What have I been Knitting?

I love January. It is such a quiet month. The house feels quiet after putting away all the christmas decorations. Outside feels quiet with the cooler weather. My knitting feels quiet after the mad dash to get everything done in time to mail and to put under the tree. My knitting is so quiet I am having a hard time finding something that I really want to knit. A bit of a stooper I would say.

Camera to the rescue. Time to take pictures of finished projects and show them off.

Socks for The Marvelman

This is actually the first thing I have knit for the Marvelman. You see he is a surfer. The dress code for all surfers is shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. Where would a knit garment fit into that I ask you. But the last few months he started to ask for a pair of socks. I decided that I could make him a pair to wear around the house, I don't like the sock flip flop look so no toes in these socks. Of course they had to be red. 

Yarn: Jitterbug "Vatican Pie" and misty alpaca sport. I needed gray and that is all I had. I hope it doesn't wear out to fast. 

He loves loves loves his socks. They have been seen peaking out from underneath his black slacks and loafers!!

Gloves for Mom and my Sisters, 

I really enjoyed making these and the stretchy fabric makes them an easy fit. They are the Ringwood pattern from knitty.  

I blogged about these here. But here they all are done and beautiful.  

These are made with socks that rocks light weight. The color is Peaseblossom. I am pretty happy with the way they came out. This sister loves color and I new a solid pair of gloves would not be for her. These are just right. The buttons are vintage mother of pearl. 

The last pair is made with Madelinetosh dk, color tart. I really loves these too. The color is so wonderful. 

Yes, I need to knit one more pair for myself, maybe that is the next project to jump onto my needles. 

My Leaf Print Fingerless Gloves and they are knit with Mink!

Yes these are all mine. It was really cold all of December and these got a lot of use. Mink yarn you ask? Yup, Great Northern Yarn Company has yarn with a mink and merino blend. I love these. They are soft and the mink gives them a really nice halo. I have warn these a lot and they show no pilling!

Another yarn that I am totally head over heels about is Shelter.  This is the brain child of Brooklyn Tweed. It is completely sourced in the United States and is woolen spun yarn. 

Pattern is Saroyan

I had never really had any woolen spun yarn before and always thought it would be to "wooly" for So. Cal.  How wrong I was. This yarn is very light weight. It has a lot more air in it because of the spin. I wore this non-stop during the cold December. I wore it the house, (I do keep my house cold) and out side with my sweater. It didn't itch the back of neck and never got "heavy".  I can not wait to make a sweater with this yarn. 

I think that about does it for the finished garments. As I said I am a little stumped at what I want to knit next. The weather has heated up to 80 the last few days so that is making difficult to knit something really wooly. 

I have decided to do a lot of knitting for the house this year and I have a new knitting chair!

I am losing weight (weight watchers with some of my knitter friends) and don't want to knit any sweaters right now. So the house is the perfect solution. 

I have a new knitting chair I found on Craigs Lists for $25. It needs to be painted ( green, peacock blue?) and a cushion, but it is very comfortable. 

I could knit a cushion or Maybe some of these will find my needles soon. 

What are you wanting to knit this year?

Gifts are Flying off the Needles!!

I was not going to knit any gifts this year. I  know, what was I thinking. But last year I knitted rather large gifts for my mom and sisters. 

This year I had intension of felting soaps and then giving a wash cloth to go with it.

But I had done something similar a couple of years ago.

Then I thought I would just buy something. But alas, I just couldn't. It isn't hand made and seems not as personal.

Then I went on a hunt for something easy, fun, and useful. That's when I rediscovered The Ringwood Glove Pattern in the current Knitty and the rest is history.

I decided that I would knit a pair for my mom and if all went well and quickly I would add two more pairs for my sisters. Good news, these are fast, fun and the finished product is wonderful. Just the right ingredients for gift giving.

Here are mom's. (no worries, she doesn't read the blog). 

I used Caper, a cashmere/merino blend Dk yarn from String Theory.  I love love love this yarn. It is really nice, soft, and cushy to knit with and the color is wonderful. The finished project is just so nice. I still need buttons on the cuffs but I have one set done and 2 more to go. 

On to the second pair. These are for the sister that loves color. I used "Socks that Rock" light weight that I had in my stash. 

Since this yarn is fingering weight and not dk I am making the medium size. The "ringwood" stitch pattern is very stretchy so going up just the one size has worked perfect. Since my row gauge is smaller I am measuring against the other gloves for the length of different parts of the glove. That has worked out perfect. I have one done and the second on started.

The third pair will be a deep red color "tart" of madelinetosh dk that I got at Abuelita's here in South Pasadena. They have a lot of madelinetosh dk and fingering weight.
I Love this yarn too.

I have one more top secret present to knit.  I will be using  Jetterbug from Collinette in "Vatican Pie".       Fun fun fun!

I will let the secret out of the bag after christmas. Don't want to spoil the surprise. It is about as much knitting as the gloves so I feel I am in good shape. 

I have a lot of FO's that I need to take pictures of and post about.  But that will be another day. 

I want to leave you with one more picture. This is my street today. After the rain last night I have sidewalks full of leaves and the colors on the tress are just to die for. I keep looking out the window as I write this and smile. The colors make me so happy!!

I hope your knitting keeping you happy! 

FO: Holiday Gifts

My Christmas knitting has all been received and I can now post about them. I was pretty ambitious this year but I did complete it all in time, which has often not been the case. So I am feeling rather good right now.

I knit the Every Way Wrap for my Mom. (Ravelry).





Yarn: 12 skeins (1,176 yrds, 600 oz) of Berroco Ultra Silk.
Gold 6113

Make sure you down load the Errata before you start. The key to the chart is wrong.

This was a pretty straightforward knit with cables. I love that they are reversible so there is no wrong and right side. I have to say that cabling with yarn that has no stretch is a bit hard on the hands and made the progress a little slower then I wanted. Having said that, the yarn showed both stitch patterns beautifully and the sheen from the silk makes this very luxuious. I chose the silk because my mother doesn't like wools around her neck and I new this yarn wouldn't be the least bit scratchy. It was also on closeout at Webs so the price was right. The silk makes this something she can wear throughout the year in Utah.

I knit the Sweet Pea Jacket by Kate Gilbert (ravelry) for my youngest sister, JN, who also lives in Utah.



Yarn: Berroco Peruvia.
#4777 Blue Nile 7 skeins (700 gr, 721 yrds)

Needle size - 11

Size: I had major gauge issues (blogged here) with this. I ended up knitting the medium size as far as number of cast on stitches and such go, but used the measurements from the small size. This ended up working out perfectly.

My sister is amazed at how well it fits, as though we had fittings during the making of the jacket!! This was a very succesful knit and after I figured out how to deal with the gauge it was a fast and easy knit. Big needles and big yarn, almost instant gratification.

This is the Striped Clapotis for my other sister, LA, who is in the Bay Area.


Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden sock. I used three skeins of color 211.
Needle: #6

I used both ends of the same skein and alternated the two ends every two rows, like the Noro Scarf. I love the way the dropped stitches stripe one way and the colors striped the other. I love the colors. A few times I took out a color as it came up so I didn't have the same color on both ends of the yarn. But that didn't happen to much.

I was burning some late night knitting oil to get these done and in the mail before we left for our vacation on the Dec. 13. Even though I started them relatively early in the holiday process, LA's in Aug, Mom's in Sept, and JN's in Oct. that was still too late.

Next year I am going to reinstate the "knit the christmas present when their birthday comes up" rule. I did this one year and it worked so well I am not sure why I have not continued to do that. Their birthdays come in May, June and August so it works out really well.

I am telling you this now so that you can remind me in Sept or Oct when I come up with the big idea to knit a major project for someone for christmas you can refer me to this post. I have too many other things to knit, with class samples and all, not to be more organized about knitting the things that are really fun for me.

My family really appreciates handmade gifts so it is pleasure to knit for them.

Do you have any good ways of dealing with handmade gifts for the family?
Do you knit for your family and/or friends?

My Knitting Weekend

I am in full swing of holiday knitting. My little knitting fingers are tired indeed. But I have to be honest and say that the project I have worked on most this weekend is an UFO.


This is the blanket I started for Josh last christmas. I worked on it a lot last winter. But it is a big blanket, he is a big guy and I just couldn't get it done before the weather turned too warm to have a giant blanket on my lap. The hardest part of pulling out a hibernating project is trying to figure out where you are and what still needs to be done. I was so happy to find that I have only the borders left to do.

But oh those borders are longggggggg.
If the stars work in my favor this week I should have it done by Thanksgiving. As long as I get it to him before this christmas I have been successful. Right??



Added Dec. 28, 2009
I finally got some pictures of the finished Bronco Blanket with Josh. He uses it all the time!!

Designing (don't laugh)

We are putting together classes for the next two months at Unraveled. For some reason, that I can't think of right now, I got the idea that I wanted to teach beginning lace. Ok, nothing wrong with that, but then I decided that I wanted to have my own lace scarf pattern for the class.



Ok, what was i thinking. I spent pretty much the entire day yesterday going through stitch pattern books and online resources, doing the math, and doing the charting. I came up with something that works really well mathematically but now that I have a few inches knitted I don't like it. I could have just found a nice "all over" pattern, add a little boarder and be done with it. But no, I was doing something asymmetrical, because that is that type of girl I am, (a little off on one side). The lines of the two main patterns are too much alike and I don't like it.
So now I have the choice to start over or use the Fiber Trends Cocoon Lace Pattern AC-73 by lace master Evelyn Clark.

Yup, I think I am going to choose "Cocooning" and go back to my Lady E! Decision made? Stay tuned.

Speaking of Lady E, she is out of hybernation and almost done. I have just under 2 skeins left.












Next up is Mom's Christmas Present. Argyle Golf Club Covers. She is going to be golfing again in Utah before I know it so I have to get going on these.

FO Wednesday on Tuesday

I have been a busy christmas elf the last couple of weeks. I am going for fast, fun and easy projects this year and actually knitting for more people then I ever have before. I have made lots of presents for everyone over the years and I have been picky aboout who gets my knitting. But I have to say that I am having a blast knitting small things, even more multiples of the same thing, and being done in a few hours. Can you say "instant gratification" !

Here is what I have so far. I am about half done and still have a few weeks to go. Yeah!!

I have made 4 pairs of fetching.



All of the fetchings are being paired up with either the Dream Swatch Head Warp from knit and tonic,




or the Calorimetry from knitty.



I still have three pairs of Dashings and I am half way done with my second Montego Bay Scarf. I really love this colorway. I am not sure this one will make it out of thes house.



This is the one I have already finished. Both are done out of seasilk from handmaiden.



Merry Ho Ho Ho!!