Finished the Tulip Wrap Sweater for Spike

First, here are the sleeves (awww, they are so cute)

I will write up the pattern, but here it is done and then modeled.

New Design and Work in Progress

I wanted to make a little wrap sweater for Spike (she's 1 month old today) so I looked through all of the library books and just really didn't see what I wanted. There were a couple that were ok, but nothing just right. I decided to design my own. It's using Paton's Pearl DK (I only have 2 skeins, so I'm thinking that I'll be short) in a nice purple (color on the screen isn't just right). I'll type out the whole pattern when I get finished, but it's using the tulip pattern from May 1 on the stitch-a-day calendar. So far I've finished the fronts and the back and am about a third of the way up both sleeves. I'm doing them both at the same time to see how the yarn runs out. I figure this sweater will work for spring, summer, and early fall. Specifically, I think it will be nice for Easter.

Progress on the spiral stashbuster socks

These are great. I had to re-knit the heel, but when I settled down and followed instructions it actually came out pretty well. I like the figure 8 cast on but Queen Kahuna's is so much easier I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. Just another weapon in the armory (trick up my sleeve? tool in the toolshed?). Next socks are going to have a Pharoh toe...hmm.
Here's a close up of the heel:

Another cute thing from the dh

So there I was tinking away because I forgot to pick up the new color on the spiral socks... my statement was "I tink therefore I am."

My dh, with an absolutely straight face replied,"we'll just call you tinkerbell"

I AM tinkerbell.

Next 6 Sox Knitalong Sock: Spiral

This is such a cool pattern. She has us going toe up (with figure 8 cast on, I've previously done the Queen Kahuna and the Short Row, so now I'm trying something different), with a modified short row heel (modified by adding a mini gusset)... The spiral stripes are really quite smart because you don't have to count or weave or whatever.

I chose from the stash which may have been a bad call. These are Harrisville singles. The blueberry color has chunks of teal, yellow, and purple in it. I had other Harrisville hanks in yellow and purple so that's what I'm doing. I increased up to 68 which may be too much, so maybe I'll make the sock a little short so it pulls up some of the slack. I used my dh and the power ball winder to wind center pull balls but they just aren't working because the yarn really, really sticks to itself. I gave up any hope of doing two at the same time.

Instructions for the Spiral Rib Hat

I had a couple of requests for the pattern. It's made of of several other patterns so I'll just rehash it here. If you would prefer to look at the original patterns that inspired me check here and here. You can also buy a similar Anne Norling pattern at your favorite LYS.

Cast on 8 stitches over 2 circs or 3 dpn.
row 1) knit into the front and back of each stitch, 16 stitches (join)
row 2) knit even
row 3) *inc1 k1 inc1 k1*, 24 stitches
row 4) and even rows, knit even
row 5) *inc1 k2* around, 32 stitches
row 7) and odd rows, increase 8 times evenly around

Continue like this until the circumference of the circle approximately matches the baby's head. In this case, for a young baby, 15-16.5"
Start Ribbing
row 1-3) k3 p3 k3 p3
rows 4-6) p1 *k3 p3 * k3 p3
rows 7-9) p2 *k3 p3* k3 p1
rows 10-12) p3 *k3 p3* k3
rows 13-15) k1 *p3 k3* p3 k2
and continue on like this until the hat is approx 2" longer than the distance (measured with a tape measure) from the top of the baby's head to the bottom of the ears.
Bind off LOOSELY (like on needles 2 sizes bigger), in pattern. voila.

Here's Spike Modeling the Tomten and Booties

Name and face obscured to protect privacy ;) . Actually, we (my DH and I) are calling the new niece Spike.

FO: Hat for Baby Spike (the new niece)

Baby hats are such a joy to knit. I finished this one in only hours and it's so pretty. It's long enough that it can be rolled up.

Finished the Beaded Socks

I don't know but I'm glad to be done these. They were really the problem children. First they were too big (ribbet). Then I was not paying attention and messed up the bead pattern (left it). Then I decreased down a lot so they fit better and they were too tight (left it, I can get them on and it makes the saggy beads stay up :( ) ...

I liked the actual beading -- I'll do that again. I did try the star toe for the first time and kind of like it. I didn't read all the way through the instructions though so I don't know if I did a standard one... Turns out I didn't need to use the navy for the heel, I have plenty of yarn left. Oh, well, see for yourself.

The new niece is here, her sweater and booties are done

That all works out well. My new niece came on Wednesday -- all healthy and happy. I've finished the sweater and made some booties from the Falick book.

A sweater for my niece to be

My BIL and SIL are expecting (any time now actually)... so I decided to make the baby sweater from Knitting Without Tears. I'm too lazy to run downstairs to check the name of the sweater ... it's something like Toten? Ah well. Here are pictures. Incidentally, I did run out of the light pink but EZ says that it's good to use a contrast to show off the cool sleeves -- so there.

FO: My MIL's Poncho

It was supposed to be done in November for her birthday but we were finally able to give it to her on the 2nd after church. It really looks great on, but you'll have to take my word for it. The proportions are just fine. The individual rectangles are 17"x34". Here's a picture of it:

Here's a detail:

Made a mousie for Diana ("goddess of the hunt")

My DC (dear cat) has a nasty old muslin mouse I made her last year that she's slobbered on so much it's really gross. My DH and I decided to make her a new one for this year. I hunted up Wendy's pattern and used the "Lydia R. Haile's Nose-Down" version. We dumped some catnip directly in, and then wrapped more in some cotton jersey and tucked it inside. The yarn is 100% wool worsted weight. It's really scratchy and I wish I had washed it before stuffing but we were in a hurry to give it to my DC. I used size 5 metal DPN. It took me about 1.5 hours.

Here she is playing with it:

In case you're wondering, I didn't do anything special to get the tail to curl up, it seems to be doing that on it's own!

Progress on the beaded socks

These are the correct size around and I'm now on the foot. This picture was as of 12/18, too, but I haven't really worked on this recently because I've been trying to get the poncho done. I did the heel in dark blue so that I can get most of the foot done in the light blue before I run out. There's a couple of mistakes on the beads, I don't really mind, but they are more obvious than my usual mistakes.

Still working on the poncho

I'm working on the second rectangle and it's really taking a while with breaks to make cookies, go to work, go shopping, do Christmasy things.

Here's where it was as of 12/18:

I'm now at 29", going to 34".

Update on beaded socks

I lied, the beads do have the size on them. Here's what the package looks like. They're 6/0.

The socks were huge.

So I put one on and threaded the needle through.

Wow.

Then I frogged, and cast on 64 instead of the original 84. I'm now done 1.5 rows of beads. BTW - I'm knitting a row between each row of beads. With the size of the beads and the size of the yarn it just looks better.

v. v. excited about the beaded socks

They're probably going to be a little big, but so cool. I made quite a bit of progress today. On the knitalong list, they mention a few ways to place the beads:

1. knit the stitch like normal with the bead there and adjust the bead so that it's vertical on a leg of the stitch
2. purl the stitch and have the bead go across horizontally
3. slip the stitch with bead over both legs (not threaded on in advance)
4. knit the stitch with the bead over both legs (not threaded on in advance)
5. sew the beads on later (not threaded on in advance)

I did #2 after #1 didn't really show up. I think I'm really getting the hang of it. Maybe I'll make a little beaded purse? Oh, oh, how about the hem of a poncho for dressy instead of using fringe. Hmm, maybe I saw this on knitty already?

So here's my progress:

Ribbing prior to adding the beads

The beads about halfway done, then minutes later:

Cool new pattern from SixSoxKnitalong

It's beaded! I just returned a book to the library on that and so wanted to try it. Luckily, last night was the SnB and my favorite LYS owner had a cool little package of cobalt blue glass beads that go perfectly with the leftover flame yarn. She let me take them to try them out and I've already threaded about 300. For my legs and gauge I need to do the pattern 17 times around... ah well. It's been fun so far. Take a look at these perfect beads and be jealous, very jealous.

BTW- my sweater class will now start in early January - so if you are in Maryland and do want to learn to knit a basic sweater... let me know.

First half of the poncho

Overall, showing the lace better:

closeup, showing the cables:

Finished Fluted Bannisters

SIG-KNIT?

Hi any and all. I've been away presenting at a conference and knitting away. Unfortunately I then got home and frogged all I had done because it was too wide : ( . I was traveling without any measuring devices because of airline issues (plus, they would probably break my yardstick in my luggage, LOL).

My notes from the sessions I knit through are so much better - I paid much closer attention.

The title of this post comes from another knitter at the conference. This particular organization has Special Interest Groups so she wants to start up a new one: SIG-Knit! I'm in. Actually a very nice British gentleman stopped to ask if it helped me concentrate. He was a knitter as a child but now leaves it to his wife and mother. Now that he saw me do it, he might start back up.

To come soon: finished fluted bannisters (just have to graft tonight), 1st rectangle of the poncho.

Completed flames

I had to wait until this morning until I had a "willing" model. My dh is such a man. While that frequently comes in handy... he is completely unable to follow such simple directions as "flex your feet" or "put your feet closer together" or "turn to the left." These are the best pictures I could get, but at least you get an idea of how they look on.

The flames graph

If you like, you may print out the graph for the flames sockshere. If it looks like it's missing a few lines, then mouse over and click on the little orange picture with the 4 blue arrows pointing out. It should print landscape on 1 8.5x11 sheet.

For the German KAL

I picked up this Sockotta:

It's colorway 502. The people on KR all thought that all of the Sockotta colorways splotched, pooled, or "sparkled", but this one is supposed to stripe. I'm not into the striping, but we'll see what happens. I need to get busy on my other projects first, but I can't wait to swatch this.

I did another pair of socks from Sockotta and at first I wasn't very impressed with the yarn. But, it is much less expensive than others, and they wear great and feel good on. One skein makes two socks.

Almost there!

The flame socks are almost done. It's funny Carole commented on how she's going to miss them... after all I knit them every SnB I go to! Here they are modeled by the handsome end user (with the furry legs... don't worry, it's not me, it's my dh).

Instep	Bottom

They're actually a little farther than that now. The first one is completely done and I just need to weave some threads and do the duplicate stitch on the second one. They are going to be kind of like fred flinstone toes because they were within an inch of the final length when I got done the pattern. I did have to buy another skein of the Navy. Luckily, another knitter at the SnB was able to give up one that she had picked out (thanks Judy!) because the LYS ran out of that color.

baltimoresun.com - Stitching a knitting network

An article about our local SnB! There are pictures in the print version... and there I am, happily knitting away on the couch. I understand that free registration might be required.

Quick note: "add to my Yahoo" works now

If you moused over it in the past (over there on the sidebar) it wasn't a link. Turns out I left out an " . So it works now. If you like reading your knitting blogs in Yahoo instead of in Bloglines or by following a ring, click away!

The lovely *POWER* ball winder my DH made me

He actually made this a while ago, but we just got a chance to use it yesterday. I needed to wind off a bunch of wooly nylon onto a separate spool so that I could do 2 heels at once. The winder is meant to do center pull balls, but for the wooly nylon I just wound it around a toilet paper roll so it won't get tangled.

The motor that turns the spool is from an old power drill. Mark hooks that to a potentiometer and that to either a battery (this time from his cordless drill) or a power supply. He's thinking about adding a footpedal from a sewing machine to control the speed. This time he stood there and adjusted the pot while I'll guided the nylon. Pretty cool!

Still flames...

Going very, very slowly... but I'm committing to at least 2 complete rows per day so I'll get there sooner or later!
Here's how they look now.

Heel	Instep

As promised

Here's Caitie in her new poncho. Picture courtesy of my Dad.

Progress on the fluted bannister socks

No chance last weekend, and now there's no light when I get home from work. Here's a picture anyway.

I really like this pattern. It's easy to remember and knit and goes really quickly.

In other news, Caitie tried on her new poncho and it fits great. Just a few minutes before she had been complaining that everyone had a poncho but her! I also taught her to knit again. She's a real pro at the long-tailed cast on, but still shakey on the knitting. I left her with some acrylic worsted weight and some size 10s. Maybe she'll practice. I'll try to post a picture of her in it, but my camera's batteries went kaput and I had to rely on Dad's pictures.

Cool hit map trick

Pointed out by MonkeyMagic
It clusters and maps the IPs of visitors. Pretty cool. You'll see a huge cluster where I am, let's see who else?

Where are visitors to this page?
(Auto-update daily since 15-OCT-04)

If you'd like to get it yourself look here.

Found some wooly nylon

After many discussions on Socknitters about how to reinforce socks made from non-sock yarn, I decided I needed to get some wooly nylon for the socks I'm making from merino. I went to Joann's (I know, I know, but I wasn't buying yarn, I was buying wooly nylon). Anyway, they were really busy, what with two employees outside smoking, a brand new employee having a line of 5 people waiting to have fabric cut and the other employee with a line of 5 people at the register, so I just kept looking around. I found serger thread, but I wasn't sure. Then... at ankle level, in a bin, I found some... in HOT PINK! Argh. I dug around squatting there and finally pulled out a spool of hunter green. I wanted to get black so it would go with everything, but oh well. It's actually pretty cool but I'm not sure how easy to knit with it will be. As soon as the tension is off of it, it fluffs up like my hair in August! I also need to pull some off onto another spool so that I can continue to do 2 socks at a time. So how much? hmm.

Progress on the flames

Whoa. These are slow. I guess I'll work on these more tonight after I finish casting on the fluted bannister. If you can see the chart in the background, the first like 10 rows are pretty much just a couple of light colored stitches here and there so I'm going to do them in duplicate stitch. I'm still going to run out of navy yarn.

Don't the flames almost look like tuning forks?

Some good ideas

While my DH and I were running around the mall last night trying to find me shoes for my conference presentation today (and no, I didn't find any, all I wanted were some brown suede with a cute rounded toe and like a 2.5" heel, is that so hard?), I saw a poncho at Banana Republic that looks kind of like what I had in mind for my MIL's. When I went online to link to it, I found that they list ponchos as a top trend, and have a whole page on them (which is apparently what's making my browser crash so beware). I really like all of these designs. I guess I will put fringe on the one I'm making. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate for an adult poncho.

Swatching 6 Sox #3

ARGH! I did this post last night before I went to bed and apparently IE died and it didn't get posted.

Anyway, this is for the 3rd of the 6 Sox Knitalong. It's actually only my second and I'd like to do the to the clover when I get a chance. This pattern is called fluted bannister and I'm trying to make it for a man so I went digging through my stash. I ended up swatching this very soft 100% merino that's in a beautiful deep green with blue in it. I can't get a good picture at night so I'll try again on the weekend. This swatch is done flat on size 2 addis. The bottom is just plain knitting and the top is the pattern.

I'm going to add a wooly nylon (yet to be purchased) to the whole foot so they can be worn around the house.

In other news, I'm about a foot in on my MIL's poncho (cool) and am about 12 rows from starting the flames on the flame socks. The new pattern is posted for the Deutsch knit along and it's a beautiful slip stitch pattern. Now I'll have to find 2 more yarns in my stash!