FO: quickie cowl

I bought some pretty green and brown yarn on our Baltimore Yarn Crawl a couple of weeks ago.  I cast on later that evening (since I was in a funk about my two WIPs).  And less than a week later, I was wearing a new cowl: I have resisted making a cowl for several years now. I think it’s mostly the name that turns me off!  But cowls are way faster to knit than scarves, and they serve a similar function.  I really like this one.

Some cowls are shaped like a bell or have a button closure, but this one is just a simple, straight tube knit in the round:

It is the Darkside Cowl (free pattern, but Rav link) and it uses the same rib-and-welt pattern that I used for the Pansy Socks and the Plum Pansy Socks.  I really like this stitch pattern. These colors make me very happy, too!

(Plan) C is for Victory!

Look, it fits over his head! Plan C – cutting out the knitting from the cast-on edge – worked.  Here is what I cut off:The original neckline used short rows at the back so that it was higher at the center of the back than at the center of the front.  I didn’t try to replicate this on the new neckline because the raglan seam wouldn’t have been pretty.  Since I would have knitted in the opposite direction, the seam wouldn’t have lined up.  So instead, I picked up a round of stitches just below the cast-on edge at the front, which made it about 6 rounds down at the back, and just called that the new neckline.  You can see that it is now symmetrical – no more short rows:I did an applied i-cord and I think it looks very tidy.

It turns out that having a larger neck opening is probably better.  Boy 2 does not love clothes up around his neck.  This way, he can wear a t-shirt under the sweater and not complain about ANY itchies.  To me, this sweater is soft soft soft, but the angora fluff can be a teensy bit irritating, I guess…The sleeves look a bit short, but again, Boy 2 doesn’t like cuffs in his way.  I can always lengthen those next winter as needed, since they were bound off at the cuff.

I’m happy to call this project DONE!

FO: Orange Pumpkin Socks

After struggling with a couple of other projects, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finish something that I LIKE and that FITS! There are S1’s new fall socks for Fall 2010.  The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in colorway “Foliage,” which is aptly named.  I love this yarn.  The 75% superwash merino/25% nylon blend should wear very well.  It has at least 8 distinctly recognizable colors in it, but they work together harmoniously and don’t pool.

I worked out the ribbing on the cuff so that it flows into the cable pattern well – that pleases me.I really had to focus on the cable pattern at first, but once I figured out the errata and remembered how to cable without a cable needle, these were straightforward enough to knit at the office (which is where they mostly were knit).

I tried a new heel flap this time: the eye of partridge.  I love it!  It creates a super strong fabric that isn’t as thick and puffy as my regular slip stitch heel flap. I had to modify the way I do my “pre-darning” on the inside of the heel, but it worked fine to weave in a strand of yarn diagonally.  I think you can see what’s going on here:I didn’t skimp on these socks (the legs are a good 7.5” long), but I have a lot of yarn left – 23 g.  If you’re knitting really big socks, this may be the yarn for you!  I think the Kindling colorway would be perfect for a pair of men’s socks.  And you sure can’t beat the price at $9.99/hank (that’s for the whole 100 g).

Next, my boys both need new socks for fall… those will be my next office knitting projects.  They should go MUCH more quickly than the orange socks.

Double Trouble

I’ve had some knitting setbacks as of late – involving Boy 2’s easy raglan sweater and Pam’s piquant socks.

First, remember the sweater that wouldn’t fit over Boy 2’s head?I executed Plan B: adding a neckline again, this time an applied i-cord edging on size 10 needles (the sweater itself was on 9s).  The result looked acceptable… …but it still doesn’t go over his head.  So I’m going to rip that out.

My next plan (Plan C) is to do what everyone says can’t be done.  I’m going to run a cable or a lifeline or something through a round of stitches 3 or 4 rows below the edge, and then CUT the preceding rounds out.  I think I’ll still have live stitches, and I’ll try again with the i-cord edging.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll just unravel the entire thing and start again (that would be Plan D).  The way I see it, it can’t hurt to try the crazy Plan C if Plan D is your only remaining option.

As for Pam’s socks… I have knit the leg and am poised to begin the heel flap, and they are simply too tight.  S1 couldn’t get them on at all.  I can get them on my ankle, but I know from experience that once I put a heel on these babies, they won’t fit anymore.  So they are going to be completely frogged.  Here is what I have so far: I have not knit on these for about a week as I consider my next step.  First, I need to do more reading about how to knit colorwork.  I think I’ve been catching the long floats all wrong, but I’m not yet 100% certain of that.  I read this long blog post on dealing with floats, and I’ve determined that I’m definitely catching them too frequently.  I was worried about the really long floats – like 9-11 stitches long – and I would catch the float every 3-4 stitches.  But some Ravelry forum browsing indicated that with fingering weight yarn, I really needn’t catch floats unless they are more than 7 stitches (which some of mine would be).  Catching the floats, especially the way I’m doing it, tightens up the fabric.  It makes it really durable, but not very flexible.

As much as I hate to step back from Pam’s socks, I think I need to get out of the deep end of the pool and go back to the shallow end.  I’m not in the baby pool anymore, but I’m feeling decidedly out of my element.  So I’m going to READ more before casting on again, and I’m also consider knitting the Mad for Plaid socks before Pam’s socks:

Mad for Plaid will give me a chance to practice stranded knitting but it’s an intermediate step, in terms of difficulty.

If anyone has recommendations for a good book or website about stranded knitting, I’m very open to suggestions!

Daily Dose of Fiber – Baltimore edition

At Knitters’ Day Out last month, a Baltimore Yarn Crawl idea was cooked up over lunch.  Julie’s sister Allison would be back in town (she lives in Brooklyn) so we planned an outing!  “We” is Julie, Allison, Kris, and me.

We started at Woolstock in Glyndon, which is near Westminster (startlingly close to my route to BWI).  Don’t you love how the biggest part of their sign screams “YARN!”This shop is partly arranged by color.  I think if I were a newer knitter, I would find that confusing and overwhelming … but lucky for their cash register, I found it inspiring!  Here’s a bit of the color-arranged space: That green section took me down and I ended up with two skeins of Mochi Plus.  I’m planning to whip up a quick Darkside Cowl from two skeins of this:Some of the shop is arranged by yarn weight, too, which is how I fell into the sock yarn section (big surprise).  I didn’t see many handdyed yarns in this category, but the shop boasted the largest selection of Regia sock yarn I’ve ever seen in person (and other German commercial sock yarns).  I bought one little 50 g ball that I know will make socks Boy 2 will love.  Allison bought the same yarn because she thought it looked “very New York” (all the black).  Interesting! This shop also carried a lot of Koigu (including a stunning Koigu cardigan that Allison bought the pattern for), many (all?) Rowan yarns (which my LYS doesn’t carry, so it’s nice to see them in person), Blue Heron (which is a Maryland line, I believe), and even Kathmandu (again, never seen it in person).  Also new to me were some Welsh and Japanese yarns. They had a LOT of samples knit up, which really helps shoppers visualize the possibilities.  Patterns were arranged by weight of yarn and then by type of garment, which makes a lot of sense if you fall in love with a yarn first!

Woolstock has a very large, inviting table in the middle where several knitters were happily clicking away when we arrived. And some of US were happily clicking away before we left:

When one of the employees saw that I was taking a photo of my friends outside the shop, she rushed outside to take it for me so I could be in the picture.  Full service! I also picked up the new Holiday Knits issue of Interweave Knits at Woolstock.  (I was a little shocked that it costs $15, but it IS a nice issue…)

Next we steered the minivan toward Catonsville, in search of a good lunch spot.  We ended up at a very, very good Chinese place to which we would happily return. Then we went to Cloverhill Yarn Shop.  This store occupies an unassuming location that looks like it used to be a warehouse…but oh, the inside is so worth it. A sign on the front door looked very promising indeed: In we went.  There was a small sock yarn selection that mostly featured indie dyers.  I saw a couple of tempting skeins, but they happened to be 100% superwash merino and you know how I feel about that.  I lingered in the sock yarn section, though, because there were quite a few lovely shawl and scarf samples knit up.  I was very intrigued by Gaia’s Shoulder Hug, which I would have bought except that the shop owner told me it was freely available online (that’s a Rav link).  I might use some sock yarn already in stash for this. I’m even considering using Felici since it seems to work very well with striped yarn.

Julie was captivated by the Cerisara (Rav link again) cardigan on display, and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it, too.  This photo doesn’t do it justice because the shiny black plastic mannequin creates some glare:

The bottom part of the sweater is reverse stockinette, which makes the little shawl-esque collar roll back on its own.  Charming.  We got to chatting with the shop owner (whose name, unfortunately, I didn’t get) and I decided to knit this sweater with Berroco Ultra Alpaca.  I’ve been intrigued by this yarn for a while.  It is a very nice 50/50 wool alpaca blend, and it comes in some really lovely solids and heathers.  See the wall of Ultra Alpaca?  (Note there is one hook in the green section with no yarn on it – I bought it!) Kris wouldn’t let me buy blue again (because Rogue and Must Have are blue) so I went with a greenish-greyish-blue, color 6291, which is called “Yucca Mix.”  I’m not sure you can truly see the subtle variations in color in my photo: I grabbed this photo off the Berroco website and it shows the heather-y-ness a bit better:

There were only 2 skeins left in stock and I needed 6, but the owner was confident that she could get more in the same dye lot (Berroco dyelots are really large, and she orders frequently from them).  So I bought 6 and Kris will pick up the other 4 on her way home from work in Baltimore one day soon.

Cloverhill also had some other delightful surprises around the shop.  How cute are the Pile-able Pups? The design is from Mochimochi Land Patterns, which also has some other cuties, like Stackable Cats (which Julie bought).  I’m not a big toy knitter, but these patterns might change my mind.  (Not too late to knit toys for the nieces for Christmas, after all!)This shop felt simultaneously down-to-earth and fun.  There is a lot of Berroco yarn plus yarn from indie dyers and patterns from indie designers, many whom I recognize from Ravelry.  The owner and the other employee working that day were friendly and super helpful (not in an overbearing sales pitch kind of way) and we spent time hanging out on the couch.  Don’t those baskets of sock yarn look enticing? This is definitely a shop I would return to. 

Yarn shopping can really take it out of you, so we stopped for coffee on the way to our next shop, Black Sheep: Unfortunately, we got there are 4:00 and that’s when they close, so we were pretty much turned away.  Clearly the shop owner was not working that day – the clerks had NO interest in letting us look around.  I was a little surprised by this because there were at least 4 other customers in the store.

Does 2 shops count as a “crawl”?

So we steered toward home.  The Garmin guided us through bucolic countryside settings, where the leaves were orange and yellow, the fields were green, and we saw a lot of cows and horses.  It was simply lovely.

Happy pumpkin sock #1

This sock matches the weather here perfectly:The yarn is full of oranges, golds, and browns, and it feels so warm and snuggly. Look at those cables! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long, but I finally tried the eye of partridge heel flap.  It’s almost like my standard slip stitch heel, except you alternate the slipped stitches on adjacent rows so that you get a checkerboard effect rather than a columnar effect.  It results in a flatter fabric that should wear like iron: This has become my office knitting project now that I have the pattern down, which could mean for slowish progress.  Home knitting time is reserved for that tangled garden.

Tangled garden begins to grow

This past weekend, I began the Tangled Garden socks that Pam won in the Get Out the Vote contest.  This pattern grows slowly, but it’s growing!  I’ve set myself a daily goal of 10 rounds.  (Told you it was slow.)

Things I like about this project so far:

• The yarn!  Allison’s Simply Sock Yarn Solids are wonderful to work with.  The blend is 80/20 wool/nylon, and I really appreciate that she added nylon for strength.  But the yarn doesn’t feel like it has nylon in it – it has the spring, sproinginess, and softness of a superwash merino.  Lovely.
• The color choices.  S1 did a great job of selecting a pink and a green that work well together and are very “Pam.”

Things that are challenging me so far:

• I am tied to the chart.  The colorwork is not regular, so I can’t glance at the chart and think “3 pink, 1 green” and do that all the way around.  I have to be very careful to follow the chart.
• I’m still getting the hang of managing floats.  I have trouble “turning the corner” between needles and I’ve got some tight spots there.  I’m trying to compensate, which may mean I have some loose floats.  And there are some very long stretches of pink on some rounds (as many as 10 stitches!), which means I have to catch the float behind a stitch every 4 stitches or so to keep them from getting too long.
• I’m fretting that it won’t fit. Normally for a woman’s sock, I cast on about 64 and use 2.0 mm needles.  This is colorwork, so it can be a bit less stretchy (if the floats aren’t long enough), plus you have the added bulk of the floats on the inside of the sock.  The pattern calls for 72 stitches, which is good.  And I used a 2.25 mm needle.  The sock looks big to me, but I think that’s because there is no ribbing to pull in the cuff.  I’ve tried it on and I think it will work.  But just to be safe, I’m going to put the stitches on waste yarn after finishing the cuff and MAIL it to Pam for a fitting in Cleveland!

This project is definitely a technique builder for me.  If anyone has any colorwork tips, I’m listening!