Abbie – Page 5 – Rush Hour Knitting

Saturday, 12 June, 2010

Read up on Revival

Last weekend I visited Melissa and we hung out and drank some Austrian beer (oh, GÃ¶sser, I am so glad to have made your acquaintance again) and watched some hockey and some movies and some television. (I introduced her to last year’s awesome Star Trek reboot; she has been introducing me to Six Feet Under. We are equally pleased with both things.) We toured the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and climbed through all sorts of old train cars. We drank a lot of coffee and created some delicious blue-cheese-and-mushroom stuffed bison burgers for the One Local Summer challenge. I’d link you but Melissa hasn’t written them up on her blog yet. Tsk.

Anyway. It was a lovely weekend and it revived my spirits, so it was only fitting that I ask Melissa to help me photograph my Revival Socks.

REVIVAL

Project: Revival Socks, by Glenna C
Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Spinnery Sock Art-Forest, in an unnamed blue color
Needles: US2.5/3.0mm
Notes: I LOVE THESE SOCKS.

Seriously. Look at these socks.

(Also that spectacular photograph!) So Glenna has a knack for twisted stitches, and she uses them perfectly in this pattern. It’s not hard to knit at all: the pattern has a great rhythm that is very easy to grok and once you get the hang of it you won’t need to look at the chart again. I had so much fun knitting them up I was sorry when I grafted the second toe. However, I am also looking forward to wearing them, so I have gotten over that.

If you’re looking for a pattern to learn twisted stitches on, I think this would be a great choice. And if you want to recapture your sock mojo? Also, great choice. Glenna’s brilliant and I am very glad she keeps making up designs for me to knit. (Wait, what? She’s not just doing it for me? I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that.)

In short? Knit these socks. You will not be sorry.

And now, back to watching the World Cup. USA/England just wrapped up, and was that not an awesome game? This is going to be the best month of football ever.

Tuesday, 25 May, 2010

Unexpected Interlude

Sometimes knitting on the train means you get into interesting conversations. Last night the conductor paused as she was collecting tickets, leaned over, and asked me, “Is that a sock?”

It was, so I let her get a look, and she spent a good five minutes exclaiming and asking questions while I explained how it worked. She wasn’t a knitter, but she must know knitters, because she knew all the right questions to ask. Then she wanted to know if I had made up the design, so I explained that no, but a friend of mine had.

“Well, it’s lovely! You should tell her!” And off the conductor went, clicking tickets on her way through the car.

Conversations like that are a little burst of energy to get a sock done:

But then the grill got fired up to make hamburgers and I got distracted but how surprisingly pretty sunlight in smoke can be.

Can you blame me? No, you cannot.

Wednesday, 19 May, 2010Wednesday, 19 May, 2010

Startitis Strikes Again

So I was doing good. I had wrapped up a bunch of projects, some Sekrit Gift Knitting has been finished up, I was cleaning out all sorts of things on the needles.

And then Startitis hit.

It started with socks. This is Revival, by my buddy Glenna, who has a way of making twisted stitches bend to her every whim. She released this pattern about a month ago for a design contest and I gleefully snatched it up. I cast on Sunday evening, and by the time I got on the train home on Monday night, I had the above. Before I knew it I’d knit a whole leg.

Yum. I love a good twisted stitch pattern.

But that wasn’t enough. I was still restless, and last night, almost without realizing I’d done it, I cast on lace.

That is Miriam Felton’s Flutter Scarf, for which I’m using the leftovers from some of that gift knitting I mentioned above. It’s going to be lovely.

I think the Startitis is better now. I’m going to see if I can get through to the end of the week without casting on anything else, because trying to decide which of these two beauties to knit is difficult enough already!

Saturday, 15 May, 2010Friday, 14 May, 2010

Make Like A Tree

Spring is just about ready to tip over into summer: everything’s green and leafy; the air gets warmer and more humid with every passing day. Since it’s spring, I knit things with leaves. (Wait. I knit things with leaves in every season…)

EMBOSSED LEAVES SOCKS

Project: Embossed Leaves by Mona Schmidt, originally published in IWK Winter ’05, reprinted in the Favorite Socks collection.
Yarn: Holiday Yarns’ Jennifer’s SockFlock Sock Yarn in Gecko.
Needles:US 1/2.25 mm
Notes: So this yarn was one of the delightful things Rebecca kindly brought me back from last year’s Sock Summit, having noted my fondness for a good shade of green. They went marvelously with this pattern; I’ve knit it several times now and I will never get tired of it. It’s comfort knitting, and it was nice to finally work it in actual leaf-appropriate shades:

I did modify this pattern, just a little. (Is anybody surprised? I’d hope not.) I did a regular slip-stitch on the heel flap instead of the stockinette the pattern calls for, which is just my personal preference; I did a flat toe instead of the round toe in the pattern, for the same reason. To be honest, I do a slip-stitch flap and flat toe on all of the socks I knit for myself. I know exactly what will fit best and I just default to that. I keep saying I need to expand my repertoire, but when the results keep coming out this cute, it’s hard to remember why.

FlockSock shows off texture really well, and I’m really happy with these socks. I have a couple of kits and other skeins of Jennifer’s yarn in my stash, and I really need to dive in and knit them up. Her stuff is unfailingly fun to work with, and always pretty. AND the yardage is great: 400 yards. It’s a generous plenty, and far more than I ever need for my socks. I reskeined what I had leftover (on my new niddy-noddy) and I have over 100 yards still to play with:

My sock blanket yarn collection will be very happy to claim that skein.

Friday, 14 May, 2010

Blankets for Babies

So I showed you beautiful Baby Zoe in my last post, and promised you I’d tell you all about that pretty blanket she was modeling.

BABY ZOE’S BLANKET

Project: The Frances Nursing Shawl from Kristen Rengren’s Vintage Baby Knits
Yarn: Plymouth Happy Feet, in the delightfully evocative color “6”. This particular blanket used just under four skeins, about 760 yards.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Notes: This whole pattern was absolutely delightful, from beginning to end. The blanket is worked in five pieces: first the center square, and then the lace border is worked in four pieces from the outside edge in. The blanket is then seamed together. While that might seem like a lot of work, it makes for a good sturdy blanket that is extremely portable knitting. Since I was only working on a small piece at any given time, it was extremely easy to pull out on the train or in Starbucks to work on. And the lace pattern was easily memorized, which just upped the portability factor that much more.

I did make one change to this pattern, based mainly on the fact that the called-for 8 skeins of STR for the original was, well, far beyond my budget. Not that I wouldn’t love to make a huge blanket like that, but it’s just not feasable right now. So I sized it down by half, and I still got a nice substantial blanket out of it. If you’re looking to do the same, you only need to make two, very simple changes.

To size this blanket down by half:
For the center panel: cast on 90 stitches, and work according to the pattern until it is 15″ from the cast on edge.
For each lace panel: cast on 157 stitches and work according to pattern, repeating chart only 6 times (36 rows).

The pattern says to block pieces before seaming, but I’m an impatient process knitter, so I dove right in and seamed everything and then blocked. The lace opened up and the center panel’s garter ridges turned into a wonderful textural feature.

This pattern is spectacular. Kristen has a great collection, and if you’re got baby knitting coming down the pike this is a book you should really consider owning. It’s well written, beautifully photographed, and full of spectacular projects. Zoe clearly approves.

(I know I showed you this picture already, but I love it THAT MUCH. You can’t blame me, can you. Of course not.)

Saturday, 8 May, 2010

Maryland, land of the unexpected

Last weekend I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival with Melissa and her husband Doug. It was very hot. We didn’t stay long. We had a list of tasks to accomplish (lamb sandwich, visiting The Fold, grabbing requests for a friend) and as soon as we had our list checked off we ran for the car and the air conditioning.

But we got some good stuff! Melissa, for example? She bought a wheel:

And we got splashed by the alpaca babies as they stayed hydrated:

(Their keeper had a fan for them. I think some of the sheep in the longsheds would have staged a rebellion if they’d known.)

And I brought home some really lovely stuff:

Including a small Kromski niddy-noddy, some STR and Acero, and two skeins from Miss Babs, who is a new discovery. I’m especially excited about the “Jingle Jingle” colorway (the red/green/gold one in front) which I think will make an awesome Christmasey shawlette.

Once we’d gotten to the car and cooled off, we headed further south to meet up with B and her husband J. B went to college with Melissa and I; they were roommates and I lived down the hall, and we spent two years as a little Gang of Awesome. B’s due date has been fast approaching and we all thought it would be good to get together for an evening to catch up before the baby arrived. We did, and it was marvelous, and then we drove back to Melissa and Doug’s house and crashed, wiped out by some tasty beer and all the sun.

And we woke up in the morning to be greeted by the news that overnight, B had gone into labor, three weeks early, and Baby Zoe was charming everyone in sight:

Here she is, all snuggled up in the blanket I made for her, which is a pattern from Kristen Rengren’s terrific Vintage Baby Knits. I sized the pattern down by half, and it came out absolutely delightful, as you can see. (More details in its own post, I promise!) I love, love, love getting the chance to see things I’ve knit getting used, and I really appreciate J letting me use his picture to brag about his new arrival. I don’t have enough words for how adorable she is, and I’m looking forward to meeting her in person!

Monday, 12 April, 2010Monday, 12 April, 2010

Scenic

I’ve got a backlog of things blocked and finished to show you…

…but the Traveling Sock and I are in Vermont until tomorrow, soaking up the beautiful views. Traveling Sock says hi, by the way.

Sunday, 28 March, 2010

Lions and Lambs

I’ve done lots of knitting this month. Want proof? Look at my To Be Blocked Pile:

That is a Featherweight Cardigan on the bottom (Dream in Color Baby in Chinatown Apple) and a Simple Thing Shawlette on the top (Madtosh Sock in Rosewood). They are both beautiful beautiful beautiful and I love them to bits… but my house has been like a train station with people coming in and out and being home for a week and dogsitting for my sister and… long story short, I haven’t been able to commendeer a spare bed. That’s OK, because it means I’m seeing all of my siblings, but as soon as they’re done going back and forth I am totally claiming the space back.

Anyway. Since I wasn’t blocking, I finished up the perfect spring project:

LILAC RIBBON SCARF

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery.
Yarn: Ellen’s Half Pint Farm Merino/Tencel Sock in Iris, purchased at MDSW08.
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm
Notes: So, uh. I cast this scarf on. Um. A year ago. This was after I held on to the yarn for a year, because purple and green is one of my favorite combination of all time. So I decided on The Lace Ribbon Scarf pattern, started, got about two thirds of the way through…and petered out. And picked it up again three days ago and finished, so there. Sometimes you just need a break. A long one, in this case.
My timing, though, is excellent. It is spring, but early spring, when the wind is still chilly and you want something to wear against the damp. What better than a scarf the color of lilacs? (The colorway name is Iris, but I think Lilac every time I look at it.)
I’m not blocking it, at least not right now, because I’m really happy with the drape right now — that would be the tencel, thank you tencel — and I just want to wear it and be gleeful. So I will.

What else, what else is on the needles.. socks! I finished some socks. And I’m halfway through a baby blanket. Working on a new sock design. And yet, I really, really want to cast on some delicate lace. I feel a bout of startitis coming on. Feel free to take bets on how long I can hold out before I start throwing new projects on the pile. (Here’s a hint: not long.)

Saturday, 6 March, 2010Saturday, 6 March, 2010

February Wrap-Up

February is always a short month, and yet I got so many things done. Behold:

PRETTY QUIVIUT:

Pattern: Pretty Thing by Stephenie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Windy Valley Muskox Qiviuk, a magnificent surprise that I won as a door prize at the Ravelry Rhinebeck Party last fall.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm
Notes: Wow. Magnificent combination of yarn and pattern. Despite all the lace, this is insanely warm, so warm that when I tried it on in the house once it was blocked I started feeling overheated immediately. This will be magnificent for days when I need to dress up a little. The yarn… oh, the yarn. I can only say thank you, and wow. I will be making the pattern again, but that yarn was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I enjoyed every moment of working with it. This is a FO I will treasure.

GREEN CLAPOTIS

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Estelle Cadenza, in the oh-so-descriptive colorway of 960, which came to me as a destash from the excellent Glenna.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Notes: This is a project that I had on my to-do list for nearly a year, when Glenna came to New York on a visit and like a yarn fairy, left destashed skeins in her wake, including this green goodness that magically went wonderfully with my Anemoi mittens. Since I like to make a Clapotis every year (it’s just one of my many delightful quirks) this seemed like an excellent choice for this year’s. The yarn works delightfully, with just enough silk content (20%) to make it soft and inviting without weighing down the wool after it’s gone through a bath.

This is a marvelous FO that works just as I’d hoped with the mittens, and sometime I might even photograph them together for you.

OLYMPIC HAT

I wrote this little beauty up yesterday.

OLYMPIC FEATHERWEIGHT

This is an in-progress shot. You will hear a lot more about this one.

Friday, 5 March, 2010

Aurum

So, as promised, here is the Olympic project I did finish:

OLYMPICS HAT

Pattern: Olympics Reindeer Hat, by Helena Bristow, which she kindly created by deconstructing the hats worn by the US Olympics team for the Opening Ceremony.
Yarn: Stash diving! The red and blue are Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, and the White is Webs Northampton.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm and US 6/4.0 mm
Notes: I fell in love with these hats immediately, because they were just so lovely. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, well, here:

That is the hat. (There were other hats, like the awkward medal-logo intarsia thing that Lindsay Vonn was wearing, but they were just not as awesome as this one.) It was designed by Ralph Lauren Polo, and they sell their version, but those versions are pretty pricy, and there’s really something shameful about buying a hat when one is perfectly capable of knitting their own version with their own hands. I fell in love with the design, and I knew I wanted one of these hats, but I wasn’t expecting to make it as an Ravelympics project.

Then I hit the really long rows on the raglan shaping of my Featherweight sweater. Those are long rows, guys. Over 400 stitches a row. They were taking forever, and I was getting, frankly, bored. And I was starting to become concerned about finishing. I needed a break, and my stash has some red and blue and white worsted that looked just about right. So I put the sweater aside and finished this hat in two nights. I KNOW. Something about switching from laceweight to worsted was just inspiring, and despite the inevitable struggle to keep my gauge in colorwork in order, it just clicked beautifully.

I did make a few modifications, mostly born over the fact that I didn’t have a whole skein of blue, so instead of doubling the hem as the original does, I did a few rows of ribbing on a smaller needle. I also chopped out the last chart, which was the colorwork at the top of the hat, and just did a solid red, and made the tassels red to match. I started the decreases earlier as well, since this hat was tall. And finally, I did the reindeer antlers with a duplicate stitch to avoid having long floats in those sections.

This is a big hat. See:

I’m really happy with how it came out. It’s insanely warm and I think it will make an excellent hat for winter sports. And shoveling. Which I hope to not be doing again until next winter. (I just jinxed it, didn’t I.)

And despite the fact that the Featherweight was not completed before the end of the Olympics, I finished my hat so I get a medal!

Medals are like the icing on an already delicious cake.

I might make this hat again someday. My row gauge was obviously gigantic in comparison to the original, and my colors didn’t match at all. The original has stately dark red and federal blue. I love my more cheerful, bright colors, but they do make for a different impression. I think I would enjoy having the choice between the more serious versus playful versions, and if I could get the row gauge to cooperate I could take a stab at the colorwork in the crown. All of this is to say I loved making this hat so much I’d be willing to make it a second time.

And, just to add to my glee, I did finish the sweater, and wove in the ends yesterday and now it just needs a wash and block. So I think it was an excellent experience all around.

I’m kind of missing watching fun sports like bobsled and curling, though. I think I have Olympics withdrawal. When does the World Cup start again?