January 22, 2012

Shawls for the Grandmas

The whole reason that the grandpas got neck gators in the first place was because I had decided to knit shawls for the grandmas a long time ago. I wanted them to have something lovely to wear to church on Sundays or around the house.

This is an absolutely luscious Estonian shawl. I wanted something intricate for my grandmother who knits. She’s very talented (or was before her eyes went), but she never got into lace so I knew she wouldn’t have anything like this.

Pattern: Miralda’s Triangular Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Bristol Yarn Gallery Buckingham
Needles: US 5 Addi Lace
Made for: Grandma J
Timeline: 8 August 2010-23 December 2011
Modifications: none
Worst Part: casting on so many stitches
Best Part: the yarn–I absolutely love it for lace

I did something that wasn’t quite so fancy for another grandma, as she’s more of a sturdy farmer’s wife. I also used yarn that had a photo of the alpaca that it came from on the label–this grandma loves that sort of thing, and so do I! The halo of the yarn really gives this design a different look from the original–I may have to try the pattern again in a different yarn to see the difference for myself.

Pattern: Hamamelis by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Joyful Journeys Alpaca Sock
Needles: US 5 Addi Lace
Made for: Grandma C
Timeline: January 5-December 20 2011
Modifications: none
Worst Part: putting it down for so long
Best Part: the simplicity of this design

To be honest, these gifts didn’t go over quite as well as I had hoped, but I think they’ll still get some good use.

 

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January 11, 2012

Neck Gators for the Grandpas

There are still so many holiday knitting projects that I haven’t blogged about! For example, both of my grandpas got these neck gators:

I decided to make these because I made a fleece neck gator for my dad when I was young that he wears snow blowing all the time, and I thought the grandpas could use something similar. 

It also helped that each of these knit up in just a few hours, making them perfect last minute gifts.  

 

Pattern: Kelly Herdrich’s Cowl’d and Frosty Morning 
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky in Chocolate Souffle and Dynamite Blue, approx. 1 skein of each 
Needles: US 10 Denise interchangeable circs 
Made for: Grandpa Jerry and Grandpa Rod 
Timeline: 1 day for each 
Modifications: Added 10 stitches to the 2nd gator 
 

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January 4, 2012

Camp/Tap/Climb Out Mitts

I discovered the pattern for these cute mitts several months ago, but I didn’t put it in my ravelry queue for  fear that Katie would see them and cast on for them herself. They’re just so completely “her” that I knew she had to have them. When we decided to do a little tap dancing this afternoon, I pushed them up in my mental queue. Once I cast on, it only took a few TV episodes to finish them off. 

I like how they turned out, and it’s always nice to have a quick gift knit in mind, but if I were to make them again I would probably change something about the thumb, as it looks unfinished to me. Of course, that’s hard to see in the photos I’ve got because we had a hard enough time fighting with the lighting and the point-and-shoot camera.

Katie loved them and wore them all the way through our tap session, which included a very fast version of the Shim Sham Shimmy. I sat that one out.

Pattern: tante ehm’s Camp Out Fingerless Mitts
Yarn: just under 1 skein Noro Kureyon #259
Needles: US 7 birch dpns
Made for: Katie
Timeline: 3-4 January 2012
Modifications: none
Worst Part: the look of the thumbs
Best Part: quick, cute mitts

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January 1, 2012

Bazinga!

Sweetie and I were in no mood to go out for New Year’s Eve last night, so we opted to stay in, give the apartment some much-needed TLC, have a great dinner (made by Sweetie, of course), and sit back for the Big Bang Theory marathon on TV. It was great, and I think we were in bed by about 10:30.
 
Watching so much Big Bang Theory reminded me of a finished project that I hadn’t gotten around to posting about yet.

 

This is my Sheldon cowl, and I think it’s wonderful in a totally dorky kind of way. Equally dorky is the fact that my friend KG has a matching cowl and I’ve definitely texted her when I’m wearing this cowl and know I’ll be seeing her to “call” it for the day.

Pattern: Simple Ribbed Cowl by Orange Flower 

Yarn: 2 balls Plymouth Bazinga #04 
Needles: US #11 16″ bamboo circs 
Made for: Me 
Timeline: September 25-29, 2011 
Modifications: none–this was a great pattern to show off the crazy yarn 
Worst Part: I never like knitting with large needle sizes  
Best Part: meta-Sheldoning 

 

P.S. The suave tourist-trap t-shirt salesman that sold this shirt to me was definitely hitting on me. This married lady’s still got it!

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December 26, 2011

I’m Working at the Right Place

I know that I’ve mentioned that I spent the past semester as an instructor on three different campuses and that I’ll be full time at one of them this spring. The faculty on this campus is particularly welcoming, and I definitely knew I was in the right place when I went to teach my night class and found a note on my office door.
 
It said that one of the faculty members had fallen on some hard times and would not be able to get a Christmas tree. The other faculty members were pitching in to deliver a tree, stand, lights, and ornaments. Knitter that I am, I immediately thought of Arne and Carlos’ new book, so I knit up this Pointsettia Christmas ball out of Falk.

 

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I’m sure there will be more in the future.

 

I hope that you and yours had a happy holiday season and are looking forward to a wonderful new year!
 

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December 13, 2011

Hockey Hat

I have been so incredibly lucky this semester: it was unlikely that I would be able to find teaching at the last minute, but I was able to teach almost a full-time course load! I’m feeling even luckier in regards to next semester, when I will be teaching full time on a single campus instead of jumping around between three of them.
 
One of the campuses where I teach is a bit of a drive from home, and my family wasn’t so sure about me taking a job there. I was fortunate to be connected with a biology teacher there who let me hitch a ride with him once a week. His true passion is hockey, so I worked up this hat for him:
 

I used the same Earflap Hat Generator that I used for the Deer Hunting Surprise hat, and I was once again pleased with the results. So was he–he wore this hat to flood the outdoor rink on the night that I gave it to him and reported that it was perfect!

Pattern: Hockey Sticks and Snowflakes by Jeni McCarty 

Yarn: just over 2 sk #0090 and under 1 sk #6031 Dale of Norway Falk 
Needles: 20″ US 2.5 Addi Turbo circs 
Made for: Andy 
Timeline: December 2-8, 2011 
Modifications: recipe-style pattern, so no need 
Worst Part: staying up much too late to finish it 
Best Part: the thank you text he sent me 
This is really the first of the holiday season knitting. There may not have been much blogging around here lately, but I’ve managed to make time for knitting just about every day. Now that the semester is drawing to a close, I’ll be spending much of my time working on gifts and will share the non-super-secret stuff here.

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November 13, 2011

Sweater Slogging

I have some pretty lofty crafting goals for the month of November, and they include two sweaters, both of which I’ve been chipping away at over the past couple of weeks.

My shop sample of Manu is coming along nicely, as it’s been my primary project to work on while teaching classes at the shop. I’ve finished the body up to the underarms, one sleeve, and have made good progress on the second sleeve.

It certainly helps that I’ve decided to go with 3/4 sleeves. I almost always push up my sleeves, and I’ve noticed that I reach for the 3/4 sleeve cardigans in my closet. I don’t think that long sleeves on Manu would work pushed up, so it made sense to work them a shorter length.

I’ve also been working my way through the back of Eadon, which is entirely ribbing. I really hope that my gauge works out on this one. I think that I could have been more accurate if the stockinette gauge had also been provided, as I wasn’t sure how my gauge in ribbing should be sitting: should it be completely relaxed, or should it be pulled open a bit? In the end, I just went with what looked pleasing to me, and I’ll block out the difference if necessary.

This is the first time I’ve used a full out pattern with Goodreader on my iPad, and I’m really enjoying it. I love that I can fully annotate and color code the pattern and can zoom in on whatever part I’m working on at the time. My iPad is also attached to my hip most days, so I never have to go hunting for the pattern.

Since I began Eadon in November, it’s my NaKniSweMo sweater. I haven’t been very active in the Ravelry group yet, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to poke my head in.

Lots of mindless knitting right now, which is exactly what my brain needs. I’ve hardly had a spare moment to myself this past week, so when I do have a chance to knit, I don’t want to have to think too hard about it. The lace can wait until the semester break!

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November 6, 2011

In Case You Wanted to Sew Yourself a Raincoat…

First, please read my mother’s advice to Katie:

Dear Ms. Berg,
It has been brought to my attention by a fairly reliable source that you are obsessed with the notion of sewing your own rain coat.  Under normal circumstances, I am highly supportive of the youth of today when they endeavor to take on new challenges – especially in the sewing realm.  As a life-long sewing enthusiast myself, I can certainly understand the value of seeking to expand one’s own sewing horizons as a part of an enriching and fulfilling life.  At the same time, my sewing expertise and experience as an educator tempers my judgement towards this particular project, and I feel compelled to offer you some advice…
…DON’T DO IT!…it’s only going to bring you heartache…and you’re gonna want to just throw the fabric away after a very short time…but you won’t be able to do that because it will have cost you SO much money to buy it in the first place…cuz you know you’re gonna have to order it online because you live in the land of no real fabric stores…and yeah, they might have some yellow raincoat fabric at WalMart but do you really wanna buy it there?…I’m pretty sure you don’t…it’s an OK place to buy your Easy Mac and tampons for cheap, but not so much for fabric……and then you’ll realize that it’s REALLY hard to pin pattern pieces down to raincoat fabric because it gets all full of holes and stuff…and then you’ll be SO frustrated by the time you get the thing cut out that you’ll want to just barf…and nobody really likes to barf…but you’ll make yourself keep going anyway, cuz you’re a little crazy like that…and you’ll realize that you need to have a special needle to sew on that God-forsaken fabric…and of course you haven’t got one so you’ll have to drive to WalMart again for like the millionth time…but they won’t have one, of course, and you’ll have to go on-line and order it and the shipping will probably cost more than the flippin’ needle does…but you’ll keep imagining that this will be the most awesome raincoat ever…but it’s not going to be…not even close…not by a long shot…none of the seams will be flat…they’ll be all puckered up…and there won’t be a darn thing you can do about it cuz it’s a rain coat and you can’t iron the seams…at all… or they’ll melt…and that would end up looking even worse than this train-wreck of a project already does…and then you’d have to buy a new iron, too…if I were you I’d just flush the money I was going to spend on this project down the toilet and save myself a whole lot of time and frustration…or maybe just buy a raincoat instead…cuz I’m pretty sure they sell them in the stores…and they probably even come in yellow…and if you want a longer coat you could probably look in stores that sell clothes to tall people…the salespeople might look at you funny when you come into their store (cuz you’re not really very tall)…but you could scream something like “short people need tall yellow raincoats, too” at those salespeople…then they’d figure out that you’re not just un-tall, you’re a little crazy, too…and they’d work real hard to find you a tall yellow raincoat in a big hurry so you’d get the hell out of their store…and then you’d have your yellow raincoat…and life would be good!
That’s just my opinion of course…if you decide to make your own, I wish you the very best of luck!
Sincerely,
Cheryl’s Mom    

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November 3, 2011

Yellow Raincoat Girl

A few years back, Katie was convinced that she should make herself a yellow raincoat and asked my mom for advice on finding materials and construction. My mother, practical seamstress that she is, wrote back with a very thorough description of exactly why she should not make a raincoat and should go out and buy one instead. Perhaps one of them can post the original email in the comments–I can’t seem to find my copy, but it was hilarious.

Katie was wise enough to listen to my mom, and she never did attempt that yellow raincoat. So when I saw this embroidery design on Feeling Stitchy, I knew that I needed to stitch it up for her.

I put this yellow raincoat girl onto a small khaki tote bag. After all, if there’s one thing that knitters/readers can’t have too many of, it’s tote bags! Katie may not be able to have her yellow raincoat, but she can have this little design to remind her of her ideal raincoat, even when there’s not a cloud in the sky.

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November 2, 2011

Covet Wednesdays: Socktopus

Dudes…my name is in a book!

Not for anything particularly substantial, but it’s still pretty exciting. Go pick up a copy of Socktopus: 17 Pairs of Socks to Knit and Show Off by Alice Yu and turn to page 157. My name is there!

Oh, and while you have the book in hand, you may as well take a look at it. It starts out with a nice overview of sock knitting and then goes into some gorgeous patterns. Of course, I’ve already knit Rumpled, but I’d also like to knit V Junkie, Vorticity, Crowley, and Hundred Acre Wood.

While many of these patterns are rather complex, I think that the extreme clarity with which the charts are presented makes them much more approachable for those who are ready to move on from a plain stockinette sock.

Congratulations to Alice on her book’s launch–I’m happy to have been a part of it.

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