FO: Ruru

 

Pattern: Ruru by Kylie Bates (free on Ravelry)

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in Ponder Dusk

Needles: US #3 (3.25 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharps

Mods: I used a larger needle and you can see what happened - I ran out of yarn at the top of the second mitt! It wasn't an intentional modification since I thought I had grabbed a 2 1/2 size needle and once I realized my mistake I had most of the first mitt done. These are really fun to knit and super fast. Little A will get a lot of wear out of them and she should be able to wear them through the rest of this year (I hope). The owl cable motif is really fun to knit.

This project counts toward my goal to knit more of my sock yarn scraps this year and use patterns that are in my Ravelry library. This yarn is now completely out of my stash!

Music Monday

"When That Helicopter Comes" from the 2000 album, In the Air, by the Handsome Family. I'm fighting yet another cold and felt awfully alt-countryish today.

FO: Excess

Pattern: Excess by Anat Rodan (free on Ravelry)

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

Needles: US #5 Clover 16" circular needles

Mods: This hat calls for a provisional cast and then unzipping the scrap yarn and using a spare circular to knit the cast on edge together with the live stitches. Instead, I just cast on the required number of stitches, knit the proper length for the brim and then picked up a stitch from the cast on and knit it together with a live stitch all the way around. I'm lazy that way. I also hate unpicking the scrap yarn from the provisional cast on. I ran out of my little ball of sock yarn part way through the crown decreases and picked up another, vaguely similar, partial ball of sock yarn and finished her up. This is a fantastic pattern for using up a little oddball of sock yarn kicking around in your stash.

Music Monday

"Pump It Up" from Elvis Costello's 1978 album, This Year's Model. I think I may have posted this one before but I recently heard a Mudhoney version of this song which reminded me how great the original is. 

For comparison's sake, here's the Mudhoney version from 2010.

WIP Wednesday

I had a really busy weekend and the rest of March looks like more of the same. Between the social happenings and work and enrolling Little A in elementary school (say, what?) I feel like everything has been go go go for a couple of weeks now. My body seems to think so, too, since I now have some vague illness lodged in my throat making me incredibly tired and rather cranky. What's a knitter to do? I called out sick Tuesday so I could sleep as much as I was able and then lay around on the sofa between doing loads of handwash and shooting chloraseptic spray down my throat. Ick. But it also means that while I was lolling around I did quite a bit of knitting.

 This is most of a pair of Ruru mitts for Little A. I pulled a ball of sock yarn scraps out of my scrap bag and measured it - 20 grams exactly! I think I made the top part of the first mitt a little too long since I don't have enough yardage for the second one. I'll knit as far as I can on the second mitt and then pull out some of the first mitt so they're even. It's my first time knitting the owl cable and it's pretty cute.

This is Antarktis that I cast on last weekend in a fit of knitting ennui. I was given this yarn at Stitches to review on my podcast and since I don't knit with variegated yarns very often I thought that the garter stitch and eyelets would help break up the colors and create a nice harmony between colors. This is exactly the right kind of knitting for me at this moment and I think it would make a good project for social knitting, too.

Music....Tuesday

"No Pants Policy" by Leslie Hall. Yeah. I went to see Leslie Hall this last Friday at the Vera Project and stayed up way past my normal bedtime to do it. It was totally worth it. Leslie is a crafter and all around badass performer besides being really funny and charming in person. If she's in your hood you should throw down the buckaroos to see her. And yes, she did wear a gold spandex body suit.

Stitches West 2nd Installment

Canon Hand Dyes Self-Striping in Zombie Hello Kitty. The name got me on this one. 

 

Miss Babs Heartland Worsted in Russet. I saw Amy Herzog's sweater pattern Acorn Trail and the combination of this yarn and that pattern just screamed "knit me". You know how it is sometimes when a yarn and pattern combination are meant to be, we'll let the swatch decide for certain.

 

Two skeins of Valley Yarns Charlemont which may be destined for Waterlily. I'm not certain how that style of sweater will look on me but with the right shaping I think it could make a nice top for work if I paired it with a skirt.

Music Monday

A little movie-music video for you. "Cosmic Dancer" by T. Rex used in the awesome movie Billy Elliot from 2000.

FO: Dimbala

 Guess what? I finished another sweater!

 It's black. And textured. And that's really hard to photograph when it's overcast outside and technically still Winter.

Pattern: Dimbala by Laura Chau 

Yarn: Cascade 220 in Blaaaaack

Needles: US #6 (4.0mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: This yarn was frogged from another Laura Chau sweater I knit ages ago and half-way through my Pomme de Pin I got a crazy urge to dig this out of my stash and knit it into a pullover. I knit one inch of twisted rib at the bottom edge, added in vertical waist shaping since the sweater is written without any shaping whatsoever, and knit the body to 16 inches. I knit the sleeves and henley neckline as written. I'm really happy with how this turned out! There's a teensy bit of floating at the hemline and I could have worked more decreases at the waist but overall I think this is quite flattering with my normal jeans and t-shirt uniform. The texture pattern took me a while to memorize but it also hides the waist shaping I added quite well. This is a win on multiple levels - I have a new black sweater, it blends seamlessly into my existing wardrobe, and I have no yarn left over to add back to the stash. Yipee!