FO: Selbu Modern

If you've seen any of my weekly photo mosaics (which I'm terribly behind on, I know) you may have glimpsed my first FO of the year: a Selbu Modern beret.  A fantastic pattern! It's knit in a skein of Lang Jawoll sock yarn (white) and Elann Baby Cashmere (purple), both of which I've had in stash for years now. My stranding skills leave much to be desired, but blocking really helped even things out.

I finally took a couple moments after work to take some snapshots, which proved more difficult than I'd anticipated.  Here are the best couple of the lot.  They don't show off the hat exceptionally well, but well enough I suppose.

The pattern is simple enough to knit, because it's so well written and the chart is so clear.  The pattern adds just enough a pop of texture and contrast to my usual attire of mostly solids, yet doesn't overwhelm some of the prints I occasionally wear. This, along with an Urchin hat I knit up about three (!) years ago, has been keeping me warm and toasty all winter. A beret is the best hat for this head.

FO: Knee-highs!

These are the inspiration shot (from this trip), along with the final product (started here):

I did simple M1R and M1L increases for the calf, up until I had 80 stitches all around.  There are neat and symmetric little slants on each side, which I quite like.  I finished off with 2x2 ribbing for 18 rows.  They hit just below the knee.

I'm in love! Warm and colorful legs this fall (or whenever it gets cold enough around these parts)!

Sock-knitting, again

My recent visit to LACMA and Tim Burton's exhibit didn't just inspire me to get skectching again; I also brought out the tiny double pointed knitting needles. Project: knee highs begins!

I'd picked up this skein of Noro Kureyon sock yarn (color 192)  back when it debuted (ages ago!), but never got around to using it. The black mixed in with the rainbow colors just kinda killed it for me.  But with an eye to some of Tim Burton's drawings (long and skinny and stripey), I thought to break up the color gradations by creating stripes with an alternating solid color (Cascade Heritage in a rich, dark brown). Here's an initial attempt:

This was before I changed my mind and decided to make the toes in multicolor instead of dark brown. I'd also decided to decrease from a 64-stitch round to 60. It set me back a week, but will be worth it in the end when I'm happy with the final product.

These socks are being knit from the toe up so as to use as much yarn as possible. I like a rounded toe; here's how I do it:

1. Figure-eight cast-on for 10 stitches: 10 figure eights = 20 sts total


2. Increase at the beginning and end of every "row" for five rows; split stitches onto four dpns: 10 stitches on each dpn; 40 sts total


3. Increase every other round for another 10 rounds: 15 stitches on each dpn; 60 sts total

A 60-stitch circumference provides a comfortable, snuggly fit for my Size 7 feet; I'm using Size US1 needles. My stripes are three rows of each color -- not a perfect split when I got to the heel, but neither four rows nor two rows quite matched the image I had in mind. I like watching the colors gradually change, and knitting in a regular interval of colors sure makes counting rows easier! I prefer to knit both socks at once to ensure that my tension is equal and to save myself from "second sock syndrome," that feeling of having to start all over with the second sock before the project can really be complete. Here's where I am now, almost a month after the cast-on (please forgive my bleh grey berber rental carpet):

It'll soon be time to begin some calf increases.  I'm going to knit those on the fly: wishmeluck!

Been knitting

I purchased the yarn* for this project in January, at a store on the Westside, when my friend was out visiting from WDC and wanted to get (back, properly) into knitting.  I hardly have anything pink in my wardrobe, so I thought: whynot?

The cast-on happened during the February trip to Japan, and it was slow going since then.  It came along on my daily train commute, but I was distracted for weeks with very interesting books.  Once I picked it up again, though, the pattern came out effortlessly (so easy to remember!).  Sure, it doesn't hurt that this is something like my fourth Swallowtail Shawl [pdf]; what can I say?  It's a great pattern.  So great that I want one for myself.  (I've knitted about at least a half dozen shawls and have nothing to show for it; they were all gifts!) Not everyone likes them, but I think the "nupps" give the lily-of-the-valley pattern a lot of texture and pop -- and it's kinda fun to say, "Nupps."

So if you've ever knit a shawl, you know that although the pattern looks complicated, the symmetry lets you know immediately if you've made a mistake, meaning you can correct it immediately (instead of five rows later).  I decided to take advantage of the symmetry during the blocking process.  Not only would I ensure that both halves would be the same size, I'd end up using only half as many pins.  What's not to love about that?!  It was actually fun to see both halves line up so perfectly on top of one another:

I finished this right around the Memorial Day weekend, and have worn it a few times.  It's light, floaty, and very warm -- which is especially handy during these days of fluctuating weather and against the blast of A/C on the train.  The pink adds a girly touch to my wardrobe of mostly greys and blacks and jeans.

Now that I'm done, my hands are itchy to be at needle and yarn again.  What shall I knit next? 

 

*Classic Elite Yarns, Silky Alpaca Lace (70% alpaca, 30% silk) in the sale bin

** I wanted a slightly larger shawl than the original (in Misti Alpaca lace and US4 needles), so I added one stitch on each end to make a three-stitch garter border, and used US5 needles.  Ended up using about 95% of the yarn -- booyah!

Cowled

There's a small and not-so-known section of my office that's open to the public, meaning that a part of my job is fielding questions from people who come in. Because it's small and not-so-known, there aren't a whole lot of visitors; but there are some regulars. (This is sometimes good, sometimes not.)

One such party stopped by not too long ago (they ask for me by first name, like we're old friends; it's kinda weird but what can ya do?) to say hello. We struck up some smalltalk as we usually do. And suddenly the conversation heads thusward:

Mr. A: So...if I may... May I ask, how old is Jean?

Me: Jean is old enough.

Mr. A: You're not in your 50s, are you? 40s?

Me: [Incredulous, unsure if this is a joke] ... Umm... Try somewhere in my 30s...

Mr. A: oh, really? Because you seem so old.

Me: [Incredulous, unsure if this is a joke] ... Umm, really? Are you serious? Is that a ... compliment?

Mr. A: Oh, of course! Young people these days are just so .... But you're nothing like that. You've always carried yourself with such maturity. ... And I have this friend, who I thought, maybe... He's 61--

Me: [Still incredulous, still unsure if this is a joke, but not caring to find out] -- That's almost double, sir.

Mr. A: Oh, well... [mumble mumble]...

Me: I have to go back to work now. Bye.

Good grief! I've never been told that I look old before! Is it because of my new haircut? I don't think so! People have told me that I look more like my mom, but also that it's a cute cut. What do you think?

[self, cowled]

While I'm at it, allow me to introduce my first FO of the year. It's the Stripes to Keep Me Warm pattern (Ravelry link) with a few mods: knit in fingering weight yarn, with shortened neck part, because I knew I would never use it as a hood/wimple. I actually didn't quite like the 'scrunch' factor, either, so ended up folding the edge inside. I wore it the other day over a sleeveless black dress and grey flats, and felt very chic.

Christmas knitting

Hope all your Christmas knitting got done in time, and that their recipients are enjoying them!  

Knitting For Me came to a halt as the idea to knit hats entered my mind, oh, somewhere around October.  I vastly exagerrated my knitting prowess and decided that I could knit 30 hats in 30 days.  I scoured the Internets and Ravelry and had an entire army of patterns lined up in my mind and on my shelf.  The dream faded quickly as it took me five days to knit the first hat (Stella's).

I plugged onwards, to see just how many hats I could churn out in a month's time.  Next up: Urchin.  I'd been saving up a skein of thick-'n-thin(ner than usual) Malabrigo in a lovely teal color -- purchased two (three?) Thanksgivings ago at Imagiknit in San Francisco (how and why do I remember these things?) -- for something special, and it turned out just how I'd imagined:  lovely!

[urchin -- to keep or to give?]

I frogged and made some mods, so Urchin, too, took me nearly a week to complete.

Then it was on to a simple hat in a purple yarn my parents had acquired for me.  I wanted to use up as much of it as possible so there was some frogging involved here, too, as I went back and forth with the when and how much of crown increases and decreases.  Another week gone by...

[three weeks = three hats... (x_x)]

I hadn't intended on knitting the Turn A Square hat, but in a quick moment pulled out a skein of Noro Kureyon and some leftover Patons Classic Merino.  It only took one day to knit one, and in a fraction of the time it took to knit the above, I had four hats!  If only I'd started with this pattern!

Some modifications were made: decreasing the number of stitches cast on, elminating the additional stitches made after the ribbing, knitting 2x2 instead of 2x3 stripe pattern.  I used the entire skein of Kureyon in three hats and knit up the leftover solids (pea green, olive, gray) into a fourth.

[four squared]

It was an awesome stashbusting experience!  Another cool tidbit:  the grey came from the leftovers of my Forecast sweater -- whose buttonband was reknit ages ago but never blogged -- which I've been wearing practically nonstop the entire season.  It now looks like this:

[finally finished forecast]

So: seven hats total (one claimed by DC, two by *ahem* moi-meme!).  A lot less than I'd aimed for, but, on the flipside, a bit of a head-start into next year's gift giving.  Now: back to KFM!

Knitting For Me: Whisper Cardigan

This little number was finished and blocked in time to be worn in Maui.  There were tons of mods, the details of which I no longer recall, and which may not help anyway because there is no method to them at all... but here's my best shot at a recap of what I did:

Pattern: Whisper Cardigan (Hannah Fettig for Interweave Knits, Spring 2009)

Yarn: Recycled cotton/cashmere from a thrifted I.Magnin sweater

Needles: US6 aluminum dpns + circulars; US3 Addi turbo circulars

    
[difficult to take pics of a piece that is the same color as one's walls...]

I wanted straight sleeves so knew from the get-go that I wouldn't be casting on 90 stitches.  From sock-knitting, I knew that 60 sts in the round on US1 needles could be a sweater sleeve for me, which helped me determine 64 as a cast-on number for the Whisper Cardigan -- with positive ease from the larger (US6) needle size.  As you can see from the photos, the sleeves are not tight around my arms at all.

Accordingly I decreased the number of stitches cast off at the underarms.  The only other change I made was to do increases for the 'flaps' every 4 rows, instead of every 2 as called for.  So the sweater still drapes, just not a whole lot.

Although you can't see it in the photos, the back/shoulder is a bit longer than ideal:  it got stretched out a bit in the blocking.  Doesn't make it unwearable, but it does fall off my shoulder every now and then.   If I were to knit this again (a great gift knit) I'd make the shoulder length a couple inches shorter than called for in the pattern, to account for the slight stretching. 

Here's another shot I took -- in my kitchen this time instead of the living room -- so you could see it a little bit better.  

[Please excuse my peeking pajama bottoms!]

The cotton/cashmere makes this sweater sooooo buttery (like the color) soft, and so warm!  In sum: a great sweater, clever design, and definitely wearable -- success!

Roadtrippin': Sac-town

This was our second road trip to Northern California for a wedding (DC's grad school friend); first wedding on a week-day.  In addition to taking Friday off, I made arrangements to leave an hour early on Thursday.  DC picked me up from the office, which meant leaving two hours before we would've if I'd worked a regular day and then taken the bus home.  It shifted traffic conditions in our favor, and it was still light before we got to Fresno, where we spent the night (so nice to be able to break our time on the road in half!).

[one minute: cornfields aplenty!]

[next minute: deserts]

I brought my current knitting project, the Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Knits, Spring 2009.  Stockinette stitch is perfect for roadtrips!

[Why so many safeties? Very rudimentary counting ability...]

We awoke on Friday morning entirely refreshed, and after a quick breakfast, were on the road again by mid-morning.  It only took about 2 1/2 hours to get to Sacramento.  Our destination: along the Sacramento River, just outside of city center.  A quick lunch, an afternoon siesta, and a quick change, and we were all set. 

The couple is techinically already married; that's why you don't see any chairs set up for a ceremony.  In fact, they live abroad, and their summer vacation is actually three weeks on tour to have various celebrations with their friends and family who are in the U.S.  The weather couldn't be better: a sort of cold-snap had Sac-town and its surrounds about 20+ degrees cooler than they usually are this time of year.  Lucky us!

[open bar + hors d'oeuvres -- yes please!]

[dance floor?! boo yah!]

Our friends are Muslim, and had an Arabic-style celebration.  Samosas, skewers, lamb chops -- yum.  Ladies in beautiful, glittery, sheer, floaty saris and dresses -- beautiful.  Arabic music, clapping, cheering -- interesting, and fun!  Bon Jovi and ice cream -- typical of the groom.  Table names of cities with significance to the couple and their courtship -- educational.  Congrats, N+N!

Being so close to the capital, I had to stop by and see it (I hadn't been since the 6th grade California History field trip)!  Unfortunately, deterred by large crowds of (loud) Asian tourists, we didn't stay too long.  But I still managed to take a few cool shots. 

  

   

All this in 20 minutes -- justapeek indeed!  We spent more time and were at greater leisure at our next stop.  And it was just Saturday morning!  More (pictures, mostly) later!

Botched button band

Forecast has been finished and blocked for a couple of weeks now.  It fits fabulously.  I found some buttons but stalled on sewing them on because I wasn't quite satisfied with the button bands.  Finally, though, I worked my way to pinning the buttons in place, just to see what a pseudo-finished-object might look like:

Not too bad, no?  Unfortunately, not that great, either.

I do like the contrast of the red against the grey (with the yellow of my walls, to boot -- hello, autumn!), but as you can see progressing downwards, the band becomes increasingly ruffly and fussy -- so much so that a couple of the lower buttons consistently get unbuttoned!  Oh dear.  Even after I read a ton of articles on how to pick up the stitches, accounting for the difference between stitch length and width.

The best thing to do is to frog both bands completely and reknit on smaller needles.  This time 'round I'm not going to slip the first stich of each row so the top edging tightens up a bit, and so the buttonholes end up a tad smaller.  There's no rush, really, since it's still summer (so hot during this photo shoot!).  Hopefully, the anticipation of having a new handknit sweater well and ready to wear in a couple of months will motivate me to get this done sooner rather than later.  Wishmeluck!

No idle hands

Or, in other words, explainin' where I been...

DC came home last week, after having spent a fortnight in Africa (+ nearly 2 days' travel each way).  Just in time to celebrate the 4th of July.  Which is also our Y1 anniversary.  Luckily, he broke me in to his summer rovings by taking a monthlong trip to Europe when we first started dating last summer, so two weeks really was nothing.  It gave me some time to do stuff around the apartment (rearrange, again) and work on my gift.

The idea that We. Must. Have. A. Logo. got into my head a while ago, and stuck.  So, with the idea of getting the image in my head down on paper and framing it, I sat down with Microsoft Word and my extremely mediocre design skills.  I wanted something plain and graphic, and was going to put it over layers of security-lined envelopes of different patterns.  After nearly an hour of making text boxes, scaling, and aligning, I got it the way I wanted, and hit Print. 

Then I decided that it'd be better to print on the laser printer at work (shhh!), so I saved it to a thumb drive. 

Then I decided to print on my cotton blank postcard stock, so I dove through my stationery stash to find it. 

Then the idea came to me to do a cutout, so I traced the logo onto the blank card, and got out my knife and ruler.

Then I decided to make the cutout circle of the "d" into a heart.

Then I decided to do another "frame" of the security envelope pattern around the outside of the logo.

Then I chose the background color (chose the black over baby blue, to highlight the heart).

Here's what the final product looks like:

Not what I had in mind at the beginning, and certainly not perfect, but organic and spontaneous -- which reflects us.  The second part of the gift is the requirement to take a picture with it every July 4th!  I'm thinking of making a smaller version that we can take along on our trips, too (he doesn't know this yet, but will be happy to oblige, I'm sure!).

* * *

Whenever DC is away, I take out his letters and read through them again.  Not only does he write beautifully -- both in penmanship and content -- he shows his creativity, too.  Here's an example, which I'd been meaning to frame for a while but just got to recently:

[with new succulents!]

It's a little puzzle he made for me, using a coffee cup sleeve!  Cute, no?  I used another security lined envelope innard for the background, it's a subtle gray color that adds the right amount of texture.

For my Y1 gift, though, DC completely surprised me with:

[lovely! green!]

After exchanging gifts, we headed out to meet our parents for brunch.  Interesting way to spend our Y1 anniversary, don'tcha think?!  We celebrated in the evening -- just us two -- with wine and sparklers. 

* * *

In my last post I mentioned that I was already putting the Kacha-Kacha Counter to good use.  I got to over 100 rows much faster than I had time to take a picture, and then got to the point where I don't need the counter anymore!  This morning I finally snapped a couple of shots before heading out the door.

This is Forecast, by Stephanie Japel for Knitty W05.  Yes, I have wanted to knit it for that long.  But I was daunted by something sweater-sized and held off.  For a long time.  During which I knit shawls and socks and other little things.  One day, a couple weeks ago, I decided to cast on, and from there I kept going.  And now I'm almost done!  I got some knitting done during lunch, and am over halfway done with the ribbing on this (second) sleeve.  If I don't have to stand on the bus ride home, I think I can finish by the time I get home today!  So I can start picking up stitches for the button band.  Which shouldn't take long.  Which means I will have an FO to show you shortly!

The full story when the time is right.

Happy belated 4th of July!  I hope yours was good, too!

Knitting For Me: First FO!

Been plugging away at the Shetland Shorty, and it got done a couple of weeks ago.  And I've actually worn it!  I've been knitting for a several years now, but this is probably the very first successful garment I've knit for myself.  Just call me a late bloomer...

In any case, once I reestablished a feel for the pattern it was easy going.  There are tons of modifications--not because I'm one of those genius pattern tweakers or customizers, but just to work around the mistakes I made without having to frog any more than necessary!  Looking at the various versions and notes on Ravelry helped me make the biggest change, which was knitting only 12 repeats of the Birds Eye Lace pattern for the left and right fronts (instead of the 17 prescribed for the XS size).  I figured it out by trying it on, as best as possible, while knitting.

When I rejoined the yarn, I realized that I'd mixed up the front and back, I knit the neckline and front edging in reverse garter (purl every row).  Because of that, I knit one extra row before binding off so that the bind-off edge would show on the right side of the garment.  You'd think a body couldn't mess up on simply purling, but somewhere along that part I managed a dozen or so knit stitches, which went unnoticed until I was weaving in the ends.  Oh well.  Thank goodness I'm not that much of a perfectionist!  And besides, the flaw is on the wrong side; from the right side you can't really tell.  So I'm not showin' where it is!



What I will show you is how much yarn I had leftover.  What a relief, after having woried that I'd totally run out!  At the beginning, I tried to conserve by knitting only seven of the nine garter rows for the lower band and ties.  I don't know how much that would have helped, but in the end it really came down to knitting five less repeats on the left and right fronts. 

I love this shrug!  It fits comfortably, and both color and pattern add a cheerful pop and some texture to my mostly-darks-and plain wardrobe.  I also like that it's a bit longer on me, not tied right below the bust.  My younger brother, the art student and one of the most stylish people I know, was surprised to hear I'd knit it myself.  He said it looks like I bought it, and expensively.  Huzzah!

Here are the specs:

Pattern:  Shetland Shorty (Gundrun Johnston for Knitty, Summer 2008)

Yarn: Hand Maiden Sea Silk, Pumpkin

Needles: US3 Addi turbo circular, US4 aluminum straight

I took advantage of a day off and the morning light to take a couple of additional photos.  To tell you that Shetland Shorty is my most successful garment requires me to show you my past failures.  These were worn after they were completed, but due to dissatisfaction on various points, have, over time, been demoted to the back and bottom of the drawer.  I thought I'd post and talk about them now, before they get frogged.



First we have the Apricot Jacke from Rebecca 27, which was, incidentally, my very first sweater (finished in 2006).  It's a lovely sweater, but I think my first mistake was yarn choice.  GGH Samoa is 50% cotton and 50% microfiber, which is great for the machine washability, but does not have the "pullback" of wool, which is obvious especially at the elbows.  The other major flaw is the sagginess of the arms, which you can see pretty clearly in the photo.  I learned a lot, through this, about knowing my own measurements and knitting garments to fit me (what a concept).

I adore the pattern too much (and forked out too much money to get it) to go without this sweater, so it will be knit again, in either a wool or wool blend yarn, and fully taking into account the lessons I learned the first time around. 



Next up we have the Spring Fling cardigan, also finished in 2006.  I'd wanted an openwork cardigan to stave the blast of the A/C at the office, which had me bundled up like it was winter in high summer.  Like the Apricot Jacke, my initial mistake was yarn choice (hmm, is a pattern emerging here?).  I used Baruffa Aerobic, a 100% merino wool that ended up too warm, despite the open pattern.  I also had problems with width, which were exacerbated when the cardi was blocked and the lace really stretched out.  You can't really see it too clearly in the photo, but the arms are really baggy and bunchy, uncomfortably so.

Were I to knit this sweater again, I'd also add a proper band around the neckline and down the fronts (although it's not in the original pattern).  I did add one row of crochet, thinking it would stabilize the edge more, but, unfortunately, that didn't quite do the job.

I was so discouraged at those two failed sweaters that I haven't even attempted one for three years!  I don't know that you could call the Shetland Shorty a comparable project, but I put it in the same category because it's for me.  With the high from this success and the resolution made at the beginning of the year to knit for myself--not to mention a few more years of knitting experience to back me up--I am exited to begin to knit a sweater for myself again.  Here's to future successes!