FO: More hats! A shawl! And another thing!

Three hats, in fact.

Even though I don't celebrate Xmas, I feel swept up in the spirit of the cold dank weather and whip out gifts to my non-knitter friends.  My stack of hats is slowly diminishing as I send them to the four corners of the earth in time for the Winter Solstice.  Which is still a month away!  I don't even know how the days are going to get any shorter, but apparently they will.  This is the furthest north I've spent a winter.  I feel like I'm atoning for enjoying summertime so much.  I'm actually having a really hard time waking up in the mornings, and one recent weekend, I managed to sleep until 10:30.  Seriously!  That's half my day, gone.  It just wasn't light enough outside for my body to convince itself that it was indeed morning, and nearly afternoon.

I made a Whale Watch Hat from New England Knits.

It's all scraps- mostly Knit Picks Pallet.  For the price, it's a really nice yarn, similar to Jaimison's spindrift in weight and hand.  I was thinking of making the Whales a bit darker, but I kind of like them in the lighter shade of blue- they look kind of abstract, and probably more acceptable that a grown-ass adult might pull this off.

Speaking of which...the trend of grown-ass people wearing spirit-animal hats...why?  Kitten ears and giant false eyes are cute on toddlers, a bit weird on adults who aren't on their way to support a sports team.  Enlighten me.

Last fall when I was in Dublin, I visited a cute knitting shop and nabbed a couple skeins of Studio Donegal Tweed merino.  They knit up perfectly into a set of hats- kind of a his-and-hers affair.  The same, but different enough to not nauseate casual observers if they happen to leave the house together wearing them:

A masculine cable hat called One Bourbon, whose recipient has a smaller head size than my beau:

The brim will actually fold up when it fits properly.

And a lovely lace hat called Magnolia:

Oh!  And here's a shawl:

I usually do a better job of photographing these beastly shawls, but it's been raining like crazy every morning this week, and I needed to get this in the mail.  So you get to see my interior windows.

It's the Cladonia Shawl by Kristen Kapur.  It's written to have stripes and a looped bind-off, which looks fantastic, but I thought it gave it a much different appearance to make it plain and solid.  The yarn I used is Brooklyn Tweed Loft, and it used every last inch of yarn.  In fact, I ran out the very last bit- I needed about 10 inches more.  Panic!  Freak out!  I tinked back a few more stitches and then, gasp, SPLIT THE PLIES.  So there's one edge that has slightly thinner yarn in the bind off, and it survived blocking like a champion.  Honestly though, I couldn't think of anything else to do in that situation.  

The yarn is not my favorite.  The stitch definition is a bit muddled, which can be used to nice effect here with just the small bit of lace.  The one thing that does irk me is that if you tink back at all, the yarn will sometimes just un-spin itself and you are left with a broken strand.  It's lofty and loosely spun, making it great for warmth and texture, but it doesn't hold up to multiple mistakes.  Not that I ever make them.

Finally:

One of my favorite blends to spin and knit would be Blue Face Leicester sheep wool blended with silk.  The BFL is a long, silky soft wool that has beautiful drape and lustre.  Add some silk with that and, oh, I become enraptured.  It begs you to hold it close.

While I loved the colors in this skein of Codex- gold and near-black- they pooled up terribly.  I tried and I tried to do anything with this- spirals, garter stitch, lace, broken rib- and I just couldn't get it to stop with the ugly pooling.  Disappointed, I was.  

Ah, wait.  I know how to crochet.  A quick search and I found something well within my abilities- the Chi-town Cowl.

That's not so bad, is it?

I made a moebius cowl.  Easy as pie, it used up almost the entire skein and only took a few hours.  It's soft and silky and if you have a small-ish head, you can loop it around twice comfortably.

 Now, to bring back the sun...I understand why the 21st December is such a celebratory affair.

FO: Habitat hat

Another day, another hat.

This one will be gifted to the aforementioned friend.  He gets a cable hat, but not the orange one.  That one is mine.  He gets this one instead:

It's the Habitat beanie, another elegantly cabled and wearable Brooklyn Tweed pattern.  I think this one is a bit more masculine looking and better suited for a guy anyway.  Not that I want to apply gender stereotypes to knitwear and colors.  This is actually 100% unisex.

Another skein of Juno Fibre Arts gone.  In a panic, I sent an email to the dyer as I can't find any more of the BFL on her website or etsy shop.  This is my new favorite yarn.

FO: Bray cap

I started out with good intentions.  Really, I did.

All of the yarn that I bought at Unwind Brighton was all meant to be knitted up and gifted to friends and family.  I got a lot of guy-colors and neutrals because of it.

I started this hat thinking it would be a gift for a guy friend of ours.  I had made his wife a pair of socks after she did all of the cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner but haven't made him a thing despite his freshly-shorn head.

I cast on.  I started knitting.

I fell in love.

It's mine now.

Besides, it is far too slouchy for a guy.  Right?  Right?

I try not to be a selfish knitter.  I mean, I have plenty of hats.  I don't need another one.  And yet...there was something about this.  The cables, the lace, the slouch, the soft silky yarn.  I'm not an orange person at all, but suddenly this speaks to me.

The yarn is Juno Fibre Arts Buffy BFL in "Campfire".  I love it.  I want more.  For myself, for everyone I know.  The world needs more things knitted from this yarn.

The pattern is Bray Cap by Jared Flood.  It's not complicated at all, but it is something I had to sit down and concentrate on.  I still love almost all the Brooklyn Tweed patterns, but he designs so damn many I can't keep up.

FO: Cable rib socks

Just a quickie, as I've been out on an adventure and I have been trying to organize my thoughts and photos on it, and my laptop has come to a grinding halt.  I'm in the process of backing everything up so I can wipe my hard drive clean and start anew, as that is the only thing I can think of that will get this up to speed.  

I finished a pair of socks- the Cable Rib Socks from the Interweave Favorite Socks book.  

So the yarn...is ugly.  I've overdyed these since I took the pictures (and blocked them, so they look a bit neater) but ugh.  The yarn is Austerman Step in "grass", and it looked just peachy on the shelf, but when I started knitting I realized pretty quickly that it just wasn't working.  I loved the greens, but the reds and pinks made me feel fairly nauseated.  I kept going though, and then threw them in a pot with some food color, which made the reds pop less and the dulled down the pink and white stripes.

Still, they are socks, and they are a gift of the practical nature.  The yarn seems sturdy enough, and they are machine washable.

Also, I realized something amazing and unrelated to socks this week.  If I want to lose weight and get more exercise, it's best to start a pot of homemade stock on the stove.  Then, go out to dinner in Brixton, and when you are almost done your Pad krao, remember you left the stove on.  This causes a surge of adrenaline the likes of which I rarely experience, and I sprinted back home in my heavy rain boots and layers of rain gear, peering ahead hoping not to see firetrucks the entire time.  Well, I ended up not being in the awkward situation of explaining to my landlord exactly why I burned the flat down, and I came home to a happily simmering pot of stock and the apartment smelling quite homey and good, and collapsed in a heap after breaking the 7-minute mile barrier that I had been aiming for years now.  In rain boots.  In my head, I knew it was going to be fine- I usually leave stock on the stove for three or four hours at a time with barely a glance into the kitchen.  Just being out of the house and knowing the stove was left on made my head leap to automatic worse-case scenario.  In all my life, I have never ever forgotten the stove being on.    

Lesson learned.  Leave the stove on if you want to be in great shape and run like the wind.

FO: Aidez

Hello!  I haven't had a lot of free time or reliable network lately, as I am still in a hotel waiting to move in to a more permanent home.  It's been...less than ideal.  This might be a personal record as far as living out of suitcase goes for me...two months now.  

 

Did you know this was created by the Ministry of Information to get people through the Blitz?  It makes every other use of it seem trivial.  

I'm liking my new adopted home, but I think I'll just like it more when I feel more settled in these next few coming weeks.  I think I miss cooking the most- not having a fridge, a coffee maker or even a hotplate means I'm getting awfully sick of ready-made sandwiches and salads.  

I made a sweater!  I started it while I was still in Paris and just finished it up and blocked it.  It's a welcome addition to my very limited wardrobe.  A nice little mid-winter pick me up for when I'm sick of the same five things that I have, along with the panicky few pairs of clean undies I have.  Launderettes are few and far between here, as it is pretty standard to have a washer drier crammed in the kitchen.  I guess the good thing about having to make the schlep is I did get some knitting done, and a nice older Italian woman commented, "Oh!  A jumper!"  Sweaters are jumpers here.  Pants are underware.  It's a flat, not an apartment.  The flat has a lift, not an elevator.  

It's the Aidez sweater, which is somewhat ironically the French word for "Help".  "Aidez-moi, si vous plait!" is quite the useful phrase when in France.

The yarn is a souvenir from my trip up to Maine last summer- it's Quince & Co Osprey.  A lovely cushy Aran-weight wool yarn that is really quite fun to knit and the 3-ply structure really made the cables pop.  The color is "split pea", which is kind of an atypical color choice for me as I usually go for greens that are darker- more hunters and forests and olive greens.  It's a fresh, bright color. In wintertime, this makes me insanely giddy.  

The pattern is straightforward- I finished the sleeves in a matter of days, then the back in a few more.  I hit some hiccups as I ended up knitting two left fronts (distracted and drinking when I read those instructions, I was) and had to rip one back, but then that progressed quite nicely once I saw the err in my ways.  

I blocked this piece by piece in the hotel room sink and on the bath mat, and seemed it up using hair pins to keep the pieces in place.  Now that I think of it...it's kind of a miracle that this worked out at all.  

I love it so.  It's very warm, and cozy.  I am thinking about discreetly adding some hook-and-eye closures to the inside once I have my sewing kit.  I think it would be more wearable if it fastens in the front somehow, but I like how clean it looks without a button band or buttons to distract.  The sleeves are very fitted, which I don't mind, but if you like some ease to your sleeves, you might want to go up a size.  

I made the Medium size (40") and used 1020 yards of yarn, which was six entire skeins.  I still have one skein left that I have to deal with, which will be a hat or a cowl eventually.  

I've been taking lots of walks with my camera, especially on the odd sunny days.  I'm having fun exploring and browsing all the shops and food markets and trying to hustle and get things done before the dreaded tube strike this week.  

FO: Binary Cable Hat

Another quick gift hat for a friend:

It's the Binary Cable Hat- a functional cabled beanie with a fibonacci sequence of cables for the nerdlings who love these sorts of things. It used a bit less of a skein of Cascade 220 Tweed and FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, WHY CAN'T I EVER GET RID OF THIS YEARN FROM MY STASH. There's always an odd half skein lying around.

FO: Snowtracks Hat

Another gift hat!

By the time La Poste gets around to delivering it, there probably won't be much need for such a warm hat, but eh. There's another winter coming up soon.

This one worked up quick-as-a-bunny with another skein of Cascade 220 Tweed. I'm trying to knit my stash down to scraps, and then make a striped hat out of all the scraps. One can dream, no?

It's simple, it's very warm, and a bit oversized for a friend who has a lot of hair to tuck under.

It's called the Snowtracks hat. That made me think of cocaine, so I made it in an un-pure purple color. I made the ribbing at the bottom extra long so you could fold it over to keep the ears extra warm. I found it very much to be a caricature of a winter-hat shaped hat.

FO: Utopia Hat

A quick, simple gift hat for a friend that's been pestering asking for one for quite some time.

It's the Utopia Cable hat. Quick, simple beanie with nice results. It's a free pattern (and written in the style that fee patterns tend to be) but it's not difficult. It's perfectly unisex to downright manly, depending on your color choice.

I love meandering cables. I used a skein of Cascade 220 tweed in a very dark coffee brown shade. I actually like the tweedy bits in this shade- no more rainbows, just subtle flecks of lighter colors.

Spring has not made itself so known that this won't get worn a couple times before it's put away.

FO: Elm Socks

Well Hello There! Remember when I used to knit, and spin, and make all sorts of crafty stuff? Yeah, I don't either.

I did take a moment to sadly mourn the last traces of my spoiled New York lifestyle.

That last little bit of red polish? My bi-weekly pedicures and manis are all just distant memories now. New York has so many nail salons. The competition that comes with having a nail salon on every block drives the prices way down. You can get a mani and a pedi for less than $20 and do so while you let the massage chair work out your knots and get caught up on the latest Cosmo and not feel the least bit guilty about it because it's cheaper than buying a sandwich for lunch. Here, not so much. Every salon I see, I run up hopefully and press my face to the window to check out the prices. Pedicures average around $60, manis $30. Sigh. I guess DIY is in right now. I won't even begin to discuss how much I miss my waxer.

Since I'm not coordinated enough to perfectly splosh my nails with jewel shades of paint and not look like I let someone in preschool do it, I am left with one option. I guess I could just cover my damn toes up!

The weather has been improving lately- we actually got a weekend where we spent time outside! I still am paler than I've ever been in July, but I do appreciate getting a little sun every now and then. Lazing around in the park is much nicer when you aren't lying in a swampy wetland of gloom or having hellfire and hail beat you down.

These are the Elm socks by Cookie A. It's from a great book called, "The Knitters Book of Socks". I only brought a couple of books with me to France, and this is one of them.

Alas, this pattern had a few issues. The undulating rib pattern was easy and fun, but as written, the cuff of the sock is incredibly long. So long, I left out the last 2 pattern repeats it calls for because I knew this sock wasn't going to fit any higher up my calf if I kept going. A quick glance at other people's projects reveal they had the same issue. It's hearbreaking to work so long on a pair of socks to not have them fit. It was also good I stopped because I almost ran out of yarn. Once I turned the heel, I realized I dodged a bullet there and by the time I kitchnered the toes up, I was down to just a couple of yards. 400 yards is not enough for this sock the way it is written!

I am loathe to put patterns on the actual sock foot. 1. You can't see it when you are wearing shoes, which is what I usually do when I put on a pair of socks and 2. Patterns with a cushier sock yarn like this will irritate the tops of my feet and I will never ever wear them, and I hate irritated feet more than I do my unpedicured toes. So I guess we can call this my Half-Assed Elm Socks.

The yarn is String Theory Caper Sock. 80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon, this is very soft. I picked this up on sale when Gotham Fine Yarns in New York closed down.

Time and wear will tell, but I'm not quite impressed with the yarn. It pilled up and looked fuzzy while I was working with it. I'm hoping it's just the short cashmere fibers working their way out and not a structural issue.

I've actually had these done for more than a month now. I like to photograph things outside, in good light, and These would have wicked up a puddle if I would have done it any other time. I guess all that rain is making me appreciate this sunny day all the more.

I made socks and then I pranced around a meadow in them. The end.