Category: <span>knitting</span>

Category: knitting

knitting, Sewing, Sweaters

Love Note Sweater & Gypsum Skirt

 ,

Posting some old photos since for whatever reason, this never made it to the blog, but I did put them up on Instagram.  Weird?  These were finished/photographed in the early days of the pandemic (May 2020).  I thought I’d put them into the blog here and talk more about the modifications and whatnot.

First up, the skirt!  The skirt is the Gypsum Skirt by Sew Liberated.  I’ve found their patterns to be very well written, sized well, and be really easy to follow in terms of instructions.  This went together pretty quickly – I chose a size that matched my waist measurement the closest since the hips were a little more free.  The extra details with the felled seams and those MASSIVE pockets (yes, you can hold an entire knitting project in that pocket) really make this a nice finished project.  The fabric is from JoAnn Fabrics and I think it was a rayon/linen blend or some kind of faux linen because it’s got a nice drape to it, but just enough structure to have crisp seams.  I’ve worn this a bunch already and I still love it.

Love Note Sweater
Started: 22 January 2020
Finished: 8 February 2020
Pattern: Love Note by tincanknits
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Roslyn (65% Wool / 35% Silk)
Needle: US 7 & 10
Notes: –Ravelry Link–
This was obviously a super quick knit for me and it went together in no time at all.  I ended up using a plain DK yarn instead of the fingering+lace combo held together.  I don’t really like that fluffy, halo-y yarn look, so this sort of rustic, tweedy yarn fit better for me.  I got gauge perfectly on a swatch, so I forged right ahead and knit size L per the size chart which came out right.  I want to say I might have shortened this by an inch or two from the instructions since I’ve got an absurdly short torso and wanted this to actually be cropped instead of falling to my hips.  The sleeves I also knit shorter, only to 11.5″ length so it comes about to 3/4 sleeve length.  I wear this one A LOT with all kinds of things underneath – dresses, jeans, etc.  Easily one of my favorite handmade sweaters!

Finished Objects, Gloves/Mittens, knitting

Bee Mittens

 ,

Bee Mittens
Started: 28 Jan 2022
Finished: 5 Feb 2022
Pattern: Hey Bee-Otch Mittens by Drunk Girl Designs
Yarn: Valley Yarn Huntington in Mustard (0024) and Chocolate (B118) – 21 grams remaining of the yellow and 20 grams of the brown.
Needle: US 0 / 2 mm
Notes: Okay, so they’re not quite exactly to pattern, but as a beekeeper, I kind of wanted just plain bee mittens even though I deeply appreciate the bee pun.  So, I repeated the “Bee” part from the left mitten to the right once I got to that point in the chart, otherwise I left everything the same in the pattern.  I probably would knit the thumb another 5-6 rows longer (it was still a little short even after having added an additional 4 rows), and would swap out the thumb increases to run along the border to the mitten body instead of along the center outside of the thumb.  The construction just feels wonky and fits weird?  I’ve never done thumb increases this way and, it works, but it’s definitely not my preferred method.  Also, the patterning on the thumb made the float situation a hot mess on the inside.  If I knit these again, I’d probably just invert the design on the palm for the thumb to keep things tidier inside the thumb.  There were lots of long floats in this pattern, so it involved a good deal of managing those floats while knitting and then futzing with the finished piece to pull the too-long ones into submission, but it’s 100% worth it for the final result.  This designer does SUCH a gorgeous job on the colorwork designs and this is the second pattern of hers that I’ve knit, and I’m super happy with the finished mittens!

knitting, Socks

Socks from 2015 – Part 3

 ,

Still moar socks!  If you missed the first two installments, here are links for Part 1 and Part 2.

DSC_1411Plain Socks Again
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Fluormania in, “7184”
Ravelry Project Link
Who couldn’t just love this colorway?  Blue and Orange?!  I’m in!  Arguably my favorite color of the fluormania color line, these (again) had to be plain socks to show off the color.  I really love how the transition from color to color isn’t perfectly clean and even and there’s a little bleed over, almost like a watercolor painting.  I’m also pretty thrilled that the socks are almost opposites of each other in how the colors lined up – blue on one toe, orange on the other.  They’re just perfect, and again, this is a great workhorse sock yarn and I’m sure they’ll last me for ages.

 

 

DSC_1424Hand Dyed Socks
Pattern: Hermione’s Everyday Socks
Designer: Erica Lueder
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Artsygal Colonial Nylon Blend, hand dyed by me.
Ravelry Project Link
The pattern was really simple so the socks knit up very quickly.  There’s enough of a pattern to not be plain old socks, but not so much that the pattern is lost in the color.  The yarn was hand dyed by yours truly at a dye day class taught by ArtsyGal.  It was the first time I’d dyed yarn, so it was fun experiment and I’m glad I finally knit with the yarn which was dyed in 2008!  Oof!  So, this is some pretty well aged sock yarn, but thankfully not past its prime.  I love how the pooling worked out to look like waves of color instead of striping or spiraling.

 

 

 

DSC_1433Fireball Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Zitron Trekking Pro Natura, hand dyed by me.
Ravelry Project Link
You’ll forgive me for yet another plain sock since this one is pretty neat, right?  I dyed this skein from a blank base myself, measuring how much yarn it takes to knit a row and then mathing it all out so I could get stripes like this.  Then it was walking laps around a set of chairs in the kitchen to re-skein the yarn in the right length, dye, reskein again into a smaller skein and FINALLY knit the yarn.  They buying/dyeing was done in 2008 (seems that class gave me ideas), and they were finally knit this past year and I’m IN LOVE with them.

knitting, Socks

Socks from 2015 – Part 2

 ,

On to the second installment of my adventures in sock knitting from 2015.- for Part 1, click here.

DSC_1410Vanilla  Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: The Alpaca Yarn Co. Paca-Peds in, “Carribean Chocolate”
Ravelry Project Link

The pooling worked out almost like a self-striping yarn with these, and I rather like how the brown and turquoise work together.  The yarn was soft and squishy with only 20% alpaca content, so it’s soft but still has that classic wool bounce and sproing.  Just your basic socks again since I didn’t know what to do with yarn that wouldn’t work for intricate patterns.

 

 

 

 

DSC_1428Stretchy Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton Print  in, “Fall Herbs”
Ravelry Project Link

Another plain sock.  I’m sort of mystified how the same yarn can knit up into two very different socks because the pooling lines up differently, but it’s really rather interesting too.  The yarn came put up in two balls, so I suppose the one was just a hair enough different, or my gauge was that different between the two socks.  Either way, I’m not a huge fan of this yarn – when I wore them, they stretched out like crazy and almost didn’t stay on my feet.  I’m not sure if maybe the elastic is too old (the yarn had been ‘aging’ in my stash for quite some time) or that the bamboo and cotton overpower  the elastic.  I’m hoping a machine wash in warm water may bring them back to life.

DSC_1421Jaywalkers
Pattern: Jaywalker
Designer: Grumperina
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal Feelings in, “1702”
Ravelry Project Link

This yarn was just begging to be Jaywalkers with those HUGE stripes.  The coral and red colors look like that in real life too – it’s super hard to distinguish between the two colors.  For the heels, I did the heel flap and turn in yarn from the opposite end of the ball so that I wouldn’t mess up the striping pattern.  I think I forgot to do that on the first one and then remembered for the second.  Great, basic workhorse sock yarn with fun colors and a super quick (3 day!) knit.

knitting, Socks

Another year of Sock Knitting

 ,

I finally got everything set up and photographed the socks that I’ve knit over the past year.  The tally?  15 pairs!  Some of them are from the end of 2014 since the last time I photographed handknits was September 2014, oops.  Fifteen pairs of socks is no joke, but the majority of them are plain stockinette socks, so it’s really not a lot of substance when you get down to it, especially when you consider that I can knit a single plain sock in about four hours.  I had an off year, what can I say?  The majority of the knits from my past year in knitting were meant to keep my hands busy while I watched TV, fill time while waiting, and bust some of the more colorful sock yarn stash that isn’t suited for intricate cables and lace.  In that way, it was a successful year indeed, and now I’m well stocked to continue working on a scrap yarn blanket for a few more squares.  Here are the first two, and I’ll post a few more every week.

DSC_1430

Fluormaina Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Fluormania  in, “Neon Ocean”
Ravelry Project Link

Nothing really fancy going on here.  I used the same basic sock recipe I use for all my plain vanilla socks, and I happened to publish it on Ravelry and the blog here a few years ago when I ran a sock knitting workshop at a local cafe.  It’s easy peasy and lets the crazy wild color of this yarn really shine.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything but a plain stockinette sock for this colorway since it may be my favorite one of the whole Fluormania line.

 

 

 

 

DSC_1417More Plain Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn:  Wisdom Yarn Marathon Sock in, “Twin Cities”
Ravelry Project Link

This was a silly impulse purchase because the price was right at Tuesday Morning on a trip through one day.  Green and blue self striping yarn at over 50% off?  SOLD!  It’s your basic sock yarn, nothing too fancy, not particularly soft, but it feels durable, so that works!  I like how the colorway knit up and again, used the same simple basic sock pattern as before.

Baby, knitting

Knitted Baby Gifts, Part 1

 , , , , ,

Apparently everyone is pregnant and due this summer.  There must be something in the water, and just in case there is,   I think I’ll stick with beer!  The great thing about this, aside from excited new parents welcoming a baby into the world,  is that this gives me the chance to knit sweet little baby gifts for my friends which is a ton of fun.  Baby-sized sweaters have basically the same construction as adult-sized items but use less yarn and knit up much faster, so it’s pretty close to instant satisfaction.  There’s also something about a handmade gift that’s really special for folks who appreciate the work that goes into them.  This is the first round of gifts which have already been given to the recipient, so I figure I’m okay to blog about them and won’t spoil any surprises.

DSC_7109_web DSC_7113_web
Pattern: Tilting Blocks Baby Blanket
Designer: Ranee Mueller
Needles: US  4  (3.5 mm)
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease in, “Maize”
Ravelry Project Link
It’s a really simple stitch pattern and works up so quickly.  The original pattern had a square of stockinette in the center, but I opted to just do the whole blanket in pattern.  I used just about three whole skeins of yarn which is a basic cotton/acrylic blend which makes it great for use for baby knits.  Durable, washes well, still pretty soft.  It stretched out MUCH larger than anticipated since it’s lace, but it really looks great and will make a wonderful summer blanket for a summer baby.  Plus, the parents have opted not to know the gender of their child, so yellow is a nice, neutral color.

DSC_7104_web DSC_7106_web
Pattern: Sunnyside
Designer: Tanis Lavallee
Needles: US 4  (5 mm)
Yarn: Kangaroo Dyer Franklin Hand Dyed in, “Fried Green Tomatoes”
Ravelry Project Link
Knit in under a week!  Super fast knit and I didn’t even use a whole skein of sock yarn.  I made a small modification and flipped the cables on one side of the cardigan so they’d mirror the otherside (right twist instead of left twist).  The size I knit was 6-12 month, but it came out at more like a newborn-6 month size.  Next time, I’ll have to go up a size.  Still, a really cute and easy cardigan to knit!  I definitely prefer knitting baby items in fingering weight yarn instead of worsted or DK – babies are so small that a bulky sweater just doesn’t work out, and for a summer baby, a lighter cardigan is defintiely best.

Gloves/Mittens, knitting

Night Owl Mittens

 , , ,

Actual knitting content on the blog!  Fear not, even though there have been a lack of posts about knitting and spinning, I’ve still been doing both.  It’s just a lack of time to photograph the finished objects!  But I have one here, and there will hopefully be more to post in the next few weeks.  They knit up in three days (about 5 hours in the evenings after dinner and before bed), and used about 225 yards between the two colors (125 of the blue and 100 of the yellow).  The yarn is a nice, densely spun wool completely sourced and produced in the USA from Rambouillet sheep, using natural dyes that surprisingly didn’t bleed when I gave these a wash and block.  The yarn has incredible stitch definition and feels really sturdy which is perfect for mittens.  I only made one big modification to the pattern – I switched the thumb to a “sore thumb” instead of the charted traditional Selbu Thumb since I find a sore thumb fits better.  A pretty easy modification to make, just shifting the thumb gusset  placement over a few stitches.  Speaking of the thumb, I love that cute little owl worked into the thumb chart.  Really happy with how these came out between the colors and the fit!  Finished them just in time for the slow creep of Fall’s chill.

Pattern:  Night Owl Mittens
Designer: Jorid Linvik
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) for the cuff, US 2 (2.75mm) for the mitten body
Yarn:  HiKoo by Skacel American B.R.A.N.D. in Yellowstone (Yellow-108) and Hawaii Volcanoes (Blue-102)
–Ravelry Project Link–

 

Gloves/Mittens, knitting

End of May Mittens

 , , , ,


I’m REALLY pleased with how these mittens came out!  The yarn was purchased at Purls of Wisdom in Kimberton, PA with the intent to make mittens at some point.  Finally, I grabbed the yarn, found a pattern, and went to work.  I managed to churn these out in five days (worsted weight mittens go pretty quickly even in colorwork), and have been wearing them since mid-January when they were finished.  As usual, I’m super late posting these to the blog, but you know that’s nothing new.  🙂Yarn: Ella Rae Classic Superwash in colorway 15 (orange-rust color) and 19 (cream color).  Lining is Alpaca from a friend’s farm.
Needles: US 3 (3.25mm)
Pattern:  End of May Mittens by Mandy Powers
–Ravelry Project Link–
Notes/Modifications:  The pattern originally called for the lining to only extend up about an inch or two from the cuff.  I went ahead and used the same directions for the outer mitten minus the colorwork for the lining.  It came out a little bit wide (there is some wrinkled-up fabric inside the mitten), but not enough that it’s unbearable.  They blocked out to the perfect size for my hands!  The alpaca actually came from a co-worker of the husband’s who owns an alpaca farm.  It’s really luscious stuff and makes the mittens extra warm – perfect for the cold winter we’ve had!