Holiday Knitting

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to post, but the holiday knitting is zipping right along. There’s a small chance I’ll actually finish in time. I’ve been itching to post pictures, but Kim, at least, reads this, and that would spoil the surprise. For those of you who are Ravelry, you can see the pictures of Ethan, Lily, Kim, Darlene & Frank, Becky & Larry, and Michael’s gifts on my project page. As soon as all the gifts are done, I’m going to finish my Lush and Lacy cardigan, and post pictures, I promise. Unfortunately, I can’t spend all day working on these gifts, so it might be the end of November or beginning of December before I get a chance to finish that sweater For those of you wondering about my progress on the gifts, I’ve made a new sidebar item that will be updated as I progress.

 

Woolcott & Co. Closing

In case you missed it, Woolcott & Co. is closing.  This is sad, as I’m pretty sure this was the first yarn store I ever went to (I won’t say “stepped foot in” because I’m betting I was too young to walk).  I bought the yarn for my first sweater there.  I didn’t go often, but sometimes I knew that they were going to have just what I wanted.   I love that Boston’s yarn stores really seem to do well at having their own niches, and there will be a big hole left by Woolcott.  They started their going-out-of business sale on Tuesday, and at lunchtime things were already pretty picked over.  I still managed to buy way too much yarn (for my budget) though.  I just couldn’t say no to the yarn that was calling my name when I knew it was the last time I’d ever go there.

 

And the Holiday Knitting Begins

This past weekend, James and I hit up Windsor Button and Stitch House so I could commence with holiday knitting.   There are now 17 people in James’s immediate family, including us, which is a lot.  Luckily six of them are still pretty small, but this still makes for a LOT of Christmas knitting, plus whatever I make for my own family!  This involved a fairly large yarn purchase — twelve skeins, and that’s not counting the six I had to special-order for James’s gift (he helped pick it out because I knew if I picked the yarn there was a decent chance he wouldn’t wear the finished product).    I don’t even have everything I need yet, although I think I’m almost there.

This year is a particularly big year for the family as we’ve gained a new member (baby Thomas was born a few weeks ago), Michael is deploying to Iraq in January (he’s in the Air Force) and Kim and the kids are moving in with Jim and Karen in Maryland while Michael is overseas.  Since they’re coming from LA, their Christmas presents will be sure to help keep them warm as they adjust to the colder climate (and that’s all I’m saying for now, folks, since I know Kim reads this sometimes).   Jim and Karen are likewise pretty easy to find ideas for because Karen gets cold easily, and you can never have too many knitted things to  keep you warm.

The amount of yarn I bought would have been totally reasonable, given the circumstances, if I hadn’t found out on Monday that Woolcott & Co., Harvard Square’s yarn store, is sadly closing its doors.  On Tuesday, I went with some of the knitters from MITKnit, and not only did I get yarn for my parents’ gift, but I got enough Plötulopi / Unspun Icelandic (in a light gray and a light green) to make myself a sweater.   I am *so* excited about it.  But, it was totally an impulse buy, and now I’m on a serious yarn diet.  Also, I need suggestions for what to do with it.  I think this is going to be my motivation to get the holiday knitting done quickly! Well, that and finishing Lush and Lacy, which is on hold for the time being.   Let me know what you think I should make with it!

ETA:  Pictures of Lily and Ethan’s Christmas gifts are now up on Ravelry, so you can see them there.

 

Lush and Lacy Update

This sweater has mostly just flown off my needles. The pattern is a little long-winded, but generally very well-written and clear. I feel like today’s entry on the 2009 Never Not Knitting Calendar is quite appropriate:

Note to Self: If I change the decreases on the sleeve, make the bust bigger, add shaping and short rows in the front and knitted darts to the back, subtract some length, leave off the collar, and change the neckline to a V. . . when/if it doesn’t work out, I do not have the right to speak ill of the designer’s abilities.

I’ve been, in large part, using the given pattern as a general guideline (why yes, my mother did teach me to knit, and no, she has never in her life actually followed a pattern exactly, why do you ask? :: looks around the room innocently ::).  The back I made pretty much exactly as written for a size small, but I made it a couple inches longer so that it actually might be as long as my shirts.  For the fronts, I wanted them to button normally, and not have the two-buttons-connected-by-a-crocheted-clasp look.  Nothing wrong with that look, just not what I wanted for this sweater.  So, I made the fronts size medium, making the same length adjustments I had for the back so they’ll match up.  I also added an extra increase in the bust so that would fit a bit better (despite the pattern’s description, this was not designed for anyone with actual curves).   By the time I was done with the back and both fronts, I had used just under half of the yarn I had, and was feeling a little better about the amount I had left.

The sleeves on this sweater, as written, are both flouncy and short.  Mostly, they didn’t look terribly warm and, let’s be honest here, I live in Boston, where warmth is definitely a necessity.  I measured my wrist and decided that 32 stitches for a cuff seemed reasonable.  Then, I looked at how big the sleeve was supposed to be by the time the ruffle was done on the original pattern.   I did the four rows of ribbing for the cuff and then increased one stitch (33 total).  Then I increased two stitches, one at each end of the row, every inch until I got to 49 stitches, which was my goal from the written pattern.  From there, it was smooth sailing knitting the sleeve cap as written.  I decided to go with the medium size sleeve to make sure there was enough fabric there to fit well into the armhole I had made with the slightly enlarged body.

Now I just have to make one more sleeve, sew it up, and knit the neck and button band.  It’s hard to believe that I cast on for this sweater on Rosh Hashanah and Simchas Torah is this weekend already.  It’s gone by very quickly!

 

Lush and Lacy Cardigan

A good friend of mine always says that the key to feeling competent at something or to feel that it’s easy is to “practice above the trick” — in other words, do something harder. That’s actually one of the reasons I love knitting blankets: they make everything else seem to go so much faster! Take, for instance, the cardigan that I’m working on right now. I’m almost done with the back. Here’s a peak:

 

Lots of Lace

This week has been brought to you by lace.   I mostly worked some more on Girasole, with a small break taken to make a hat for my new baby cousin, Lauren.  As I’ve mentioned before, my mother and I often do a matching hat and sweater set for new babies in the family.  My mom decided to do the Yarn Harlot’s Baby Mine cardigan in Cascade 220 Paints.  If it were up to me, I probably would have picked a less busy yarn which would really have let the lace shine through, but I think this worked out pretty well.  Here is the hat I made:

And a close-up of the lace pattern:

The sweater has a garter yoke, so I made the top of the hat garter stitch.  It seemed oddly flatter than most of my hats, even though I used the same basic hat recipe.  This is, I think (maybe I shouldn’t say this to loudly. . .) my last baby knit for the foreseeable future.  Through February, I think I’m all caught up!  This gives me time to work on Girasole some more:

I’m now in about the middle of chart D, and still only on the second ball of yarn!

 

Girasole

I’ve now been working on Girasole for two weeks.  Progress has been surprisingly slow, but I’m almost done with the first ball of yarn (out of five).  I really do like how it’s turning out so far, at least what I can see since it’s fairly scrunched up.  I’m not really getting the same kind of jolt from knitting it that I’ve gotten with other lace projects.  At first I thought it was because of the ever-increasing row size, but Jennifer and James’s blanket and my triangle shawls have both had that problem, and I was much more excited about them.  Jennifer and James’s blanket was even nominally a much plainer, more boring pattern.   I wonder if it was that with the other projects I felt like I was learning something, and now I’m just knitting stuff I already know how to do?  Anyway, here are some pictures from this weekend:

Here it is right after I switched to a longer circular needle:

Some close-ups:

 

Lots and lots of baby hats

I’m almost done with all the baby knitting! I’ve finished a hat for (in order of due date) Maria and Luis’s baby, Darlene and Frank’s baby, Mike and Olivia’s baby, and Karen and Cesar’s baby. Since none of them have been mailed, no pictures yet, but I’ll post them soon (and, for those of you on ravelry, they’re already there). My mother still hasn’t finished the sweater for Lauren, and I’m waiting on that so I can make a hat to match out of the remaining yarn. She’s already a couple months old. Hopefully that will all get done before it gets too chilly.

In other knitting news, I’ve started on Girasole! It’s a very easy and satisfying knit so far. I’ve just started chart C. Once that gets too big to cart around with me, I’m hoping to start a sweater for myself. I have the yarn, and I’m thinking about making the February Lady Sweater, modifying the sleeves to make them full length. I’ve got about 930 yards of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in a berry red. I was going to do #70 Lush and Lacy Cardigan, modifying the sleeves to make them full length, but I’m also intrigued by the idea of trying an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern.  To be honest, given the cost of WotA, I could just buy enough for another sweater and do both.  Or, save up some and get me some Cascade 220 heathers from Stitch House, now that I live oh-so-close.    What do you think, gentle readers?

 

Another Baby Sweater Done

My first sweater with intarsia is done!!  The pattern was terribly written, and I really should have re-designed the letters (one-stitch serifs? really?)  but I think it turned out kind of decently, and I learned two new techniques — intarsia and mattress stitch! I will mail it off to my cousin next week some time probably (once I’ve figured out where the wrapping paper was packed!)

 

Teaching Knitting

Well, in between the packing and the craziness was a lovely quiet Tuesday evening wherein I gave my first knitting lesson!  My friend Mary mentioned that she wanted to learn how to knit, and so we set a date to get together so I could teach her (for future reference, this is best done *not* the week you’re moving, but we made do and worked around the pile of boxes).

The first lesson was just in the knit stitch — I cast on and did a couple rows so she could see, and then got to work on my own knitting so she could follow along and try at the same time she was watching what I was doing.  Then she just kept going!!  Stitch counts varied from row to row, but not nearly as wildly as usual for and there were quite a number of rows where she ended up with the same number of  stitches she started with!  I was quite impressed with how well she was doing!  Not a single dropped stitch!