Happy New Year!

I finished my Christmas knitting. Four hats and a scarf. Not too shabby.

Windschief for my brother


Coronet for my mother-in-law


Escargot for my aunt


Cerus for my brother-in-law


And a pompom hat for my BiL's wife.


After wrapping those up, I made it my goal to finish 2011 with no WIPs on the needles (except for a movie theatre sock, and the sock yarn blanket). I have met that goal! To really super dooper meet it, I need to sew on two buttons, block a lace scarf, block a vest, and block a cardigan. .... We'll see.

I am goal oriented. I have been thinking about goals for 2012 for the past month or so. My main goals seem to be health and fitness oriented.

1. Run 3 half marathons (already registered for 2, and am looking for a third).
2. Continue to get fitter, faster, stronger, and healthier in general.
3. Hike up Mt. Si.
4. Knit more lace. (Especially Evenstar, the Vernal Equinox Shawl, and Andrea's Magic of Spring))
5. Read more consistently.
6. Blog more, all over the place.

I can think of lots of other things I'd like to do next year, but let's keep the list fairly simple.

I'd best get to blocking that lace scarf!

FO: From Norway with Love Hat

I might, just maybe, be participating in Blog-vember, which is a stupid name, but any excuse to get myself to post more. Luckily, I have a significant backlog of finished knitwear to show off.



Pattern: From Norway with Love
Yarn: Leftovers and odd balls. Cascade Lano d'oro for the purple. The rest is Cascade 220.
Needles: 8s, I think.

I knit the pattern as written. It turned out a bit on the long side. That's okay, though, because I can turn the ribbing under for extra ear warming.


If memory serves, this hat represents only my second foray into stranded knitting. Considering that, and considering I haven't actually blocked this hat, I think it turned out really well.


I was very careful to keep my floats as loose as seemed reasonable. I've had the tendency to pull them too tight on previous stranded attempts. In some cases, I may have been too liberal with the looseness I allowed, but overall I'm pleased.


I loved this hat when I saw it on Ravelry. And I do love the version I made. It was a fairly quick knit, but I am not yet skilled in stranded knitting. It's certainly a challenge. But this is a good pattern for entry level stranded knitters - the motif is simple and repeats itself. Some of the floats end up being 7 or 9 stitches, but that's the only more challenging aspect of the stranding. Overall, I think this will see a lot of wear during the colder winter months.

A sad hat

There's been no Christmas knitting this year. No one is getting a knitted gift from me. Instead I've been huddled under my blanket, too cold to knit most nights. There has been a bit of knitting, here and there.

Like the sad hat. I call it sad because it was a failed experiment. I thought, I'll use this ball of Cascade 220 to make a cabled hat. And I won't follow a pattern! I'll just make it up as I go along! What can go wrong?

A lot.



I'm not sure the picture conveys the full sorrow of the hat. First off, it pulls in on an especially cable heavy row. Second, the lack of planning contributes to an unfortunately organic look. If the thing were dyed pink it would look like my brain was sitting out.



It fit, I give it that much. But that's all it gets. Except for frogged.



I frogged it this evening. No more sad hat.

FO: made up hat

Pattern: I made it up. That's why I call it "made up hat." Because of my creativity.
Yarn: Knitpicks Sierra
Needles: Size 9 knitpicks options

I liked the process of making this hat. There was minimal planning involved. I just winged pretty much every aspect of it. And for that, I'm pretty happy with the results.

This hat can be worn as a slouchy hat.


Or pulled down over your ears and forehead to keep you warm. Personally, I HATE having cold ears and cold forehead, so I like my hats to really cover my head.


And the crown, which I wasn't happy with before, but quite like, now that I see the photo.


I'm on the fence about writing up the pattern. Does the world really need another stitch pattern plugged into a hat pattern?

---
My swatch is all done. And I learned two things. First, I don't have gauge with the recommended needles. Second, a cowl neck in alpaca is never going to work. Alpaca is soft and lovely, but my neck is super super sensitive. It only accepts merino or silk, or silk blends. So the cowl, the feature I love, rules this sweater out. But swatching convinced me that I really want to knit a cozy, comfy sweater out of this yarn. Knitting with it is like butter. I lurve it. Must go hunt Ravelry for likely suspects.

Happy Holidays

So I finished the Amelia Cardigan. Kind of. After blocking the bejesus out of it, the cardigan fits, but the neckline? Is uberwide. So, once my Christmas knitting is finally done, I will pick out the bind off edge and add a couple more inches to the neckline.


No, my Christmas knitting is not done. Two of five gifts are finished and in the hands, or post office box, of their recipients. But the other three are still in progress. But this is okay, because their recipients are coming to visit in early January, and we will have Christmas then. So that's still in progress.

I took the time out to scratch the "knit something else" itch, so I designed a hat. Well, designed in the sense of tossed a stitch pattern onto a hat and go from there. But I'm pretty happy with it. I think I'll write up a pattern and knit a second one to get the bugs out of the pattern. Right now, the decreases are just too sloppy. I'd like to do something more elegant with them. Also, I need to size it down just slightly.


So I've got quite a to-do list. I have under two weeks to complete my Christmas knitting. I need to fix the neckline of my Amelia cardigan. I want to reknit and write up my hat pattern. I have my Laminaria shawl to finish up. And I am feeling the urge to use some very special alpaca yarn to knit a cowlneck sweater. I'm thinking Francis Revisited. I want to make a sweater that's like wearing a hug.

Hat Attack!

Finished object!

Pattern: Quincy by Jared Flood
Yarn: Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 8 ply
Needles: Knitpicks options size 10.5

The weather turned cold here and I was struck by the urge to whip up a hat. It took me two evenings in front of the teevee to knit it up.



You know, I was really skeptical initially about using a size 10.5. But I think what happened is that I work so frequently with such lightweight yarn and wee needles that bulky yarn seemed small and the 10.5s seemed enormous. But it worked out, just about perfect. Even though I didn't swatch. Because it's a hat. Fate was on my side... this time.



The pattern is excellent. The construction is clever. You knit a strip in garter with built in i-cord edges, graft it together as a mobiusm then pick up stitches from the i-cord edging and decrease. It took me a while to wrap my brain around the construction, particularly picking up the stitches, but eventually I got it. It's nifty.



The yarn is... well, the yarn is fabulous. I was practically giggling while knitting with it because it is soft and scrumptious and amazing. I got it for a steal on clearance. And I have more! A thought which makes me nearly giddy.



The only problem is that my ability to graft could really use some improvement. It really shows up at this gauge.

Floppy Hat aka Relm

I mentioned the hat last time. It's warm, it's floppy, and now it's photographed. Relm, by Jared Flood in the latest issue of knit.1.


It's knit out of Cascade Ecowool. I used my knitpicks interchangeables, which are performing admirably. Knitting all the cables, especially the 6 stitch cables, really tired out my hands. It's why I don't do a great deal of cable work - I find it tedious and the rewards minimal. But don't hold me to it; I'm a fickle knitter.

I'm still not quite sure how to wear this hat. But I like that it covers my ears and forehead; I have a bad habit of knitting caps too small, leaving my ears only partially covered.

I've cast on for a new pair of socks, something a little silly and outside my normal range of sock knitting, but hopefully kind of fun. They're mostly stockinette, so I am flying though them so far. And I've picked up Simurgh again and worked a few more repeats of the first edging. Slowly but surely I will finish it. I want to finish Simurgh and then return to the edging on my enormous, knit in black, Diamonds and Triangles stole. I have so many lace projects I want to tackle, but I hate having one hanging over my head like this.

Bzzzzzz

Maybe I oughtn't to have had that double shot americano at 7:30 tonight. Oops. In any case, I'm awake now and expect I will be for a while yet.

I finished a hat tonight. Relm, by Jared Flood. I cast it on as a quick knit, but it proved to be anything but. I guess I finished it in less than a week, but those cables, man, they kill my hands. But I did the last dozen or so rows while watching The Graduate tonight. No pictures just yet.

When it comes to hats, I don't swatch, so it tends to be a crap shoot. This hat came out on the large side. It's a little bit rasta. But made of wool, so very warm. Now I need to decide what to knit next - work on socks or continue on my Simurgh stole. I'm almost done with the first half of the stole; I'm maybe 20-25% done with the edging on it. But I've got an urge for quick knits... Maybe it's time for the Owl Sweater. I've got some grey cascade ecowool that's been trying to be a sweater for about a year now. Poor yarn keeps getting ripped out and rewound into a ball. I think the owl sweater will be just right for it.