Secret project...

What do you think this will become?



Without giving too much away, you probably already guessed from the colors that it has something to do with the upcoming holidays...

Actually, I'm thinking of knitting a Christmas sweater for my brother. All bright reds and greens and reindeer and santa and everything...

HA! I think I've just given my brother a heart attack! (He only ever wears solid neutral colors and can't even bear stripes, let alone a loud red and green sweater). I tried to find a link to a really busy Christmas sweater pattern to really scare him, but I couldn't find any. I guess no knitter would waste their time knitting an ugly sweater...

So, this yarn is not destined to be a sweater, but something else very special for Christmas. I won't say anymore here: I don't want to spoil the surprise! But if you're on Ravelry, you can get a peek of it in my projects.

I'll show you the finished product over the holidays.

Ana hat!

The Ana hat is done!
5 days from cast on to bind off... not bad, don't you think? Quite a quick knitalong... Emily finished hers on Wednesday.

The hat is really easy to knit.
First, you make a long rectangle in stockinette stitch. I added a dozen rows to the 22" size, because my row gauge was slightly off. (145 rows instead of 133)

Then you pick up the cast on row (after unraveling the provisional cast on) and one side of the rectangle. Three sides of the rectangle are on the needles, the other one is the edge of the hat. Then you knit all the stitches you just picked up.
Because I had more rows, I ended up picking up 9 extra stitches along the side of the rectangle (109 instead of 100). To get to the desired number of stitches for the folding process (multiples of 20), I did 9 evenly spaced decreases along the side of the rectangle while I knitted all the picked up stitches.

Then comes the folding process. It's basically three needle bind-off in sections.
Transfer equal number of stitches on 2 DPNs, fold (purl sides together), and do three needle bind-off. Repeat...







When you come to the end of the folds, the hat looks like this:


Finally, you start the gathering process to close off the back of the hat and end up with this:



(that's a desk lamp under there, to try to give you an idea of the shape)

I like it a lot. I even planned my outfit around it this morning... If you want to see what it looks like on an actual person, go see Emily's pictures. I need to figure out a way to take pictures of myself wearing my finished objects. My experiments with mirrors have not been successful. Maybe I need a remote control or something... Any suggestions?

My first knitalong!

OK, so it's not an "official" knitalong... Emily and I bought kits to make Ana hats at the Fleece Artist trunk show in October. We were lucky to get our hands on the only two kits available that day. The colors were meant to be: Emily's is teal (always her favorite!) and mine is burgundy.




Emily started hers last week, and I cast on for mine today. I've knitted over 40 rows, so I'm about a third of the way done. It's a pretty quick knit! For all I know, Emily could be done already! I guess knitalongs might be better suited to larger projects... In any case, we can confer about the folding process. The pattern comes with written and photo instructions that make it seem really complicated. I hope it will become self-evident once we get started. I think we'll both be done pretty quickly. And not a moment too soon! We'll need our Ana hats to face the cold weather: it snowed in Seattle yesterday!



Details:
Pattern: Ana by Perl Grey
Yarn: Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3-ply (65% wool 35% silk) in Burgundy (230 meters/100g). Purchased at Hilltop Yarn in Queen Anne (Seattle)
Needle: addi Turbo circular US 6 (4.00mm), 32 inches (80 cm)
Started: December 2, 2007



The yarn feels great, and the colorway is wonderful. Subtle shades of dark pink and burgundy, with a little hint of caramel. It'll be perfect with my caramel-colored coat!

A festival of finished objects (part 3)

Even though the some of the coffee stands on campus are now serving coffee in compostable cups and sleeves, there's always room for improvement. For example, you can reduce the use of cup sleeves with a new reusable crocheted cupwarmer!



This was a quickie! The pattern was published last year in Crochet today! and I remember intending to make one at the time. For some reason, I never got around to it. Other projects kept me busy. But when my friend Nora asked me recently if I could make her a reusable cup sleeve, I remembered the pattern and looked it up.



I set out (with Nora's help) to find a L (8.0 mm) hook. Not an easy task: my multiple LYS carried crochet hooks up to J or K, and then M/N (9.0 mm). But no L. Even JoAnn's didn't have any. I eventually found a L hook at Fred Meyer (go figure...).

I whipped out some yarn out of the stash (originally intended for a scarf, but I didn't have enough for a whole scarf and never found the right yarn to combine with it to make a scarf). The cupwarmer took about an hour to make, from start to finish, including multiple stops along the way to make sure it fit on an actual cup.



Details:
Pattern: Java Cozy, by Vashti Braha, from Crochet today! (Oct/Nov 2006)
Modifications:
- Foundation chain: ch 28 instead of ch 19
- Crocheted two additional rows with M hook at the top, to increase the length.
- Didn't do the slipstiched edging (top or bottom)
Yarn: Di.Ve Fiamma colorway 17017 (browns/purples/greens/red), about 1/3 skein (1 skein: 55 yards/50g)
Crochet hooks: L (8.0 mm) and M (9.0 mm)
Started: November 28, 2007
Finished: November 28, 2007




Isn't it nice? It's so easy to make and practical that I'm planning on making myself one, and maybe a few others as gifts... Save the planet with crochet!

A festival of finished objects (part 2)

Remember when I fell off the wagon? Well, I finished one of the kits I purchased that day: the Lu top, by Perl Grey, using Fleece Artist Scotian Silk.



It's a quick knit and the stitch pattern is easy to memorize. It's all knit in one piece from side to side (front-sleeve-back-sleeve-front), so there's no seaming involved. I did run into one problem. The pattern comes in two sizes: medium and large. I knit the whole thing in medium, only to realize that it was much too short for me (it did measure 12 inches as stated in the pattern, but it looked too short on me). The width was fine. I suspected it might stretch out a little when I blocked it, but I wasn't sure. The yarn is 35% silk, which isn't the stretchiest fiber...



So I unraveled the whole thing and started over, casting on the number of stitches suggested for the larger size (to increase the length) but sticking to the number of pattern repeats suggested for the medium size (to keep the width). It did stretch from 14 to 15 inches in length after blocking, and I think it's a much better length than before. It was worth knitting it twice...



Details:

Pattern: Lu, by Perl Grey
Yarn: Scotian Silk (65% wool, 35% silk) (375m/250g) by Fleece Artist in Jester(?)(I used a little less than one skein)
Needle: addi Turbo circular, US10/6mm
Started: October 2007
Finished: November 2007

The color is really difficult to capture on film. This is the best picture I could get of it on me:



I really like it! I wear a lot of red and it goes well over a long-sleeved t-shirt or a thin turtleneck. To keep it closed, I'm using a small tulip brooch I bought in the Netherlands years ago, in a town called Delft (best known for their porcelain). Because the color is so bright, I wanted something small and subtle... and tulips go well with red, don't they?

A festival of finished objects... (part 1)

I haven't posted in a while now, but that doesn't mean that there is no knitting going on... (although I hardly knit a stitch during a recent 10-day trip).
So, I have decided to make up for lost time and present finished objects from the last few weeks.

First and foremost, the Clapotis. Yes, I too have succumbed to the lure of the clapotis... like a zillion others. I started it in May using cotton yarn, thinking it would be done in time for summer. Of course, other projects became more pressing (baby gifts, anyone?) and my clapotis lay untouched for a good part of the spring and summer. I finally finished it in late October, right before leaving for a trip to San Diego.



I was slightly disappointed with the finished product, because it was a little too short for me to loop it around my neck. Fortunately, it stretched out during blocking and is now a perfect size. (It gained about 10 inches!)



Details:
Pattern: Clapotis, by the brilliant Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Tahki Tweedy Cotton Classic, colorway 268 (orange/teal/lime), purchased at Weaving Works
Started: May 2007
Finished: October 2007
Final size: 15 inches x 65 inches



I followed the pattern exactly. If I were to make another one, I would probably make it narrower and longer. I assume that cotton is more likely to stretch out during blocking than other fibers.

It's now a little cold in Seattle for a cotton scarf, but I'm sure I'll use it a lot when it warms up again. And I love the color: mostly a coral-salmon dark pink, with a little lime green and pale teal. It'll go with everything...



Coming up: other finished objects (the Lu cropped top, and a baby hat) and new works-in-progress (moss grid hand towel, Montego Bay scarf, and bamboo scarf).

Philosophical musings about the world's biggest stash...

I just stumbled upon these images of what might be the world's biggest stash. Clearly, my yarn stash is of amateur proportions compared to this.

My response to those images are an odd mixture of relief (I'm not that bad!), wonder (look at all that yarn!), and concern (am I at risk?). Now, I ask you: should a yarn stash of such proportions be a lifelong ambition or a cautionary tale? In other words, when does "a lot of yarn" become "too much yarn"?

What is the purpose of stash yarn? and when is a large stash a problem? Like any of life's big questions, isn't it all relative? If you have lots of room for it, you're not going broke buying it, and you live a functional life outside of your yarn stash (as it seems to be the case for this woman), it's probably just like any other hobby. Between you and me, it seems improbable that she'll ever actually use all this yarn. At some point, a transition probably occurs from buying yarn for knitting purposes to collecting yarn for its own sake, like others collect stamps or commemorative spoons.

I think it's still realistic for me to think that I'll knit (or crochet) all the yarn I now have in the stash, but how do you know when you cross that line? And what should you do when you get to that point? Stop buying yarn? That seems unlikely. Give some away? Sell it? Or be honest with yourself and admit that you're now a "yarn collector"?

p.s. I stumbled on this link on Annette Petavy's blog, who herself got it from Shannon Okey. I'm not the only one to question the size of my stash in response to those images. Annette Petavy has stopped using a stash counter. She says: "Les pelotes, c'est le bonheur. Et on ne peut jamais avoir trop de bonheur." In other words, "skeins are happiness. And you can never have too much happiness." What do you think?