really big yarn!

One of the most exciting things about being home (okay, after the family and the friends and the food and the ability to understand people) is the ability to actually visit local yarn shops! I also feel kind of guilty dragging people along with me, though, so when my sister held up a skein of Malabrigo Rasta and asked if I could make her a scarf, I of course said yes. I'd never seen Rasta in person before - the downside of doing most of my shopping for yarn in tri-annual online shopping binges is that I almost never pick up anything I'm not already looking for, and I almost never use bulky yarn. Rasta could make me a convert to both super bulky and crazy variegated yarn, though - the colors look like a watercolor in the skein, and almost luminous in seed stitch - so, so gorgeous.

The store only had one skein of the color my sister liked (indiecitas), so I opted instead to make a cowl. I'm about half an hour into the Marian Cowl by Jane Richmond (link forthcoming), and am both loving and vaguely unsettled by knitting with insanely chunky 15 needles. It's kind of like knitting with toy knitting needles, or something, but I'm certainly not complaining, especially since I'm almost halfway through already.

red

Thisbe test knits are underway - several testers are already done, and it's a crazy rush for me to be able to see my hat knit up by other people. This week has been insanely busy with travel planning, end of the month reports, new classes and - very excitingly - a very brief visit from my father, so, no proper post today, sadly...

non-gift hat

This is the prototype of a new hat pattern I am in the process of writing - it was supposed to be a hat for my sister, but it's a bit large - not a problem for me, as I like slouchy hats and can easily sew in some elastic if it gets too stretched out - but I'm not totally sure of her head-size, and so I actually made her a different one that was a tiny bit smaller in a different color, which is blocking right now. Better photos to follow soon, hopefully; if all goes well, I should be able to put it up for test knitting soon, where I'm hoping I'll find at least 2 takers given the insanely busy time of year.

necessity mittens

These were all set to be a regular pair of Arden handwarmers, but while knitting them, I noticed my fingers were uncomfortably freezing and so made a snap decision to make them into mittens instead.  Numazu is bitingly cold in the mornings and evenings, and the lack of insulation in our apartment makes the cold that much more pervasive. 

I tried to take good notes on how I worked the decreases on the top - even mentally congratulating myself on being so thorough, as I often have this problem with mittens - but  it was several days before I made it to Mitten #2, and I quickly realized that my scribbled notes meant next to nothing at times. Oh, well.  Still, the mittens at least look roughly the same - it's just for me, anyway, so I'm not too fussed. 

The primary changes I made for this pair of mittens was knitting at a tighter gauge using size 6 needles. Then I started the thumb increase at Row 50; and then continued the cable pattern to Row 94, where I began decreasing, binding off after Row 100. The thumbs were worked for 10 rows of purl stitches, and then decreased in two rows. I might write up the decreases in more detail eventually, but I think it will require much deciphering of my poor, confused notes. In the meantime, I'm just happy to have something to wear while I ride my bike through the wind and the cold!

Also, random important life lesson: I cannot pose for mitten photos to save my life.

swatch!

I've been randomly busy with a lot of things lately, the most of exciting of which is definitely the Design Your Own Shawl class I'm taking from Stefanie Japel.* The material is self-paced, which is really great for my randomly insanely-busy one day, quiet the next schedule, and while I've been too busy to get as far as I would have liked though the videos and the readings, I still feel like I'm learning a lot. Above is a shot from a proto-swatch - not sure if this will be the stitch pattern I eventually use for the shawl, or not, but it was without a doubt the biggest swatch I've ever knit. I do, grudgingly, knit swatches for other projects, but I rarely make them as big as I'm supposed to - so I appreciate that the class is allowing me to move more slowly, rather than run off too fast, as I am often otherwise prone to doing :-) 

* Which makes me feel a bit star struck, if I'm honest; hers was one of the first knitting blogs I ever read, and I backpacked all over the UK two years ago with a copy of her v-neck sweater pattern in my oversized backpack. I didn't knit it, because the yarn got tangled up in the zipper of the backpack, but I will someday, I swear. 

arden in hat form!

The matching hat for the Arden hand-warmers is up on Ravelry! 

This hat uses the same cable motif and is shaped at the top by decreasing the pattern into a 1x1 rib. The smaller cables can be worked without a cable needle, which makes this hat knit up quickly.

Arden Hat is available in two sizes, a smaller size to fit an approximately 20” head, and a larger size to fit an approximately 23” head. In-between sizes can be easily accommodated by switching to smaller or larger needles to get a tighter or looser gauge.

Materials:

• 210 yards worsted weight yarn. (Large sized hat pictured used one skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Tortuga)
• Stitch marker, cable needle, tapestry needle.
• Size US 7 circular needle and DPNs or size needed to achieve gauge. 

This pattern has been test knit in all sizes - thank you again to my awesome test knitters!

download now! 

hat soon!

The last test knitter completed their test of the hat pattern I wrote to match the Arden Handwarmers, so hopefully I should be able to put it up for free download soon. There's been some discrepancies in the fit of the smaller size that are worrying me a bit, though, so I want to have a better sense of what's going on before I release it into the wild. Above is me trying on the size large I made for Iain; it's got a bit more positive ease than I'd prefer, but as our heads aren't actually that far apart in size, I can still wear it comfortably and worry about it not falling off.

The sweater in these photos is Francis Revisited, which is an absolutely gorgeous pattern that I hope to knit again. I was on a huge madelinetosh kick this summer, and so knit this very loosely in tosh dk (duchess); now that it's finally cold, I find myself wearing it all the time. I love how it looks, though the tosh dk is starting to loose its sheen a bit now that it's been washed. Also, the ends keep getting unwoven - does this happen to everyone, or am I just bad at sewing in ends? At any rate, I would like to knit this in something softer and fuzzier, though - with the ridiculous amount of yarn piling up and our time in Numazu dwindling - purchasing something softer and fuzzier may have to wait. 

So anyway, here is Iain modeling all his new knitted goods. Despite the fact that he's pulled the hat down over his eyes, I swear the hat fits him!