FO: Noble Cowl

A quick but luxurious little lace cowl....

It's the yarn that makes it.  A luxurious, brilliantly dyed (yet sadly discontinued) skein of Schaefer Yarn Helene, a super soft and shiny single comprised of merino and silk.  Heavenly.  Cuddle it close and never let it go.  

 The colors are brilliant- reds, pinks, peaches.  Reds are the toughest color to photograph, so I feel like this really doesn't do the subtleties in tones justice.

Originally, this was going to be for a friend "in the know", who would totally notice that I failed to make a gauge swatch before beginning, running out of yarn before I could finish the last lace repeat and unceremoniously cast off the cowl failing to make a full repeat.  Chop chop!  Should have gone down a needle size.  It still looks just fine....I wasn't about to rip the whole thing back or anything.  My solution was simpler:  simply gift it to someone less likely to notice who doesn't read my blog.  Genius, I am.

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The pattern is called the Noble Cowl, and it is free.  It makes for a lovely gift and only took me a couple days to whip up.

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: Stellaria Shawl

I never tire of knitting intricate lace shawls.

It doesn't matter that I will never wear this thing, but it was just so lovely to make, I don't feel like I've wasted any time at all.

It's the Stellaria Shawl from Twist Collective, a beautiful crescent shaped shawl with lacy broad leafs.

I used a bit over 1 skein of Rowan Fine Lace in Revival- a delicate light purplely pink.  It's about 550 yards, and it's a delicate suri alpaca and merino blend.  It's so gossamer and light.  This isn't really for warmth, but for decorating your decolletage.  It was kind of a pain in the ass to knit with- it was grabby, so if I wasn't paying attention, it would knot up upon itself and make a huge bird's nest that would take some deep breaths before I attempted to untangle.

Blocking was a bit of a chore- There's not enough pins in the world to pin out that many points- I think I did a decent job and got it fairly symmetrical.

The first half of this was really easy- it's all short rows back and forth and back and forth.  I had cast on during the train ride up to Glasgow and worked on it here and there during the West Highland Way hike.  By time time I was on the bus back to Glasgow, I had finished the short rows and was ready to move on to the lace, but that was exactly when the flu struck, and I spent the train ride back to London a shivering achy mess and couldn't stand the site of it.

A few weeks later, I picked it back up and finished the lace bit, and finished up in record time.  Sometimes, I just need a break.

The best part?  I found the yarn on sale at Liberty for  £4. 

It will be gifted, but I enjoyed flouncing around with it for a few minutes while planning my next lace creation.

FO: Dia

Some days, I'm just too impulsive for my own good.  

A trip to browse the haberdashery department at the local John Lewis led me to see a beautifully knitted sample of this:

Oh! Oh! Oh!  What a lovely pullover!  Never mind that I dislike working with linen and cotton (although wool would have done quite nicely) and I didn't bother giving the pattern a read-through to figure out just what doing color work would involve.  Sign me up!  Oh, and the Creative Linen yarn is on 60% off?  I always wanted a boxy summery sweater!  I'm be lounging around in my harem pants in my riad in no time.

Off to the races I was.  I knocked out the sleeves first and soon realized that the flawed logic of this design.  The Creative Linen was terribly splitty, meaning it was painfully slow to do lace work without it looking sloppy as ice cream on a hot tin roof.  

Once the sleeves were done, I started the body.  Like all Rowan patterns, it is written to be knitted flat, but I merrily joined it together in the round until the arm pits, where I switched to the color work.  

Have you ever tried to do colorwork that wasn't in the round?  I hadn't before this.  

It was terrible.  In fact, I had to walk away for a few months.  

I picked it back up again, only to give up again.  Another couple months passed.

Finally, I made a deal with myself.  Two rows a day.  I have to complete two rows a day on this.  I didn't even know if it would fit, never mind look good, but I kept up my personal bargain, and in a few weeks I was sewing in the ends.  

Ta dah!

I am so sick of looking at this thing, but here it is.  I don't have it styled at all here, but it is in my "not bad at all" category.  It's boxy, yes....even though I did three repeats of the lace to lengthen the torso a bit and there's not waist shaping at all.  I'm not really good in boxy things- it makes me look too stout and barrely and I just don't need that.  Halfway through I decided this would be gifted, so it doesn't have to look good on me anyway, ha!

This thing was a BEAST to knit.  I would not recommend it.  The way Rowan patterns are written are not for the faint of heart, either.  Although I did see someone leave the sleeves out and turn this into a vest, which looked just fine.  I think that any time you do any sort of color work, it should be knitted in the round, even if this means steeking (slicing the sweater carefully to make holes for the sleeves).

 I'm glad it is over with- I was getting so very sick of seeing this day in and day out, just taunting me.  I've learned my lesson- stay out of John Lewis.  I practically sabred a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.

Happy that it turned out okay- about halfway through I was overcome with despair that it just wasn't going to hang together right once it was sewn up.  Relief: it looks just fine.

However, I am so very sick of it that I no longer want it.  There's nothing wrong with it, but I feel as though someone else can lounge around their riad in harem pants more effectively than I could.

The deets: After my gauge being a little lose, I decided to knit the smallest size as written.  I used 5 skeins of Creative Linen in ocher and just 1 of salmon pink.  The pattern is Dia from Rowan 55.

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: Snow Queen socks

Hey!  I made a pair of socks.  Actually, I made them a while ago, but I gifted them had to keep it quiet until then.  

Last summer, my dear aunt who lives in the balmy climes of North Carolina declared, "why haven't I gotten a pair of socks yet??"  

I had no response to that, except I thought there wasn't enough of a winter down south to need wool socks.  Apparently, I'm very disillusioned about regional climates, as they do occasionally get cold and snow, but also 70 degree days in January.  True, her three sisters and both her parents had gotten socks from me, but they all live in places where winter means a range of weather-related discomforts.   I didn't mean to snub, I just plead ignorance. 

I made sure she got her socks. 

The pattern is called Snow Queen,  I wanted to do something mostly plain to show off the gorgeous Regia Ombre stripe yarn (the color is called "Frost").  I'm not a huge fan of pastels, but these were just such a calming, perfectly harmonious color combination, I fell in love.

I knitted these mostly on the trail.  They bring back fond memories of warm sun and wildflowers and blue skies.

Here's to warm toes, no matter where you live.

FO: A couple of hats....

I think I might have expressed this before, but I do love making hats.

They take very little time.  I can usually crank one out in four hours or so, unless it is with very skinny yarn or very complicated.  That's about a week's worth of commuting time, or some idle tv time in the evenings.  Speaking of which, 2007 called and I'm really into the Danish show "The Killing" right now, and it's NOT JUST BECAUSE OF THE AWESOME KNITWEAR.  Why am I watching a dark, wintry, Danish crime drama in high summer?  I can't answer that, but the UK Netflix doesn't get nearly as many films as the US counterpart, and it's mostly loaded with British sitcoms, which, like almost all sitcoms, I find insufferable.    

Anyway, hats make fantastic gifts.  Everyone could use one.  Or eight.  I made these both as gifts.  They also take up odd skeins of yarn- a ball leftover from a sweater, some scraps from your scrap bin, a skein that you impulsively bought with no real project in mind for but you just had to try it.  

First up is the Nantes hat from Interweave Knits Winter 2011.  

It's got the perfect amount of cables and lace, making a lovely cathedral-like pattern.  I loved this pattern and will be making it again in the future.

I made mine slouchy, but you could go down a needle size and make a beanie and it would work as well.  I do love slouchy over-sized hats.  I tend to not wear hats with the brims straight across my forehead, but I rather like to push them back so they cover my ears.

The yarn is Rowan Pure Wool Aran, a soft superwash wool.  It comes in 186 yard balls, and I shortened the pattern by three rows so I would have enough yarn to finish it nicely.

Next up is the Nottingham hat.  I used a skein of Quince and Co Osprey leftover from my Aidez cardigan that I made last winter.  The color is pea-green, which, honestly, is a tough color to pull off this close to your face.

It's slouchy as well.  Almost rasta-like, but I did want to use up every last bit of wool.  The lace pattern makes nice diagonals, it was simple and it looks fantastically hip if you can pull off this color green.

These will both be gifted eventually.  The right person, the right season.  No one I know is allowed to be cold.  

FO: Orchid Thief Shawl

This was just one of those patterns.

It's the Orchid Thief by Ysolda.  It was so very lovely, and I've been wanting to make it for a while.  It came from a book called "Brave New Knits", which featured a host of well-established but young-ish knitwear designers, and wispy, winsome looking models.  To me, it was the perfect sized shawl- not so small that it would drape around your neck without always coming un-draped, no so large that it might be cumbersome and frumpy.

It also seemed to be rushed through production as the pattern had dozens of mistakes in it.  It seemed like the person who proof read this before printing was bit by a fox (blind drunk) or maybe had no idea what they were doing, or both.  I noticed right away that something wasn't right.  I found the errata online and I was able to get through it, and I went on for quite a bit with no issues, but then the instructions on row 86 made me put down the project and shove it into the darkest recesses of the couch for a week.  The transition from the lace diamond section to the leafy section at the bottom edge was driving me all sorts of batty, and I knit and it ripped it out several times.

Bonus Routemaster double-decker bus action!

Eventually, through a couple Ravelry searches, I found that everyone else was insane over this row as well, as the instructions were confounding and it is hard to tell where things should be lining up.  A few people took the time to actually write out the pattern by hand and were kind enough to share.  This is what saved me.  I ended up following the new instructions blindly as it was my very last chance to get this before I dumped gasoline on it and flamed the whole thing.

Well, it worked out.  If you make this, good luck with it and search around before you get to row 86.

The yarn is Sundara fingering Silky Merino in Summer Sangria.  It's dyed gorgeously, with tones of peach and apricot picking up the light.  It's my go-to yarn for shawls now, and a generous 500 yard skein means that I can do most small shawls with no yardage issues.  HOWEVER, I was tempted, as I am often, by doing another repeat of the small triangles as I thought I had PLENTY of yarn at that point.  I'm glad I didn't, as I wouldn't have.  This is why so many of my shawls have a contrasting stripe at the bind off.  For once, the urge to use up all the yarn was overcome by having a correct shawl of one solid color, and I'm very pleased with the results.    



The finished shawl, along with some tea and cakes, got shipped off to the USofA in a care package to someone in need of a pick-me-up.

 

Favorite jeans are now a favorite skirt, PLUS bonus crochet action

Oh, the horror of it all!



Granted, I've had these jeans for years.  Still.  That's heartbreaking.  The first place where my jeans wear out and skin pokes through is always because of my enormous, earthquake-inducing thunder thighs.  I have to be careful when I run in some synthetics as they will just heat up and melt into my skin, or occasionally ignite into an impressive conflagration.  Damn you, thighs.  

I actually don't wear jeans too much- when I'm gardening or horseback riding or painting.  They are generally just clothes to get dirty in.  I try to find a pair that fits well with a darker, dressier wash, and these were it for me for years.

Sigh.

What to do?

Turn them into a jean skirt, of course.  My biggest problem with buying off-the-rack ones is they never fit me quite right- always too snug through the hips or too big through the waist, or some other weird combination of unflattering, and I'm tugging at it or feeling like they are riding up constantly.  Why?  Because they don't fit like jeans.  The belt loops are never the right size to actually fit a belt.  That's why I love this pattern (if you want to call it that).  You are taking something that fits you like a glove, and turning it into a skirt.

First....the cut.



I cut the inseam out.  You could do this with a seam ripper and re-stitch, but the inseam was pretty frayed and starting to get holes, so I just sliced them up.  Also, less bulk to try to sew over.



Then, decided how long you want your skirt to be.  A really cute (although slightly hippie look) is to sew in a panel of fabric and you'll have a long, multi-media jean skirt.  I, however, thing that knee length looks best on me, so I cut a couple inches below to have a nice, neat, folded hem.

I use the below-the knee scraps to create a panel.

Because you don't need a crotch anymore (ha!), cut an inch or two up the crotch, then overlap and pin.  This way, the extra fabric doesn't create a bulge or pucker where you don't need it too.  This is also a good way to hide some wear, as one of the frayed areas ended up being in the lower left buttock quadrant once the legs were sliced up and laid flat.

Here's a fantastic little tutorial that I found that goes into the creation in detail much better than I can.  Once I start sewing, I generally forget to photograph my progress, so I suck at tutorials.   I'm not on Pintrest, but this is one of those patterns that there are a million ideas for variations on.

Me?

I chose crochet.

My legs....they are blindingly white, untouched by sunshine for many, many moons.   At least I remembered to wax!

It was a pattern of rather preciously-named "tiara trim".  It whipped up quick like a bunny, and I basted it in place at the hem before running the machine over it.  I used Rowan cotton denim in "Memphis".

The end result:

Not exactly haute courture. but a comfy, unique skirt that fits around my hips.

Oh, ha.  I can't figure out how to re-orient the images once I've imported them, and I'm far to lazy to fix it.  But here, crane your neck a bit.

It's just become my go-to casual round-the-house, dart-out-for-milk-and-eggs skirt.
 

Fo: Baudelaire Socks

I finished a pair of socks.  I'm in love with them.

They are the Baudelaire, a free pattern from Cookie A via Knitty.com.  Yes, I am a timely knitter- these were published in 2006.  I've been wanting to make them since they came out, but there are so many socks I want to make.  So very many.  I will get to them all eventually, and then I will demand that sock designers everywhere stop designing once I'm caught up.  

The yarn is Skinny Bugga in "Rose Weevil" from Cephalopod Yarns.  It's my favorite shade of red.

 The pattern, although there is a lot going on with both cables and lace, is not terrible to work out.  It's easy to memorize.  While I couldn't really work it out after a glass of wine, the pattern pretty much flew along and I finished these in no time.

Speaking of a glass o'wine, I found a few nice groups of knitters in the London area.  There are lots of options here and people are chatty and sweet, and I can just casually drop in and have a glass or a cup of tea and knock out some long sections of plain boring sections of knitting.  It makes for good inspiration as far as the knits go, and I'm finding knitting to be a good gateway into making friends wherever I end up.  

To gift, or not to gift?  I have plenty of socks.  Can I cram another pair in the sock drawer?  I love these so much.  They are just too pretty, without being too precious or delicate, and the yarn is so luxe and heavenly.  It's a little thick to cram into socks, but perfectly warm and comforting.  

I have a feeling these will see a few Maine winters to come.