FO: Father Cables

A couple of things: I'm working on updating pictures and Ravelry information for projects from last year so bear with me, it's a slow process. I'm also working on moving over to a wordpress site that has a lot more functionality than blogger but that too is a slow process. On to knitting!

This hat hails from December when I knit it as a gift but decided to keep it for myself. It's seen some abuse since I keep it in my tote bag for whenever I need a hat; often right now as it's been super blustery and cold lately. 

I can't say enough good things about this yarn - YOTH Father in the Caviar color. It's 100% domestic Rambouillet in a worsted weight and is lovely to knit with and cozy to wear. And look at that stitch definition! Amazing stuff. Father is currently available in the 12 Raw palette colors and comes in 220 yd skeins. I knit this hat with one skein and had a bit left over - I'm considering adding a pompom. 

Pattern: Father Cables by Veronica Jobe (free)

Yarn: YOTH Father in Caviar

Needles: US #5 (3.75mm) and US #7 (4.5mm) needles

Mods: None. I knit the size small and it fits great with a teeny bit of slouch.

FO: Fandangle

I finished this project waaaaay back around Christmas and due to my lack of pompom-making expertise it sat in my mostly-finished-but-not-quite stack of knitting projects. With the help of a friend who lent me her pompom maker I finally put the finishing touch on my Fandangle hat. 

I'm finally coming around to pompoms on hats. This one is GIANT.

Apparently this project got me going on a colorwork kick since pretty much all the projects I have OTN have some kind of stranding or striping. It's not a bad place to be, though.

 

I'm very excited to have used new-ish stash from Knit Fit! in November and some older stash of reclaimed angora/wool yarn that sat around for several years. It's a dreamy combination and toasty warm to boot. 

Pattern: Fandangle by Andi Satterlund

Yarn: Spincycle Dyed in the Wool in Devilish Grin and reclaimed angora/wool.

Needles: US #5 (3.75 mm) Clover Circular Needles

Mods: None! I knit the medium size and followed the pattern with zero mods.

WIP: Sock Hat

I have yet another project on the needles! This past week brought some sample work so my regular projects are on hold until I get it done. I cast on a hat for knit night last week so I would have something simple to knit. 

This yarn was a gift from a friend and has languished in my stash for several years. 

The yarn is Sleep Season Goods Sock Yarn in the color Sassafras and is 100% wool. Initially, this yarn was destined for socks but the lack of nylon and the light variegation changed my mind. Hat it is! This is a great project for knitting on the go and I'm happy to use some older stash!

WIP: Kites

Creative energy is flowing pretty strongly at Chez Birnel right now. I'm making sewing plans for the year, working on exciting new things, and knitting along on one of my favorite types of projects - colorwork. 

I cast on for this project on New Year's Eve as a way to start as I mean to go on. What that really means is I want to work on things I really love and enjoy doing rather than forcing myself to finish projects I'm half in love with or because I "need" to use the yarn, pattern, etc. 

This is a free pattern named Kites by Teleri and it uses three colors of fingering weight yarn. I'm using two shades of Rauma Finullgarn (navy and gray) and one shade of Brooklyn Tweed Loft in Hayloft. This pattern isn't fooling around; it's easy to follow and the motif is straightforward but you're still working with three colors of yarn. The tangle factor is a bit of an issue but that could be circumvented by breaking either the blue or yellow color instead of carrying them up. But hey, I wanted fewer ends to weave in so I'm going the tangle city route. The first fingerless mitt flew off my needles but the second one is slow going since I'm not on vacation anymore. 

WIP: Serif

Every January 1st I drag all of my stash out of hiding and sort through it and organize it. It takes half the day to do a proper job and put it all away, nice and tidy. Throughout the sorting process I'll cull a few yarns to destash and a few yarns to knit right away, but most of it goes back into my cedar chest or large space bags. This year, I was particularly taken with inventorying my sweater quantities of yarn and I set aside some Quince & Co Lark and Chickadee that I purchased last October.

I'm knitting Serif from Elizabeth Doherty's book, Top Down, in colors Honey and Storm. My gauge swatch was spot on for row gauge, which is super duper important for top down knitting, but off on stitch gauge. However, I really liked the fabric I got on US #8 (4.5 mm) needles and didn't want to sacrifice my perfect row gauge for a better stitch gauge. Turns out I just needed to knit one size up to get the correct width measurements while following the length measurements for the size I originally intended to knit - 42-ish for length and 45-ish for width. 

It just so happened that I was ill last weekend so I spent a lot of time laying in bed while knitting and watching movies so I got a ton of this sweater knit. A lot as in most of the body. As of last night I joined the contrast color for the skirt and am knitting merrily along in garter stitch. My goal for today is to get through the garter stitch portion of the body so I can get to the sleeves. I'm usually not too keen on Sleeve Island but I'm eager to try Elizabeth's method of top down sleeve construction again (I knit a sample for her book) and to get a real feel for the fit of the sweater. I'm almost always a bit "meh" about sweaters until they get at least one sleeve because it really changes the way they fit the body; drawing the armhole closer to where they actually sit during wearing and allowing any stockinette to unroll and lay properly.

I've also looked through my wardrobe to see if this sweater fits criteria for filling a hole in my wardrobe and it certainly does! I have two dresses that should look fantastic with this cardigan not to mention a pair of slim cut navy pants that will look super cute with this sweater and a patterned top. Not too shabby for meeting my handmade wardrobe goal for this year!

2016 Goals

Here we are, almost an entire week into the new year, and I haven't posted about goals or projects or anything. A good guess is that punctuality isn't on my resolution list - I'm usually right on time to everything, all the time, even when the everything sucks (like a doctor visit or paying bills). But I've been thinking. A lot. What do I really want to achieve this year?

1. Continue knitting local. 

I really like where this took my stash last year. Purchases were fewer, but of better quality, and my stash is about 90% OH PRETTY right now.

2. Have a half-handmade wardrobe.

A bit of a doozy, yeah? I'd say my wardrobe is about 30% handmade right now and I'd like to up that percentage this year. I'll need to work on tailoring pants to suit me and get more comfortable sewing with knit fabrics but I think this goal is achievable given the amount of sewing I did last year. 

3. Self-publish more patterns. 

I have three or four patterns just about ready to go to a tech editor. The process is kind of long between what's in my head, the knitting, and the publishing on Ravelry and I tend to lose momentum somewhere in the last step. It's also pretty scary to put designs up for public scrutiny. Not that I'm a delicate flower but I would like people to like what I design if I'm mostly designing what I like, you know? 

So that's it. Three goals that are craft and hobby related. I have a few other goals for myself - reduce caffeine intake (down to one cup a day as of right now!), bring my lunch to work instead of buying it, and save money. I'm trying to introduce things slowly and build good habits instead of going full tilt all at once. How about you? Any goals for the new year?

2015 Wrap-Up

This year flew by. I made some really big changes in my life that have made some things seem much easier and other things seem much more difficult. First off, I'd like to address my goals from the beginning of the year:

1. Knit Local.

Mission accomplished! I did not purchase much yarn this year until October and November and then I went on a mini-spree and picked up items for my birthday and from Knit Fit! Most of my purchasing dollars went to local dyers, some of whom use local wool for their yarn, or to companies like Quince & Co, who use North American wool and have it milled in the U.S.

2. Knit more colorwork garments.

This is a bit womp womp. I knit two garments with colorwork accents and three accessories. 

This is my Prussian Glitter Cardigan. I've still got plans to grade this puppy and publish the pattern and that's on the list for 2016. 

The other garment is this Welcome to the Flock sweater. Knit in a baby size with some stash sock yarn, it was featured on the front page of Ravelry and got a ridiculous amount of love. Thanks!

The other accessories are hats and one isn't totally finished as it needs a good steam block and a pom pom.

3. Participate in Me Made May. 

Done! I petered out a bit some time in the middle of the month (taking selfies every day is difficult when you get up at 5am) but I did participate. Go me!

And Me Made May really brought me back into sewing and concentrating on creating a handmade wardrobe. There are a lot of social justice issues surrounding the clothing industry and I don't want to contribute to an industry that's concerned with making a $5 t-shirt (it's bad for most of the people involved in the supply chain, yo). 

Ravelry tells me that I only knit about 10k yards this year, which is inaccurate, because some of my yardage for samples and SECRETS haven't been added; I'd say it's more in the 20k arena. Overall, I knit less this year than in past years but I'm much happier with many of my FOs this year than I have been in the past. Go figure. As per usual, I have a huuuuge list of things I want to knit and some things I have to knit. For now, I'll be concentrating on that handmade wardrobe and coordinating new pieces that work together. Now, what should I cast on for New Year's Eve?

Gift Knitting

I won't say how many days there are before Christmas but I will say that my needles are clicking away at rapid speed. Luckily, projects are jumping on and off my needles at a satisfactory rate and all of the finer gauge projects are complete.

 Meditate by Elizabeth Doherty came off the needles in just under two weeks. It makes for excellent social, commute, and tv knitting. I knit the narrow and long version using an entire skein of Shalimar Yarns Paulie in the Land Katie Scarlett color.

Mr. B's annual Christmas socks took a couple of months to complete ( I started them late October) but I only knit them on the bus and at my Friday night knitting group. The yarn is Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in a Rogue color that I picked up during my birthday yarn-buying spree. I made this pattern up but it's basically a 72 st vanilla sock with a little band of seed stitch just under the cuff.

Aaaand then there are five hats in different states of completion as of yesterday morning. Two are very close to being done - a thermal check pattern that I made up in some Cascade 220 Superwash and Father Cables in YOTH father (which I decided to keep!).

I added a new person to my gift knitting list this year, mom to a friend of Little A's, and decided that my favorite hat pattern and some luxury yarn was the way to go. If she doesn't like this gorgeous combination there is absolutely no hope for her as a knitwear recipient and I can quietly remove her from THE LIST. This will be the third time I've knit this pattern and Shalimar Yarns Paulie will be an excellent combination with the texture on the Bristol Hat. I have two more hats that are complete and these five to complete and my gift knitting will be completely done.

I hope.

Knit Fit! 2015

A few weeks have passed since Knit Fit and I finally feel recovered from all of the socializing that attends volunteering and chatting with fellow knitters, vendors, and teachers. This year I spent quite a bit of time in the market compared to other years and purchased items that I had been thinking about over the course of the year. Honestly, the market gets better and better each year and I went a little bonkers this year.

My big purchase this year was one of Dave Yocom's hand-turned wood yarn bowls. Talk about a marriage of beauty and function; all of Dave's yarn bowls are natural wood and showcase the grain of the wood with no added dyes or stains. I chose a medium bowl in sapele mahogany with spalted maple inlays. Also pictured, a skein of Spincycle Dyed in the Wool in Devilish Grin. I have cast on plans for this skein - a Fandangle hat by Andi Satterlund - which I would like to finish by Christmas. 

A new vendor this year was Cedar House Yarns. This is a skein of Sapling Sock in Bark. Jenn and her husband are super nice and they've got a lovely color palette in their yarn line. The yardage is also really great in the sock yarn; 463 yards of superwash merino and nylon. 

Oh, Bumblebirch. Sarah was at Knit Fit last year but I was on a super duper tight budget at the time so I could only daydream about her yarns. This year I knew I wanted to purchase from her and I had such a difficult time choosing since I wanted ALL of her colors. In the end I picked up two different weights to try out. At bottom is heartwood, a fingering weight yarn (463 yds!), in the color Wednesday. At top is forage, a 4-ply worsted weight, in the color Honey. Wednesday is calling my name and is on the docket to be cast on post holiday knitting. 

Tweed yarn never looked so good. Intrepid Otter was missing from the market last year due to an unexpected illness but I was glad to see her back this year with this shiny new tweed sock yarn. I picked this bright, slightly scummy green to knit myself a pair of socks. Chubby Cloud was also back at the market with her awesome print bags. This year, I chose a zipper pouch in a great orange and yellow stockinette print with an olive green geometric floral print on the inside. 

Finally, (told you I went bonkers this year) I spent a good deal of time at the YOTH booth because WOW. Danny and Veronika have gorgeous yarns and introduced new colors to their palette, as well as a new yarn base. 

At bottom is the new 100% American sourced and milled worsted weight yarn, Father, in the Caviar color. This stuff is light and lofty and will make a fantastic hat. The upper two colors are both Big Sister, a dk weight yarn in sw merino, cashmere, and nylon, in rosemary (blue-gray) and mango (yellow). Mango comes from the new Juicy Palette, featuring various shades of yellow, orange, and green.  I also purchased a couple of gifts but I can't share those, sorry!

I love that the Knit Fit! market features so many local independent dyers and businesses. Putting my money back into the local economy makes me feel good about my purchases and that I'm supporting people who love the knitting industry as much as I do. I'll see you at Knit Fit 2016!

Update!

Hello, friends! I took a much-needed hiatus from most social media and internet-type stuff for the last month or so; I needed to recharge my batteries so I could finish this year up right. I have exciting knitting-related news to share early next year and lots of news to share right now. 

First, I've been knitting things in pretty much the same color palette. 

Lots of burnt oranges, dk blues and teals, and autumnal yellows. There's also been a lot of green yarn in the mix but I'll share that in another post. 

I volunteered at Knit Fit! this year and had a great time hanging out with knitters and crafters and vendors.  The marketplace gets better every year and it's a wonderful thing to see so many returning students and shoppers, teachers and vendors. 

Speaking of the market, I had several favorite booths but I only took pictures of two: Hazel Knits and Bumblebirch. I've got another post coming on my market haul since I went a little bit crazy this year.

Sarah, the dyer behind Bumblebirch, totally got me with her color palette.  I had a really difficult time choosing just one (so I got two). 

Wendee at Hazel Knits had a gorgeous display of knit sweaters, shawls, and other accessories. I just purchased some yarn of hers as a birthday present to myself in October but I went ahead and purchased enough for a sweater because who doesn't want to knit a fingering weight sweater in a color named Lichen? I also spent a great deal of time at some other booths, chatting with other knitters and with dyers, too. 

Now it's almost Thanksgiving and I've got oodles of gift knitting to do. And pies to bake. And parties to attend. And another year to wrap up in what I hope will be a nice-ish leisurely sort of way but will probably be more like a frantic sprint.

Fall Faves: Sweater Weather!

This is something of a 2-in-1 post. I love sweaters! A lot of the reason why I love fall is that the weather cools down enough that I can start wearing my fall/winter uniform of sweaters with skirts or dresses and tights with boots. Seriously. I pretty much live in that combination of clothes for about 9 months out of the year and only give up on my tights and boots when absolutely necessary. 

I recently finished Chuck after having some misfires on choosing a size and being able to knit two sleeves alike. But it all worked out! Looky there!

Pattern: Chuck by Andi Satterlund

Yarn: Cascade 220 in Palm

Needles: US # 7 (4.5 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: This is yarn frogged from Myrna so my stitches look a bit wonky but most of that will block out after repeated wear and wash. I didn't do a gauge swatch since the two sweaters call for the same gauge and thankfully that worked out just fine and dandy. I knit the size L (41) to the underarm cast on and then switched to the XL (45) for the rest of the body after knitting the entire thing in size L and deciding that I didn't like the fit of 2 inches of negative ease through my waist. The second sleeve got knit twice since the first time around I started the cap shaping in the wrong spot so the sleeve cap was off center. Phew! 

I'm so happy with this new sweater! Chuck sat in my knitting queue for a long time since I couldn't decide if a cropped pullover would suit my body type. I think it looks just smashing with my fit and flare dresses and will be a go-to piece this fall and winter. 

What's your favorite sweater? Do you have a uniform that you wear in the fall?

Fall Faves: Records!

If you've been a long time reader of the blog you'll know that I am a bit of an audiophile. I recently got rid of about 90% of my cds ( I have a small selection in my car) to make room for more vinyl. I'm not a huge fan of stuff but one of the few things I collect are records and my little collection has grown over the time I've lived in Seattle.

 My taste is pretty eclectic.

When fall hits I usually have the urge to listen to records all the time, maybe it's a throwback from high school and college where I'd go listen to music at a friend's house while we did homework? I don't know. What I do know is that records are in heavy rotation lately and I love it.

Fall Faves: G&T

I love gin. During the summer months I usually stick to hard cider and wheat beers but when the weather starts to grow chill I crave something a little stronger. My preferred combination is Bombay Sapphire Gin with lots of ice and extra lime to go with a bit of tonic. There's something about being bundled up and cozy while drinking a refreshing gin & tonic that does wonders for my outlook on life. Do you have a favorite cold weather cocktail?

Fall Favorites: Color

Welcome to October! This is absolutely my favorite time of year and every year I use the month of October to think about the things I love and am grateful for. It's my birthday month so I find that it's a good time to reflect on the past year and what I've accomplished. It's sometimes difficult to give yourself a nice pat on the back and recognize that you've done a pretty darn good job at whatever it is you do - whether it's work or family or knitting or all of the above. The past few months have felt particularly difficult to me so I'm starting off with a kicker! This video is one I shared last year and it's a goody. I can, and have, watched it over and over and over. Enjoy!

WIP: Vanilla Commuter Socks

Well, that was an unexpected break. I looked down for a few minutes and it turned into a month; where does the time go? Honestly, there has been a ton of knitting happening but I can't share some of it until...next year-ish. That's not at all fun for you all so I do have a project I can share with you - more stripey socks! 

I cast on my usual 64-stitch vanilla socks on a US #1 (2.25 mm) hiya hiya needle and knit about an inch of 2x2 ribbing. I'm using waste yarn to mark my afterthought heel placement and I'm using my Zombie Hello Kitty socks as my guide since I'm using the same yarn. 

The yarn is Canon Hand Dyes Charles Self-Striping Sock in "I am all astonishment", a  Pride & Prejudice colorway that Jessica picked up for me at Madrona this spring. I love this yarn base and Amy's colors are totally great. Early in the summer I decided to knit up the self-striping yarns from my stash by the end of the year and this is the second of those pairs. I'm fairly certain I have three (maybe four) more skeins of self-striping yarn so I'm not sure I'll get them all done by the end of the year but I'm going to try!

Start to Finish: Channel Cardigan

The Channel Cardigan begins with casting on stitches for the entire body of the sweater; for my size that is over two hundred stitches to cast on. Rather than trying to estimate the amount of yarn needed to long-tail cast on that many stitches I used both ends of my wound yarn to cast on. 

However, if you've wound your yarn into balls, or can't find both ends, you can generally estimate one inch of yarn per cast on stitch for worsted weight yarn. To test how much tail you need, you can cast on a stitch, mark the beginning and end of the yarn you just used, pull out the cast on stitch to see the length of yarn you used and multiply that length by the number of stitches you need to cast on. I like using the two-end method because I don't need to estimate anything and that's worth having an extra tail of yarn to weave in at the end. 

Since I took this project on vacation with me I was able to get quite a bit done. Unfortunately, I was having such a nice time that I didn't realize that I neglected to  change the needle size after the ribbing and had to rip out about 8 inches of knitting. After throwing a little tantrum I ripped out the necessary length and got the sweater back on the correct needle size. 

There is a lot of texture knit into this cardigan and it's slow going at first but once the stitch patterns are established it's quite easy to keep track of where you are in the pattern.  

I'm just past the waist decreases and, as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm skipping the belt so I omitted the eyelets used to make the belt loops. The next section of the pattern includes waist increases and front shaping decreases for that large shawl collar. As soon as I reach the part of the pattern where the fronts and back are divided for the raglan sleeves I'm going to stop knitting and figure out the math for converting this to a set-in sleeve cardigan.

Vacation

Last Thursday I left on an almost week long vacation to the Oregon Coast for a family reunion. Mr. B's family lives in Seattle so I see them very often but it has been at least three years since my side of the family has gotten together. They all drove up from California and we drove down from Washington and had a rollicking good time on the Oregon Coast. 

We stopped on the Washington side of the Columbia River to stretch our legs at a spot called Dismal Nitch where the Lewis and Clark expedition was stuck for six days during a storm before sighting the Pacific Ocean. I thought it was rather lovely but I had the benefit of a car and a trunk full of snacks. 

We camped the first night and got rained out but pulled through the next morning for a visit to Tillamook before driving the rest of the way down to our beach house.

This is where I spent a good portion of my vacation while the kids built sandcastles and layered themselves in sand and ocean water, or flew kites, depending on the kid. I had a good book in my tote bag and some knitting needles close at hand and was generally in a state of happy relaxation. 

Each night the family gathered on the sand dunes to watch the sun go down over the Pacific before trundling inside for board games and general hilarity. I laughed so hard I cried, made fun of my siblings (and my mom), hung out with my nieces and nephew, and went to bed each night with my hair full of sand. It was glorious.

Start to Finish: Channel Cardigan

Last year I did a series called Start to Finish with my Pomme de Pin Cardigan that went through my decision making and knitting process and I've decided to repeat the process for my next sweater project.  I belong to a wonderful group on Ravelry, My Sister's Knitter, and the current KAL is Brooklyn Tweed patterns. Sounds like fun, right? After a whole lot of back and forth - should I join? should I not? - I decided to knit Channel Cardigan. 

The cardigan calls for Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a worsted weight yarn that is woolen spun and therefore very light and lofty. I've knit with Shelter in the past and liked it but I didn't want to break the bank since my size calls for 14 skeins, so I went to Ravelry and looked at what other knitters used for their cardigans. Cascade 220 is a top yarn in that list so I decided then and there that I would use Cascade 220; a yarn with a ton of color options, great stitch definition, and is a reasonable price. The downside to using Cascade 220 is that the finished sweater will be heavier since it isn't woolen spun, but I'm okay with that. There are already several modifications that I want to make: removing the belt, making sure the shawl collar is big enough to snuggle into, and possibly adding another button hole. I'm also contemplating changing the raglan seamed sleeves to set in sleeves since raglan cardigans always slide off my shoulders. I knit my swatch at knit night on Monday.

Guess what? Perfect stitch and row gauge on the recommended needles. It's a knitting miracle! I used a US #7 (4.5 mm) needle and knit my swatch in moss stitch as listed in the pattern and it's approximately 5 inches by 6 inches. A good general rule is to knit a swatch big enough that when you measure over four inches you don't run into selvedge stitches; your stitch count will be more accurate since those selvedge stitches sometimes behave a little wonky. This project is now ready to cast on!

OAL 2015: Finished Outfit

I finished my Outfit-along outfit before the deadline! Hooray! I'm super happy with the results and I've gotten so much wear out of my dress that the pattern is going to be a sewing staple. I sewed New Look 6223 and knit Tambourine by Julia Farwell-Clay.

Let's talk about the dress first, shall we? 

I chose a dark blue eyelet cotton blend and lined it with a light blue daphne - the eyelet is a mid-weight cotton and the daphne is very lightweight so between the two I get a dress with nice weight and drape that feels very summery but won't blow up around my head at every breeze. I did my first ever full bust adjustment following this tutorial and love the result. 

This dress has pockets, soft pleats at the waist, and comes to just above my knee. I can see myself making a ton of dresses from this pattern in various fabrics - I might even try one in wool! 

 On to the knitting! Tambourine is a pattern by Julia Farwell-Clay from the Spring 2015 issue of Pom Pom Magazine. I loved this sweater at first sight and knew that it would be perfect in orange. Earlier this year I frogged a sweater that never fit quite right and while the color was perfect, French Marigold by Miss Babs, the gauge was all wrong.

I took my gauge swatch and plugged the numbers into the schematic numbers to see if I could follow another size to get the fit I wanted with my yarn. I followed the size 43, which is my full bust measurement, with my smaller DK gauge to get a nice fit through the shoulders and added extra increases for my bust. The other thing I had to factor into the row gauge was the stitch pattern along the front of the sweater but this ended up working out with my gauge - six repeats of the pattern fit perfectly into the front of the sweater without having to adjust anything. 

I knit the entire sweater on US #5 (3.75mm) needles. Besides the gauge modification, my biggest change to the pattern was to knit the sleeves from the top down following Barbara Walker's method in Knitting from the Top. You may have noticed that my sweater doesn't have buttons and that's because: 1) I haven't found the perfect match and 2) I almost never button my cardigans. As soon as the weather cools down a bit I'll be sporting my new outfit pieces together, for now I'm settling on wearing my awesome new dress.