Knitting Drama

Every year for the girl's birthday, I knit them a sweater. This year, Molly helped me with the decision process and even picked out the yarn for her sweater. I cast on later and knit furiously along. I didn't finish the sweater in time for her birthday and now three months later, it is still not done. I ran into a big snag.

The dress looks adorable on Molly, just adorable. I know that blocking will make the length perfect. The sleeves feel a wee bit short but again, I think that will be ok.

So what is the snag? Why haven't I finished this sweater dress which is about 95% done?

It's the shoulders! They are too short and look weird! Normally I'd just knit some more but the shoulder construction requires a bit of thinking and honestly, I just haven't had the brain power to figure out the shoulders and stripe combination. 

Am I being picky? Should I just sew on the buttons, block the crap out of this and weave in the ends? If I wait much longer, this isn't going to fit Molly anymore. Is this a project that I just need to say GOOD ENOUGH and move on? What would you do? 

Following My Arrow

I'm participating in a mystery shawl knitalong from Ysolda even though my knitting time is severely limited but I am having so much fun with it! I'm using a new to me yarn from Old Maiden Aunt which is turning out beautifully but is also bleeding all over my hands a bit. 

I also decided (possibly in the mist of sleep deprivation) to make two shawls. I had purchased two different colors of yarn for this shawl and couldn't decide which one to use for the knitalong. I decided to use both! I've been doing different clues (which is the true beauty of this knitalong) for each of the shawls. 

The forum over on Ravelry is so active and I love seeing what other people are creating with their clue choices. The other exciting part of this knitalong for me is that Ysolda releases each pattern's clue on Monday at midnight (my time) and I'm usually up feeding Maggie. I download the pattern and read over the clues while taking care of Maggie. Then I ponder which clue I'm going to do. If I'm impatient, at the second wake-up of the night, I check out the spoiler thread to see what people have started knitting up (and there are a lot of photos just a few hours after the clue is released) to help me make my final decision. The clue release gives me a bit of excitement and helps keep me awake through the middle of the night feedings. 

There are three more clues and I can't wait to see where they take this design. I'm also excited to have two new shawls in less than a month. 

Wool Leaves Baby Blanket

I've had this blanket on the needles for a long, long time. I'm not sure who I started making it for or even when I cast on. As I was digging through my projects, I decided to tackle this project. I started by ripping everything out and starting over. 



I never made a blanket for Molly due to the crippling carpal tunnel I had when I was pregnant with her and I've always felt bad about that. I decided that Chicken Nugget would have a blanket though and this one would belong to her! 



Since I have babies in the dead of winter, I need to keep them warm and this blanket is just the thing! It's knit on HUGE needles with doubled yarn and is quite cozy. It was also a quick knit. So quick that when I showed Scott the finished project, he said, "When did you knit that?" I told him while we were watching television over the past week or so. 

Wool Leaves Baby Blanket Details

Ravelry Link
Pattern by Jared Flood
Needles: Size 13
Yarn: Cascade Yarn Ecological Wool in 8020 (Grey-Brown) - almost 2 full skeins

I'm Smitten with my Smitten Holiday Advent Calendar!

I did it! I finished my Smitten Holiday Advent Calendar! I have to say once I got on a roll with the mittens, they actually went really fast. The problem for me was keeping my attention focused enough to make all 24 mittens. 

I ended up making four mittens in six color variations: white, red, green, white/red stripe, red/green stripe and white/green stripe. I really like how they all look together! 

So now I've crossed another goal off my 8 in 2013 goals:

• 2 cross stitch patterns (Woodland Sampler and Wee Little Stitches Star Wars people) Need to catch up on the Woodland Sampler. The final pattern comes out in two weeks!
• 2 quilts (One for Molly and finish up my Pinwheel Quilt) Need to start this goal!
• 2 knitted projects (a Year in Temperatures scarf  and my Smitten Advent Calendar) I'm done with the Smitten Advent Calendar and only a few weeks behind on the scarf. 
• 2 photography challenges (Fat Mum Slim's January Challenge and Documenting Chicken Nugget in Utero) These are either done or fully in progress!

A Sweater for The Nugget

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the knitting I was working on for Chicken Nugget. I've finished the first of many knitted garments and I have two more in the final stages of completion (I just need to do some seaming). I'm in love with this wee little sweater, the Newborn Vertebrae sweater. It's darling and wee and super easy!

I would highly recommend this pattern as a baby gift. It took about half a skein of sock yarn and I know it will be worn often in the first few weeks of Chicken Nugget's life. This sweater is part of her coming home outfit so the open front is especially important since I want to show off her very special onesie.

Now if only I could get myself to sit down with a needle and finish seaming up her coming home pants! They are super sweet and super cute but not yet finished. Once those are done, I need to finish her two other sweaters and maybe start a few more!

Fall Craftaholic!

There is something about Fall that turns me into an avid craftaholic! I mean, I do like to craft a lot the rest of the year but when the weather turns colder and the leaves begin to fall, I can feel the obsession building in me.

I recently started TWO more cross-stitch samplers - The Halloween Spooky Sampler and the Autumn Sampler both from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. They are so cute!

 

I'm still working on my Woodland Sampler. I'm almost done with June. Must stitch faster!

Last night I also cast on for a few more knitted items for Chicken Nugget. I'm making her some baby pants to wear home from the hospital along with a Newborn Vertebrae sweater. She already has some baby booties and just needs a hat to complete her Going Home outfit. Additionally I have two other sweaters on the needles for the nugget - a February Baby Sweater and a Baby Poonam Sweater.

What are you crafting now that Fall is here? Have you obsessively started too many projects like me or are you restraining yourself?

TKGA Master Knitting 1 Check-In

Swatching, Swatching, Swatching! That's my new chant. I feel like I'm swatching all the time. 

I've completed 4 of the 16 swatches so far. I am not 100% that any of these are finalists but I decided to move on and start working on the remainder of the swatches before circling back to see if I need to redo any of my work. If I don't keep plowing ahead, I have a strong feeling I'd get in a cycle of analysis paralysis and I'd never make any progress!

Swatch #1 

The directions for this swatch are to knit a swatch with K2P2 ribbing for a few inches and then complete in Garter Stitch. I've done this one a few times because I had some issues figuring out how much Cascade 220 grew when blocked. I think I have it figured out now as this swatch is now the correct size. 

Swatch #2

This swatch's directions call for a K1P1 ribbing  for a few inches and then finish in stockinette stitch. I did this swatch first because it was easier to figure out how my yarn reacted to blocking. Again, I did a few of these before finally saying this swatch was fine. I tried a few different blocking methods on the other swatches before settling on my current method. 

Swatch #3

This has to be my least swatch! This swatch is done in seed stitch which sounds easy until you realize how hard it is to get the stitches just right. I have a strong feeling that I'll be doing this one again. I feel like there are holes. I might be imagining things or not. Either way, I'll review this one later. 

Swatch #14

This swatch has to be done in the same yarn as swatches 1, 2, and 3 so I decided to tackle it before the other ones. This is a horseshoe cable and I loved knitting it. I only knitted it twice and I really like it. 

Whew! I still have 12 more swatches to attack and I hope they aren't as hard as these have been. I know most of my questions regarding yarn have been answered so I'm feeling a wee more confident. I also need to get down my thoughts for the blocking report and answer a few questions. 

Insanity (more so than normal) and the TKGA Master Hand Knitting Level 1 Program

Way, way, way back in 2007, I signed up for the TKGA Master Hand Knitting Level 1 program. I quickly dove in and swatched, swatched, swatched between gathering all the information I could on knitting. Somehow along the way, I got side-tracked. I want to blame it on meeting Scott but really my attention span can be fickle and this is an intense program.

In July, I got a renewed feeling to get back to this project. I found my old binder and I contacted TKGA for new instructions. Of course, letting something like this marinate for so long means that I pretty much have to start from scratch. The one really good thing is that I have copious notes and swatches from my last round. 

I've been busy swatching again while gathering information on knitting. I don't have the same time to devote to knitting that I used to and I still have that fickle attention span. I also want to knit all the things for Chicken Nugget so I'm just going to see where this new obsession goes. I have a year to finish up the project with the current instructions so it might happen (or it might not) but for now, I know I'm having fun knitting swatches and thinking hard about knitting. 

You can follow my progress (or lack there of) on Ravelry on my project page

Knitted Pumpkin Hats for Wee Ones

My hairdresser is due to have her second child on Halloween and I thought it was only fitting to make her kiddos some pumpkin hats! I couldn't find a pattern that had the exact look I was going for so I created up my own. 

I used Spud and Chloe Organic Cotton in Sweater for the hats since she won't have time for fussy hand washing with two little ones running around. 

Here is what I did to make the newborn hat:

Gauge: 5 sts/inch

Needles: size 7

Yarn: 1/2 skein of Spud and Chloe Organic Cotton in Orange and a small amount of Spud and Chloe Organic Cotton in Green

Cast on 64 stitches with your main color (orange) and join in the round. Knit 9 rows of stockinette. On the 10th row, knit into the back of each stitch (this keeps the brim from rolling too far). Continue in stockinette until your hat measures 4.5"

You will now add in the contrasting yarn (green).  Follow the chart for rounds 1-5. 

Start decreasing on round 6. 

*K2tog, K6*, repeat around

*K2tog, K5*, repeat around

*K2tog, K4*, repeat around

*K2tog, K3*, repeat around

*K2tog, K2*, repeat around

*K2tog, K1*, repeat around

*K2tog*, repeat around

You will have 9 stitches left. Knit an i-cord for approximately an 1 and a half to form the pumpkin stem. Bind off and secure yarn ends. Take your kids to the pumpkin patch and take lots of photos of them! 

Now I need to go and make a hat for Molly Pop!

8 in 2013 - Smitten Holiday Advent Garland Mittens

I've been diligently working along on my Smitten Holiday Advent Garland Mittens and I am almost halfway done. I have 11 completed mittens and one on the needles. I am. however, questioning my original plan for the color combinations.



Originally I planned to knit four mittens in each of the following color combinations -Red, Green, White, Red/White Stripe, Green/White Stripe, Red/Green Stripe to end up with 24 mittens. But now I'm wondering if I should knit six in Red, Green, White and two each in Red/White Stripe, Green/White Stripe, Red/Green Stripe.



I posed this question to a knitting friend who gave me even more ideas! She suggested six of each stripe combination and four of each of the solids. Then in true creative fashion, her husband told me to mock-up the design which only led me to more ideas.



In the end, I've decided to pose the question to my readers in a simple blog poll. Please vote and let your friends know! I need to make a decision and I need your help.

   

Riiiiiiiiiipppppppp.....

My local yarn store recently had their yearly yarn sale and so I decided to pick up yarn for Molly's 2 year sweater. Molly even selected the color, purple. Once I got the yarn, I decided that I should just knit the sweater now so that I wasn't rushing when her birthday neared. I started the sweater on our ride up to Vancouver.

I carefully swatched, nailed the gauge and measured Molly's chest (21"). With all the details on my side, I cast on for the 2 year old size which should come out at 25" so perfect! room to grow! I knit on the sweater for most of the trip. I got all the way to the shoulders! I felt victorious! Only the sleeves and hood to go! This was going very well!

I decided to try the sweater on Molly. And that is when the sad trombone sang its song. The sweater was already tight on Molly's shoulders. I checked my gauge again and I was spot on. I checked Molly's measurements again, yep, still 21" chest. I look at the directions. Hmmmmm.....so I decided to rip. I'm going to make the 4 year old size and hopefully it won't be huge. But if it is, that means there will be room to grow!  Now of course I  need to go and buy more yarn.

Vogue Knitting Live

A few friends and I headed out to Bellevue this past weekend to check out Vogue Knitting Live. It was a ton of fun and there was so much to see! I'm going to let my photos speak for the experience as I can only say it was fun and I got out with only buying two skeins of yarn.