Color Work

Went to be with my knitting friends for our weekly gathering today. I took this for show-and-tell:



It's knit from Rauma wool I purchased at the new yarn shop in Ames a few weeks ago. Those of you who know I knit some Latvian mittens for people last year will recognize the braid technique I picked up from that experience.

Everyone oohed and ahhed over the hat this morning. They wanted to know if they could get a copy of the pattern. That's when I had to admit to making it up as I went along.

I thought the three colors I found in the sale bin ($4 each) would look nice together and I just cast on 128 stitches and took off with whatever struck my fancy at the time. (I do tend to keep Fibonacci numbers in mind somewhat when thinking of rounds/patterns, but not always!)

I had enough wool left over to finish off the last 6 items I needed to create for the male presents I'm doing for the holidays. (Hopefully some of the men I'm gifting are ok with deep turquoise and eggplant purple. I think some of them will be.)

On another note:

For those who are interested in the issues of bullying and suicide, I would direct you to one of people I follow as a personal knitting icon, Franklin Habit, who wrote a very poignant and elegant blog entry regarding the topic on his blog The Panoptican titled "It Gets Better." Go, read it....and don't skip the hundreds of comments, especially if you have been bullied or felt hopeless/desperate because you felt no on supported you, no one cared, no one was there for you.

KAL Complete

My Windy City hat which was the KAL I was doing is complete! I like the final results. I would definitely knit this hat again. This one is going in the box with the others to be sent to New Guinea on a medical mission.

Up next, fingerless mitts KAL. Stay tuned!

Happy knitting!

KAL

For non-knitters out there, KAL means "Knit ALong." I'm doing a two-person KAL with my friend in my native state (California). We have been arranging our annual swap project and she admitted to needing a bit of encouragement to get the needles going once more, so we are knitting a hat together.

We conidered a few patterns, and settled upon the Windy City Hat by Jodi Haraldson. I am trying to make a few hats from stash for a medical mission going to New Guinea. (If you're on Ravelry, you can read about it here.)

Our first goal was to get the ribbing edge and 4 rows of stockinette done. Here are my results:



This is a fun pattern to do and it looks quite fancy when completed (according to photos on the pattern!)

So far I have 6 hats done. I hope to get a few more done before I mail them off to reach their destination by Sept. 1.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of the knit-along hat!

Happy knitting!

The Rosy Side of Life

I've been working on a project from my stash. I discovered some lovely Andean Treasure (100% Baby Alpaca) in a lovely colorway, Wild Rose (the state flower of Iowa I might add!) I have 6 balls with which, given the wintry weather of late, I decided to knit myself a fetching set of mittens, neckwarmer and hat.

The mittens,



are an uber easy, super quick knit with an ingenious design for the thumb gusset. The cuff is knit in K1P1 ribbing and then 7 stitches of that ribbing continue up the "hand" section of the glove to fit in place of a gusset. Isn't that genius? I hate doing gussets, and the set in thumb works, but isn't as comfortable as a mitten with a little stretch for the thumb. This solves the problem very nicely!



One can easily knit a pair in a weekend.

After I completed the mittens, I searched around for a hat pattern. It turns out I like the ones I'm seeing which others have knit from the book Boutique Knits. So I ordered a copy from Knit Picks and am currently awaiting the arrival of the book.

In the meantime, I cast on for a neck warmer to complete the set. I decided since the yarn is rather luxurious and the hat will be something a little more special than a simple beanie, I wanted the neck warmer to be a little "frilly" too. (After all, this yarn, besides feeling decadent is quite the girly color!) I looked through my stitch dictionaries and found the pattern for "Opulent Cables."



I wanted the guage to match from the mittens, so I stayed with US #5 needles. I had never knit this cable pattern before, so I wasn't sure how much the cables would cause the fabric to shrink up. I originally cast on 135 stitches, but it resulted in a size which would not go over my head. The current WIP is 153, having doubled the reverse stockinette stitches between the cable repeats. (I originally planned for only 2 stitches between cables, now there are four.) I do hope this one will fit!

That's what I did with part of the "no school, inclement weather" days we had Thursday and Friday (mittens) and over the weekend (neck warmer, twice!). . .

How was your weekend?

Happy knitting/shooting!

[p.s. I forgot to mention that I'm the lucky winner of a blogiversary give-away by a gal in Wisconsin! I believe the prize is a beautiful hank of hand-dyed yarn from another lady in Wisconsin...which is in blues. I'll be sure to post a pic when the package arrives. Maybe it will be here just in time for my birthday next week!! won't that be a fun treat??!! Thanks Deborah!!]