Doing the Funky Llama

Designing is a lot of work. This may be more obvious to some, less thick people than me, or it could just be that I’m approaching the whole thing in a crazy, haphazard way and that is why I’m driving myself crazy. But it’s all good. I’m learning and that’s the important thing! It’s a labor of love at this point. Here’s my progress on the armor inspired gauntlets I’m making at my husband’s suggestion. My husband is like, ‘well, the rivets need to be at the sides of the arm’, ‘this will overlap here’. You’d think I was making the real deal. It’s good to be authentic, I suppose. I actually have a better understanding now as to how this thing actually functioned in real life, amazing. All I have to do is make the knitted stitches!

I decided to do the little bobbles all around the bottom, to mimic the rivets that would be on a real metal gauntlet. I’m using size 4’s with worsted weight wool for a nice, dense fabric. I really hope these are going to be super cool when finished. I’m also wondering for sanity’s sake if I can get away with using a thinner yarn for the woman’s version, to avoid writing all the line by line instructions out again. We shall see.

What’s that? Of course we went hiking again this weekend! Here is Sydney under those huge crazy vines. David took a couple shots of the Rock Towers, there are different ones there each time. These reminded me of mushrooms! We worked up a sweat this time, it was pretty nice and warm this weekend in NC. Please don’t hate me since my daughter was modeling my Chardonnay I had Saturday night. It’s called “Funky Llama”, I couldn’t resist. It was really good, and I don’t usually go for Chardonnay.
In lieu of the modeling shots, here is my finished Beryl sweater. I’m pretty happy with it since I sewed up the button band. The cotton was just not laying right and the buttonholes already wanted to get gapey. So I just sewed the buttonbands together and viola! Much better. I think I’m becoming way too much of a perfectionist knitter. At least that’s what my LYS owner (Lindsey at Purl’s Yarn Emporium) tells me. The Queensland Pima Fresca yarn is very snuggly and soft, I do think I’ll get some use out of this one.

We watched the movie “Click” with Adam Sandler on Friday. What’s with his movies now? Why do we need the sad serious part in the middle? What’s wrong with just funny? I don’t get it. I think I’m in need of some seriously good comedy, suggestions welcome.

Hope you have a great week, be back soon!

Knitting Wit De Fishies

Awww…..crap. I’m running out of yarn, again. You would think I’d learn by now, shouldn’t 1000 yds. of worsted weight yarn be enough for a baby blanket?? Well, granted, I’m making a big baby blanket, aiming for a size of about 40” square. Called my LYS, they don’t have it. Called the one across town, they don’t have it. Argh! I will find it, oh yes, I will. Just wait and see. I know, enough talking….how about some pics?? I’m doing this is 5 colors of Berocco Comfort, strips of cables that will get sewn together.

I picked up my Ruffled Jacket last week with renewed determination to figure out those darn sleeve caps. Let me just tell you, I couldn’t have done it with my “Sweater Design in Plain English” book. Great book. If you’re planning on designing any sweaters, I highly recommend it. So I plunged ahead and finished the first cap! Now I’m on the second sleeve. I would say I could post a tut on how I figured it out, the only trouble with that is I’m knitting the sweater on an entirely different gauge, meaning it wouldn’t work for anyone following the pattern straight from the magazine.

I’m craving garter. Is that weird?? Today and yesterday I’ve been swatching for possible sweaters in garter stitch. Could be the fact that I’m in the process of cleaning out my closet and found some luscious little yarns I’ve had tucked away =;) Naah, I’m sure that had nothing to do with it at all. One of the sweaters I’m considering is the Shawl Collar Tunic by Mari Lynn Patrick, from the Fall Anniversary 2007 VK. It’s a cute striped pullover with a big kangaroo pocket in the front. Seems like it might one of those great transitional sweaters for me.

I bought the Dayflower Lace Camisole pattern from Knititude. This is one I saw a while ago and I still love it every time I see it. I’m thinking I’m going to make it in Classic Elite Wool Bamboo, happened across 2 balls of this in my LYS clearance chest, this is some lovely stuff! Great sheen, and I’m sure it hangs like a dream. I need to finish this blankie so I can work on other stuff!! I need to on other stuff!!

We went hiking again last weekend, gotta love this Spring weather. There were these huge gnarly vines hanging all over, they were cool. We saw this neat tree that looked like it had a built-in planter. Then Sydney found the ‘tree seat’, a perfect child-sized spot!

Almost too Gorgeous to Knit

I said "almost".
You would think these pics were from last fall, but they were actually from our hike last weekend. Some mushrooms that have hung on until now. (Or do some last all year??) I don’t know what is with my recent fascination with fungi, but I think they are so cool. The flowers are my ‘birth’ flower, Lily of the Valley, for the month of May. I believe they are relatively scarce, they have a few bushes of they here outside of the Folk Art Center and I couldn’t resist taking few shots of them.

Well, the plant life seems to cooperate better than the knitting as far as camera ops. Here is my Beryl cardigan in progress; this is a shot of the shaping at the side. The lovely pink that I’m so infatuated with seems to be a bit camera shy, as I can’t quite capture the detail of it.

Finished one of the Spiraling Leaves Fingerless Gloves by Lynne Vogel. This is a fun pattern that produces a gorgeous result with sock yarn. I’m sure I will get a lot of use out of these, and I hope I can finish the other soon.

Lastly, here is a shot of the gauntlet I’m working on designing for men, inspired by the armor patterns in my husband’s blacksmithing book. I’m using Ella Rae Classic in a steely blue gray, this one is a real challenge for me, and the design is constantly changing. Hopefully it will turn out well.

Hope you are all enjoying this Spring weather. Be well.

Mmmm, mmmm, Good

Up to my knees in babies…..and to think I was complaining about not having any to knit for. Is it awful that I want to sneak in a couple of knits for moi before I tackle this other blanket?? I’m making good progress on Beryl, the body is all knit in one piece, I just have to make it through all the stockinette. It shouldn’t be too difficult considering I’m still in love with the Pima Fresca yarn by Queensland, in all its Blush colored goodness. I’m hoping I can give cotton a good name again! I’m knitting it pretty tightly and making a smaller size, we’ll see how it goes.

I also started a new project!! The Spiraling Leaves Fingerless Gloves by Lynne Vogel. If you think you know that name, it may be from the new Knitty. She designed the Spirogyra mitts; they look like Pomatomus for your hands. It’s kind of funny how I’m loving making these mitts with tiny needles & yarn, yet I still haven’t finished a pair of socks. At any rate, they are a nice distraction from the sweater and the aforementioned obligatory ‘blanket that I’m supposed to be working on’.

For dinner, we’re having some baby back ribs…yum. Not sure yet what sides, probably rice & broccoli. Need some healthy stuff in there somewhere, right?

I made some super awesome ham & bean soup on Friday night, here’s my not 100% clear recipe: (Ummm, yeah, my ham bone's sticking out....)

Super Awesome Ham & Bean Soup
- Leftover ham and bone – cut off as much as you can from the bone into chunks (no, I have no idea how much I had left). Mine was Gwaltney and it was a Brown Sugar Honey Ham. I’m totally sold that the spices on the ham added a lot to the flavor of the final soup. If I didn’t have the honey ham, I think I’d add some brown sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg to get a similar flavor.
- 1 lb. of large white lima beans (because that's the kind Grandmom used)
- 1 ½ medium onions
- 2 stalks celery
- 2 tspns. Poultry seasoning
- 2 tspns. Dried parsley
- 2 tspns. Sea salt
- 1 tspn. Black pepper
- 1 tspn. Dried mustard
- 1 tspn. Garlic powder (bet fresh garlic would be even better!)
- 1 small can tomato paste
- 4 medium potatoes
* Take the beans and add about 6 cups of very hot water to them in a saucepan. Bring to a rapid boil for 3 minutes. Let sit for 1 hour in the water.
* Drain beans. Put in a large soup pot. Cover with new water to about 1 ½” above the beans. Add everything listed above, EXCEPT for the potatoes. You want to add the ham bone last, after you’ve gotten everything nice and stirred up. Turn up stove to high until you get a boil, and then reduce to a low simmer.
* Let simmer on low for about 1 ½ hrs. Skin and dice up your potatoes and add them. Cook for an additional 30 minutes or until you can stand waiting. Enjoy!
* I’m sure you could add some extras….I bet carrots or peas would be really good!

Here are a couple of pics of the little skirt I made for Sydney’s 4th birthday. I started off with a simple twisted rib at the top, added an eyelet row for a drawstring, and then double my # of sts. for a lacy traveling vine pattern down the length, changing stripe widths as I went.

She likes it, but I think I need one of those little plastic thingies to hold to drawstring closed up for her. I used Cascade Luna, a cotton yarn that was fine to work with, but somewhat annoying with all the knots in it! Bet you can't guess her favorite color....

I’m also designing some fingerless gauntlets for my husband. He loves armor(yes, the metal kind), and I’m attempting to create an armor looking pattern in knitted stitches, which is proving to be a challenge. I’ll give you some pics next week.

Namaste,
Elizabeth

Creating for what is To Be.....

A Lace Blanket for a sweet baby girl to be named Lelia, eta April 20th, 2008.

Yarn: Berocco Comfort, in colors #9712 (Buttercup), #9736 (Primary Blue, though my colorway wasn’t as bright) and I’m not certain of the third colorway, an off-white.

Needles: Size US 8 used throughout

Finished Dimensions: 42” X 38” after blocking, since I like big blankies!

This is a blanket I have designed myself, playing around with my wonderful stitch dictionaries. It was originally drawn out to be much different, but as many of you know, patterns don’t always work out the way we imagine they will. (Or at least not at this point in my designing….) What came to be is very serendipitous, and I’m quite happy with the results. If you’re interested, I may write up the pattern….let me know.

Now, the parents went the non-traditional route of a color palette for this baby girl, since they already have a blue room, they decided to keep it and add yellow. Hence the color scheme is not what I myself would have picked, noting my penchant for pink. (Pink, who me??) I think they will be pleased.
It took some amount of figuring to get all these patterns to play nicely together. I primarily used patterns with all purling on the WS rows, though some have patterning on both sides. I think the most difficult one was the tulips, since it was a 36 row repeat. I used the Lilly of the Valley pattern for the top left corner, since that is the mother to be’s name.

I’ll also throw in a quick shot of the last minute hat & baby booties, found here, I love these! (Since the blanket wasn't finished in time.) They remind me of little fortune cookies the way they are folded up. Umm, I ran out of yarn for the blanket. (Hey, I thought 1000 yards would be enough!) Yes, this is me, being driven to the shower and seaming up the second bootie literally until we pulled into the parking lot. Why do we knitters drive ourselves crazy?? Why, of why can’t we just go to Target and get SOMETHING ELSE until we finish the ________. (Insert item you’re driving yourself crazy trying to finish here. Feel free to add any explicative you see fit as well.)

What else is going on? Uhhh…..a lot. I felt like this blanket deserved its own post, I have plenty more to show you soon. Sydney’s birthday is this week, she’ll be 4. FOUR. Holy moly, how on earth did THAT happen? Time goes on…..

‘til next time, knit on.

Swooning is Good

If you are not addicted to yarn & knitting, read no further. The following message contains unabashed, nonsensical yarn adoration. It all started simply enough. I went to my LYS, Purl’s Yarn Emporium here in Asheville, for another ball of Berocco Comfort for one of the 2 baby blankets I’m working on. I kinda/sorta wanted to browse for yarn for my upcoming Beryl top. After much contemplating, I came home with this: Queensland Collection Pima Fresca, a 100% Pima cotton yarn, hand dyed in Chile. I LOVE this yarn. It’s SO pretty, if you’ve never noticed before; I am a huge fan of the color pink. They have it in lots of summery colors, there’s a bright coral, a gorgeous turquoise and several shades of blues that would look great with jeans. But then, there it was. I kind of noticed it out of the corner of my eye, way up there in the corner. The perfect shade of pink. That dusty, subtle pink, that girly pink that makes you hear “She’s a lady. Whoa Whoa Whoa. She’s a lady.” by Tom Jones. (Alright, I made up that last part, but you get the point.)

Now of course, if you loathe the color pink, then you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Suffice it to say I came home and swatched immediately while watching Sopranos Season 6. Washed and dried the swatch and was surprised to find no change in gauge at all! Interesting. I’m knitting this up tighter than recommended, getting about 5 sts. per inch on US size 6’s, instead of the 4 sts. per inch using 8’s, this obviously will give you a more flowing fabric. For Beryl, I think I need a little tighter. The yarn is very textured, which produces a great fabric, interesting and very fun to knit with, the hand dyed nature gives it beautiful tonal variations. I’m in a pink shaded heaven!

Ummm…have I mentioned I have these baby blankets to work on??? So after the swatch, I did NOT cast on, I worked on the blanket for my friends whose baby shower is in 2 weeks. Yikes. That one caught me by surprise too; I thought I had until the little munchkin popped out. This one is coming out very pretty; I’m using several different lace panels, in an asymmetrical blocks design. They are decorating the baby girl’s room in non-traditional blue & yellow, that is my color palette for this one.

Baby blanket #2 is for William the 4th, my husbands’ co-workers child. His blanket will be in 5 different colored strips of cable patterns. The center panel is an argyle pattern in a taupe color; I am so slow at cables. I can see this one will take much longer than the lacy blanket.

As for the Ruffled Jacket, I think it’s on hold until I get further with blankie #1. I’ve gotten a couple of suggestions on my sleeve cap issue, I will prevail!

Knit on!!

Knit & Sick & Knit & Sick

I’ve pretty much spent the last week in a cloud. You know, the kind of sick where you feel like your head is floating above your body?? That’s the one I had. Bleh. The only good thing about it is I was able to get a good amount of knitting done, since I could barely move off the couch without getting dizzy.

I’m working on the Ruffled Jacked by James Coviello in Vogue Knitting Fall 2007. It’s coming along pretty quickly, even though I’m using a smaller gauge than suggested. I’m used a worsted weight merino/tencel blend, called Colrain, by Valley Yarns. This yarn is a lovely color, called Grape Jelly; a rich burgundy that I can’t seem to photograph for sh%!*&@!# This is the first project where I’ve actually re-worked the math to make my gauge work with the pattern. How liberating!

The other ‘issue’ with this sweater is that the armscye was clearly not well planned out. The armhole on the back measures 9” in my size, and the cap for the sleeve is only 5 ½” – too big of a difference not to fix. Thanks to the help of “Sweater Design in Plain English” (which should be called ‘Sweater Design for Dummies’!, which is me) by Maggie Righetti, I was able to figure out how to plan the decreases. At least I say that now, I am pretty bold considering I haven’t set the sleeves in yet. This one will hopefully be finished soon!

I also completed a hat for a friend out of the herringbone stitch used in the infamous ‘so-called scarf’ pattern. This is the only stitch pattern I have used at least 5-6 times now, in various objects, I love the way it looks. The yarn is ‘Miski’ from The Mirasol Project, 100% baby llama, extremely soft and yes, very warm. I told my friend Lili she would be ready for the blizzard when she wore this one. I believe that llama fibers and alpaca fibers are along the same line (well, they are cousins after all!), about 5x warmer than wool.

This was a funny incident. My friend called me from a LYS downtown in Asheville (Purl's Yarn Emporium). Friend, "Hi, Elizabeth?? I'm at that yarn store you told me about downtown. My friend is off getting a massage, so I came here. I found some yarn I like, actually, my husband found it, it's "baby" llama and he liked it because it's called "BABY". (Mind you, she's pregnant, obviously their FIRST!!) Ummm, and it's pretty thick, umm, I'm not sure what I should get. Me: "Is Lindsey there?" Friend: Asks......"No, Lindsey is not here." Me: "Well, talk to whoever is there, tell there you want to use this as a double-thickness yarn for a hat". Friend: "O.K." So she comes back to me with this super-duper warm thickness of beautiful, baby colored yarn in a lovely mauve and a burgundy. I love it but I'm afraid.....we've hardly had a winter here in N.C., not enough to warrant a blizzard-like hat for freezing temps......Well a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. This is my friend and she wants a pretty hat....so I made it. I just hope she get to wear it =;)

On the horizon/semi-in progress is two baby blankets out of Berroco Comfort. I happen to have a friend, and my husband has a friend, who almost live directly across from each other (and yet they don’t know each other, I think an introduction is in order!) in a more rural part on N.C. who are both expecting children, one boy and one girl. Lucky me! Two babies to knit for!!

I hope all are well and knitting like crazy!!!! I’m listening to Norah Jones and drinking some red wine and hope you are doing the same or equivalent!! Peace & Blessings to you.

Presenting...The Russian Coat!

Pattern: In Vogue Knitting, Holiday 2007, Designer Norah Gaughan

Yarns used: Plymouth Boku, colorway #6, Berroco Peruvia, color Granito, #7106

Needles used: US size 7 for most of the body, size 6 on skirt hem and size 5 for collar

Well, it’s done. Am I happy?? Mostly. There are a couple minor issues, which are MY fault. It’s a great pattern, one of the most fun things I’ve knit so far. Even if it didn’t fit at all, I’d still be happy I made it.

I learned really well how to do a p2tog tbl! It’s a little tricky at first, but not hard once you’ve done it a few (thousand) times. I learned how important it is to check your gauge while making your project. (That’s important? Go figure!) Here’s a breakdown on how it went.

The top: this was tremendous fun making all those hexagons and triangles and such and taking a leap of faith that this will indeed be a wearable item. With the Boku, I found it has a tendency to break about easily when pulled, for seaming up the hexagons, I had to put more twist in the yarn, and then it was fine. I liked that you picked up sts. to keep working, therefore eliminating a lot more sewing there.

I heard some folks were having issues with the sleeves being too long, so I blocked my pieces when I had all but the last sleeve extension finished. It was too short, I decided to go ahead and make the last piece, only I did it in garter, so it would be reversible. This worked out great and I do turn it back to make a cuff, I love the look of this last piece and I’m really glad I made it. (Well, it would have been too short for me otherwise.)

The skirt: a LOT of sts. to cast on here, but you have the happy thought of knowing it will only get smaller from there! I realized I started off with my size 7’s, when I needed 6’s, so I switched over after the first row. I used quite a few of my Denise cables to accommodate all the sts. The knitting was fine, my problems came after blocking. My overall height of the skirt was off by 1 ½”, and silly me, I didn’t realize what an impact that would have. (Apparently I did too many decreases.) The sides of the skirt need to overlap the top by 3” on each side, which seems like it would have been a tight fit already. Well, I tried to sew the top & bottom together many times and it just didn’t work, there was too much bunching at the top. (We won’t even mention the happy two hours I sewed it thinking, ‘wow, this is going so much easier now!’, then to discover at 11:30 at night that I had sewed it upside down!! No, we won’t mention that.)

I finally realized I had to compensate for the missing 1 ½” and only left a 1 ½” overlap on each side of the top. It was still pretty tricky. Many more boo-boos later, I had done it! Steam blocked that seam.

I tried it on. Oh no! I’m wearing a tan colored bikini top on my sweater! Why, oh why, had I not realized that the lighter colored Peruvia I had chosen would mean I was making triangles right over my ta-tas?? (Perhaps because the model in the photo doesn’t have any??) Great. I was almost defeated at this point, but I wouldn’t give up. I went ahead and did my smaller collar with no trouble. I went and found some great clasps at Waechter’s Silk Shop, here in Asheville.

THEN, I decided to do some embroidery on those dreaded little bikini triangles. It worked. (At least I think it did, if I’m deluding myself, let me know!) Of course, once you get going on something, it’s hard to stop. I added more embroidery to the sides, still wasn’t enough. Decided to do some on the back.

It’s DONE. Finished. Finito. Fertigstellen. I love it. It’s pretty, it’s unique, it fits great, it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot! Hooray for me!!

ETA: Also finished: The Jane Crossover Sweater! This sweater was a real pain in the #*&!@#!*#%!!!! I wish I could recommend it, but I’d have a hard time. The main issue with this pattern was the fronts, which are left ‘up to you’ but in the M/L size, you may have a hard time. (I used all but about a foot of this yarn!) I found that I needed to sew the fronts together to get them to quit moving around and looking all wonky. I added 3 ‘faux’ buttons on the top seam, I also put a 5 seed st border on the panels, I have this strong aversion to rolling stockinette!! (Just ask Allison!)
The Fleece Artist Hand Maiden Ottawa yarn was nice enough, honestly, it was what kept me going on this pattern, with all the miles of stockinette. I would definitely buy more fleece artist yarn, just not for this pattern. I plan on wearing this to work tomorrow. Hooray for FO's!!