Hi there!

I have lost my knitting mojo. After nearly two years of non stop knitting, I set my needles down in August and have only completed two projects since then: a micro-preemie hat (for a baby who is now doing very well - yay!!!), and a hat for a friend from church.

I anybody happens to see my inspiration laying around anywhere, feel free to pick it up and toss it back at me!

:-D

Running on the hamster wheel....

Pattern for the Nisse Hat will be here soon - life has been a series of busy days over the past few weeks!

Spent a weekend camping with my younger daughter's Brownie troop, followed by another week at the lake cabin.

Had out of town family visiting for a week - two nephews and a niece stayed at grandma's house nearby, but we spent our days together at the Science Museum, Adventure Peak, the Zoo, as well as watching the first three episodes of the Star Wars trilogy and just generally playing and having fun. Phew!

Jumped back into the fray of committee meetings and other church commitments this week - summer hiatus goes by too quickly!

There has been knitting, however. No pics yet, but I've just finished (my third) Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono from Mason Dixon Knitting and also threw together a cabled hat design to teach my sister some new techniques. (Literally sketched it out on the back of a business card while driving to a reunion/picnic - cast on and knit the first couple of inches for her & then sent her off on her own to give it a go. We're reconvening this Wednesday to discuss decreases.....)

I keep casting on and unraveling the Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket. I think I finally just read the "golden tip" I've been hunting for that will help me lengthen the sleeves - I'm going to try once more before retiring this project permanently.

More substance, fewer excuses coming soon!

Roll Brim Hat "Recipe", by request

I've had a few requests for the "pattern" for a basic roll brim hat. In fact, I don't use a pattern for this. In reality, it's just a basic tube, knit in the round, either bound off straight across or easily decreased for a rounded top. I saw instructions for a preemie hat many years ago on a knitting website and realized that it could be sized up very easily - baby, child, adult.

I have made close to 200 hats using this formula over the past nine years - even the hat I use in my avatar follows this same formula (knit very large in a roving-type yarn & felted down to toddler size).

Here is an (edited version of a) post I made at the Ravelry website a while ago regarding the basic roll brim hat:

I think of a basic rolled brim hat as more of a “formula” than a pattern. Here’s a quick overview….

You will need a 16" circular needle (I prefer the Addi Turbo brand) and a set of double point needles. For worsted yarns I typically use a size 7 or 8 for this pattern.

Cast on a number of stitches that is divisible by 8 - for worsted yarns I used the following number of stitches:

Preemie: 48
Newborn - 3 months: 56
3 - 12 months: 64
Toddler/small child: 72

For adult sizes about 80 stitches is a good place to start.

So, cast on, join, and knit straight up in stockinette. Again, length depends on size:

Preemie: 3-3 1/2 inches
Newborn: 4 1/2 inches
3-12 months: 5 1/2 inches
Toddler/child: 6 1/2 inches
etc.

Begin your decreases. If you cast on with a multiple of 8 stitches, you can just knit 6, knit 2tog all the way around. Alternate each decrease round with a round of plain knitting - this gives the top of the hat a nice shaping. You will need to switch to the double point needles after a few rounds of decreases. When there are too few stitches to slide easily around the needle, it's time to switch to dpn's! When you do switch to dpn's, try to do it at the beginning of a round & divide your stitches as evenly as you can between needles.

When you get down to the last 8 stitches on your needles, cut yourself a tail of 4-6 inches, thread it onto a tapestry needle, and pull it through those last 8 stitches. Pull it firmly closed, pull the yarn through to the inside, and weave in your ends.

Bing, bang, boom, done.

You can embellish this kind of hat in a zillion different ways. Weave a ribbon between a couple of stitches & tie a bow - easy as pie and you are done. Or you can make pom poms, tassels, a row of eyelets for weaving ribbons through, etc. etc. One thing I really like to do is add i-cord at the top for loops, knots, etc. Once you really get the swing of it you can make just about any kind of hat you want.

Here are a few pics of different hats I have made using this recipe:

A very small preemie version, I added stripes and double i-cord knot at the top:

Very basic, with an i-cord at the top doubled over into a circle:

This hat is completely basic, following the recipe in a small child size. The loops at the top were simple crocheted chains (the kind you don't even need a crochet hook to make if you want) doubled back over and attached to the hat:

And this one is simply as easy as it gets. It's just knit without any variations or embellishments. I simply took a 1/4" grosgrain ribbon and threaded it between two stitches & tied it into a bow. That's it!

Homeless Hats

When I tossed the "Speckled Hen" into my basket of FO's, I realized that I was building up quite a pile of hats:

(And a lone bootie....)

Some of these are left over from a charity sale I participated in last year. Some are knit from various patterns I found at Ravelry or in books. And some are my own (very amateurish) designs.

Some have a fun backstory: see that fisherman's wool square hat with the seed stitch brim and pom pom's? That was knit entirely in the movie theater while watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with my kids. :-) That slightly unfinished Marley hat from Itty Bitty Hats in the lower corner? That was knit in the smallest newborn size - I had to give it a wash before finishing it because my neice had spilled on it, and it grew large enough to fit my six year old! It's acrylic - who knew acrylic could grow in the wash?

Anyway, one hat I really like is the red Christmas hat(s) right in the middle of the photo. My sister had asked if I could knit a Christmas-y hat for a friend of hers who was due with a new baby last December. I pulled out some scrap yarn and was very pleased with the final result:

Nisse Hat - Pattern coming soon....

I'll post the pattern next week (although even an extremely new knitter can clearly see this is not really a pattern, per se, as much as it is a simple tube with tassels sewed onto the corners, LOL).

Have a great weekend!

Bawk bawk

Speckled Hen Hat
From: "Itty Bitty Hats" by Susan B. Anderson
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Almond, Snow, and Charcoal
Feathers: from a craft store feather boa
Cast on: 7/11/08
Cast off: 7/11/08

Random Cuteness

The only model I could find for my February sweater:



Well, not quite, but I don't think it's designed to be a bolero:


Glass dragonfly ornament in pink geraniums:


Future knitter:


Toad - pet for an afternoon:

(Released back to nature later that afternoon - no toads were harmed in the making of this post)

.....and, done!

Baby Sweater on Two Needles (aka February Baby Sweater), Gift for Juniper Olivia. Final version - cast on July 1, cast off July 6.


Yarn: Elle Pure Gold DK, Rare Ruby colorway

Mods: None that were done intentionally. I mis-interpreted EZ's "pithy directions" and divided for the sleeves after 4.5 inches of the lace pattern rather than 4.5 inches from the cast on edge. I lengthened the rest of the body to accomodate. It doesn't look perfect, but it is not horrible.....

Overall I'm fairly satisfied with the finished product.



Chunky Log Cabin Baby Blanket (aka Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting), Gift for Abram Eugene. Cast on June 11, cast off June 25.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I'm not a huge fan of the Bernat Softee Chunky yarn (100% acrylic), but it's baby friendly and I already had it in my stash so it was a quick and inexpensive gift. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for a chunky superwash wool or wool-blend yarn that I could use for this project next time!

Now I need to head out to the post office to get them mailed to the new parents!

Gone Fishin'

We spent the past week up at my husband's family lake cabin and it was truly a slice of heaven. A refreshing mix of cool, windy days and hot, humid ones - lots of fishing, reading, swimming, and of course, knitting!

Friends came over for a visit on Thursday and encountered the scene of four knitters working on different projects in the living room: MIL was in the midst of a prayer shawl, my 9-year-old daughter was experimenting with a diamond-shaped blanket for her American Girl doll, I was still committed to my February Baby Sweater, and my 6-year-old son was practicing knitting in the round on size 10 wooden circs and some colorful blue kitchen cotton.

I experimented with my first adult sock:


I have no love for this sock. It has since been frogged and re-started using a different ribbing at the cuff, but will soon be frogged again. I saw a really cute Baby Surprise Jacket that was knit using one skein of this same Colinette Jitterbug yarn, so I think I will give that a try instead.

On the upside, knitting at the cabin does provide for some unusual but pretty backdrops for project photos:


I wish I'd found a place to lay out and photograph my February sweater - I just didn't have the nerve to lay it out on moss after all of the work I've put in already!

Barn Bag (free pattern)

I know, I know....I'm supposed to be knitting baby things this week, right?

However, every time we go out to the stable to visit our horses, I give each of my kids a baggie with carrots and/or peppermints to feed the horses as treats. After returning from the stable today, I thought how nice it would be to have a small knit pouch to tote the horses’ treats around. Something with a handle that could be worn over the wrist/slid up to the elbow, so both hands would be free for petting.

Once I had the idea in my head, I had to give it a shot to see if it would work the way I envisioned it. It did! I now have a lovely small pouch with an i-cord handle for filling with treats for our "babies" when we go for a visit.

Barn Bag Pattern:


Materials needed:

16" size 8 circular needle
Size 8 dpn's
Tapestry needle
One ball of kitchen cotton - I used Lily Sugar & Cream Summer Splash Ombre

Directions:

Cast on 16 stitches. Knit back and forth in garter stitch for 24 rows (12 garter ridges). Turn work clockwise, pick up and knit 12 stitches from the short side (1 stitch from each garter ridge). Turn work clockwise. Pick up and knit 16 stitches along the next side. Turn work clockwise. Pick up and knit the next 12 stitches (again, one stitch from each garter ridge). You should now have 56 stitches on your circular needle.

Knit straight up in the round (stockinette) for four inches, or to desired length. Begin decreases: K6K2tog for one round (you will now have 48 stitches on your needle).

Switching to K2P2 rib, knit six rounds. Next round, decrease one stitch in each purl rib column (K2, P2tog). You may need to switch to dpn's at this point. Knit one more round of K2P1 rib, then bind off loosely following K2P1 rib pattern. Weave in ends.

For handle: Pick up four stitches at the base of one of the rib columns. Begin 4-stitch i-cord and knit to desired length. (Cord pictured on bag is 10"). When you have reached desired length, attach i-cord to bag by picking up four stitches at the base of a rib column on the opposite side of the bag, and using the 3-needle bindoff. Pull loose ends through to inside and weave in.

Fini!

This could be handy little bag for many purposes: toting around sock (or hat) knitting, discreetly toting, ahem, used plastic bags when walking your dog, storing Scrabble tiles during game play (the bag sits up on its own thanks to the garter base - you can just reach right in to grab your pieces).

Have fun knitting! I need to get back to my baby things. :-)

Babies galore!

Remember that song from the musical Carousel "June is Bustin' Out All Over"? Well, theme song for this June could be "Babies are Bustin' Out All Over"!

Two new babies born this week to friends! Both caught me a bit off guard, so I am scrambling to get some quick baby projects finished.

For Baby Juniper - born June 7 (cool birthday - 6/7/08!), an Elizabeth Zimmerman February Sweater (aka Baby Sweater on Two Needles):


I made a quick trip to Needlework Unlimited yesterday to grab some yarn for this sweater. I had a beautiful scarlet or ruby wool/blend in mind, and found what seemed like the perfect yarn after poking through several bins and shelves. However, as I was casting on I realized that there was no way this slippery, splitty yarn was wool. Checked the label & sure enough it the fiber content is listed as "Courtelle". Arrgh! Not so quick & easy to knit lace out of a slippery synthetic. The upside is it can easily be machine washed, so probably better for the new mama. *sigh*

I'm loving the pattern, however. EZ comes through again! The yoke knit up in a flash, and the lace pattern is very easy to memorize. I think I've invested about four hours & I've already made pretty good progress - so far, so good.

For Baby Abram - born June 11 - Moderne Log Cabin Baby Blanket:



I got the email about Baby Abram's birth after I'd already made the trip to the yarn store, so I dug through my stash to see what I could pull together. I had several skeins of Bernat Softee Chunky in neutral colors, so I decided to adapt the Mason Dixon Moderne Baby Blanket to a chunky yarn.

I pretty much just reduced each section by 25%, rounding up or down so that everything stayed in easy to remember proportions. Another quick project - I cast on as dh and I sat down to watch "The Bucket List" and bound off the second section as the movie was ending. Hope to finish before this weekend, so I can give it to the new parents at church on Sunday.

Back to work - I'm on a knitting frenzy......

Emma's Birthday Bag (Free Pattern)

My baby niece, Emma, is growing up! Yesterday was her first birthday, and I really wanted to knit something for her to commemorate the day. (This girl loves the handknits. She loves to go through my pile of baby hats and dishcloths, touching the knitted fabrics and playing with them contentedly. She is also a very accommodating model, as anybody who views my Flickr or Ravelry accounts can attest to.)

Her birthday party is on Sunday, so I had just a day or two to pull something together. I made a quick stop at the big box craft store, saw the Patons Soy Wool Stripes, and knew that a felted bag would be just the ticket. Something small, soft, and colorful that my sister could tuck a couple of board books or little soft toys into for taking to church or out on errands for Emma to keep herself busy.

Lo: Emma's Birthday Bag



Pattern:

Materials needed:

2 balls Patons Soy Wool Stripes in Natural Pink, 1 ball Patons Soy Wool Solids in Natural Snow

Size 10 16" circular needle (Addi Turbo is perfect for this project, as the slippery metal helps keep the knitting nice and loose for felting.)

Tapestry needle, measuring tape

Directions:

Base of bag: Cast on 34 stitches with Natural Pink and work 22 rows in garter stitch (11 garter stitch "ridges"). At the end of the final row of garter stitch, turn the work clockwise and pick up and knit 11 stitches along the "short side". (This is very easy, as you are just picking up one "bump" from each garter stitch ridge.) At the end of this row, turn the work clockwise again and pick up and knit 34 stitches along the cast on row. Repeat for the next short side (11 stitches) and again for the next long side (34 stitches).
Body of bag: You now have a total of 90 stitches on your needle. Simply knit in the round straight up for 14 inches, joining a new ball of wool when needed.
Ruffle: When you have reached desired length, begin the next round by increasing every stitch. I prefer to do this by knitting into the front and back of each stitch - in knitting terms, kfb 90 stitches. (If this bag wasn't being felted, I might have chosen a more invisible increase, like the M1. However, since it is being felted, the appearance of the little bumps that the kfb increase makes won't matter. You can still use whatever increase you prefer, I just find the kfb to be the easiest/fastest.) You will now have 180 stitches on your needle. Knit straight up for approximately an inch or until you run out of your second ball of yarn. At this point, join in and begin knitting with the Natural Snow color. Knit another inch. Bind off loosely.**


**Actually, before you bind off, read the additional step I've posted in the next paragraph. If you HATE purling/ribbing and absolutely do not want to add this next step, continue knitting in the round until your ruffle is 2.5 - 3" (you want it to measure 16" from top of ruffle to middle of garter stitch base) and go ahead and bind off. You will have then (nearly) completed this project completely in the knit stitch - hurrah! What a great finished product for such little effort. If you're up for a little adventure, however, bind off now and continue with the next paragraph.

Now, bear with me - there is another step to the ruffle that may seem silly and unneccessary, but I found that it really adds a nice bit of body to the finished product. After binding off your ruffle at the 2" mark, go around and pick up 180 stitches from the bound off round. When you have picked up all 180 stitches, begin knitting in k1p1 rib for another 3/4 inch. Bind off loosely in rib. Adding this small bit of ribbing firms up the top of the ruffle and really helps the ruffle hold its shape after felting.



Weave in all ends - you are now ready to make the straps.

Straps:

When I was thinking of strap options, my first thought was i-cord. But, I really wanted something that would be more of a flat-ish strap than a cord-ish strap. I had just been reading through Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop and recalled that she mentioned a "MYSTERIOUS i-cord belt" for her "Rorschach Sweater". Love EZ, love her ideas, decided to give it a go. Perfect! Super easy, super fast.

So, strap directions (make two): Cast on seven stitches using Natural Snow, leaving a tail of about 8 inches after you cast on. Knit 4, bring yarn forward, slip next 3 stitches purlwise. Turn, repeat, continue until you have 16 inches of cool flat strap. Bind off, leaving approx. 8 inch tail.

Using the tails at each end of the straps, sew straps to bag. I eyeballed it, aligning each strap about 3" in from the outside edge of the bag. I sewed the ends of each strap in two spots, about an inch apart to give the straps extra support. See photo for a better visual:


Felting:

Bag and straps are now finished! Take a moment to savor your work before you ruthlessly throw it into a hot washing machine:


It should measure 16" from top of ruffle to center of garter stitch base, and 11.5" side-to-side. If it doesn't, it's really not a big deal. The great thing about bags is that they are not highly dependent upon accurate gauge! It is important to remember that felted items shrink more lengthwise than widthwise, however, so keep that in mind if you are modifying the pattern on the fly.



To felt this bag, I simply zipped it into a lingerie bag and put it in the washing machine with a few pillowcases. I set the water level to low, and filled the machine with hot water. The bag was fairly well shrunk and felted after just one cycle, but since the recipient of this bag is a toddler I decided to give it another go-round to shrink it just a bit more. Another half cycle was all it took.

Finished dimensions: 9" from top of ruffle to bottom of bag, 7" side-to-side.


I rolled the bag in plain white towels to absorb most of the moisture, and finger-pinched the ruffle into place (though I must admit that it didn't need much adjusting at all - it came out of the wash looking almost letter perfect!).

All that's left is to finish drying the bag (it's in front of a small fan as I type this) and fill it with the books my kids picked out this afternoon.

Happy Birthday, Emma!

Leap of faith

Last spring I spent a lot of time knitting in the dark. I had a family member who was dying, and I was often called late at night by the nursing staff to come and sit with her when things looked bleak.

I typically brought my knitting so I would have something to keep me occupied during the hours I sat with her in the dark. I would bring small projects I could knit in the round - things that didn't require much light or much concentration. I started experimenting with cables - started with a few hats and then decided to try a small sweater using Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system.

My sister was pregnant with her first child during this same time, but she had not found out the sex of the baby. I wanted to make something gender-neutral, and I had a few skeins of Plymouth Encore in a soft celery color that would be perfect. I thought I'd make a basic sweater with one fat cable running up the center front. So, I cast on and worked on it during my visits.

The problem with working in the dark.....is that you can't really see what you're doing. The sweater flew off my needles, but when I sat down to actually look at my work in the daylight I noticed that I had not been paying proper attention to my cabling!

Something about the random wandering of the cable made me smile - as if it were a wayward toddler that just felt like going it's own way. But when I was honest with myself I knew that I couldn't bear to leave it the way it was. I had a rough idea of what needed to be done - pulling out the mis-cable stitches and re-cabling them - but I had no idea how to do it.

So, I let it lay for nearly a year before I worked up the nerve to figure it out. Life went on - my loved one died in June, just three days before my sister's baby was born. I continued knitting other projects, but all the while the bad cable on this sweater was nagging at the back of my mind.

I finally just googled a bunch of terms "fixing bad cables knitting" "fixing miscrossed cables", etc., until I found just the help I needed: a blogger who had given a step-by-step tutorial on this very subject!

I printed out her instructions and sat down with my scissors, warily eyeing the crazily snaking cable. Was I really going to cut through my knitting?


Yup.

Once the cuts were made and the threads pulled, kitchenering it up was actually the easy part. Not saying it didn't take me another six weeks to actually get up the courage to *try* it, just that once I did try it I was amazed at how quickly and easily I was able to finish it.

(Side note: is it just me, or does kitchener stitch have what could quite possibly be the worst reputation of all knitting techniques?)

The sweater is still not a vision of perfection. I didn't take into account the fact that cables pull inward, so I probably should have cast on another 8 or 12 stitches when I began. The neckline is just mediocre - I was knitting largely in the dark, after all, and just knit a few rows straight up after I completed the decreases. I had been aiming for a simple rolled collar, but the cabling makes it look a little wavy.

Overall, though, I'm happy with it. It reminds me of good things. It makes me think of family, and of being there when I am needed. And it helps me remember that, when it comes to knitting, I can be fearless and try anything. It just takes a leap of faith.

First....

I realized today that when I post a finished project to Ravelry, I put so many comments on the project page that I'm basically blogging each item. So, I thought, why not have a blog where I can keep a running commentary in one easy to find location?

I'm going to wade through my older projects first, adding some of my favorites here, then updating as I go along.

Cheers!