FO: It only took two years...

At last, after a long time-out, my Sailor's Delight socks from the 2-at-a-Time Socks book are finished!

I gave the 2-at-a-time method a good go, but I kept going around both socks with the same yarn too many times and finally lost patience. I put the socks onto DPNs and still worked them two at a time... just not quite at the same time. I finished the leg on one, then the leg on the other, the heel flap on one, the heel flap on the other, and so on. I'd done the same working from a hand-dyed sock blank, so the method was familiar, and still no second sock syndrome to deal with.

I love how the colors spiral around the legs. Alas, they broke into weird pooling on the feet. The two balls in the same colorway and dyelot are slightly different shades. But... they're DONE at long last!

Catching up on FOs, Part 2: And for the folks at home...

Besides the box going to Pine Ridge, I've finished a few things for us at home, too.

Starting with one skein of Malabrigo Rios -- I'd set the skein aside along with a simple "learn to knit" keyhole scarf pattern put out by a local knit shop, thinking I was going to be teaching someone to knit. That someone didn't show up and didn't show up and didn't show up to knitting, so I went ahead and knit the scarf myself. It starts out with a square of garter stitch, then garter and stockinette ridges, then ribbing, then the keyhole, then more garter stitch. I made it a little longer than the pattern suggested, and I think it could be longer still:

There was still half a skein of Rios left over, and I'd been thinking about making a Calorimetry for some time now. After weighing the yarn left, I figured I had about enough. And sure enough, I did.

I used the number of stitches called for in the pattern and knit it pretty tight on US size 7 needles, and it's still a leeeeetle bit looser than I would have liked. The designer must be a fantastically tight knitter. But it'll do. It's got plenty of holes created by turning without wrapping, so the button can slip into any of them and loosen or tighten as needed. Others have cast on fewer stitches to make it smaller. I made this in hopes of doing some beach walking sometime soon, now that spring break is upon us. 

Hubby benefitted from my brain-numb evenings after a long day of teaching. He'd been wearing a woolen cloth scarf that was a bit too short to fend off the winter chill, and requested a scarf if ever I were weaving one again. I pulled out a skein of Poems sock yarn that had been lurking in my stash for some time. It's got long color runs like Noro, though this skein was monochrome in shades of blue. It's a single, a bit thick and thin, and a bit loosely spun in parts and a tendency to fuzz, which made it less than desirable as sock yarn and an absolute bear to weave with as warp. I was casting about wondering, "Is there something I could spray on this that washes out? Something that would control the fuzz and strengthen the yarn temporarily? Something like, oh, like hairspray, maybe." Well, yeah, there is something like hairspray. It's called... hairspray. Liberal applications, and using an empty shuttle to beat in the warm instead of abrading it more with the heddle, got me through the project at last. After washing, the fabric fulled to make a lightweight fabric that was warm. You'd think there was mohair in this, the way it fulls and fluffs, and the way the warp strands kept trying to weld themselves together every time I moved the heddle. I had to keep a wide-toothed comb handy to gently comb and separate the strands. Sheesh, I think I'll pass on that yarn if I ever encounter it again. Soft and nice in the finished product, but a pain to work with.

Here 'tis just as a scarf. I like how the looooong color runs give it subtle stripes.

And here 'tis being worn. It was a long time before he took it off again.

Finally, I was in a swap with the Selfish Knitters and Crocheters, in celebration of Pi Day (March 14... you know, 3/14... 3.14... yeah, we're nerdy that way). Since there must be something pie-like in the box going out, and since every kitchen can benefit from kitschy potholders, I dug some Vanna's Choice acrylic out of my acrylic drawer and made a pair of cherry pie potholders using the Freshly Baked Potholder pattern that I found via Ravelry.

Looks like fun, huh? They're double-thickness, too. The back is the "crust," and the top is the "filling." If I fiddle with it and make smaller bobbles, maybe I could make blueberry pies, too. 

Catching up on FOs, Part 1: Pine Ridge box

Aaaand it's a wrap. I posted winter term grades this afternoon, and I'm mostly ready for the first day of spring term, Monday after next.

So, now I can catch up on posting FOs.

Let's see... last I left off, there were only two scarves for my box for Pine Ridge. I took the leftovers from those and made a third. I warped with brown and tan, and alternated gray and black in the weft:

The pattern in the warm is 1 brown, 2 heather tan. The weft is 1 black, 1 gray. Here's the effect from a distance:

And a close-up of the weave:

Also, I used leftover Cascade Eco+ wool to make a vest using the Vest in Jiffy pattern from Lion Brand:

The scarves and the vest went into the box, as well as a black vest I'd knit years ago using the Midnight Express pattern and Lion Brand CottonEase. It came out too big for me and I thought I'd try altering it, but I never did. Well, it'll fit someone.

All together, this is what I sent off to Pine Ridge reservation:

More FOs: Owlings and Ellies Blankie

This month, for my group's 12 in '12 theme (we're all going to do at least 12 projects in 2012), the KAL theme was critter mittens. I'm not a big mitten fan (except on really cold mornings) so I went for mitts. I wanted to use up some leftover Rowan Cashsoft, so I hit on a pattern called Owlings. It's a take off on the ever-so-popular Fetching mitts, but with li'l owl cables.

Not easy to take pictures of black yarn, but you get the idea, I think? I like these. The yarn is thick and warm. I had to take one owling out (5 stitches) so I could get two mitts out of the small amount of yarn I have, so these are closer-fitting than the would otherwise have been, but even on my big hands (over 8 inch span, folks, I shoulda been a pianist, but three years of piano lessons convinced me it was a hopeless cause) they fit just fine.

Some time over a year ago, folks in the group knit up squares in sock yarn for a baby blanket for one gal who was expecting. The squares got knit, then edged with single crochet, and the person who was organizing the thing finally got them pieced together and got the blanket to me. I added a simple crochet lace border (I only had small amount of yarn so I kept it real simple), then washed and blocked the blankie. Baby is already walking, but at least it's done well before she heads off to college.

FO: Morgan for Me

I made one of these Morgan hats last year for my hubby. When I acquired two skeins of Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in a lovely marled purple with touches of green and blue, I had in hand just the right thing to make a Morgan for me, too.

Stylish, no?

I like how the yarn gives a tweedy effect. An English driving cap needs a touch of tweed to look just right.

Playing with patterns: Log Cabin

The thing with a small loom like the Cricket is that you're kind of limited in what you can weave -- but then again, you're only limited by your imagination in what you can do with the narrow strips that come off of the loom. A thousand scarves? Stitch the strips together to make an afghan? Heck, weave them together, maybe? There's a carry bag for the Cricket that I've seen that's made with long strips cleverly arranged and sewn together that I hope to make when I can find suitable yarn at a decent price. I'd like to use linen for durability, but may settle for bright cotton.

In the meantime, I'm playing with patterns from The Weaver's Idea Book by Jane Patrick. It has dozens of patterns for rigid heddle looms, and I plan on playing with lots of them.

I warped the loom for a log cabin design, which was pretty simple, but took careful attention to the order of the colors as I wove, as well as twining the two colors together at the edges:

But the final scarf was worth the extra attention, I think:

The warp is:
1 dark
1 light
1 dark
1 light
1 dark
1 light
1 light
1 dark
1 light
1 dark
1 light
1 dark
repeated across. The order of colors when weaving is the same.

This scarf is another that's destined for the Pine Ridge Reservation. They often need things for men, and that looks pretty manly to me.

Last FO of 2011

Sometimes it takes a while to get the project photographed, the photos off of the camera, and then put them out where others can see them, but... finally, here is the last FO of last year:

The pattern is Silk Shimmer Scarf, which came free with a skein of Silk Shimmer yarn from Blue Ridge Yarns. It's 100% silk in DK weight, soft and luscious.

Hard to get the colors just right in a photo, but that's pretty darn close. The pattern is a simple knit-purl texture that produces a twill look.

Now, what will the first FO of 2012 be? Here are the current contenders:

First up is the Vest in a Jiffy pattern from Lion Brand Yarns, done in the Eco+ wool that I had left from my Iced cardigan. I'm making this for someone at the Pine Ridge Reservation, as part of a campaign by the For the Children of Pine Ridge group on Ravelry. With harsh South Dakota winters to contend with, and an 80% unemployment rate, the people of Pine Ridge need all the help they can get.

Next up, is a Morgan hat for me, which will be an English driving cap style of hat, done in Lorna's Laces Swirl DK that I got in a swap:

Back from a long time-out is a pair of Sailor's Delight socks, a pattern in 2-At-A-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. The two-at-a-time on circulars thing wasn't working for me. I kept going around both socks with the same yarn and got so frustrated that I set them aside. I guess I'm a DPN gal all the way. After I put both socks on DPNs, they've sped right along.

And I'm taking a stab at knitting mitts straight from silk hankies without spinning. It's taking a bit to figure out how much -- or rather, how little -- to draft out the hankies. The mitts are soft, but started out pretty floppy, and my laddering is awfully obvious.

Have I had a touch of start-itis? Why, yes, I have, in spite of my good resolutions, but hey, I'm being good and trying to finish at least one project that's been on the needles for a long time.

A Cricket (Loom) by the Hearth

Some of the best memories of Christmas are about playing with all the new toys. Naturally, I had to play with my new toy, my Schacht Cricket Loom. Day after Christmas I ran through all the instructions to warp the loom, then ran through them again to do it right, then sat down to weave the striped scarf, which is the project in the accompanying booklet that goes with the yarn provided.

The weaving goes surprisingly fast, especially working a narrow width in worsted-weight yarn.

Much faster than knitting a similar-sized object, as weavers probably all know already. By the end of the day I had this:

Okay, so the selvages are a little wobbly and there are some mistakes here and there, but it's my first loom-woven project!

The Cricket, being a rigid heddle loom with only one heddle and a 10" width, is pretty limited in what it will do. Nevertheless, I plan to push those limits and see what all I can make it do before I run out and buy something larger and more complex. I see there's a lot of vocabulary to learn as well.

Seeing how quickly I wove my project, my son decided to give it a go. As a starving student, he doesn't have a lot to spend on presents, and he wanted something nice to give to his girlfriend. I don't have much worsted weight yarn, but we did some stash diving and came up with enough Lion Brand Organic Cotton to make a scarf.

I helped James warp the loom and he set to:

And a few hours later, he had a scarf made, too.

"Do you like it? I made it myself!"

A flock of FOs: Striped socks, Iced, and Clarissa.

One thing about having multiple projects on the needles, is that if they all get finished about the same time, it makes one look like a prodigiously productive knitter. Of course, that generally means they've all been on the needles for some time, making one look like a prodigious piker.

Three projects just came off the needles -- one very long term, one that I cast on in the summer, and one that was cast on in November.

I'll start with the one that's been around the longest. Not the most complicated. Actually the most simple. Just a pair of plain stockinette socks, using the sock recipe from Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, in self-striping yarn that I dyed myself from a KnitPicks sock blank.

The only reason they took a long time is that I like to keep a pair of plain socks in self-patterning yarn on the needles to pick up at odd moments, so they only get worked on here and there. But now they're done.

Next up, let's look at Iced, a cardigan from a past issue of Knitty. I bought three fat skeins of Cascade Eco+ when a local yarn shop went out of business, and used about half of it to make this cardigan.

It's an easy, comfy, cozy cardigan to throw on when it's chilly. Goes well with jeans.

May need a little more blocking in the back, though.

And finally, the showpiece. Last summer at Sock Summit 2011, I was going by the Sanguine Gryphon booth when I came to a full stop in front of this:

Had to have. Had... to... have. I was directed to the White Lies Designs booth, where I found the pattern for the Clarissa cardigan. The Gryphon didn't have enough of the yarn that the sample was made from in either the ruby red or the deep purple that I liked, so I wandered around until I found a beautiful BFL DK from Fly Designs.

I cast on shortly after Sock Summit. Just before Christmas, I finished.

The front:

The back:

It still needs a little more blocking across the shoulders so the buttons don't pull in front quite so much. But Clarissa is finished, hoorah, hoorah!

Here's a close-up of the honeybee lace if anyone tackling this project needs a closer look. It's actually much easier than it looks at first, since it involves a logical series of decreases:

Feels good to have all of these done -- then on to the next projects!

A couple of FOs

We're three weeks into fall term, and between teaching full time, trying to write a paper, and working on an outside contract, I tend to come home and mostly stare at my computer and vibrate in place in the evenings. I could be knitting but that would mean summoning the energy to get up and fetch a project, then find the brain space to remember how to knit.

Nevertheless...

I finally finished my Summit Socks, designed to celebrate our own Three Fates Yarns being chosen as a vendor at Sock Summit. This shot, besides showing how cozy hand knit wooly socks are, shows the colorway that I chose. I think something plainer would have suited the pattern better, but it was a Three Fates skein that I had so I cast on with it at the time.

Here you can see the three "summits" on the side:

And the three diamonds on the instep, as well as the star toe:

I also finished the first sample skein from an 8 lb variegated gray Romney fleece that I bought last spring. It's worsted-spun in the grease from unwashed locks, plied as a 3-ply, and then washed. It came out to about worsted to aran weight -- I'll need to knit a swatch to see what gauge I get.

It's destined to be a fall coat, once I spin up at least a pound of this fleece. That still leaves... wow, there's a lot of fleece in this fleece.

And now a completely unrelated cute kitty picture: our shy calico, Sprocket, cuddled up with the Princess Belle.

Guests in our house never see Sprocket, because she hides in some secret place that only she knows. For all I know, she has a secret tunnel under the floor. So here she is for all to admire her calico beauty.

FO: Sgt. Pepper's Vaguely Steampunk Vest

At least that's what I'm calling it. The pattern is Arlberg by Martin Storey for Rowan designs (in Rowan Classic Alpine #29), knit in RYC Cashsoft merino/microfiber, cashmere blend, with pewter Celtic knot buttons:

Still needs a little blocking to make that armhole ribbing lie flatter, but otherwise it's a lovely, squooshy, warm vest for this winter.

Tour de Fleece Day 23: Across the finish line!

Hoorah, the Tour is done! Unlike those riders over in France, our team has had no crashes and no dangerously rude paparazzi to slow us down. Only little things like, y'know, earning a living or chasing after small children or various small animals to interfere with our spinning time.

Today's work was progress on my Romney fleece:

And my final production count for Tour de Fleece:

Romney, cashmere, alpaca, and pygora. Now we need a Tour de Knit to turn our lovelies into various knitted object.

FO: Minas Tirith has handspun?

The needles have been pretty active lately, working on a scarf of my own design, but I also managed to get in some wheel time and finished one of two hanks of wool top from Dicentra Designs -- colorway Minas Tirith. She's got several Lord of the Rings colorways, actually.

Hubby took the picture -- his camera club has an upcoming contest with "Before and After" as the theme. What do y'all think? Wool top before and after spinning -- and sitting on a shearling fleece.