Done, given and modeled

Kristen's graduation party was today. It was a lovely afternoon and I was able to finally give her the hat/scarf set I made. Isn't she the cutest?

I think from now on I am going to ask all recipients to allow me photos of them with (or wearing) their FOs. They feel far more special to me when I can see them with their intended recipients.

Nodding off behind the wheel

So something new happened last night. I was knitting along on my little clappie peacefully, noting nothing amiss. Then as I was working the last row of my second repeat of the straight rows I realized I'd been nodding off while working it. Indeed, I realized I was nodding off quite a bit - while knitting. Yikers.

Thankfully, I was at a good stopping place. Here is where I was:

This is going along at what seems an agonizingly slow pace. I think because I've been working hats and smaller projects and had forgotten that some knits takes weeks or even months. My patience for CO to FO seems to pan out at about day three lately. I see a lot of hats happening for the holidays if this keeps up. By the by, did I mention I created the project page and bought the yarn and started a KAL for this last August? That means theoretically I've been working this for ten months. So, it should be done already, right?

The color combo had been bothering me. I think it was the orange where I'd hoped to find a rich red. It seemed a little halloween-ish to me. But as it's grown, it's grown on me. Now it seems very fall-like and that, I can live with. The yarn is as everyone says: pure fiber heaven. It is so smooth and light as a feather. It is knitting clouds really.

Still love those cables, baby

I am making progress on the second Viking Bag.
I love the pattern even more now. Karen is pure genius. I think I am moving along faster this time around because I am 'reading' it as I go. It's somehow making intuitive sense and I've barely needed to look to the actual pattern to know what to do next. It's in the genius of the design - the cables actually follow a logical, knowable pattern. Fan out, come together; over, then under. It makes sense.

This feels different than when I understood the logic of the Irish Moss stitch on the Must Have (lost my mind) Cardigan (oy, remember that massive case of the dumb?). That was a matter of seeing that there was a pattern to the pattern. This feels like something more. I'm beginning to think that maybe (just maybe) I am starting to grow as a knitter - maybe even from being a 'knitter' to being a real, live Knitter. Knitting itself is starting to make sense. I've noticed I am beginning to be able to read my stitches on the needle - to see their slants and whether they are lying (laying?) correctly for what they are to become. There are steps and two basic stitches and I've known those for years, but this is something else. This is feeling the knitting, understanding it in some holistic sense so that it's not just a matter of painstakingly reading each small part of the pattern and working it, but understanding it as whole, how it's meant to come together and then working off that understanding. Nifty.

Of course, now I am sure to do something tragically wrong and debunk this. Must go and pay homage of some sort to the knitting faeries lest they decide to show me what's what!

Because Amanda rules my life now

I know I was complaining (kinda sorta) about the requests for the hat-n-scarf set I just wrapped up, but I cannot stop knitting the bloody Amanda Hat. Seriously, I have love for this pattern.

So, I give you the Pink Amanda:

Plus, it is knit up with this super inexpensive yarn that is made (in part) from recycled plastic! So I feel totally fine with the fact that I think I am going to make somewhere in the ballpark of 40,000,000,000,000 more of them.

p.s. and i also started another Viking Bag, cause i love-them-cables-baby

All Scarfed Out

Quickie post to put up the latest FO.

This weekend, I went down to MD/VA and had the best time with some of the most phenomenal women on the planet. That I am related to them is truly a blessing. What a lovely time with great aunts, aunts, cousins, nieces and of course, my dear mamma-san.

We had barbecue and 'sippies' - we laughed, we shared, there was a little dancing, and a lot of reminiscing. Overall, one of the best weekends in a looooooooong time.

And in between, there was (of course) knitting.

Finally finished the scarf to go the with Amanda Hat for Kristin.


Here's the (close-to-matching) set:


Overall, I am pleased with how they came out. But...
I am Totally. All. Scarfed. Out.

For real. This is a lovely pattern, written by none other than my knitting idol (aka The Yarn Harlot). It is impossibly easy to memorize and thus, can be worked most anywhere, anytime.

The problem, then? Well, it is a scarf. Which means it gets knit everywhere and all times in order just to get through the bloody thing. Scarves are endless. My patience and ability to stick with any given thing is...not.

But here's the super-fun part: I've gotten about five requests from people I esteem for the same set. Arggggghhhhh. Thankfully, hat and scarf season is a ways away.

Fav'd

No photos today, just a silly admission.

I farking looooooooooooove it when someone 'favorites' one of my projects on Ravelry. I just recently noticed the little pink hearts with numbers under some of my projects. I had no idea what they were, had not noted their presence before. The other day I clicked on the one under my Must Have (lost my mind) Cardigan and lo and behold, it announced that six people had marked my little sweater as a 'favorite.'

Are you kidding?!?!?!

Wow - what a tremendous compliment! So of course, I went and clicked on all the other little pink hearts and sent spiritual thank yous to everyone who thought enough of whatever I'd made to mark it so. There weren't so many, but each one was embarrassingly meaningful to me.

Then, as though that weren't enough, the last two CO projects I posted were fav'd almost as soon as I'd posted them.

I was so dorkily thrilled, I could have passed right out.

Emma's Mingus revealed

Emma's Mingus Socks, finally

So, one of my dearest and oldest (in terms of time known, not age) friends had a special birthday this year. She (and her blog) are what got me excited about knitting again. It was her photos of terrifically turned out hand-knit socks that incited me to try sock knitting in the first place and led to the addiction that has since had me squarely in its grip.

So clearly she was getting socks, right?

But this was a special birthday and so they had to be "special socks."

As is my custom, rather than take things in any logical fashion, I made decisions based on impulse and gut reactions. Having decided on socks, I then had an excuse to head on over to my LYS and you know, do what I do.

So, I walk in and Vickie (only the best LYSO ever) chides me because yeah, it's been a while. We chat and I begin ambling around - no plan, no grand scheme, just ogling and fondling until...

Oooooh, pretty! Ooooh soft! Me buy!

Now Vickie is a great LYSO and I like to think she has her regular customer's best intentions at heart. But realistically, she is also running a business. That being said, I am not clear whether she turned me on to the gorgeous yarns of the Adirondack Yarn Co. because she loves them so and felt I would appreciate their product or because it also happens to be some of the most expensive sock yarn she carries. Whatever the reason, those yarns are insanely delicious! They really know what they are doing with their scrumptious hand-dyed yarns and I love, love, love them.

But also, they had the perfect colorway. It is called Indigo and it is the most delicious blue/purple blend maybe ever. In indoor lighting, it is deep and very royal blue. In sunlight, it really comes to life. The purple turns almost neon and sweeps out of the royal blue base. Unreal. The colors are deep and vibrant and rich and most importantly, to my eye almost perfectly call to mind irises - which are only Emma's favorite flower.

So yeah, yarn decided.

Now, true to form, I didn't have a pattern in mind. Unfortunately, I didn't have an extraordinary amount of time, so I'd kinda hoped to fall for a thicker yarn, perfect for a quick knit. (Oh yes, because P.S.: I also decided to make her a Viking Bag as well. She'd asked after I finished my first one). But I knew this yarn had to be it, so the weight would get to decide me. And since this was the yarn and it is fingering weight, a quick knit was now waaaay out of the bloody question.

And then the perfect pattern came to me. Like a flash of inspirational light and I almost immediately got a headache.

Cookie A's Mingus Socks Pattern.

I love Cookie's patterns. I think she is a bonafide genius. Each and every one is detailed and perfect and lovely and this is my favorite among them.

But, it has been a pattern I cannot master in any way, shape or form. I have been working one sock for almost a year. One sock. Almost a year. I have tinked back and frogged this thing beyond all reason. The pattern is gorgeous, her instructions are always written flawlessly and yet, I cannot do it. Seriously, the universe could guarantee me a free hour to gather anything I want from the WEBS warehouse and yet, I still could not finish this sock. It is quite simply beyond me.

Of course it was the perfect pattern for this yarn. Of course.

Argh!!!

But, me being me, once the impulse hit, it was a done deal. The last eleven months of tinking and ripping back, the endless frustration, the slightly less than eloquent dialogue I've had while trying to knit this one sock be damned. This was it! Plus, it was Emma, my first best friend when I moved home alone in seventh grade, who drove me back and forth during my college years, who was the first person to try to teach me to drive - on a standard, no less, the one person who saw me through...oh, I don't know - everything from age 12 til about age 30. Though years have passed since we've been close, I'd empty a vein for her. Surely I could manage to figure out how to knit these socks on her behalf, right?

Well, as it turns out: right!

Emma's Mingus Socks:

slightly overcast daylight


early evening, using indoor light


heel - I love the detail of this heel


I have never worked a pattern so sloooooowly and so carefully, but I ended up only having to tink back a few times.

And, Emma's very own feet in them! Worth it all.


Finally, because they were so gorgeous, Emma's birthday cakes.


These were made special because in addition to knitting, being a great wife, mother to four [count 'em] kids and being an overall excellent human being, she also makes incredible quilts! These cakes were designed based on photos of actual quilts she's created. Unbelievable. I am humbled by her talent and that of the cake maker.

Soooo behind - thank goodness for 'occasions'!

Terribly, terribly behind. But here's the latest FO. This pattern is insanely easy and yet...

...and yet the first four times I tried it, I failed. Utterly. And completely.

It is the Amanda Hat and super popular. I've no idea why I've been unable to work it at all - or why tonight I cast it on and finished about 5 hours later. Go figure. I think it's the pressure of it being a gift for someone having a party in a few weeks. Co-worker moving to Chicago in a couple of months.

And now I'm just bold enough to attempt to make up a matching scarf in the pattern I couldn't even do the first four times.

(Cause sometimes "bold" means "crazy," right?)

More for Mamma-san

Sometime before Christmas (I know, I know) I settled on a hat and scarf for my dear Mamma-san. I finishes the hat in plent of time (I'm pretty sure i gave it to her, right???) but making a matching scarf was sloooow going- and got side-tracked by me deciding to love a different yarn.

Here is the hat itself (it's the Raisin Beret on Ravelry):
top view


on...me (oops, maybe she never did get it???)

It's cute enough. But as one knows, my dear Mamma-san likes colors. And she likes 'em vivid. So, when I came across some Noro Kureyon on sale, well I was compelled to make another. It is here:
inside view

top view

I am sure mom got this one, because she wore it to Obama's inauguration (yeah, I gotta write about being there soon!). Here we (Mamma-san, Yolanda and I) are at the inauguration.
Let me say that again: At. The. Inauguration. Whoa nelly!

See, mom has the hat on. (Clearly she got this one) And for the record, these colors are reallllly vivid and enabled us to keep track of mom - even in a crowd of 2 million people!

But the scarf kept eluding me. I wanted to find one the resembled the hat's stitch pattern. The Noro was no longer on sale and mamma likes her scarves long. Ugh. Finally, I simply used the same bloody stitch pattern as the hat, knit flat and slightly modified and sucked up the cost of the yarn. Here it is:


Hopefully, she gets it in time for next Christmas!