure from start to finish. I would have finished this project sooner had I not gotten sidetracked with other projects, and the small matter of two entire skeins of yarn getting *$#@*&^% entangled with one another:

Yes, if you can believe it, I had one hot mess on my hands with this yarn. I'm not really even sure how this happened. I decided to leave it out (à la jigsaw puzzle on the cabin card table) and have Herr Curmudgeon untangle it at the dining room table during his spare moments, in between rants about texting & the downfall of our society and the supremacy of prog rock concept albums over all other musical forms.

The ruching effect on the yoke is perfection. The two-button concept is genius, and I will always love the 3/4 sleeve. This sweater has to much to recommend it. So much to love in one sweater. Mwah!

You should check out Babs' version, it's amazing, and she's as gaga for hers as I am for mine. We got talking about sweaters, and she declared herself to be a stalwart cardigan enthusiast. I must say that this got me thinking, and I do believe that the cardigan might be growing on me too. I see its utility, even if I do despise its purling.

And since the yarn for my Autumn Rose has yet to be delivered (oh how utterly convenient!), I've decided to do the February Lady Sweater (Cascade 220 in Flame, above) for my Knitting Olympics project. And just to keep it ultra-crazy, I'll also be attempting another Back-to-School U-Neck Vest (Ella Rae, #134, below) at the same time. So I will be knee-deep in worsted for the Winter Games, because I'm all about knitting under arbitrary constraints--and you?

Tuareg Twist Saroyan

Shawl #1 of 10 Shawls for 2010 is in the can--and completed just in time for SnOMGageddon 2010: The Final Snowening™, no less. Those of you that live in mid-Atlantic know what I'm talking about--the Weather Channel and Weather.com have taken their storm rhetoric to new heights and haven't really left anyplace else to go. I'm hoping that it doesn't get any worse than they've predicted because they've used up all the hyperbole and really might need to coin some new phrases. I guess we were due for a old-fashioned Snowpocalypse™...

Luckily for me, one of the fortunate aspects of this type of day is that the radiators are going full tilt and I was able to block my new shawl/hybrid scarf/wrap in what seemed like seriously less than ten minutes. Which is a lucky thing, because I am dying to wear this lovely whatchamacallit!

The Specs:
Pattern: Saroyan by Liz Abinante from Feministy.com
Yarn: Malabrigo Twist in 'Tuareg', two skeins exactly
Needles: size 8
Mods: Only mod was that I did one less 'non-increase' leaf than the pattern called for. The garment is to my mind the perfect head wrapping length--which how I now wear all shawls, because I'm a tough, old broad.

This is the perfect combination of zone-out (stockinette) and semi-attentive (lace) knitting. I worked on and off on this for several weeks and seriously recommend it to anyone who fancies this particular combo.

Below we have a nod to the real Tuareg, the Blue People of the Sahara. It just so happens that Miss Thing here is also a descendant of another Saharan nomadic tribe, on her dad's side, so this shot seemed so appropriate. And just so she doesn't get too high on her horse, I make sure to remind her that from me she gets hillbilly bootlegger and Lancashire mill worker.

Wood Hollow Vest, aka the Best Thing I've Ever Made

I know I tend to veer towards the hyperbolic about most things (along with sneering contempt it's my favorite mode of expression), but I am here to tell you that I have just completed test knitting the best thing I've ever made, courtesy of Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops fame. Wood Hollow Vest! Wood Hollow Vest! Shout it from the mountain tops--it's a real honey of a pattern that deserves your immediate attention!

The Specs
Pattern: Wood Hollow Vest by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops
Yarn: Cascade 220, 4.5 skeins of #9564, 'Birch Heather'.
Size: 44
Needles: size 6 and 7 circs
Time: Cast on Christmas Day while starting into the void and my in-laws in NJ, worked on it on and off while doing other things, and finished last night.
Mods: Excuse me? What is this 'modifications' thing of which you speak? ETA: there is one unintentional mod--I muffed up the cable panel on the front. But hey--only God is perfect, etc.

There is so much to love about this pattern. One thing that I so appreciate as Chesty McChesterton is that the pattern comes in sizes 32-54 in a way that actually works, meaning that it's not like those patterns that work perfectly at the smaller sizes but haven't been properly thought out at the larger end. The cables are perfectly proportional in all sizes.

This is the ultimate Cascade 220 project as the yarn makes the stitches pop to perfection. I'm sure that right now most of you even have enough in your stashes to do this pattern. This particular color is also quite appealing as well as it's a tad odd. I first saw it chez Babs as she's using it for a vest that SHE NEEDS TO FINISH. Ahem. To me it just screams 'Old English Furniture polish', which in my world is a supreme accolade. It also reminds me of the shag carpeting the Silverman twins had in their basement as well as the cock-a-poo Ginger our family had in the 80s. All good associations!

There's a new Wood Hollow KAL on Ravelry if you fancy doing this pattern with the real time, live blogging assistance that only a RavKal can provide. I also think that this would be the perfect Ravelympics pattern as it would hold your interest and is totally doable in the time frame of the event. Me? I'm a moron and am trying the Autumn Rose Pullover because apparently 'going down in flames' is how I plan on celebrating the Winter Games.

From the department of shameless family promotion, because it's what we do: You might have heard about a little device announced yesterday with a regrettable name? Well guess what--my brother CALLED IT over four years ago as a writer at MadTv:

Going shawl-out for 2010!

Waaa-waaa. Ravelry has been blowing my mind recently with a lot of crazy awesome features. The newest one? The Help for Haiti patterns: buy a pattern from a favorite designer and at least 50% of the proceeds will go to relief efforts for Haiti. Yo: I'm not talking about crocheted toilet paper holders here (see how I vilify what I don't understand?), I'm talking about patterns that are already in your queue. I nabbed several, including KK's Dorothea beanie, M-H's Simple Things, Daybreak, Wandering the Moor and two shawls I've been dying to make: Clothilde and Milkweed. So check it out, the designers have been so generous to offer their proceeds.

While on the topic of Ravelry, I am excited to have joined an insane group on there called 10 Shawls in 2010. Yup, you guessed it: you knit 10 shawls in one calendar year. I'm kind of excited about it because I have recently rediscovered the awesome power that is the shawl, and it is this: the key to wearing them and not looking like a society for creative anachronism member or historical reenactor is to wear them as bunched up as scarves. Voilà. Such an earth shattering observation! What's next? Leggings as pants? NO.

I'm making fantastic progress on my Saroyan, and have my eye on the above-mentioned shawls as well as a top-sekret test knit, Mara, another Shetland Triangle, Summer Shawlette, Woodland Shawl, and Candlelight Shawl. Am I missing any? What's your favorite shawl pattern?

Stangers with (Arm) Candy*

If you are looking for a quick knit with a maximum hubba hubba factor, look no further than ARM CANDY.
Specs: Arm Candy by Amy Herzog (Stash Knit Repeat)
Yarn: Valley Yarns Colrain in Grape Jelly, 8 skeins
Needles: size 7
For: My mom.
Mods: The only mod I did was to pick up the sleeves and knit them in the round. I am still looking for that missing entity, you know, that magical object that will make my life complete, i.e. THE PERFECT BUTTON. Once located, I will crow about it.

This was a very fast knit: the pattern is intuitive and expertly written, the sizing options are out of this world, and the finished sweater is a winner. There are several shaping options: I went with shaping in the back but not the front. Teen thing is modeling it here and it looks very drapey on her slight frame, but a larger gal would fill this out for some serious va-va-voom.

I have yet to meet a Valley Yarn I didn't like, and Colrain is not exception. It far exceeds my initial expectations, as far as I'm concerned. It sells for the nice price, is super versatile, and is silky and sheeny yet not disco. That is totally my new motto btw. Amy was a love to let me test knit this for her. Thanks!

Next up for me is a Ravelry viral hit: Saroyan. I'm breaking into my precious, newly acquired stash of Malabrigo Twist in Tuareg and I am here to tell you that it is unreal and is basically making the regular Malabrigo feel like sand paper. Yeah, it's THAT soft.

*Thought I'd sneak a little Jeri Blank in the title because well, I love her. FANDANGO.

Empire state of mind

First project of 2010 alert! First project of 2010 alert! And it's another Kirsten Kapur winner, folks. I feel like I am that Julie chick and that I'm trying to cook my way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, except that it's knitting and I'm knitting my way through the Kirsten Kapur design catalog. If you don't know her designs, you should: she is terribly talented and her patterns are among the clearest out there. Do yourself a favor and get on board while you can.

The Specs:
Pattern: Empire Hat by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Marine, .75 of a skein.
Needles: size 7
Size: small
Mods: AS IF!

Because I made this for my friend Dave's daughter, I opted to only do one repeat of the main pattern and went ahead with the size 7 needle. The next one I make will be done on a size 8 and I'll do the full two repeats for optimum whimsy.

I was afraid that the recipient would have a bout of shyness and wouldn't want to model the FO for me, so I went ahead and snapped some pics before gifting it. Worrying that all our heads would be too big and not wanting to go the grapefruit route, I remembered my parents New Guinea art collection and that there was a statue that would be a perfect stand-in. Hooray for being home, where despite the -15 temps, I can get something accomplished!

Luckily I was wrong and Dave's daughter was a willing accomplice. She squealed when she received the hat and noted that it will match her backpack. So, YAY!

Fugue state

If I ignore certain minor irritations, like the Curmudgeon claiming he didn't know we were exchanging Christmas presents this year and therefore not getting me anything (luckily my girl Peeper-Lou was keeping up with my Amazon wish list like it was her job and saved the day, if you count telling him to tell me that he was going to buy me an electric blanket as a last ditch desperado move as saving the day), I'm basically living a charmed life. More proof of this came last month when my one true love Kate Davies offered me the chance to test knit an up and coming pattern that is going to take the world by storm: F U G U E


The fact that doing this project involved receiving a parcel in mail from the lovely and generous Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt Yarns made the whole endeavor terribly exciting. Special Delivery: the softness, most otherworldly yarn ever!


The Specs:
Pattern: F U G U E (this is the official spelling now for all KD patterns, btw) by Kate Davies, forthcoming. Kate's Ravelled version is here.
Yarn: Bowmont Braf by Old Maiden Aunt Yarns, two colors Hebridean and Blackbird.
Needles: size 3 & 4, 16 ins.
Modifications: None whatsoever



Honestly, this yarn is something special. It is incredibly soft but creates a dense fabric that is completely warm. The yarn blooms beautifully during blocking--I really recommend giving it a try, it's 100% unique.

Like all worthwhile patterns, this one affords the knitter the chance to learn a new technique. For me it was the concept of the knitted braid, one that I am now dying to put on every single thing I ever knit form here on out. It's kind of like mastering the subjunctive, once you learn how to use it correctly, you want to use it all the time. Except it's knitting...


Oh, and for the record? WE ARE ALWAYS EXCHANGING PRESENTS. GOT IT?

Meret-ocracy, or, Hand-NOTS for the Holidays

In a perfect world, everyone I love would be getting a Meret for Christmas, as they are exceedingly easy to churn out. Everyone deserves one. Honestly, if you start right now can you can easily finish by tomorrow morning, with time out for egg nog and the like. But sadly, my Holiday Handknitting 09 (tm) has consisted of frantically digging through my FO pile in order to pull out a (natty?) shawl for my mother in law. Yes, my holiday knitting is a giant serving of HELLA with a festive, heaping side-dish of NO. Just the way mama likes it!


The Specs:
Pattern: Meret by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Aran Tweed in #14, 1.25 skeins
Needles: size 8
Size: cast on for the medium but did three repeats total for slouchiness. Like (1).


I could imagine a person going hog wild with the various combos: 'medium size on size 7s with the large repeats/ large size on size 8s with the medium repeats', etc. It's a truly versatile pattern, people. I am quite happy with this iteration, and if I make more, I think I might have found the golden combination.


Here's to hoping that my Freethinking Pagan Pals had a rock solid Solstice and that all my Hebrew peeps had a killer Hannukah.



I know that my Christmas has been made because Peeper-Lou uttered the most Christmasy of all phrases last night under the tree: "...it's like the presents are blood and I am a vampire, tempted by them!". Happy Holidays!

Meret

Every once on a while there is a trend on Ravelry that makes the rounds and leaves little impression on me during the first contagion, but after it's hung around a while, suddenly it hits me like a speeding train and it's all I can do to not work on it 24 hours a day. Meret is this pattern for me--I saw many versions on other people and thought 'Huh, sure looks nice on them' and then kept on about my business, which probably involved obsessively checking my Amazon wish list while eating candy canes, because I'm 13 and I love Christmas.

Normally I shy away from slouchy hat patterns, as they seem to not be warm, can sometimes look like a giant sun dial on a person's head, seem at times too close too that scarf thing that Rhoda used to wear and can even be bigger & flatter than these pancakes that my brother recently ate in Hawaii. But not Meret! There are many options with this pattern--as written it's not terribly slouchy, can be made into a beanie but can go slouchier by adding repeats.

The Specs:
Pattern: Meret by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Malabrigo worsted, .75 of skein in 'Frank Ochre'
Needles: size 7, 16 inch
Mods: Cast on for the medium size but did the large repeats. As you can see the hat is not gigantic. If I had made this for myself I would have done two extra repeats and maybe gone up a needle size.

Knitting Meret also allowed me to get in touch with part of me that loves to crank out small accessories. I just love making small projects, it's where my knitting interests are most satisfied. Sure, sweaters are super-impressive, but more and more I realize that the short attention span theater in which I have taken up permanent residence dictates that small projects are my thing.


Now that my own kids have dumped me and moved on to other gigs, I had to rekindle my relationship with my friend Sandrine in order to snap some pics, because Lord knows this hat was never fitting on my head [see pancake pictures above for genetic explanation]. I was able to ply her with end-of-the-semester Thai food, and since I knit the hat for her anyway, I figured this was as good a time as any to give it to her. Plus now I can claim to have a real bona fide Parisian modeling a beret on my blog! What's next--a Japanese exchange student donning a knitted kimono? Hey, it's a small world after all...

I must say I enjoyed every one of your comments re: Malabrigo so much. Many of your fave colors were not a surprise to me at all [Impressionist Sky and Tuareg REPRESENT]. But others were totally unknown to me: Pearl Ten, where have you been all my life? I thank you for that. Luckily I actually have two skeins of Bobby Blue to send off [heh heh I am too sekritive]. And as soon as I get the addresses of Jodi and Elizabeth, they will be on their merry way to new homes. Enjoy!