Sunday Late Night

I'm sitting here in my pajamas (which, yes, is exactly what I was wearing when I got out of bed this morning) and wanted to get a quick post in to make me feel like my day hasn't been a total waste. Not that watching four hours of RuPaul's Drag Race and all 17 hours of the Emmy coverage is a waste or anything, but I did actually knit a baby hat, learn a new knitting trick, and learn how to use my new camera. So pajamas or not, that's something, right?

Baby O.C.C., the recipient of this sweater, is going to arrive any day now and I wanted to make him a little hat to wear home from the hospital. I used the same yarn as the sweater and whipped up this little number...



It's pretty much based on the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch & Bitch, but I used DK weight yarn instead of worsted so I casted on 80 stitches. Also, I inserted an extra knit row between each decrease row in the crown because I like hats when they lay more flat on the top. Oh, and I also added stripes. I used TechKnitter's Jogless Stripe tutorial to make traveling stripes, which worked shockingly well I thought.



So the new Canon Powershot Elph camera seems like its pretty great. These pictures are taken in my dining room at 11 at night, with miserable lighting, and I still got pretty good sharpness and colors. I'm excited to see how it does in better conditions.

In totally unrelated-to-knitting news, I can't resist sharing one of my favorite pictures of the weekend. On Friday night we went to the Reds game and Logan cheered his little heart out, but nine innings was just too much for him...



Being an aunt is kinda awesome.

I'm 32, so I'm at a time in my life where everyone I know is having a baby. A friend in Philly is having a baby boy next month, so I'm sending this little sweater off tomorrow. I really, really love how it turned out!



Pattern: The Yarn Harlot's Baby Yours (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Debblie Bliss Baby Cashmerino- 2 skeins
Yarn Source: Ewe & I
Buttons: Etched shell buttons from Joann



Ewe & I, where I got the yarn for this, is just down the street from my friend Juliana, whose baby will wear this sweater. When I was visiting her there, Ewe & I was having this awesome sale where you could pop a balloon and whatever percent off it said on the paper inside is the sale you get. I got lucky and got 30% off 7 skeins of baby cashmerino!



I love the pattern, love the little buttons, and of course the cashmerino is awesome. I already have a request to make another one of these!



Part of the reason blog posts have been so scarce lately is my broken camera. I can take pictures, but I can't see what I'm doing on the LCD screen. Luckily, this will be the last post with mystery pictures because I just ordered this new camera from ebay (where it was the same price as Amazon but with free shipping and a memory card, case, and lens cleaner included). I have been swatching for my Opulent Raglan, so stay tuned!

Toronto knitting

I was in Toronto a few weeks ago for a conference and it turned out to be an excellent knitting vacation. I bought a Knit Kit at the famous Lettuce Knit and then hung out at Kensington Market for the rest of the day. I also made it out to the Beaches, where I got my hair cut on a whim and visited The Naked Sheep, which was having a 25% off-every-yarn-in-the-store sale. I got 5 gorgeous skeins of Elsebeth Silky Wool in a pretty purple to knit the Opulent Raglan. Finally! I have been looking for the perfect yarn to make that sweater forever. I passed The Purple Purl while riding the streetcar back to my hotel and hopped off to check it out. I'm so glad I did because I think it was my favorite Toronto yarn store of all. They had some SWTC Yin at 40% off, so I bought some blue and brown to make a sweater for a baby boy who will be arriving in about a month.

I decided to make a simple little sweater with the baby's initials on the front. I gave it to the parents at their baby shower last Saturday and they seemed to really like it.



Pattern: Modified version of Striped Sweater from Debbie Bliss Simply Baby
Size: 3 month size
Yarn: SWTC Yin (2 skeins Blue, 1 skein Brown)
Needles: Size 6 for body, size 4 for borders
Buttons: tiny wood ones from Joann



I had planned to use intarsia to do the letters, but it just didn't work out so I used duplicate stitch instead. The entire time I was duplicate stitching, I found myself chanting "You down with O.C.C.? Yeah you know me!"

I have another October baby to knit for, but I know just what I'm going to do. I bought some Cashmerino when I was in Philly back in June that is destined to be A Cardigan for Merry. After that, I can move on to my Opulent Raglan.

Let's be honest.

They don't all work out the way we'd like them to, do they? I hesitated to post this project because it showcases my flaws (in both my knitting and my personality) in such a spectacular way, but I figured why not be realistic. I am almost always impatient and sometimes a little lazy, and those traits have repercussions.



Pattern: Sexy Vesty (Rav link)
Yarn: Jo-Ann Dreamweave, a wool/silk blend I got on sale
Needles: 8's for the body, 7 for the armhole and neck ribbing

CanaryKnits made up this little recipe for a lacy vest and she is very clear that it is not a pattern, but more a general set of guidelines, so the pattern is not to blame for what went wrong. What went wrong is all due to me, and my problems were 5-fold:

1. As I was knitting, it seemed way too small. CanaryKnits was clear that the vest was made for a person with a 35" bust, and my bust is definitely bigger than that. I justified my decision to keep knitting because on Ravelry, someone commented that this yarn "blooms like no yarn I've seen before". So I just figured it would get bigger with blocking. Did I swatch and test this theory? Nope. I just yellled at Daisy on Daisy of Love for having such terrible taste in men and such an unscrupulous plastic surgeon.



2. Ouch. Look at those terrible seams. The thing is that despite my best efforts, I didn't make the front and back the same length at the armholes. I had a feeling I had messed this up, but I somehow ignored this feeling and kept knitting.



3. Look at those tiny armholes! The guidelines said to knit for 2 inches before binding off the top, but that just isn't enough for my arms. I tried on the vest after seaming up the shoulders and the armholes were very clearly too tight, but I somehow convinced myself that adding on the armhole ribbing would fix this. Seriously? How does that even make sense AT ALL??

4. You can't see it that well in these pictures, but the decreases at the front center are wonky as well. Somehow I picked up stitches so that the wrong side was facing me, which meant I had to use P2tog and SSPthroughbackloop to decrease. It looks ridiculous from the right side.



5. Not only is it too tight, it's also way too short. Again, my delusions about blocking led me to ignore the obvious and keep knitting.

So that's it, friends- a real UGH! to add to my Ravelry page. The sad part is that I'm so done with this project that I don't even think I'll frog it for the yarn. The yarn is soft and has a nice halo, but I hate it now because it is associated with nothing but self-contempt.

On to the next, though, right? I'm going to Toronto tomorrow and have big plans to visit all the yarn shops in the area. One of them, the Naked Sheep, is apparently having a huge sale with 25% off every yarn in the store. Can you believe my luck?

If anyone has any ideas of things to do in Toronto this weekend, I would very much appreciate it!

Textured Circle Shrug

I've been working on this shrug for months- I got hung up on the step where you have to pick up almost 300 stitches. I finally got back in the game when the Lion Brand blog had a knit-a-long that Stefanie Japel herself led, which inspired me to pick this up again and get going.



I have been wearing this around for about a week and just loving it, so I was really hoping to get some great pictures to show off its awesomeness. Unfortunately, our camera is on the fritz so these are going to have to do.



Pattern: Textured Circle Shrug from Stefanie Japel's Glam Knits
Size: 36-38 bust size (second-to-smallest)
Yarn: 6 skeins of Bernat Soy Natural Blends in Oatmeal



Peacock Chic, a blogger I love, always describes her projects in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am going to steal that idea to describe this.

The good:
- My friend Kris, who is fantastic in every way, brought me Glam Knits when he came to visit a few months ago. It somehow made it more fun to knit this, because it made me think of him.
- I really like how functional this piece is. I think it's going to be great for the fall; I can see myself wearing it at work all the time.
-I got this yarn on major clearance at Michael's a few years ago so I believe this shrug cost about $12. It's 50% acrylic, but the soy makes it soft and I actually kind of liked it. I decided to use it for this project because it has a nice drape and I wanted the shrug to be drapier and silkier than the one in the book. I think it worked!

The bad:
-The miles and miles of 1X1 ribbing- it was cool at first because I needed some mindless knitting in my life, but after something like 70 rounds of k1p1, with around 300 stitches per row, I was SO ready to have this finished.
-I really don't like the holes that are made by the M1P increases. I would absolutely do these differently next time.

The ugly:
-I am kind of famous for my problems understanding spatial dynamics, so it is no surprise that I wasn't thinking about how the shrug would lie on my body and ended up weaving in all the ends on the collar incorrectly. There were tons of knots in the yarn and therefore tons of ends to weave in, so when I got finished and put the thing on there were 7 different places where you could totally see the messy ends sticking out. I had to take them all out and re-weave them in on the other side of the fabric.
-These pictures are kind of ugly, too, but I went ahead and included them to show how it fits. Please ignore the strange lumps under my tank top and the weirdo look on my face.



All in all, a great project that I'm happy to have finished. I just started Sexy Vesty today and guess what? I am thick in the middle of more 1X1 ribbing!

Monster!

A little late birthday present for my nephew, who turned 1 a couple of weeks ago. One! I can hardly believe it.



Pattern: Little Monster Bear (Rav link)
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted, left over from a Bengals hat I made years ago
Needles: Size 10 1/2 DPNs
Embroidery: Wonky, as usual

It took me one night to knit up all the pieces and another to sew everything together. I had to run it through the washer 3 times and I still don't feel like he felted as much as I would have liked.



As you might suspect from my two month absence from the blog, I've been in a bit of knitting slump lately. I knit this little guy in the attempt to get some mojo back, and I think it worked. I'm knitting the Textured Shrug from Glam knits and now that I've picked up all two hundred stitches, I think I'm on track. Nothing but gloriously monotonous 1X1 rib for days and days...

Baby Hoodie

My oldest friend in the world, who I just realized I've known 25 years now, had her first baby yesterday. I haven't even seen pictures of the little guy yet, but I've been thinking about him a lot over the past couple of weeks. As I knit this sweater, I got more and more excited to meet Michel's baby. I love this kind of knitting- where every stitch just makes you happier and happier.



The pattern is the Super Easy Baby Cardigan. I picked up stitches for the button band instead of just knitting garter stitch on the edges. Instead of knitting into the front and back of every stitch for the raglan, I did matching M1 increases. I also used a provisional cast on at the very beginning so I could use the 3 needle bind off for the hood. I'm glad- it was super easy and I think it looks more polished (because as always, my seaming is eh.)



The yarn is Cotton-Ease- one skein of Stone covered everything but the second sleeve (I had to go buy another skein for that darn thing). I used a bit of a skein of Charcoal for the borders. Buttons are simple wood ones from Joann (50% off- woot!).