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Both yarns came. The first did not work out for what I'd intended, but it is delightful yarn (Fibra Natura Oak - wool/linen/silk) and there should be enough for a sweater for my girl.
I'm totally in love with the edge I decided on. (There is a provisional cast-on involved which gets knitted up into a later row instead of needing sewing!)
I have the perfect buttons, too.
I ordered yarn on Thursday. And then I ordered some more yarn on Saturday. Driving home today I thought to myself, Maybe my yarn is here!
I smiled and started to daydream about my new project... and then realized I was daydreaming about the Saturday yarn, not the Thursday yarn, and as unlikely as it is that the Thursday yarn would be here already, it's pretty much impossible that the Saturday yarn would be. So I tried to daydream about the Thursday yarn's project...
But I couldn't remember what it was. I couldn't remember the intended project, I couldn't remember the type of yarn, I couldn't remember the color. Nothing.
I kind of thought it might have been for the copy of my favorite store-bought hoodie I want to make in a more fun fiber, but the one thing I could remember was the price. And $25 is not a sweater's worth of yarn.
Soon I get home and the shipment hasn't come and I find myself back on WEBS, hunting more yarn. (Because I KNOW the hoodie still has no yarn! Real problem!) And I find some interesting linen/wool/silk in the closeouts section and I'm about to order a sweater's worth of it when I start to have the strange suspicion that I have looked at this yarn before. That I might even have bought this yarn before. That this might even be the yarn I bought on Thursday.
But it wasn't for the hoodie! No, now I remember! It was to combine with a cobweb yarn I hated on its own for a scarfy/shawly thing.
And then I realize, maybe I should wait for the first batch to come so I can make sure I really like it before ordering enough for a sweater. See how practical and reasonable I am?
A handknit gift needs no adornment, but you do want to make sure your work gets the presentation it deserves!
I had a chance to use my favorite wrapping last week for a dear friend's shower and I realized this is a great place to share the technique. It's so easy, quick, adorable, and unique!
You just need a pack of flannel baby blankets. Choose the one that best compliments the card or toy or book you're going to decorate with at the end. Fold the others neatly into the right size and shape. For this shower, the request was for a storybook to be used as the card — Extra Yarn, a new Caldecott Honor book, is utterly delightful and the perfect thing to go with a knitted gift! So, I folded the extra blankets to be just a bit bigger than the book.
Lay the chosen wrapping blanket out on your table like a diamond. Make sure the wrong side is facing up! The stack of extra blankets goes in the middle, straight (so the corners of the upside-down blanket are coming out from each side of the stack — as close as you can get it, these blankets aren't square so it won't be perfect, but I promise that's ok). Arrange your knitted gift on top and fold the top corner of the upside-down blanket down over the gift. Then, grab the side corners of the blanket and tie them in a simple knot right over top of your gift. Finally, the bottom corner folds up and you tuck it down over top of the knot.
You've made a lovely pocket to put your charming book or card or knitted lovey* into. :)
Sometimes I add a diaper pin for effect. Either way, looks like a swaddled baby and who doesn't love a swaddled baby? Plus, no wrapping junk to throw away!
* I think that would be so sweet, just wrap the extra blankets with nothing else (or with the book, it's a really great book) and stuff a cute little knitted friend into the pocket. Something with arms that can dangle out. :)
(Fully illustrated directions for this style of wrapping and many other wonderful ways to wrap packages with fabric are in the book Wrapagami.)
Here's my first Either-Or, ready for the cuff.
And here's the beginnings of my first attempt at said cuff...
I feel Dr. Seuss might find this mitten inspiring. But I could not wear it.
For a day or so, I was going to frog the project and try something more traditional. But I took another crack at it, and while it is still not especially gorgeous when empty, it now looks and feels decent when on. So I think I'll trudge through the next one and have the pair. :)
Photos later.
I detest whining about being too busy, and yet here I am taking a picture of knitting progress at least a week old while getting a ride to pick up my car, whose breaks had gotten worn down to almost nothing but luckily hadn't yet sustained any damage to the... thingies?
So, no whining, but it's been an insane week or two around here (the breaks thing being a very minor twist on it all) and there's been no knitting, which is kind of horrifying! The bag goes with me all kinds of places, but never do the needles actually find themselves in my hands.
Soon, though. I think soon I will get to try out my plan for a totally different cuff than what the pattern calls for. These are indeed proving to be a very interesting experiment.
Turns out Lee Meredith is so clever that her Either/Or mitten pattern not only works for any gauge, you don't even have to know your gauge before you start. So I didn't swatch after all, but just cast on the top of the thumb.
(Check it out, I just found a knitter blogging a whole year of mittens! She's doing the Either Or right now, too, so it will be cool to see how that turns out.)
One thing you'll notice if you try this pattern, or any other that allows for a variety of gauges, is that the rate of increases is generally what matters, not the number of increases. Let me say that again.
The increase/decrease rate stays the same no matter what your gauge.
This means that if you're adjusting a pattern to use a different gauge, you probably don't need to do much with row counts (Knittrick gives you the option, though!). For instance, a sweater pattern might tell you to cast on 20 sts for the sleeve cuff and then increase two stitches every 6 rows for 60 rows.
You might think (I would sympathize) that you need to figure how many of your rows equal 6 of the pattern's rows, and then do your increases every 5 (let's say that's what it worked out to) rows instead of every 6. NOOOOO!!!!! DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!
If you did that, you'd end up adding the same number of stitches to the sleeve as were added in the original pattern. But your stitches aren't the same size as the stitches in the original pattern, so you'd be getting a sleeve that's, say 12" wider at the top than at the cuff instead of one that's 8" wider. That's bad.
Instead, you can just happily increase two stitches every 6 rows, just like the pattern says. The difference is, you won't be doing this for 60 rows. You can convert that overall row number, if you want, but it's probably best to work from the stitch counts. In our hypothetical pattern, maybe it's super helpful and puts a little "(40 sts)" notice right after the part where it tells you to repeat the 6 rows for 60 rows, to tell you that you'll have 40 sts when you're done with all that. Or maybe you have to figure out for yourself that the pattern is doing 60/6 = 10 increase rounds, which each add 2 sts, so you'd be adding 20 sts.
Either way, you can fire up Knittrick and tap 40 into the Adjust a Pattern screen, and you'll find out how many stitches you need at the top of the sleeve. So, knit your sleeve, increasing every 6 rounds, until you have that number of stitches. See?
I spent an hour toodling around Ravelry this evening (this was not wasting time, this was market research! serious business! ha ha!) and I don't know about you, but I love an intriguing pattern more than...
Well, more than a whole lot of things, that's for sure. The construction of the Either/Or mitts by Lee Meredith is fantastic and I'm dying to try it. I might just dig up some yarn right now and knit a swatch in colloquium tomorrow. Yep, I think I will.
After yet another repeat of my too-tight-have-to-try-again neck bind off (when will I learn?!), Shmoogie's vest is done and she likes it a lot. I'll post a clearer picture at some point, but I grabbed this one this morning because she looked so sweet.
Shmoogie's vest is almost done, done enough that she put it on herself this morning, over top of the velour shirt I sewed her two years ago which she dragged out of the depths of her closet and which, though quite short, still kind of almost fits. She wants the last end woven in, but doesn't seem to understand why I feel the neck and armholes need ribbing!
What's really funny is the size of the vest. Because I thought I'd make it with some room to grow into it, you might remember I tapped my gauge into Knittrick and asked for 25". Cast on, knit a while, husband asks, "Is it coming out the right size?" in kind of a nervous way, like if it's not then something must be wrong in the Knittrick code.
The problem is not with Knittrick.
The problem is with my knitting note-taking. See, I figured this was the same yarn as a sweater I made for my son (blog-name: Mr. P) last year. So I measured the gauge from the sweater and looked up my knitting notes to find the needle size I'd used. Size 6.
I like to do the ribbing one size smaller than the main body, so I started with size 5, switched to size 6.
I have determined, now that the vest is done, that my sweater notes were... incomplete. I noted size 6 because I'd started with size 6 because I'd started with the ribbing. The actual gauge was obtained with size 7 needles.
Whoops!
I don't have stash problem the way I generally think of people having a stash problem. I never, for instance, go into a yarn shop and come out with a sweater's worth of yarn I wasn't planning to buy and don't have clear plans for. I do sometimes go into a yarn shop and come out with one ball of something fascinating and on sale or something I couldn't pass up but have no idea what I'd do with and therefore didn't feel like I could buy more than one expensive little ball. But that's rare. Most of my "stash", therefore, is really leftovers. A ball or two of this or that left over from a project that I overestimated. (Overestimating is a lot better than underestimating. Once, though, I made a blue ribbed sweater for a brother-in-law and ended up with 6 extra balls. That's a bit dramatic.)
The point is, when I feel like I want to cut down my stash, which I kind of do right now, there's not tons of choice and there's not tons of yardage to work with. Last week, I pulled out three partial balls of Galway worsted (which is my go-to everyday sweater yarn these days, ever since I made a sweater for my son from it and realized it barely pills!). I thought there might be enough yarn for a sweater vest for my three-year-old and I thought the colors would be fun.
It wasn't until I had some stripes going that I realized I was knitting for a tiny Wicked WItch of the West.
I do kind of like the colors together, but I couldn't get Halloween out of my mind. When did purple and green become Halloween, anyway? Whatever, the vest got ripped back to the ribbing and started again with blue and grey. I don't know exactly how I feel about it yet, but I'm hopeful. Stay tuned. :)
Somehow, app launches drive me to overuse the exclamation point!!!
I hope you'll try Knittrick and let me know what you think. I wish I could spend all day tweaking the website and adding tutorials and all that, but I have to go to class! I'll be back this evening... I hope. :)
P.S. Knittrick is priced at $4.99 USD. Less than the price of most patterns or balls of yarn! Knittrick cuts out a lot of tedious calculator button presses and saves you from getting confused in the process (which is always a problem for me, I don't know about you).
The newborn cap is done, and I'm very fond of it. The pattern around the brim turned out nicely, I think, although maybe not as baskety as I imagined it. Baskety or not, I think it would be especially nice on a larger person of the male persuasion (although this hat is, I've learned, for a girl! I am resisting the inexplicable urge to stick a flower or a bow on it).
This hat is done in Madelinetosh's Tosh DK in "Worn Denim", which I have to knit on size 5 (3.75mm) to get 21sts/4". The stitch pattern for the brim is:
Round 1: k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, p5
Round 2: k1, p1, k1, p1, k1, k5
Round 3: as for round 1
Round 4: as for round 2
Round 5: as for round 1
Round 6: p5, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1
Round 7: k5, k1, p1, k1, p1, k1
Round 8: as for round 6
Round 9: as for round 7
Round 10: as for round 6
I used Knittrick to determine the number of stitches to cast on, plugging in my stitch gauge and the repeat multiple (each line of the stitch pattern has instructions covering 10 stitches, so it needs to be worked over multiples of 10 in the round; flat you could get away with multiples of 5, in the same way as I only worked 15 rounds of the pattern on the brim, not 10 or 20) and the desired size of 14":
You can see that Knittrick recommended I cast on 70 stitches, even though this would give me a size of only 13.33" (this is the closest I can get to 14" with this gauge and the 10 stitch repeat requirement). I decided to go with that because I knew the pattern would be stretchy, being made up of garter stitch and ribbing, and because 14" is large for a newborn head and I think the particular baby it's intended for is more likely to be on the small side. :)
(To be sure of the stretchiness, I used the tubular cast on, which is imho the very best cast on for 1X1 ribbing and does ok on this pattern, even for the stretches of garter stitch. I just found Little Turtle Knits's video on a tubular cast on in the round, which I'll have to try!)
I took a mitten knitting class once. Taking knitting classes at all is a rare thing for me, but it's a fantastic thing to do once in a while. In a class about mittens, for instance, you might learn that you've been wrapping your purl stitches backwards all your life, which is why your flat stockinette stitch always looked odd. A useful thing to know.
Anyway, I took this mitten knitting class, knit one miniature sample mitten and took home the multi-sized and multi-gauged pattern that came with the class so I could forever afterward make mittens whenever I wanted with whatever yarn I wanted for whosoever's hands I wanted.
Then I lost the pattern.
But that hardly matters, because before I had really lost the pattern, I felt like since I'd taken the class (a year or so previously, by this point), I "knew" how to knit mittens, so there was really no need to pull out the pattern.
So, at that point, I knit some mittens for my husband for Christmas, without the pattern. They are squishy and warm and have very useful flip-tops and some other complexities. He wears them and they keep his hands warm. I recently wore them myself while doing a day-after-Christmas ropes course in cold driving rain (it was a bonding experience with our siblings; I believe they appreciated it!) and they kept my hands almost comfortable even though they held the rain like sponges, rivulets running down my wrists and forearms every time I grabbed a carabiner.
The main problem with these mittens is that they are shaped like ping pong paddles.
This, I finally deduced, is because I had not remembered from the class where the decreases should go. (It's not that I wanted them pointy. I know there are mitten knitters that cannot abide a non-pointy mitten and I respect that. But as a general rule, for me, I like a nice rounded comfy looking mitten, the kind of mitten you think of when you hear, "Good night mittens and goodnight kittens.")
So the next time I made mittens, I figured the decreases had to go in the middle of the front and back of the hand, forcing the sides of the mitten to curve around and meet, instead of at the sides, which just cuts them to shape at their edges.
Thinking the decreases must be paired and every other round (because a series of raglan sweater projects had led me to believe that decreases must almost always be paired and every other round), I thought I'd be clever and do one decrease on every round, alternating the direction of decreases so they would kind of interlace each other, kind of like a zipper. Furthering the cleverness and thinking it would highlight the zipping decreases, I would carry the simple color pattern through the decreases instead of switching to just the background color.
Terribly clever, except that I didn't intend them to be pointy. They're very cute for my three-year-old (although she did once refuse to wear them "because I don't want look like a birdy!"), but not Good Night Moon kitten mitten cute.
Pattern still lost, knitterly stubbornness still preventing me from seeking out instruction in any other forum, I cast on another pair, for my son. I saved myself the fiddly-ness of keeping both colors through the decreases (much more irritating than clever, although on the pointy mittens it does make me think of stars and I rather like that... I thought about writing up the pattern just so I could call them "Starlight Mittens") and did double decreases on both sides in every round.
Finally, a classic cozy, Good Night Moon mitten! The kind of mitten that rhymes with kitten.
First blog posts are always strange. I can say that because I have another blog and writing the first post there was strange and this feels strange, too, so it must always be strange.
I've tried writing this one a few times, with what I fancied was a professional sort of flair... but it felt wrong, not just strange. The thing is, I'm terribly excited to be launching the Knitphisticate site and I will be terribly excited to launch Knittrick soon (watch this space! sign up for my newsletter so you can get it on day one!)... but this won't be fun if I get all formal about it. Not fun for me and not fun for you, I'd imagine. (They tell me the point of a blog on your company website is only to attract the search engines, but who wants to write to search engines? I want to write to YOU, whoever you are.)
So, here I am, this is me. If you want to know way way way more about me, you can check out What There's Time For, the personal blog I've been keeping for nearly 4 years (yikes! that snuck up on me! I wanted to type '3'!). I'm thinking that from here on out, I'll be putting my knitting-related posts on Knitphisticate and keep writing about everything else I feel like writing about over there on What There's Time For.
I'll definitely be posting some tutorials here on how to get the most out of Knittrick, but mostly I think I'll be keeping things low-key and casual, run on sentences and cell phone photos of whatever I've got going on yarn-wise. Which, at the moment, is a tiny baby hat with a stitch pattern I'm hoping will look kind of basket weave-like, 10 stitch repeat — Knittrick told me to cast on 70 stitches... I'm knitting my first Knittrick-calculated project!
