Turbine

Hello! So things are crazy around here again which is not really a surprise. I started class last Wednesday and rather than having it be a horrible ordeal (Shakespeare & Chaucer) I'm enjoying it immensely. What? I'm a nerd and I totally embrace that about myself. I should even have a little more time to knit this quarter since my work load isn't so excruciatingly heavy. I did manage to get some knitting done over the holidays, including Turbine. This is attempt number two as the first one, knit in November and frogged right away, was too small. Waaaay too small. N's dad loves the finished hat.


Pattern: Turbine by Woolly Wormhead from Twisted Woolly Toppers
Yarn: Tosh Vintage in Grove
Needles: US #8 Addi Turbo
Mods: Went up a needle size and knit the largest size in order to get a man-head size hat. I also used the Old Norwegian (aka Twisted German) cast on for added stretch around the brim since there's no ribbing to keep it snug, yet stretchy. If you don't know that cast on you can find it here *- I learned it in a class from Evelyn Clark and it's fantastically elastic. It's also a great cast on for lace since it allows for maximum blocking.


*The video is fairly long so you can skip to the 2min 50sec mark to see the cast on itself.

Happy New Year!

So there went the holidays. I can' believe 2011 is already over but I'm happy that it is. I had a bad year. Don't get me wrong, good things did happen but the good things definitely did not outweigh the bad things and 2011 just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

In the knitting goals category I think that I started out well participating in Stash & Burn's sock yarn stash knitdown but about half way through the year I petered out. That's also about the time I went back to work 7 days a week. Yikes. However, I did finish quite a few things and am really happy with my Chadwick and my Acer Cardigan with my Fair Isle Yoke Cardigan coming in close behind. What were your favorite knits of 2011?

In any case, here's one of my final FO's from 2011. It's Turbine by Woolly Wormhead knit in Tosh Vintage in the Grove color. I knit the largest size and used a size 8 needle to get gauge. My father in-law loves it and the color looks great on him.

Quick to Knit

As I'm sitting here knitting away on the second-to-last Christmas gift (phew!) I'm thinking about all the great, fast knits there are out there for people like me who have very little time to knit but like to make handmade gifts. Here's a list of 10 things that are easy and fast to knit but covet-worthy.

1) Gaptastic Cowl
2)Super Cupcake Cowl (and hat)
3)Shawl Collared Cowl
4)Treads
5)Hand/Wrist Warmers
6)Chunky Toddler Mitts
7)Elefante
8)Fish Hat [Dead or Alive]
9)Turn a Square
10)Thorpe

I know that Christmas is this Sunday but if you're determined to knit at least one gift, or forgot to purchase a gift and are just now realizing that fact, then I think you could do any one of these patterns in the time allotted. I knit the toddler mitts in one evening out of 49 yards (!!!) of Chunky Mochi. The shawl collared cowl was about an evening or so and the gaptastic cowl took about two days of knitting in the evening and during my lunch breaks. Even if you're a fine-gauge knitter now is the time to bust out some of that chunky yarn and get cracking! Happy knitting!

Countdown

I've got one - ONE! - paper to write by Friday and then I'm done for the quarter. If I had been a smart girl I would have taken myself to a coffee shop on Sunday to get started on it but instead I ran many many errands and then promptly fell asleep for an hour in the afternoon. Now it's crunch time and I've got a timeline set up for myself in order to get my 5-7 pages written, edited, and edited again for Friday's deadline. Don't you wish there was some kind of app for ordering your thoughts into a cohesive paper outline? It would be fab. Oh, yeah, there is one! It's called my brain! Unfortunately it's on the fritz from staring at this damn computer screen for three hours. Time to call it a night.

Knitting coming soon! I've got to take pictures sometime before 4pm when it starts getting dark.

Finish Line

Just a quick note to say that I'm still here, still working like crazy, and trying to sneak in a little knitting time as I'm wrapping up the final few weeks of the quarter. I've got two papers and a final in the works with what feels like precious little time. Did that stop me from going out last weekend and last night? Um, no. Last weekend I hit Gainsbourg with a couple of knitting friends where we exchanged our Malabrigo hat swap items. Jen knit Ripley for me in some pretty Malabrigo Twist in the grapes color. Love it! I ate some yummy cheese and bread and ended up with poutine - it was an epic starch frenzy with the pleasant accompaniment of booze. Hooray! Last night I headed over to iknityouknot's place to eat more bread, cheese, nuts, and fruit and booze it up with some dark & dry cider while watching fairly crappy tv and knitting. It was exactly what I needed to blow off a little steam before hunkering down for paper writing. I've also been working on this pretty thing: 

It's Clockwork by Stephen West in tosh merino light Flash Dance and Steam Age. It's pretty perfect for knitting in class since the pattern is easily memorized and knit in plain old garter stitch with some slipped stitches for interest. I'm really looking forward to the finished piece which I plan to finish some time over the winter break.

Petunia

Monster #2 of the birthday party craziness happening in Little A's preschool. Stash yarn for the win!

Pattern: Petunia by Rebecca Danger
Yarn: Samoa GGH (partial balls!)
Needles: US #6 Addi Turbo
Mods: I shortened the body by a couple of inches since I was running out of purple yarn. Buttons from my sewing box for eyes. This little monster is super cute but my favorite thing about it is that I was able to rid my stash of two partial balls of yarn. Hooray!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I made a kick-ass apple pie and brought a vegetarian entree over to my in-laws for dinner and we all ate ourselves into a food coma. I even managed to get some knitting time in before we all sat down at table. Unfortunately, the item I'm knitting is a Christmas gift so I can't share it with you but I can tell you that it is knit from Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in one of her rogue colorways. That's happy knitting for my hands and the colors are waaay easy on the eye. Love that stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and may you find time in your busy day and weekend to get some knitting done.