Tinks and Frogs

Tadpole Tuesday: more Nessie

2012-01-24T21:21:00.000-06:00

That's right - I've actually finished something in 2012!

Pattern: Loch Ness Monster by Hansi Singh (ravelry link)
Yarn: Malabrigo Rios in Azul Profundo (less than half a skein, I'd guess) for the back, tail, and flippers. Tosh Merino Light in Moorland (held double) for the belly. Assorted pink leftovers for the innards, er, stuffing.
Needles: size 4 47" addi lace circular - magic loop for all of the fiddly bits
Mods: I worked french knots for the eyes (this tutorial was great)

I suppose this tummy shot is like the inside-out view of a stranded color work piece - it's what keeps the knitter honest. Nessie is worked in a single piece from tail tip to nose. Then you pick up and knit stitches along one side of the body, work a bunch of short rows, and graft those stitches to the other side of the body. That pick up and knit step is where your technique needs to be spot on, otherwise things start to look a bit wonky.

I didn't pay close attention to the directions for the edge stitches when I started knitting this project and ended up working a basic slipped stitch selvedge rather than the garter stitch selvedge in the pattern. When I knit this again (yes, I said "when" not "if"), I'll be sure to work the garter selvedge.

I will definitely be knitting more toys. The next one will likely be a seal, since my favorite almost-five-year-old has requested one for her upcoming birthday.

Since I'm browsing ravelry for pattern ideas, I thought I'd share a list of fun toys I'll want to come back to later:

Big Snowy Owl
Deadliest Crab
Dragon
Garden Snail
Octopus
Peabey the Polar Bear
Praying Mantis
Sophie
Tree Frog

I ran a quick search for seal patterns on ravelry and wasn't thrilled with the options there. But I think I can use them as guides for morphing Nessie into a seal. That will be exciting And I'd better take good notes!

Tadpole Tuesday: I think I'm hooked

2012-01-17T22:13:00.000-06:00

On toys, that is.

This has been a pretty quick knit so far (aka, I've had a fair amount of knitting time between the Patriots' game and all of the training videos I watched over the long weekend) and really clever! I just don't think in three dimensions like that and I'm really impressed with the designer. Excellent use of short rows!

A couple of quick thoughts about knitted toys:

You need really good finishing skills - this is not a beginner project
It's great for using up scraps - this one didn't even use up half a skein
You can stuff it with leftovers - that's what the pink yarn is for

And yes, it amuses me to no end that my loch ness monster has realistic looking innards.

I'll need to make a second one for Tadpole!

Tadpole Thursday: Gifts for Babies

2012-01-12T20:47:00.000-06:00

Rachel and I have been debating the best sort of project to knit as a baby gift. I lean towards garments - they're quick, I already own plenty of patterns and books with cute designs, and (big one here) they're often straightforward reading knits. Those of you who've been reading here for a while know that I love to knit while I read.

Rachel leans towards toys because the patterns are often clever, toys can be used for a much longer time than most baby garments (it takes longer to outgrow them), and you don't have to figure out what size will fit the recipient by the time he or she receives the gift.

She's been slowly but surely convincing me to try knitting a toy.

The adorable Elijah that she made for Tadpole certainly helps!

I think I'm ready to bite the bullet. I've signed up for a swap in one of my ravelry groups and I'm super excited to try a loch ness monster for my swap partner.

I have a gift knit to finish up first and then off I go!

Not ambitious at all

2012-01-05T22:56:00.001-06:00

I have a bad habit of setting unrealistic goals for myself. I honestly can't remember the last time I actually managed to do everything on my weekend to-do list but I'm pretty sure I was still in school. When Tadpole came along I found that two items over two days was pretty much the limit of what I could accomplish during the first few months. That was an adjustment, to say the least!

But I like lists and dreaming up things that I want to do, so here are my (crafting) goals for 2012:

1. Be more centered.

Actually, this is my big goal on all fronts this year. Between having a baby and starting a huge new job (in addition to "parent"), I've often felt like I could never quite get my feet under me. So you can see why I'm going back to making lists.

2. Organize the stash.

I have a lot of really nice yarn in my stash that I'm looking forward to using. I also have some that I probably will never use. I doubt I have time to work with everything I want to so that means the other stuff really needs to go. And I can't easily work through the stash if I don't know what's there in the first place.

3. Knit with stash/don't buy new yarn.

I know I said this last year but I really mean it this time (here's hoping you don't read this sentence again in 2013). This is how bad my guilt over the stash has gotten - I was happy when I went to buy a Sundara holiday bag and the last green one was sold out by the time I got to the checkout.

I don't think I could make it a whole year without buying yarn so I'd better set out some (limited!) exceptions to the stash diet.

(a) purchases at sheep & wool festivals or similar events are ok.

(b) gifts of yarn may be excepted. Whether Mr. Thinks and Frogs can give the gift is TBD.

(c) special souvenir purchases while on vacation may be allowed.

4. Spin more.

I loved the Tour de Fleece but haven't spun much since then. Right now I'm working on spinning for a swap with Jacey do I'm at least off to a good start.

5. Quilt more: finish the quilt and make at least one other quilted item.

What quilt? I know, I've been working on it for so long I sometimes forger about it. But I'd really like to finish it. And try some other patterns!

The set-up for quilting (or sewing) always seems to take a really long time. Knitting is much better suited to fill a ten minute chunk of time - I can knit for all ten! With working on the quilt, I feel like I spend right minutes setting up and then only have two left to make any actual progress. And that doesn't count when I have to iron the fabric first!

But I also like how (relatively) little time it takes to make a big quilting FO. Plus, I'd like to be more proficient at using my sewing machine.

Would you believe I worked on the quilt last weekend? I'm two strips away from finishing the third block of four. Progress!

I think that's it. No links or pics this time since I'm on my phone (just handed off the baby to see if my better half can have more success with a crib transfer) and I've really got to go get some sleep.

Replies to comments on the previous post are coming, I promise.

Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to what 2012 has in store.

Tadpole Tuesday: napping knits

2012-01-03T21:37:00.000-06:00

I really should have titled this post "nighttime when Tadpole doesn't want to go back in her crib and will only sleep on my shoulder knits" but "napping knits" has a nicer ring to it. We're back in a phase where sleep is a bit rough, to say the least, and she'll happily snooze on one of us but protests when we try to get her back into the crib.

Tonight is one of several nights recently where I've had grand knitting ambitions and instead ended up snuggling with a baby instead. Not that I mind, the snuggles are lovely, but I really wanted to knit!

Remember these days?

Those were lovely - baby snuggles AND knitting. I think it's time to bring that back.

I've even thought of the perfect project - plain socks. I wore holes in four different pairs over the last month or so and I realized that while fancy socks are more fun to knit, I tend to always pull the plain ones out of the drawer. Since I need to replenish my sock supply, plain socks will be perfect for knitting in the dark.

The trick is going to be figuring out how to store the project so that it's easy to access while I'm sitting in the rocking chair but not so easy that Tadpole can get to it during the day. Suggestions?

When I was thinking about what to post today, I immediately jumped to my one true "napping knit" of late - the new project I started last week while sitting in a parked car waiting for Tadpole to wake up from her nap. But I still haven't taken the pictures of Girasole off my camera and I think you'll understand when I say that it'll have to wait for later. If I can manage a successful crib transfer in a minute, I just want to go knit!

Tadpole Tuesday: Texas Edition

2011-12-27T20:12:00.012-06:00

Chez Tinks and Frogs has moved to Texas for a family vacation this week. A large extended family makes for plenty of baby sitters and we are taking full advantage.

It's been quite a change for us. We left this

For this

That's right. Sun and new Quince yarn from my sister (and a few other things, too). There are two other colors - a deep charcoal heather and a bright cherry red - but Tadpole only wanted to hold one skein at a time. The new grey heathers from Quince are really lovely and I think they're a limited run so grab some if you get the chance. I'm contemplating another stash diet for next year (I really should) so that means I'm just going to enable everyone else.

Happy Holidays and warm wishes from my family to yours. I'll see you next year.

Tadpole Tuesday: almost Wednesday

2011-12-20T23:40:00.000-06:00

I was going to put off writing this week's post until tomorrow. Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I were watching an old episode of Lost and I was too enthralled by Stripe Study (ten stripes!) to put my knitting down and write up a post.

But the show has moved from tame expository episodes to incredibly well crafted suspense sequences. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm still too caught up in thinking about the latest cliff hanger that I really don't want to go to sleep on it. So blog post time it is.

I suppose this installment should have been titled "How did she get so big?"

A couple of months ago, I knit up another aviatrix hat for Tadpole. It was way too big on her - so big that it kept falling over her eyes when we weren't looking. So I set out to make a replacement until aviatrix v3 fit a bit better.

This was aviatrix 1.0

I had plenty of Anzula Cricket yarn from the first aviatrix left in the stash so I picked up another skein in a lovely charcoal grey from my LYS to make a colorwork hat.

Three attempts in I realized that not only had I screwed up the short rows on the ear flaps and forgotten to attach the foldover hem (those were attempts one and two) but I just didn't like the color combination. I did the only logical thing - I went and bought yet another skein to contrast with the grey. So much for stash dieting on this project.

I needed a stationary model

The fourth time was the charm. I'm always amazed at how quickly stranded colorwork knits up. Perhaps it's because I just want to see what comes next. Or perhaps it's that I knit with one color in each hand so it feels like I'm doing more with each row.

I finished the hat up in no time and it was a perfect fit.

All my indoor shots are "take it off!" action shots

Once it gets chilly, hats are fine

But then Tadpole wore it again this past weekend and the hat was already looking too small. Babies grow much too fast! Thank goodness I have so much of that yarn left - I can eaily make another hat in the next size up.

Yes, that's snow (and three teeth)

A quick note about the pattern and then I've really got to get some sleep. (I've linked to the exact pattern on my ravely project page). I got this from the book "Hats Off" by Charlene Schurch, a fabulous collection published by Down East Books. The designs are interesting and look great knit up. But here's my favorite part: the designer never talks down to you. She just assumes that you know what you're doing and gives instructions accordingly. I love that! Sure, I tried a few different ways to work the short rows on the ear flaps, but her directions told me exactly what needed to happen so that I could figure out how I wanted to make that work. The big picture was always clear. I wish more knitting patterns were like that.

Stripes!

2011-12-18T15:10:00.000-06:00

Stripe study is addictive. Here's the shot from last weekend:

And here is where I am today:

Twice as many stripes! The colors are more accurate in the first pic. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some striping to do.

Tadpole Tuesday: Blankets for Baby

2011-12-13T21:45:00.000-06:00

My work-life balance has been pretty heavy on the work side lately, so I'm even more behind than usual in responding to blog comments. Replies are coming, I promise.

Rachel reminded me that I haven't even mentioned what colors I'm using for stripe study. I actually have a picture for this one but I haven't gotten it off the camera yet (or double checked to make sure it came out clearly since the battery was just about dead when I took the shot). So I'll just give a quick answer for now: dark blue for the thick stripes and vibrant green for the thin stripes and wide boarder.

And try to distract you from my lack of evidence of stripe study progress with some baby pictures.

Better now?

I knit a bit on my latest garter stitch-based baby blanket for Tadpole during a break from work this weekend (yes it was one of those weekends) and that got me thinking about baby blankets more generally.

I've knit two blankets for Tadpole and we use two handknit blankets for her, but they're not the same two. As I typed that I could have sworn I've knit three blankets for her but I must be counting the one on the needles in that list (or the several I have in my mental queue, although you'd have to discount each queued project by the likelihood of completion in order to have the several equal one . . . but I digress).

I'll start with the ones we use. First up is a great reversible, machine washable wool blanket that my sister made for Tadpole (pictured above). It's mostly a "going out" blanket that we use with the stroller or car seat because it squishes up nicely and doesn't take up a lot of room.

Mr. Tinks and Frogs also uses it as an extra layer of warmth when Tadpole goes out in the Bjorn. It's a fabulous all-purpose blanket. (Thanks again, M!)

Next up is the bear claw blanket that I made a few years ago. I was a bit hesitant to use this one at first because, not to put to delicate a word on it, babies tend to get fluids of various sorts everywere. And I really like this blanket. Yes, I know that Baby Ull is machine washable but I know happened when I machine washed my Baby Ull socks: they shrunk and pilled and got all fuzzy. That's fine for socks that had a too tight-bind off on the cuff to be a favorite pair anyway, but not what I want in a blanket that took me over a year to complete.

So we started off slow and easy: it's tough for a sleeping baby to get a blanket dirty (ok, that's not entirely accurate but we have lucked out on that front).

Then we took her to the appropriate setting - our LYS.

Babies just need more yarn. Or at least their parents do.

The bear claw is still a sleeping blanket.

It's showing a bit of wear - the ends are starting to come a bit loose and fray on the wrong side. That's understandable since there's nothing sticky about a machine washable wool to keep the ends secure. I'm not worried about the piece unravelling. It just looks well loved, as it should.

That's two blankets, one I made and one we received as a gift. The third we've used only for pictures. I'm sure you'll understand why.

The Honey Baby blanket is filed under "baby knit" but it's much more for me than for her. All those yarn overs would be lots of fun for little fingers to investigate, if I were willing to suffer the accompanying distortions to the stitch pattern. I knit this piece as a work of love for my daughter before she was born and it's a beautiful manifestation of the feelings I had for someone who was more of an idea than a reality for me at that point. This isn't a blanket to catch spit-up and drool or cheerios dropped during a car ride home. It's a keepsake that I get to hold onto until I'm ready to give it up; a reminder of the tiny baby who is growing up much faster than I ever expected.

The fourth blanket - the one I inched forward this weekend - falls somewhere in between "keepsake" and "every day." I'm making this one as another crib blanket, something a bit lighter than the bear claw, and as such it can be a bit more intricate than the stroller cover. But I want to make sure we actually use it. So it can't be too delicate.

That's the balance I like to strike with blankets for baby. You really can't have just one. There's the every day, use it anywhere blanket that's your go-to piece as you're heading out the door. Maybe you have another one or two in the same category or a bit more delicate that you use for quiet time. And then you have your heirloom piece that's purely sentimental. And knowing that you have one exquisite piece to represent all of your warm, snuggly, clean, and sleep-filled thoughts about the little one lets you roll on the floor with the everyday blanket and wear it threadbare with use.

Tadpole Tuesday: the Turtle Vest

2011-12-06T21:32:00.000-06:00

About a year ago I had posted about a quick little vest that I whipped up for Tadpole, using a cable chart from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries. I was taken by the turtle motif and came up with a simple design that used up a not-quite-full skein of Dream in Color Classy that I had in the stash. I had absolutely no idea what size I was making. But now I do - it fit 8 month old Tadpole (yes, these pictures are from a month ago) well with plenty of room to grow.

The turtle really is my favorite thing about this piece. And the fact that it took me something like 5 hours to make, even including frogging the whole thing a couple of inches in and starting over.

I'm thinking of making a second one, probably out of Tosh Vintage, and changing the bottom hem and the border of the turtle pattern to garter stitch.

So I have a question for you: if I were to knit up another one, would you like me to write up the pattern?

I'm using the word "pattern" here very loosely. I wouldn't include the turtle chart, since Barbara Walker designed and published it (in her third treasury, I believe) and I don't want to violate copyright. Instead, I'd write up how to make a baby-sized vest and include some sort of panel design on the front.

This girl needs a second turtle vest, right? So I'd better go get some projects off the needles first. Stripe Study, here I come!

Exciting stuff

2011-11-29T21:21:00.001-06:00

Well hello again. It's been a while, hasn't it? We have some exciting things going on at chez Tinks and Frogs.

First off, I thought I'd start a new feature: Tadpole Tuesdays. My knitting is not nearly as prolific as it used to be now that I'm back at work so I figured it's time to spice things up on the blog front. Every Tuesday I'm going to comment on some aspect of knitting for baby. What this really means is that you'll probably get lots of cute pictures of Tadpole wearing handknits that I made a while ago but didn't have any modeled shots to show.

For today's Tadpole Tuesday, I'm debuting my second pattern: the appropriately named Tadpole's Purple Sweater, which you may remember from the summer.

Tadpole has gotten quite a bit bigger since the first photo shoot (she was four and a half months old at the time) but the sweater still looks great on her at almost nine months old. Quick digression: when did that happen?!?!

The pattern is available as a free ravelry download here.

One final bit of excitement - I'm on twitter! Disclaimer: what I mean by "I'm on twitter!" is that I've signed up and haven't done anything else at this point.

Why am I telling you this? Jacey, Phoe, Lauren, Erin, and I are doing a knit-a-long for Stripe Study. Since the other four ladies were already on twitter (and since it can take a while to get up a blog post - I'm looking at you, cat sitting on my lap where the computer should be), I thought I'd take the plunge and tweet the KAL. That's not to say that I won't blog about it, too, but this way I can talk about what I'm doing without worrying so much about pictures during the week. And that's really nice when I can only try to get good shots on the weekends these days.

Wish me luck!

Slow and steady

2011-11-13T14:23:00.001-06:00

See that? Catkin is seven rows father along than I was this time last week. I'm making progress! Maybe I'll have this finished by Thanksgiving. Maybe.

And I'm almost done with the first skein on Tadpole's new blanket. I'm so close, in fact, that I need to wind the second skein today. I may not get to it tonight but at least it'll be ready.

I'm actually spinning more than I'm knitting these days. Tadpole and I can both play at the wheel (admittedly in different ways) on weekend mornings and I get a surprising amount of spinning done. Hmm, maybe I should sit us down this afternoon since we didn't get a session in this morning. I bet Tadpole would like that!

Distractions

2011-11-06T10:22:00.000-06:00

You know that point in a project where you feel like you're never going to finish? That's how I feel about Catkin right now. It's gorgeous, really gorgeous. The yarn just glows - something that Madelinetosh seems to manage better than any other yarn provider out there right now.

But I finished chart B the other night and now I'm stuck. It's not that chart C looks particularly difficult, it's just that there are a few new stitches I'm going to have to memorize and I'll need to pay attention during the set-up row. So I probably should do the first row of the chart all at once and I just don't have the energy (or time) for that right now.

The textures in this little shawl are just so interesting (and really perfect in the Tosh merino light) that I'm pretty motivated to find some time this week when I can sit down with an audiobook and get through the first row or two. Mr. Tinks and Frogs is doing NaNoWriMo again this year so I should sell this to him as "writing time."

My seat-of-the-pants hap blanket project has been a good companion these past few weeks. I'm still working on the garter stitch center square, which means I have plenty of mindless knitting. I'm working the square on the bias - increasing one stitch at the beginning of each row until the triangle looks big enough. In this case, "big enough" will be whatever size I have when I run out of yarn in the first skein. Then I'll decrease one stitch at the beginning of each row until I'm back to a single stitch. The next step is to pick up stitches around the edges and work a border in the round. I'm using the guidelines for proportions set out in the book "Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls" but otherwise making this one up as I go.

I bet I'd make more progress on these two projects if I didn't keep getting distracted by other "quick" projects for Tadpole. Like this one.

It's getting cold here and Tadpole needed a pair of mitts. I figured it would be easy enough to whip up a quick pair and secure them with a crochet chain. It only took me four tries to get a size that I thought looked appropriate. They'll fit this week but she'll definitely need bigger ones soon. And I'm having fantasies of whipping up a little pair in stranded colorwork. That'll be quick, right? No more than 2 hours tops?

I finished up another aviatrix hat for her three weeks ago and finally put buttons on it last week. Maybe by the time I get pictures of it she'll have grown into it a bit more. It's enormous on her right now but perhaps that means it'll make it through the winter.

I was going to tell you about all of the really nifty yarns and patterns that I keep drooling over instead of working on my current WIPs (Loft, anyone?). But I've got work stuff I need to do this weekend so that will have to wait until later. Instead, I'll just leave you with my latest exception to the stash diet:

Stripe Study just got bumped up in the queue.

Change of pace

2011-10-23T21:45:00.001-05:00

We have had quite a whirlwind here at chez Tinks and Frogs this past week or so. I went back to work on Monday for the first time since Tadpole was born, starting an exciting (and sometimes scary and stressful) new job. And Mr. Tinks and Frogs switched from working a a job that required a certain amount of travel to being a full-time stay at home dad. One of those changes was expected.

We had hired a nanny to come care for Tadpole and had a transition week before I started work. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - we discovered that the nanny was not working out as hoped and we had to figure out alternate child care just days before I was set to start my new job. All I can say is that I have an amazing husband and it was such a weight off my shoulders going in to work on Monday knowing that he was taking care of Tadpole.

But this is a knitting blog, I'm sure you're thinking. What does all this mean for knitting? Well, it means that I haven't really done a lot in the last week or so. Catkin progresses slowly but steadily. It's a relatively straightforward knit at this point but still takes concentration and energy that I didn't always have in the evenings. My newest project, a blanket for Tadpole, is moving a bit more quickly - at least in terms of number of rows completed. But it, too, grows slowly since it's worked in fingering weight yarn on tiny needles. A picture will probably have to wait until next weekend, although you won't notice much difference since it's just a garter stitch center square worked on the bias at this point. That garter stitch has come in handy this week when I was just too exhausted for anything else.

What else do these changes mean? They mean that I didn't get nearly as much done as I had planned in the week the nanny was here. I had whittled my to-do list down to a manageable level and was making great progress until we had a bit of a scare Wednesday night. So I spent Thursday keeping a close eye on what was going on in the apartment and agonizing over whether my anxiety had more to do with new job nerves or genuine concerns about the nanny. We let her go Friday morning. As you'll understand, that sapped any energy that I might have had for pattern writing and Tadpole's Purple Sweater is still unpublished.

But I did finish something that week!

Happy Early Birthday, Sis! I had asked my sister whether she minded if I posted her birthday present on the blog or if I should keep it a secret for another month and a half. Knowing I have a terrible time keeping gifts secret, especially ones I'm really excited about, she said to go ahead. Then, when I hadn't posted anything for a while, she cheekily asked if Tadpole's latest purple sweater was meant to be her gift and whether I had made a bit of a mistake with the sizing on that one. And since I forgot to respond to that email (sorry!), I'll answer now: nope, this is your gift.

And this is 500 yards of roughly worsted weight 2-ply 70/30 merino/silk blend. It's soft and bouncy and has that lovely little crunch that silk does. It'll make a perfect present, assuming I can pack it up and put it in the mail sometime between now and the end of next month.

The combed top was a beautiful blend of reds, greens, and golds that were given a muted sheen when spun up with the silk. I actually find merino/silk blends easier to spin than straight merino because the long staple length of the silk makes drafting a bit more manageable.

The yarn will come with a pattern or two. I have a couple of ideas but I'd love to hear suggestions.

FO: Another purple sweater

2011-10-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

Somehow purple seems to have become my new favorite color. At least for Tadpole. It clearly says "Hi, I'm a girl!" without being that color I can only think of as baby girl pink, two very good things in my book.

I meant to knit this skein up into a baby sweater a while ago but I never quite got around to it until this past month. It was sure worth the wait!

After I hung up the phone from scheduling a 6-month photo shoot for Tadpole, I had the brilliant - and delusional - idea that I would whip up a new sweater for her to wear in the pictures. I had a week and that was enough time, right?

This was a quick knit but not that quick. It took me two weeks instead of the one I had planned.

Project specs:

Yarn: About 9/10 of a skein of Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in the flashdance colorway
Needles: size 2 addi lace circulars (magic loop on the sleeves)
Size: 19" chest circumference, which fits 7 month old Tadpole over a long sleeve onesie
Pattern: A sheet of scribbles loosely modeled on the Tea Leaves Cardigan

This is the first top-down baby sweater that I've done completely from scratch. The top-down method is pretty simple but what had always stumped me was knowing how many stitches to cast on for the neck. It's all smooth sailing after that but everything (especially if you're using the EPS) follows from that first number. I worked backwards from the chest measurement and got the figures I needed but afterwards I sat down and came up with a formula that should work every time.

Here we go . . .

Basic Formula for a Top-Down Yoke Increase Baby Cardigan

We'll do the math first and then the "pattern" second.

1. Knit a swatch. All you really care about is stitch gauge here so work the quickest swatch that will get you that number. Write down your stitch gauge.

2. Figure out how big around you want the chest of the sweater to be. 19-20" should be safe for a 6-12 month old baby. Err on the side of making the piece too big since babies will always grow into the sweater eventually.

3. Multiply your stitch gauge by your desired chest circumference to get your key number (K).

Quick digression: since this is a baby sweater, you probably want a cardigan instead of a pullover so you might need to tweak your K a bit so that the piece divides nicely in the front. Round your K to the nearest multiple of 4.

Why 4? You'll need to make button bands for the cardigan that lay one on top of the other. If the center of the garment lies in the middle of the chest, half of the band stitches come from the right front and half come from the left front. In order to have a left front and a right front that are each 1/4 of the total chest circumference, you'll need a chest circumference that is a multiple of 4 stitches (you can't have a right front that is 25.25 stitches wide, even if that's what your calculator tells you the measurement should be).

4. Calculate how many stitches you need to cast on for the neck: K x 57% = neck stitches (N). Now add your button band stitches. I used a 4-stitch garter button band so I added 8 stitches (4 for each band) to my N to get my cast on figure. But N is what you'll use for the next calculations.

5. First Increase Row: ignoring the button bands, (k2, m1) across the entire row. You'll now have 50% more stitches than you had before.

6. Calculate the number of Yoke Stitches (Y) you will need. This is where the Elizabeth Percentage System (EPS) comes in.

Body Stitches = K - underarm stitches (8% K on each side) = 0.84 K
Arm Stitches = 30% K - underarm stitches (8% K on each side) = 0.22 K (one arm)

Total # stitches on yoke needle = 0.84 K + 2 x 0.22 K = 1.28 K

6. Second Increase Row: Ignoring the button bands, (k2, m1) across the entire row.

You may need to adjust this by one stitch since your stitch count on this row (after the increases) should equal 1.28 K. To do a quick check before working the row, multiply your stitch count from the previous row (omitting button bands) by 1.5

If your projected stitch count is one stitch too small, work m1, (k2, m1) across the entire row.

If your projected stitch count is one stitch too large, work (k2, m1), end k2 across the entire row.

Now that we have all of the math taken care of, here's the basic outline of the sweater:

Cast on (N + button bands) stitches. Work neck band in whatever stitch pattern you prefer. Switch to your pattern stitch and continue in pattern until the piece is about an inch and a half long. Work your first increase row. Knit in pattern for another inch and a half or so before woking another increase round. Knit for yet another inch and a half or so and then separate out the sleeve stitches as follows. Work the button band and 0.21 K stitches (the left front minus half the underarm stitches). Place the next 0.22 K stitches on a holder (this is the first sleeve). CO 0.08 K stitches for the underarm and work across the next 0.42 K stitches (this is the back). Put the next 0.22 K stitches on a holder (this is the second sleeve), CO 0.08 K stitches for the second underarm and work across the last 0.21 K stitches and the last button band.

You just put the sleeve stitches on holders to work later and now have K stitches plus the button bands on the needle for the body. Work the body until the desired length and finish with a hem of your choice.

To work the sleeves, pick up and knit 0.08 K stitches from the cast on edge at the underarm and work with the sleeve stitches on the holders until the sleeve is the desired length, finishing with a hem of your choice. Repeat for the second sleeve.

That's it.

Where did my inch and a half yoke lengths come from? You want to space the two increase rows evenly through the yoke. So figure out how long the yoke should be and divide that number by three to get how far you should knit before working an increase row. Right now, Tadpole wears sweaters with about 4.5 - 5 inch long yokes. One third of that is 1.5 inches.

Happy Knitting!

Where has the time gone?

2011-10-03T14:35:00.004-05:00

I wore Whippoorwill out for the first time the other night and it was perfect for the chilly weather. It's not supposed to be cold out yet, is it? Well, maybe if the view from our place looks like this:

That's right - fall color!

It's nothing on what you lucky New England folks will see over the next couple of weeks but it's not bad for living in the middle of the city. Time is really flying - tadpole will be seven months old tomorrow, she has a tooth (!), and I start my new job in two weeks. Fall is really here.

So what about fall knitting? Deep breath . . . about that. I'm a bit behind.

My mantra these last couple weekends has been "I just want to finish something." I've made progress but don't really have much to show for it.

For starters, I finally finished up three more squares for Elizabeth and her Blankets for Birmingham project. I don't know what my problem was, especially since the first three went so quickly. But this time I ran into difficulty after difficulty. I think I went through three or four stitch patterns until I found one I liked in the cotton yarn. And then I had gauge difficulties. After ripping out more starts than I care to think about, I did the unthinkable: I knit a swatch. My squares were done three days later.

Now I just need to give them a quick steam and iron job and pop them in the mail. They're coming, Elizabeth, I promise!

I also whipped up a quick pair of booties for tadpole - something to keep her socks on when we went outside.

I used some leftover Manos Silk Blend from the stash and modified the Christine's Baby Booties pattern to make a garter footbed that was 2x4 inches. This ended up being rather large (not unwearable) but got the job done.

You know you've got a winner when the guy bagging your groceries thinks it's a great knit.

The booties were wonderful to have on chilly days until one disappeared on a walk this weekend. I've got a skein of tosh vintage in the stash that is slated to become booties, mitts, and a hat but I've been putting off casting on for a few days.

Why? I just want to finish something!

I thought it was going to be this little sweater I'm making up for tadpole out of tosh sock.

It's a baby version of Tea Leaves that I'm making up as I go. Or rather, it's inspired by Tea Leaves since I don't have that pattern.

As I said, I thought that this one was almost done - I was working on the garter stitch hem with just the sleeves left to go when I decided to check and see if I had estimated the length correctly.

Nope, too short. So I frogged several rows this morning. And re-wound the yarn. Something seemed to have happened to the ball during the fitting.

I'll finish the body today (I hope!) and the sleeves should be pretty quick, which bodes well for starting replacement booties soon.

Except that I also want to finish this:

This, dear readers, is Catkin. What a fun knit! It's clever and makes you pay attention, both of which I really appreciate after several months of pretty straightforward knitting. I'm one row away from starting the pattern in the second section and I can't wait to get back to this project.

Maybe working on Catkin will be my reward for finishing the purple sweater. And that means it's time for me to go knit before nap time is over!

FO: Simmer Dim

2011-09-20T21:30:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed last time that I said I finished two projects last week but only showed you one. The other was Simmer Dim, a fabulous design by Gudrun Johnson. All of the techniques involved are simple but the finished piece is intricate and elegant. I'll definitely be knitting this one again. This version used malabrigo lace yarn (olive colorway) and size 6 and 10 circular needles.

The knitting itself was easy and I sped right through. Blocking was another story.

Well, the blocking itself wasn't particularly difficult.

But there is a pin in every single yarn over on the last row. And there is a yarn over every other stitch on that 500+ stitch row. That's a lot of pins. I think it might be time to find some flexible blocking wires.

I knit this one as written and only have one little note to make. I used a 3-stitch i-cord bind-off on the center triangle. I wanted a sturdy yet elastic edge and the i-cord seemed to do the trick. It's a bit thick so next time I'll try a 2-stitch i-cord and see how that turns out.

Simmer Dim is another very wearable shawl. The curved shape makes for easy draping. And the simple texture goes well with just about everything in my wardrobe. Of course, the green goes pretty well, too.

I love how unassuming Gudrun's designs are. Simple and understated. And perfect every time.

Besides, who can go wrong with malabrigo lace yarn? I'll have to try this pattern in handspun (and maybe a few other things in my stash). I don't think I can stop at just one.

FO: Whipporrwill

2011-09-19T21:20:00.001-05:00

Saturday was blocking day here at chez Tinks and Frogs. Because I did the unthinkable: I finished two projects last week. And for a brief bit of time, I didn't have any active projects on the needles. It felt very odd.

First up, Whippoorwill.

This is a lovely, simple pattern by Carina Spencer. The original calls for two contrasting colors but I think it looks great in handspun. I knit the small size on size 6 needles and it's a great scarf/neck warmer piece.

Blocking this one was pretty straightforward.

I almost could have skipped the pins entirely. After giving the piece a bath, I just gently pressed it into shape with my fingers and used T-pins to help maintain the scalloped edging.

Did I mention I really like this pattern in handspun?

It's very wearable, too.

Mr. Tinks and Frogs took a bunch of lovely FO shots for me and the shawl comes off very well. His model . . . well, let's just say that I'm still working on an alternative to a cheesy grin. Perhaps a second cup of tea would help things along. Note to self for next time.

Back to the shawl, I love how the horseshoe shape of the piece curls around the neck. It just lies naturally with no fuss at all.

I think this may be my go-to piece for fall.

FO: Leaflets

2011-09-06T22:19:00.000-05:00

That's right, Leaflets. Plural.

When I saw the Leaflet pattern in the latest edition of Knitty, I thought it was a nifty adult cardi that could be turned into a really nifty baby sweater. So I set out to make a new sweater for Tadpole and I started by making a swatch, er, sweater for me.

Why? Well, I wanted to try out the Quince & Co. Osprey yarn and (more importantly) I wanted to see how the sweater was constructed before I started making any modifications. Sure, I could have just studied the pattern but that would have required more sleep than I was getting at the time.

Mama Leaflet Specs -

Pattern: Leaflet by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

Yarn: Quince & Co. Osprey, Cypress colorway, 4 skeins

Needles: size 9 addi lace circulars

Size: 34.75"

Mods: I made the bottom ribbing 13 rows long to match the length of the neck/front ribbing

What you should know: knit a swatch and wash it! My swatch grew by 1/4 stitch per inch after washing.

Baby Leaflet Specs -

Yarn: Quince & Co. Chickadee, Parsley colorway, 2 skeins

Needles: size 4 addi lace circulars

Size: 34.75"

Actual Size: 21.25"

Mods: I only changed two things (other than gauge) for the baby version. First, I worked the body without any waist shaping. Second, I only worked 10 rows of neck/front ribbing but that was because I was worried about running out of yarn. I might have made it but I couldn't be sure and I didn't want to have to rip back in order to be able to finish the sleeves.

Tadpole is 6 months old (exactly!) in these shots and you can see she has plenty of room to grow in this sweater. It should definitely fit her through the winter and into spring. But it fits reasonably well now, too.

It also makes a great chew toy. She was munching on the shoulder the entire time we were taking pictures.

As for my Leaflet, it's comfy and cozy. And it holds up tolerably well to baby drool. She spent plenty of time gnawing on my shoulder, too. Now we'll just have to see if I'll wear it.

Catching up

2011-09-02T16:24:00.000-05:00

I adore knitting with handspun. There's something really fun about watching the colors and textures shift subtly as you work. Besides, I get to look down and say "I made that!" Twice. It never ceases to amaze me and this particular project is no exception.

So what project is this? (Can't you tell from that helpful shot of a beehive cone of yarn?) It's Carina Spencer's Whippoorwill, which I'm slowly learning how to spell. The pattern calls for stripes but there were several lovely handspun versions on ravelry that convinced me I'd be fine using just one color.

Maybe "colorway" is more appropriate.

There's more green in there than you can see in this shot. And the yarn is from that gorgeous braid of BFL/silk top from the Portland Fiber Gallery that my sister sent me for my birthday a few months ago. Oh, why did I go click over to their Etsy shop? That almost got me in trouble the last time I posted about this company, too.

I've finished the first - stockinette - section of the wrap and am waiting until my sidekick is asleep for the night before continuing since the next row will require some attention and counting. Not the best plan when she could wake up from her nap at any time now.

My other active project right now is Simmer Dim. That's right, I found it! Who knew that I kept project bags under a pillow on the couch? Not me, for about a week. I'm using malabrigo lace and loving it just as much as ever.

I'm still plugging away at the center triangle section but even garter stitch is a joy to knit in this yarn.

What about those two Leaflets? I actually wove in the ends and washed the baby version last night. It's so humid here that I think it's going to take at least another day to dry.

I'm curious to see how much the fabric grows. My swatch of the Quince Osprey grew by about a quarter of a stitch per inch when it got wet. I didn't swatch for this one out of Chickadee so it'll be a surprise.

The unblocked sweater seemed to fit reasonably well.

But it was a little hard to tell since my model wouldn't hold still for the camera - she's discovered the joys of rolling. Maybe once she can sit up unassisted it'll be easier to get modeled shots.

I'll block my Leaflet soon, possibly tonight. It's tough to be motivated about an aran weight wool sweater when it's 90 degrees outside.

So for now I'm going to plug away at my lace knits and figure out how much of my stash I have to knit through before I can go buy yarn for Catkin.

Along the same lines, here's a puzzler for you: if I want to make Stripe Study with a skein of tosh sock in the stash but need to buy a second skein, too, does that second skein count as adding to the stash when buying it will mean I'd use up both the new skein and the old one? I think it'll have to depend on whether my LYS has the color I'm looking for.

Busy bees

2011-08-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

We took Tadpole to her first fiber festival on Friday! I've been keeping an eye out for a local festival ever since she was born and everything was just a bit too far away. But the Michigan Fiber Festival took place this weekend and that was perfect - only a 3-hour drive away. Of course, we met friends there and had so much fun that I didn't take any pictures at all.

Don't worry, we brought a bit home to play with.

So what did we get?

Starting at the bottom left and moving clockwise we have a) Knitting Notions Classic Merino Sport (sweater for Tadpole); b) Knitting Notions Classic Merino Lace (scarf for me); c) Briar Rose Legend (sweater for Tadpole); d) Briar Rose Abundance (maybe a Hemlock Ring?); e) Briar Rose BFL top (spin 3-ply and knit something for Tadpole . . . or me); f) Miss Babs Northumbria DK 4-ply BFL (something for me).

This was a good weekend for fiber pursuits. I've been getting more spinning in lately since I no longer have to wait until naptime to sit down at the wheel. Tadpole likes doing her tummy time on the play mat where she can watch me spin and that lets me get 5-7 minute sessions in while she's awake. And if she's in the right mood, sometimes we even do this:

It never lasts more than a minute or two before she starts grabbing the fiber and I declare spinning time over.

I've even been getting a fair amount of knitting done and I'm always amazed at how quickly the baby items knit up (especially now that I'm not working with thin sock yarn on size 1 needles anymore).

This is a baby version of the Leaflet cardigan that I made for myself (and haven't blogged about yet). I'm using Quince & Co. chickadee - their sport weight yarn - and I think I like the baby version even better than the grown up one. We'll see after I get around to washing and blocking the one for me. Right now it's a bit bulky feeling and adds more pounds than I would care to wear at the moment.

I also caved and cast on for Simmer Dim the other day using some malabrigo lace from the stash. I could knit even garter stitch all day long with this yarn - it's just that lovely. But I have one small problem: I brought this project for car knitting when we went to the fiber festival on Friday and I haven't seen it since we unpacked after getting home that evening. I'm sure I put it somewhere clever but for the life of me I have no idea where that is.

Back to the fiber festival for a minute (that was rather circuitous, wasn't it?). What did I think? And, more importantly, will I go back? I certainly enjoyed my time there but I think that was more because of the people I was with than the festival itself. In all honestly, I was going to get my Briar Rose fix and that was great. There were a number of vendors whom I'd seen in previous years at the Midwest Fiber & Folk Festival outside of Chicago and there were quite a few new-to-me small producers. But I must confess I was a bit underwhelmed by the offerings in general. Some of the dyers had beautiful work but either had fiber blends that I wasn't interested in or charged too much for too little yardage per skein. There was a nice variety of handpainted spinning fibers for sale but not much selection of undyed fibers or raw fleeces (not that I know anything about starting from a raw fleece at this point in my spinning career).

I think my biggest gripe lies with how the festival was physically organized at the fairgrounds. Everything was spread out over a wide area and it was difficult to see what other vendors were out there or where they were.

And there weren't many animals to look at and pet. But there was a gorgeous camel who let my 4-year-old companion feed him some straw. Oh I wish I had taken a picture of that!

So will I go back? Maybe. It's a long drive to take with a small person but I'd love to see her pet that camel!

Another FO! (Citron)

2011-08-17T20:08:00.000-05:00

Wow, it feels like all I have these days are FO posts. I suppose that's what I get for taking so long to sit down at the computer - I keep finishing things! In fact, that was what spurred me to sit down right now. I'm almost done with Leaflet. But that'll have to wait for another post. Today is all about Citron.

It's surprisingly wearable.

So much so that I'll probably knit this pattern again. Several times. I hardly ever say that so what's the trick? The yarn. It's all in the yarn. (Ok, the pattern is delightful and easy, mindless knitting. But it's a real pleasure with the right yarn.)

I used one skein of Swans Island fingering weight in the Early Thyme colorway (nearly the entire skein - there certainly wasn't enough left to work another repeat of the pattern). This yarn surprised me. I've looked at it for over a year now whenever I've stumbled on it in yarn shops and it never seemed to be quite what I was looking for. The colors change quite a bit between dye lots and it could be that the current lot was never really "my" color. It's on the pricey side, but not outrageously so, and I wanted something just right at that price point.

Then Mr. Tinks and Frogs brought me this skein as a surprise gift a couple of months ago and I fell in love. It's soft in the skein but it's really soft when you're knitting with it. I must admit I've become a bit blase about merino - it seems to be in everything these days. But this yarn reminded me just why merino is so special. And it doesn't hurt that it's organic and colored with natural dyes.

And while I'm mooning over Swans Island, have you seen their woven blankets?

Before I forget myself and accidentally order one of those blankets (boy, would that blow the budget!), back to Citron.

The ruched sections seemed to take forever once I was on the last couple sections but they were my favorite parts to knit. I just loved seeing the yarn worked up at that denser gauge.

The pattern calls for 440 yards of laceweight yarn and I'm pretty sure I used at least 500 even though I used the recommended needle size (6). Maybe I was just extra relaxed working with this delicious yarn.

I'll definitely keep my eye out for dye lots that I like, now that I know what fun Swans Island is to knit.

FO: A sweater for Tadpole

2011-08-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

I did it! Tadpole's sweater is done, washed, blocked, and photographed.

This took just about the entire skein of Dream in Color Smooshy. And let me tell you, that was a nerve-wracking last few rows. Actually, once I finished the neck it really wasn't so bad since I didn't mind the thought of working the button bands in a contrasting color. But I didn't have to! I had a couple of yards to spare. Nothing like living on the wild side.

Ok, ok, I've made you wait long enough. Here's a modeled shot:

She looks surprisingly happy to be modeling a wool sweater in late July, doesn't she? (Yes, I turned the air conditioning up before putting the sweater on her. And no, pants would not have been appropriate.)

Back to the sweater for a moment.

It's a seamless raglan cardigan with an asymmetrical opening and a wide boat neck. The piece is pretty straightforward to knit - your basic bottom-up raglan construction. There are just a lot of stitches. Tiny stitches. Did I forget to mention the whole thing is knit on a size 1 needle?

But the really great part is how it fits. The textured pattern is very elastic so it stretches easily without losing its shape - great for growing babies. You can fold up the sleeve cuffs for younger wearers and unroll them as little arms grow longer. And the neck is wide enough that you can just pull the whole thing off over the head instead of fiddling with nine small buttons once the baby says "Enough! It's 90 degrees outside. Why am I wearing wool?"

5-month old Tadpole (not quite 5 months in these pictures) can wear it easily.

And so can her nine-and-a-half-month-old friend C.

That's what I'm most proud of. I wanted to design a baby sweater that could actually be used for several months. And it worked!

There will be a pattern for this one coming out relatively soon (in the next couple of months, I hope). I took pretty good (for me) notes while I was knitting this sweater and that's what I used to write up the first draft of the pattern. There was just one problem: I wrote up the draft at a time when Tadpole wasn't sleeping particularly well. So I'm honestly not that sure how clear the directions are. The friend who is doing the first round of test knitting already caught one stupid mistake. Hopefully there aren't too many more! It's always surprising to me how tough it can be to set out written directions. I just want to point and say "See? It just works like that." But "that" always takes several sentences to describe.

Hopefully this will be one of your go-to baby gift knits. Now it just needs a name. Sounds like time for another yarn giveaway to me but it's past my bedtime and that'll have to wait for the next post.

FO: Rock Island

2011-07-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

That's right, I finally finished Rock Island. Knitting this shawl took a while and then it sat in my knitting basket for a couple of weeks waiting to be blocked. And it took a few more days beyond that to get a chance to snap pictures. But it's done! (Ravelry project page)

I'm sure you've seen shots of the full shawl so I'm just going to show modeled and detail shots that I like best.

This is actually a rather tricky piece to wear because it is so big. I've never been a huge fan of the traditional drape: triangle centered across the back with the tips falling down over your shoulders in the front. The look is a bit tough for me to pull off. Instead, I've opted for the hopefully-artful drape around neck and shoulders. And this piece is great for that.

The body of the shawl is just garter stitch and it feels wonderful scrunched up around the neck. For all it's size, this is one very light and airy shawl.

I love the simplicity of the lace stitches - clean geometric lines. And a semi-solid yarn is definitely the way to go with this one. I used Madelinetosh tosh lace, a really lovely 2-ply superwash merino lace weight yarn. It's very elastic and that suits this piece nicely.

Ready for some detail shots?

I thought so.

This is definitely not a beginner lace project. Don't get me wrong, none of the techniques are difficult. But there's some fiddly work in tiny yarn. And it's not fast, even if the last section does speed by quite pleasantly. You work the edging first. Probably a good thing since I'm sure it would have taken me much longer to finish this shawl if I had to work all 71 repeats at the end of the project. That said, it's a lovely edging and Jared worked the turn very nicely, See?

As much as I love the lace bits, I think my favorite part of the piece is the froth of garter stitch in the center. Can you blame me?

This one's a keeper!

Post-mortem

2011-07-25T16:22:00.001-05:00

I did it! I spun every day that the Tour rode. No, I didn't spin through all of my birthday Briar Rose haul but I'm still really proud of what I was able to accomplish.

This past week I worked on the second bump of Polwarth, about 6.5 ounces of that lovely fiber. I had finished up the singles by the end of the day on Saturday and this greeted me on Sunday morning:

Plying took about an hour and I ended up with my favorite finished yarn yet. I really need to spin 3-ply yarn more often!

That's 350 yards of dk/light worsted weight. I'm not exactly sure how thick it is since the yarn is still a bit damp. But I just couldn't wait any longer to snap a picture (and you wouldn't be able to see anything if I tried to get a shot while the yarn hung to dry in the bathroom).

So how did I do?

Working left to right, I spun (a) 82 yards of navajo-plied Cormo; (b) 330 yards 2-ply Cormo; (c) 370 yards 2-ply Polwarth; and (d) 350 yards 3-ply Polwarth. That's 1132 yards of finished yarn (and 2696 yards of singles).

Not bad at all.

Things are moving forward on the knitting front, too. I sewed buttons onto Tadpole's sweater last night. (Oh, how I despise sewing on buttons!) It still needs a bath and blocking but I'm getting closer to FO shots.

I also cast on for Damask about a week ago. What Damask? It's not in the project bar. Yup, I frogged it a few days later. I wasn't thrilled with my yarn/needle combination (Swan's Island Fingering on size 6 needles) and the pattern rather annoyed me. There's no key to the symbols in the pattern charts - you have to read the line-by-line instructions, which I don't like to use, to figure out what the symbols mean. This normally wouldn't be a problem but the designer's symbols aren't intuitive (blank squares for purls on RS rows, for instance) and some of the symbols are entirely made up - not something you'd usually find in a commercial chart. I just wasn't enjoying the knit and I wanted something relatively mindless that I could knit on autopilot.

So I frogged Damask and cast on for Citron. I'm sure I'll get sick of the stockinette at some point but for now it's just addictive knitting.

I'm actually quite a bit farther than you can see in this picture (which I only took a couple of hours ago!). Yes, someone managed to take a decent nap this afternoon.

Days 10-16

2011-07-17T20:42:00.000-05:00

Oh my, where has the time gone? I've been diligently spinning every day (and I've even managed to take some pictures) but that has really cut into my blogging time. My internet time in general, actually. I don't even want to think about the state of my blogroll.

So what have I been up to?

As you can see, the purple Cormo is done. That's 330 yards of 2-ply heavy lace-weight. It's really, really lovely.

And I've started the second bump of Polwarth. One bobbin of three is done.

I'm shooting for a worsted or aran weight 3-ply. Maybe it will be something for Tadpole. Or maybe it will be something like this for me.

Speaking of Tadpole, the Cormo passes the nom test.

And so does the sweater I've been working on for her.

Here it is in a mostly-finished state a few days ago. I wove in the last end tonight and now it just needs buttons and blocking. But I have the buttons!

The color is incredibly tough to photograph but this shot actually shows the true shades of purple and the stitch pattern pretty well.

My model experienced a gravity surge.

One more thing on the knitting front: I finished Rock Island (except for blocking). FO shots soon!

Days 6-9

2011-07-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm actually spinning every day! I'm pretty impressed with myself for this one. Where were we last time? I believe I had just started spinning up the red Cormo. On Thursday I finished up the singles.

I really wasn't too confident about this one when I finished the bobbin. The singles weren't as even as I would have liked and I really wasn't sure what the finished yarn was going to look like. Since I only had an ounce of this particular batch, I figured it would make a great test yarn. I decided to navajo-ply the singles because it's easy, to be perfectly honest. I didn't want to make an andean plying bracelet (aka a tourniquet for my middle finger) and I thought keeping the colors together would be nice.

And indeed it was.

That's the pre-wash shot. This one turned out far nicer than I had expected. And here's the post-bath pic:

Look at that bloom! (And the color difference is due entirely to taking pictures at different times of the day, the yarn didn't bleed at all.)

I suppose I should have looked up the Cormo section in my new book before I started spinning. This particular breed is a recent development, begun by breeding Corriedale with Merino (hence the name), with a focus on producing consistent fleeces. Did you know that true Cormo sheep have fleeces whose fibers don't vary by more than 2 microns from the average fiber width of the fleece? That sort of consistency is amazing. The fibers have a fine crimp and, as I discovered and the book reminded me, bloom quite a bit when washed.

This was such a fun transformation that I had to start spinning up my second batch of Cormo next. Saturday I got the bobbin going.

And today I finished the first half of the bump. I'm shooting for a lace-weight (ish). We'll see what happens after it hits the water.

Speaking of giving yarn a bath, the Polwarth got a little soak to set the twist (err, wash the drool off).

The drool didn't stay off for long, though.

Days 4 and 5

2011-07-06T22:11:00.000-05:00

Where was I? At the end of the day on Monday I had this.

Last night I plied the two bobbins together and this morning I wound the finished product onto the niddy-noddy.

All 370 yards worth. My handy little spinning app says that the finished yarn is about 18 wpi (before washing).

Skeined up for a quick photo shoot before taking a nice bath.

This one gets the Tadpole seal of approval, too.

So what spinning did I do today? A bit of Cormo.

I'm glad I eased into the fine wools with the Polwarth since this is a bit tricky to spin. I'm planning to navajo ply this one and then knit it into another Baby Aviatrix (rav link) since I'm pretty sure Tadpole will have outgrown her first one by the time it gets cold again.

Day Three

2011-07-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

Today I started with this

and ended up with this

I won't be able to keep up this pace (especially not on a weekday) but it was very satisfying to finish up the first batch of Polwarth singles.

I'm letting them sit overnight and I hope to ply them tomorrow. The youngest member of the household has a nice early bedtime and that should help.

Except that she also thinks they're fun to play with.

Happily, she's too young for object permanence so she's already forgotten the bobbins exist.

Day Two

2011-07-03T21:08:00.000-05:00

This is all of what I spun up yesterday

And here is what I did today (actually it's a bit more than what's shown). I've still got about half of the second bobbin left to spin and then these should sit for a day before I ply them together.

This means it's time to think about what to spin next. More Polwarth? I'm actually thinking it might be time to try some of the Cormo now that my hands are a bit more familiar with fine wool.

Day One

2011-07-02T21:12:00.000-05:00

First up: Polwarth

Polwarth is a fine wool, a bit coarser than merino or cormo. In fact, Polwarth sheep are the result of breeding merino rams with merino/Lincoln cross ewes. But don't think that "coarser" means anything close to coarse. Polwarth is a bit easier to spin than merino because its fibers are a touch thicker (by a coupe of microns) but it still feels like butter. It's that soft.

I was a bit surprised by this because the BFL top actually felt softer to me in ball form than the Polwarth did. I didn't really notice the true softness of this fiber until I split a chunk of the top into thirds in preparation for spinning. It sure is lovely!

Polwarth sheep live in Australia, New Zealand, parts of South America, and the Falkland Islands (which I suppose are technically part of South America). None live in the US, although I'm not sure why. But that question will have to wait for another day since I'm having too much fun spinning it to take time for a google search.

The fleece & fiber book noted that Polwarth is great for next-to-the-skin wear (even baby knits) and should be spun fine with high twist for durability. I'm shooting for a 2-ply fingering weight or thereabouts to keep the finished yarn usable. Polwarth is supposed to bloom quite a bit upon washing so I'm really curious to see what this looks like once it's set.

Enough with the talking, what does it look like?

I actually have more than this spun up but the light stinks for an accurate picture. Somehow I managed to finish the first bobbin, about 2.5 ounces of fiber. Let's see what I can do tomorrow!

Getting ready for the Tour

2011-06-30T19:12:00.000-05:00

That's right. I'm doing the Tour de Fleece this year! Can you tell I'm excited? Life got in the way the last couple of years but this year I'm really going to do it. My realistic goal: spin every day of the Tour (7/2 through 7/24, with resting days on 7/11 and 7/18). My completely delusional goal: spin all of this

30.5 ounces of assorted lovelies from Briar Rose Fibers, a birthday present from my mom (thanks, mom!).

That breaks down into 11.5 ounces of Polwarth,

9 ounces of BFL,

6.5 ounces of Wensleydale,

and 3.5 ounces of cormo.

That's doable, right?

And I don't just want to spin. I'm also looking forward to learning more about these different fibers and the sheep they come from. To help with that, I got this with my latest Amazon order

What an amazing resource! Take a look at the entry on Finnsheep:

Breed info; a description of the fleece; and tips for spinning, knitting, and weaving. Plus samples of the fiber spun, knitted, and woven. This book is worth its weight in gold (and a steal at the $23 or so it costs on Amazon).

Don't think I've neglected my knitting needles in my excitement for the Tour. Rock Island continues to grow.

It's the perfect project for this week. We're doing sleep training with Ms. Tadpole and sometimes all I can do is work the simple garter stitch of this shawl. On the plus side, I have some extra time to knit. I may actually finish this one soon!

And the winners are . . .

2011-06-28T08:53:00.001-05:00

Sandra, alltheshinythings, and Tara (courtesy of random.org). Ladies, please email me at tinksandfrogs AT gmail DOT com with your mailing addresses so I can put your yarn in the mail this week.

And just to make it worth your while for stopping by, how about a little more yarn pr0n?

Best yarn yet

2011-06-25T19:34:00.000-05:00

Wow, I knew my last post was a hot topic but I was blown away by the number of responses. Thank you! It was really nice to hear all of your different ideas (and to get confirmation that I shouldn't be expected to provide the sort of assistance that some knitters have asked for). If you want to add your 2 cents to the discussion, and get a chance to win some yarn, you still have until Monday.

Moving along . . . you're probably here to see that yarn I promised.

Let's see, I started with this

which became this

and this

that in turn became this

That's 444 yards of 2-ply worsted spun BFL/silk from the Portland Fiber Gallery (Etsy shop). What weight? Umm, I forgot to check that - I was too busy fondling the skein.

It's about this thick

So what do I do with it? Besides fondle it and admire it as it sits in my knitting basket, of course. It should be a wrap of some sort with a simple yet interesting texture that keeps my interest while knitting but lets the yarn do the talking. Something with the feel of Terra, but not Terra. I want something new.

Pattern suggestions? I'm all ears!

And while you're thinking about it, how about a little bit of Tadpole/yarn love?

She thinks the skein is pretty nifty, too. And the yarn . . . it's not felted yet.

A rant, a question, and a yarn giveaway

2011-06-20T07:00:00.162-05:00

Quick Note: My efforts to work through my yarn stash haven't been nearly as successful as I'd hoped (it's amazing how much less knitting one can do when parenting a small person all day long). So it's time for a change of plan. This will be the first of several posts where if you leave a comment, you get entered into a drawing to receive some yarn from my stash. I'll be opening up comments to everyone, not just those with google/livejournal/etc. accounts. I hope we can get a great discussion going (and work down my stash!).

Today I want to talk about something that I've been thinking about a lot lately: pattern support.

Back in November I published my first pattern and since then I've been really flattered by the support, praise, and encouragement I've received both here on the blog but also on ravelry. I truly enjoyed coming up with the design. Knitting it a couple of times and having friends jump on the scarflet bandwagon was a blast. And then I got to have the fun of turning my thoughts and ideas into a printable document that anyone could use.

I put this pattern out for free. I didn't (and still don't) think that what I had done was different enough from what was already available to warrant charging someone money for it. I also didn't want to deal with the hassle of setting up a system of payment, figuring out about taxes, and dealing with the other business aspects of knitwear design. This is something I do for fun; it's not my job. And I wanted to contribute something to the knitting community that has been very good to me and has helped me grow.

However, publishing that pattern came with something that I really haven't enjoyed and didn't expect. I have received a number of requests from knitters asking for help with the pattern. For the most part, these requests have pinpointed a specific section of the pattern causing difficulty. But some of them were general cries for help where I couldn't even tell what the problem was, never mind begin to think of how to fix it.

I like to think that I am a nice person. I genuinely like to help people when I can. And I really like to encourage people in a craft that I enjoy quite a bit. For all of these reasons, I answer each and every request for pattern support that I receive.

But here's the problem: all of these request for pattern support could have been answered succinctly in one of two ways.

Read the pattern (again).
Count your stitches (again).

While I've been tempted to say this, I haven't. And instead I prepared a thoughtful response that usually involved just repeating what I had written in the pattern. I might rephrase something slightly but that's it.

All of this involves time, quite a bit of time. And time is not something that I have a lot of these days. I am the mother of a three-and-a-half month old daughter. This is a 24/7 job. In a few months, I go back to my "real" job where I will be working 60-hour weeks if not more. And I will still be the mother of an infant daughter. All of this means that I want to spend as much time with her (and my husband) as I can while also recognizing that I am an adult who uses real words in full sentences and has interests other than all things baby.

If someone genuinely thinks that there is a mistake in the pattern, I want to know about it so that I can fix the problem and issue a correction that everyone can use. But I don't want to spend what little bit of free time that I have gently urging someone to reread the pattern because I have already answered her question halfway down page three.

I accept that the knitting community has come to expect, and paid designers have come to provide, a fair amount of pattern support. But I can't do this.

There are plenty of resources out there if you have difficulty understanding a pattern. You could call a knitter friend for help. You could look on ravelry forums to see if someone else had encountered a similar problem or could help you better understand the directions. And if that didn't work, you could go to a help session at a LYS, pay the money for an hour with the on-site expert, and seek advice there.

I am working on a baby sweater design at the moment and I would love to share it with you. I think it's going to be a really great solution to the problem of figuring out how to make a sweater to fit a baby you haven't met yet (and to make that sweater last longer than two weeks). But for all of the reasons I've laid out above I can't keep answering questions asking for help with the pattern.

So here's my question: How can I contribute patterns to the knitting community while making clear that I can't and won't provide the sort of pattern support that many knitters have come to expect?

How would you feel if a free pattern came with a disclaimer telling you that the designer would not answer questions asking for help understanding the pattern?

Would you still want to use the pattern or would this put you off? More importantly, would you think to yourself "if I ask really nicely, perhaps she'll make an exception just for me"?

Would it help if I had an FAQ page on the blog where I answered common questions or provided clarification if people had questions?

Would it be better if I skipped the disclaimer on the pattern and instead went with a generic response to requests for help, saying that I don't provide pattern support?

Thanks for reading. I know this is quite a bit longer than my usual posts and not the rosy picture of knitting motherhood that you normally get here. But this issue is very important to me and I wanted to take a break from the usual content and talk about it. And I am really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and responses.

As an extra thank you to everyone who participates in the discussion, I'm giving away three skeins of Woolen Rabbit Essence in the oakmoss colorway.

How does this work? Just leave a comment letting me know what you think and I'll enter you into a drawing (random number generator) to receive one of the three skeins. Any comment whenever? No. Leave the comment by noon central time on Monday, June 27. I'll post the three winners on Tuesday, June 28, and ask them to tell me their mailing addresses so I can send off the skeins.

Next time: the best skein I have ever spun. Seriously.

Horay!

2011-06-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

My birthday rolled around about a week and a half ago (it was a multiple of 3 and that's all I'm saying) and I finally gave in and did something I've been dreaming about for a couple of years now.

That's right. I bought a Matchless and I am in love. I first spun on one of these a few years ago when Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I had the opportunity to go to TNNA. That wheel was perfectly balanced and spun like a dream. About a year and a half later I was in the market for a new wheel and we went out to the spinning store about an hour and a half outside the city to see about bringing one home.

The shop had a Matchless set up but it was definitely a floor sample and something was off since it was awkward to spin. My disappointment with the wheel itself combined with some less than stellar customer service (I've gotten the impression that I'm about a generation too young to be taken seriously at this particular establishment) sent us away empty handed. You probably know that burning hole in your wallet when you're all set to make a big purchase and it just doesn't pan out. Well, this particular burning hole turned into several skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca from my LYS that became this. So it wasn't all bad.

Fast forward to this spring when I finally decided it was time to start looking for a new wheel again. I was going back and forth between the Schacht and a Lendrum wheel and read just about every review I could get my hands on. We thought about heading off to the spinning shop so I could try a Lendrum but a certain someone's extra-long morning nap (not to mention the fact that we also wanted to go out for a birthday brunch) got in the way of that plan. I was actually rather pleased with this since I was hesitant to spend so much money at a shop where I never really felt welcome. After researching the wheels a bit more, I settled on the Matchless and went hunting for a good deal online. I had a great experience purchasing from the Copper Moose in Vermont and would highly recommend them if you're looking for spinning equipment.

Enough with the chatter. I'll bet you're really interested in what I'm actually doing with the wheel, not how I got it. My sister sent me a beautiful braid of BFL/silk top that seemed like the perfect fiber to use when breaking in the wheel.

Gorgeous, isn't it? That's 5.8 ounces in the colorway Wood Gnomes from the Portland (Maine) Fiber Gallery and Weaving Studio. You can see their fiber here. Shoot, I really shouldn't have clicked on that link. Stash diet, stash diet, stash diet.

I know I need a little distraction right now before I remember that I've got my credit card number memorized. So here is what the fiber looks like spun up:

This wheel just spins like a dream. It's amazing what a difference there is when comparing it to my first wheel (a very solid Ashford Traveller). When I sit down and start spinning, I feel like the wheel will help me make whatever yarn I want and that's a lovely thing.

Tadpole even likes it, too.

Thank goodness she's not big enough yet to want her own time on the wheel. And no, I'm not actually spinning there. We're just petting the fiber. But we all agree that that wheel is a great addition to the household.

And there will be more fiber pr0n coming up, too. My mother sent me a spectacular selection of fibers from Briar Rose that I'm planning on spinning for the Tour de Fleece. I've got to start training!

Fits and spurts

2011-06-03T13:27:00.000-05:00

An amazing thing happened this morning. I got up, showered, made breakfast, cleaned up breakfast, made a cup of tea, and got to start drinking the tea all before a certain someone woke up. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. And then I remembered - blog! So I checked in on the sleeping tadpole and fished out my camera to snap some WIP shots. Of course, once she woke up she stayed awake for over two and a half hours (a very long time in Tadpole-land) so I'm just now sitting down to type.

Can you tell this one is a sweater? Would it help if I said it was a cardigan? And you'll never guess what stitch pattern I decided to use.

One of these days I may actually be able to get an accurate photo of the color of this yarn. It's a lovely deep purple that just doesn't play well with my camera. The first pic is closer to the real thing.

But what about the clever bits of this design? No, it's not just that I'm using the stitch pattern from my favorite socks. My plan is to make a one-size-fits-most baby sweater. Or a fits-for-longer-than-three-weeks baby sweater. When I was pregnant, I had the toughest time figuring out what to knit for Tadpole because I had no idea what size to make. Or how quickly she would grow (very!).

This particular stitch pattern is great because it is incredibly elastic and looks interesting and attractive no matter how it is stretched. I pulled out my gauge swatch (aka that sock I finished a little while ago) and crunched the numbers so that the un-stretched fabric would fit Tadpole now-ish and the stretched fabric would fit her once she's in 6-12 month sized clothing with a bit of room to spare. My plan is to make the body and sleeves on the longer side to really allow for growth and a range of body shapes and sizes.

And that's not all I've done this week.

Not that you can tell from the picture, but I am two rows into the lace section on Rock Island. How did I manage to get this much knitting done?

Well, this helped.

My assistant wasn't too interested in the knitting.

On and off the needles

2011-05-26T18:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, you wanted knitting? I can do that, too.

I've had an idea for another sweater for Tadpole bouncing around in my head for a while and last night I actually got around to crunching some of the numbers and casting on.

It doesn't look like much yet but I hope it turns out as cute and clever as it is in my head. And if I'm really good I'll put together a pattern, too.

I was shocked when I counted this morning because I'm more than half-way through the edging on Rock Island.

It's always interesting to follow the progression of memorizing a pattern repeat. I start out staring at the chart for every stitch, then I check every row. A few more repeats along I only look when I think I'm doing something wrong but I keep the chart out the whole time. Several more repeats later, I realize that I'm not looking at the chart at all. And finally, I don't pull out the chart when I grab the project from the knitting basket.

It would probably be a good idea to throw in a lifeline at this point but I like knitting on the edge.

Forty-two repeats down, twenty-nine more to go. Shoot, I was much happier before I thought of that second figure.

I even have an almost FO to share. After the tornados that hit Alabama a few weeks ago, Elizabeth announced that she was starting Blankets for Birmingham and asked knitters to contribute knitted squares that she would put together into blankets for those who had lost their homes. I'm having fun playing with a new-to-me cotton (Cascade Ultra Pima) and contributing to the cause.

I still need to weave in the ends and block the square (and knit a few more) but this is still good progress.

One more almost FO. I finished the first of my green socks a little while ago but it wasn't until today that I found my favorite sock model ever.

She doesn't always manage to stay upright by herself but she's working on it. Corners help.

So do fists.

Bits of green

2011-05-12T09:21:00.000-05:00

The field across the street has this haze of spring green that is absolutely lovely (what is this "field" in the middle of a big metropolitan city? "Giant tract of undeveloped land probably owned by a railroad otherwise it would be full of condos by now" doesn't have quite the same ring to it). And my knitting basket is showing similar signs of the season.

This little lovely that is growing slowly but surely (I'm perhaps 5 rows farther along than what you can see in the photo) is Fernfrost by Anne Hanson. It's a fun textural lace pattern that I'm knitting up in one of the nicest yarns I have ever worked with: qiviuk. That's right, qiviuk. My local yarn shop started carrying these a couple of months ago and Mr. Tinks and Frogs snagged one just before Tadpole was born and gave it to me as a hobbit-style birthday present. It's just lovely. The fiber is incredibly soft and has a beautiful halo. Ok, now I want to put the computer down and pick up that project.

Moving along, I finally started Rock Island! My mother's day present included a bit of time to start this project, something that I've been looking forward to for a while now.

I think I've done 7 or so repeats of the edging chart at this point. Only 60-something more to go.

This green trend extends outside the apartment, too. Last weekend I finally did something that I've been looking forward to since we moved into this place last spring.

I finally got my container garden going. There are asiatic lilies,

cherry tomatoes (do you need to stake cherry tomato plants?),

basil,

and mint.

I have a feeling we'll be having a lot of tomato/basil pasta dishes and mojitos this summer. Yum!

FO: not Rock Island

2011-05-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

But I'm close! The yarn is even wound up into a ball (thanks, Mr. Tinks and Frogs, for taking care of that one) and is resting in the knitting basket just waiting for me to have a chunk of time to sit down and dive into the pattern.

Leaving aside what I haven't done yet, let's turn to the much more satisfying subject of what I have accomplished. This:

Pattern: Maile Sweater by Nikki Van De Car
Yarn: Dream in Color Rustic Sock, about 3/4 of a skein, in colorway Rusty Lilac
Needles: size 5 addi lace circulars
Mods: This is a basic bottom-up raglan sweater with a lace panel inserted between the raglan decreases, so I made a few changes in keeping with how I like to make a bottom-up raglan (and to fit the recipient). First, I made the body and sleeves a bit longer than the pattern called for. Tadpole is long and I'm hoping this mod, which was entirely unscientific - I just knit until it looked right, will help the sweater last a bit longer.

Second, I worked the sleeves in the round. It's quick and easy to knit a tiny tube with magic loop and this saved me the trouble of sewing up sleeve seams at the end of the project.

Third, and this is the biggest one, I disregarded the designer's instructions for joining the arms to the body at the start of the yoke. The pattern doesn't reserve any stitches for the underarm and instead has you knit all of the body and sleeve stitches together into a giant row. Why? The designer notes that she doesn't like the feel of an underarm with bound-off stitches and wanted to avoid that. After reading several pattern notes on ravelry, I was pretty sure I didn't want to follow the pattern as written since it puts a fair amount of tension on the stitches where the sleeves and body come together. Instead, I put 10 sleeve stitches and 10 body stitches on holders at the underarm and then grafted these together at the end using kitchner stitch. It's a nice, seamless join and seems to fit the body nicely.

Because I was working on fewer yoke stitches than the pattern called for, I worked four rounds straight after joining the sleeves to the body before I began the raglan decreases. I added the first buttonhole as soon as I started the decreases/lace pattern and ended up with three buttonholes compared with the pattern's five. I also ignored the instructions on when to stop decreasing and knit until I had used up all of the sleeve stitches.

It's a cute pattern and has a lot of personal significance for the designer but I don't think I'll knit it again. The leaf lace pattern at the yoke is a bit droopy for my taste so I may use this design as a template and substitute in lace patterns that I like better. All that said, it was a great pattern for this yarn.

What about the yarn? I'd never heard of Rustic Sock before - it was an experiment by Dream in Color yarns that will never be put into production - but the colors in the skein grabbed me when I went to the Dream in Color seconds sale last fall. It's a 3-ply fingering weight yarn and the plies have varying thicknesses and degrees of twist. This makes for a lovely, light fabric. It's great for a baby sweater but I don't think it would wear well for socks.

Ok, enough chatter and onto the important question: does the recipient like it? She's still working on her modeling skills (her "awake" modeling skills, to be fair) but she was pretty content while I took a quick photo shoot yesterday.

Of course, I don't think I got a single shot where she was holding still and I was able to get both her sweater and her face in focus. But she's cute enough that it doesn't matter a bit.

Pants! (not a problem anymore)

2011-04-18T14:18:00.001-05:00

The third time's the charm. Ok, so I was frantically weaving in the ends while my breakfast was cooking this morning but they are done and Tadpole was all decked out for our errands.

Pattern: what pattern? These were made up on the fly.

One day when Tadpole was pretty relaxed and in a good mood after being changed, I measured her hip circumference. I added another inch and a half or so for ease (and room to grow). Then I started crunching some numbers for the yarn I had chosen: Dream in Color Classy on size 8 needles. Knowing, rather than merely guessing, my gauge would have been helpful and saved a bit of heartache. Let's just call version one a giant gauge swatch and move along.

I multiplied my gauge by the desired hip measurement to get the circumference of the body section of the pants. Then I reduced this figure by 10% for the ribbing and cast on. I wanted a nice long waistband that could either fold down or be left up so I worked about 3 inches in twisted stitch 1x1 rib. After the ribbing, I increased evenly around the piece, adding in my missing 10% of the final stitch count. I worked a couple of rows plain and then added short rows along the back side. When the piece measured about 5 inches, not including the ribbing, I worked a couple more short rows along the back. I worked another round or two and then it was time to divide for the legs.

I decided to throw in a gusset and that was definitely the way to go - the fit is great. To do this, I knit across one quarter of the stitches (the front of the first leg) and placed the stitches for the second leg (50% of the total number of stitches). Then I provisionally cast on two and a half inches worth of stitches and knit across the remaining leg stitches. Every other round I knit until one stitch before the newly cast on stitches, worked a ssk, knit to one stitch before the end of the cast on stitches, and worked a k2tog. Repeat this until all of the stitches you cast on have been decreased away and you have a gusset.

The rest of the leg is a piece of cake. Knit until the leg is long enough and then bind off. I added an inch of garter stitch at the bottom for decoration.

For the second leg, join a new strand of yarn and start working the stitches you had put on a holder earlier, decreasing away the cast on stitches as before. Then knit the second leg so it matches the first and bind off.

Throw a baby in it and you're done. Tadpole was delighted to model her new pants after we got home.

I've got one more baby handknit to share: the aviatrix baby hat. It's the only hat that actually stays on her head! And it stays on even better now that I managed to sew buttons on yesterday.

Pattern: Aviatrix baby hat by Justine Turner

Yarn: Anzula Cricket MCN (really lovely stuff but no decent website where you can see it). I used less than a quarter of the skein. I think.

Needles: size 4 addi lace circs for the ribbing and size 5 addi lace circs for everything else

Size: I made the newborn size and it fits Tadpole really well at 6 weeks old but there is still room for her to grow.

A problem with pants

2011-04-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

Nope, this isn't a rant about how I'm still a long way off from fitting into my favorite pre-pregnancy jeans (very true but a bit off-topic for this blog). Instead it's a story of knitted pants. Or rather, not-yet-knitted pants.

This all started when Tadpole received several pairs of adorable little socks and booties as gifts from various family and friends. I put them on her and snapped pictures of cute little baby feet, remembering to take them off before the next diaper change since someone who shall remain unnamed is very good at getting her feet dirty while on the changing table. Then I realized there was a little problem: all of her pants have feet on them. Footed pants are very convenient in terms of getting her dressed quickly. But they're not very good at all at showcasing handknits.

The solution hit me immediately. I knit. And I should knit her some pants.

I spend a fair amount of time on ravelry while nursing so I researched various patterns for longies. None of the patterns was quite what I was looking for so I decided to take the various bits and pieces that I liked and come up with my own design. I'd been swooning over various brooklyntweed patterns at this time, especially the Guernsey Wrap, and I decided to make a pair of Guernsey pants.

I pulled out Beth Brown-Reinsel's fabulous book and picked out some stitch patterns I liked. Then I cast on and knit happily away for several inches. (Note how I didn't say anything about swatching. There wasn't any.) I made it about half-way down the butt when I started thinking the piece was looking a bit big. I dutifully pulled out the tape measure and discovered that I was getting 4 stitches to the inch when I had worked the numbers for 4.5. About that whole swatching thing . . .

So I frogged and started over with numbers crunched for 4 stitches per inch. I also took out the guernsey elements since I thought the combination of stitch patterns looked too busy in the yarn I was using (Dream in Color Classy from the stash). This has been my main project for the last week and a half or so. And every day for the last few days I've said to myself, "tonight I think I'm going to finish it." Inevitably I'd knit 2 rows after each time I said that before life got in the way.

It doesn't help that I've fallen in love with the latest shawl design from Jared Flood. Or that I told myself I couldn't start that project until I'd finished the pants.

But last night I was really making progress. I finished the first leg and was picking up stitches to start the second. And then it hit me: I had split for the legs using the original pattern numbers. The current version was 8 stitches smaller and that meant that the leg I had just finished was too big. Not only that, but my short row shaping along the backside was not centered at all.

So I frogged all the way back to the ribbing and knit a couple of rows before calling it a night (aka sitting up with a certain someone who didn't want to go to sleep until 12:30).

This is what the pants look like now:

I'd really like to start Rock Island soon. Wish me luck!

FO: Laminaria

2011-04-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

This was a really fun knit. Even more so because it was my "keep myself sane since I'm past my due date" project. I cast on the day Tadpole was due and got through all but one of the flower chart repeats by the time we headed to the hospital. Once we got home, I'd knit a row (or half a row) here and there while Tadpole slept and eventually the piece was finished.

(I look reasonably well rested there, don't I?)

Before I forget (or get stuck away from the little piece of paper with my notes on it), here are the project specs:

Pattern: Laminaria by Elizabeth Freeman

Yarn: one skein of Fleece Artist Suri Blue (a 50/50 mix of Suri alpaca and Blue Face Leicester). Colorway? I have absolutely no idea. It's a collection of lovely greens that nearly jumped into my hand at the yarn store.

Needles: size 4 addi lace circulars

Size: the pattern gives directions for two sizes, a small scarf and a large shawl. I wanted something in between so I made up a hybrid of the two. I worked 5 repeats of the star chart and 5 repeats of the flower chart.

Mods: other than hybridizing the size, I went with a 3-stitch border rather than a 2-stitch one. Why? I just liked the look of the extra stitch - it felt more sturdy. That's all.

So how big is the thing?

The shawl is 26" deep from bottom point to the cast on bit, 38.5" wide measuring straight across from curved point to curved point, and 52.5" wide if you actually measure that curved line. All in all a great size for wrapping around your neck.

I really liked the various stitch patterns used in this design. I especially like the star chart in the first section, a stitch that Nancy Bush used in her Miralda's Triangular Shawl (which I knit last year). And the flower chart produces a fabulous textured design.

(What's with the color changes? The sun was out for the top three pics.)

I wasn't a huge fan of the edging - it looked pretty droopy in the pattern shots. But it's actually really fun to knit (there's just something special about working double and triple yarn overs), and it doesn't have to be that droopy if you don't block the points out quite as aggressively as the designer did.

That said, I'm definitely looking forward to knitting the echo flower shawl, which uses the flower motif from Laminaria for the body of the shawl and finishes with an edging design filled with nupps. I just might have a skein of malabrigo lace in the stash already slated for that project.

Moving along, I had a helper for this photo shoot.

Apparently knitting photo shoots aren't that exciting since she slept right through it.

I honestly don't know if I have much more to say about this project. Fun knit, great yarn, wearable finished piece. That about sums it up. But I do have some more Tadpole pictures so how about we just end with that?

Thank you, magic song!

2011-03-31T18:47:00.000-05:00

My mother put me onto a great tip when she visited us last week: the magic song. Dancing to this song calms Tadpole down like a charm. It didn't give me time to finish replying to all of your comments from the last post (they're coming, I promise). But the magic song + the moby wrap led to this (and dinner!):

Option 3 it is

2011-03-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Mr. Tinks and Frogs went back to work today so this is my first day home alone with Tadpole. She's napping at the moment and I know this means I should be napping, too, but I couldn't pass up a chance to engage in an adult activity that didn't involve eating solid foods. I've got about half an hour before she's going to wake up again so this is going to be pretty random. Don't say I didn't warn you. Hmm, maybe less than half an hour but it looks like the moby wrap is going to buy me a few more minutes, especially if I bounce while I type. This should be interesting.

On the knitting front, or rather the yarn acquisition front, my stash diet has taken a bit of a beating these past couple of weeks. In my defense, I will say that the exceptions were very, very good.

Exception #1: being in labor. I'd been having regular but still rather mild contractions for several hours when my LYS posted on ravelry that they now had tosh sock available. The store had had worsted and lace weight Madelinetosh offerings for a few weeks but I had really been looking forward to the sock. I was ready to take another walk, we had already gone to the good coffee shop in the neighborhood earlier in the day, and the LYS might be sold out of all the good colors before I had another chance to get there (or so I told myself). All very good reasons to head in that direction. Living within walking distance of a lovely yarn store is a dangerous thing, and I came home with a skein of Jade tosh sock.

Exception #2: we (Tadpole) needed something that screamed "I'm a girl." Apparently my sophisticated, relatively gender-neutral color palette of handknits (not to mention the little notation next to her name on the chart) makes it too difficult for the nurses at the pediatrician's office to notice that Tadpole is a girl.

She looks like a girl, right?

We're switching pediatricians (there are other reasons, too) but I thought a little something extra was in order to avoid this sort of thing in the future. Hence the need for another trip to the LYS.

That should help. Assuming I ever get them knit up into something, of course. Each skein is slated to be a hat plus something else (the something else will probably be a sweater, but that has yet to be determined).

On the knitting front, Laminaria is done. Or rather, the knitting is done and the ends are woven in but I still need to block the piece and that's not really something that I can do while wearing a baby. Although I just might be able to do it if I put the blocking mats on the island instead of the floor so I don't have to be on my hands and knees the whole time. Certainly something to think about. Or I could just wait for Mr. Tinks and Frogs to come home and put him on tadpole duty for half an hour.

More importantly, how did I manage to actually finish this piece? I knit the bulk of it while I was waiting for a certain little someone to make her appearance so I only had one repeat of the flower chart and then the edging charts left to do once we got home from the hospital. I knit a row here and a row there while Tadpole was napping. And then I managed the bind off like this:

Now you're never going to believe this next bit. I've been spinning! After breakfast, I popped Tadpole in the wrap and sat down at the wheel after she had fallen asleep. I managed to finish up a bobbin of BFL that I've been working on for a couple of months now.

The second bobbin of what is destined to be a (hopefully) lovely 2-ply yarn is about half done and needs only another couple of hours worth of work to complete.

I hadn't really enjoyed spinning the last few times I had sat down at the wheel during the final months of pregnancy. I was worried that I was either falling out of love with spinning or maybe just falling out of love with my wheel. But then a friend of mine suggested option 3: perhaps I just couldn't sit comfortably in my spinning chair. After spinning several times in the past week, I can happily report that the correct answer is option 3.

Thirteen Days

2011-03-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

That's right, Tadpole will be two weeks old tomorrow. I have no idea where the time has gone. Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I have been having a blast getting to know our little girl. Even Nayyir seems pretty pleased (ok, exceedingly tolerant) of the new addition to our household.

We're all getting used to some new routines around here. For instance, I don't think I've typed with both hands for thirteen days now. (I'm holding Rowan with one hand and typing with the other at the moment.) So, for the sake of expediency, I'm going to skip my usual individual responses - if that's ok - and say a mass thank you for all of your comments on my last post. I really enjoyed reading your kind words and they were great company during 2 a.m. feedings.

Moving on . . . this is ostensibly a knitting blog and I even have a bit of knitting to share. Perhaps those Nancy Bush socks that I was so careful to save for the hospital? Nope. I didn't knit a stitch while I was there. I've been working on it (and Laminaria) in fits and spurts, but my couple of rows a day pace doesn't make for very fast progress.

What I have been working on is hats. Baby hats. The little pink cap from the hospital was discarded pretty quickly in favor of a handknit and I figured she should have a couple more options.

First, I cast on with leftover BFL handspun from Coraline but quickly discarded that plan when I realized how blue the hat looked. I've said "she's a she" enough times in the past almost two weeks to want to avoid blues for the time being.

Then I whipped up this one out of the cashmere left over after I lined my Thorpe.

She only wore it long enough for me to snap that picture. It's a bit small, to say the least. I was extremely confident going into this project because I finally had her head circumference to use in calculating how many stitches I would need. But what I had was her head circumference immediately after birth and, as my mother gently reminded me, babies' heads compress quite a bit on the way out. We measured again and her head is an inch bigger.

On to hat #2.

(Yes, I took a quick break from burping her to snap this pic.) It's a cable and rib pattern that I made up for some leftover malabrigo. It's still based on the too-small head figures but between the elastic fabric and a little soak in some wool wash, it fits pretty well.

Hat #3 finally used the right numbers and fits her very well. It's a basic stockinette cap with twisted stitch 1x1 ribbing knit up out of some leftover merino/tencel handspun.

I'm looking forward to the time when it won't take me three days to finish a simple little baby cap.

But for now, there are plenty of other finished handknits around here to enjoy.

FO: Tadpole

2011-03-05T22:29:00.000-06:00

Rowan Mackenzie was born at 8:12 yesterday morning and is already sporting her first handknit. I've made Mr. Tinks and Frogs something for his birthday every year we've been together but I think this present takes the cake.

FO: Draper

2011-02-28T20:27:00.000-06:00

This was the last item on my "finish it before the baby arrives" list and now it's done! I wanted a nursing cover-up so I was looking for a pattern that would be interesting to knit but opaque enough to hide what I needed.

Pattern: Draper (rav link) by Sara Morris
Yarn: 1 skein Briar Rose Sea Pearl
The pattern calls for 4 skeins of Shibui sock yarn (764 yards) for the larger size, which is what I knit. I used most of the 800-yard skein of Sea Pearl - I couldn't say exactly how much I have left but I'm willing to bet that it's less than 36 yards. So I'd recommend buying closer to 800 yards than 764 if you're thinking of knitting this pattern
Needles: Size 4 addi lace circular
Size: 62" wingspan, 26.5" depth
Mods: none

The shawl construction is a pretty standard triangle worked from the top down. The only difference: while you increase every other row at the center, you increase every row on the edges. This makes for a wider shawl than you'd expect for its depth, something that I really like. It's easier to wrap that way.

What do I think of the pattern? It's a lovely design but a bit overpriced at $8. There's nothing particularly innovative about the design and the pattern directions don't offer anything insightful beyond the basics. For instance, it would have been really nice to know what sort of bind-off the designer felt was appropriate for this piece. I used a sewn bind-off since that's my preference for a stretchy edge to garter stitch.

My other gripe with the pattern: it's not available as a download. You have to find a paper copy (I got mine from Knit-Purl).

The fabric on this piece has a wonderful drape - it's unlike anything that I've ever worked with and really, really lovely. It's incredibly cozy and fun to wear. I'm a huge fan of Briar Rose yarns and this is no exception.

Now it's just waiting for Tadpole to make her appearance.

One

2011-02-27T08:30:00.044-06:00

One WIP. That's all I've got in my knitting basket. Weird, don't you think? And don't worry, it won't stay that way for long. I'm planning on casting on for Laminaria as soon as I finish typing this.

I really wish I had a good excuse -- such as Tadpole's arrival -- for my long delay in posting. But I don't. Instead, I've just been plugging away at my list of "things that should really happen before the baby gets here." Let's just say that our apartment is really clean.

And the knitting basket is looking pretty good, too. I finally managed to put buttons on the February Baby Sweater!

I'm even more proud of this one:

Draper is blocking and ready for FO shots soon. It took longer than I expected to knit but now that I see how big it is, the time makes complete sense. I suppose the 800 yard skein that I nearly used up should have been a clue. It's a lovely pattern and I'm really looking forward to wearing this one.

Ok, Laminaria is calling my name and I've got a lovely skein of green wool/alpaca laceweight that I can't wait to use. More on that soon.

How did I do?

2011-02-14T19:26:00.000-06:00

Yes, I will admit that yesterday's "to do" list was ambitious, even for me. So how did I do? I didn't get to everything, but I did accomplish the majority of things on the list and that's good enough for me. This is what was waiting for me this morning:

Those are the products of a good soak in the washing machine last night. I am definitely a fan of being able to spin out the water in the washer.

I actually got through items 1-4 on the list, with a few minor exceptions. The buttons that I had been planning on using on the February Baby Sweater ended up being too big so Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I took a walk to the LYS after work today to pick up ones that would fit. And I didn't really figure out what knitting to bring to work until I was eating breakfast this morning (I did have a plan last night, I just changed it for something better). Not bad in my book.

Speaking of Mr. Tinks and Frogs, he's making us crepes for dinner - a Valentine's Day tradition around here - so it seems only appropriate to show off my surprise v-day gift this year.

He knew I was making him something but not what (or for what occasion). This is Habitat by Jared Flood, knit up on size 8 needles (7 for the ribbing, I think) out of a leftover most-of-a-skein of Malabrigo worsted in the Vaa colorway. A secret stash-busting knit!

I think it looks pretty good on him, don't you?

Happy Valentine's Day, darling!

To do

2011-02-13T13:12:00.000-06:00

I seem to be making a lot of "to do" lists these days so I thought I'd share my knitting list for today.

1. Finish "that darned baby sweater"

aka, Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Sweater on Two Needles (or February Baby Sweater) that I'm knitting up out of a skein of malabrigo sock yarn on size 3 needles. I just need to knit one more sleeve, weave in the ends, sew on some buttons, and block the piece. I should be able to finish that today, right?

I'm not a huge fan of the gull lace pattern but I think it looks lovely in this particular yarn with its blend of rich browns and greens. Plus, it lies flat pretty well even without blocking, which will be very handy when I just throw it in the wash with the rest of the dirty baby clothes. That said, the lace pattern does get a bit monotonous (the flip side of very easy to memorize) and so finishing one last sleeve does seem a bit daunting at the moment.

2. Sew buttons on the rest of the baby knits that need buttons. That would be Snug, my handspun BSJ, and this Baby Sophisticate that I whipped up last week for a co-worker's new baby.

This took 1 skein of Malabrigo Rios (about that stash diet . . . this one fell under the "I really didn't have anything appropriate for the gift in the stash" exception). I knit up the larger size but at a slightly smaller gauge than the pattern called for. Since the recipient is a big 3-month old at this point I'm really hoping that this sweater grows a bit in the wash. Naturally I want to gift this piece as soon as possible so that the little guy doesn't outgrow his gift before I even get it to him.

Besides, how I can I resist these buttons?

3. Wash and block (pat into shape and air dry) the above baby knits.

4. Figure out what knitting to bring to work this week. I started another pair of my favorite sock pattern last week and had that as a work knitting project.

It's actually a great work project - interesting but very easy to work so that I can knit if I have a bunch of reading to do. Of course, this also makes it a great project to have packed to take to the hospital when the tadpole decides to make her appearance. So I'm pretty tempted to save this one and find something else to stick in my work bag. I'm trying to be good this week and think about this before 9:30 at night (that never goes well). Thoughts?

5. Work on the other "baby knit" on the needles - a shawl that I'm knitting as a nursing cover-up.

This is the Draper pattern, put out by Shibui Knits, that I'm working up out of a skein of Briar Rose Sea Pearl (see above exception to the stash diet). If that yarn sounds familiar, it's because I used the same yarn for my Honey Baby blanket. Sadly, this pattern isn't available as a downloadable pdf so I wasn't able to get it quite as quickly as I wanted. But I was able to do the next best thing. I called (ok, g-chatted) a really good friend of mine who lives in Portland and works near Knit-Purl (I had seen the pattern advertised in one of Knit-Purl's email newsletters) and asked her if she would be interested in doing a pattern swap. If she would go pick up a paper copy of the pattern, scan it, and email it to me, I would gift her a ravelry or other downloadable pattern of her choice. It was a great deal. I got the pdf I wanted (I use a pdf reader that lets me annotate the files by, among other things, putting in movable lines that show me what row I am working on a lace chart) and she got a pattern from Twist Collective that she had been eyeing.

6. Update the 2011 FO links on the blog. As I was putting links into this post, I realized that I haven't been good at all about keeping up to date with the FO links. I doubt I'll get to this one today, but at least it's on my list.

Just what I wanted

2011-02-06T17:15:00.000-06:00

Several months ago (ok, about a year ago, if I'm being perfectly honest) I decided I wanted a drapey shawl collared cardigan - a sweatshirt sweater of sorts. A sport weight cardigan knit on size 3 needles takes a long time to knit. Thanks to the snow day last Wednesday, I finally finished and blocked the piece.

It's just what I wanted. What it really needs at this point is a shawl pin (maybe something like these) to keep it shut.

Pattern: I made this one up - more on that in a minute

Yarn: A Touch of Twist Peruvian Alpaca, about 2.5 skeins in the nutmeg colorway

Needles: size 3 addi lace circulars for the body and sleeves, size 2 addi lace circulars for the sleeves (magic loop)

This is just a basic raglan cardigan that I whipped up with pen, paper, and the calculator on my phone. I actually knit a relatively large swatch (and washed it!) and then plugged those numbers into the measurements that I wanted.

I wanted a sweater that I could wear comfortably while pregnant but that (hopefully) wouldn't look like a tent when I'm not pregnant, too. I figured 42" at the bottom and 35" at the bust would be good measurements to go with. This time I was good - I cheated - when picking those measurements. I just measured my Kerrera sweater, which I wear all the time.

Throw in 3" of ribbing at the bottom hem and on the side edges (subtracting 3" accordingly from the hip and bust measurements in order to figure out stitch counts), and decrease evenly from hip to a couple of inches below the underarm. That's all there was to the body.

As for the sleeves, I went with something like 30% of the bust circumference (or key number, if you're familiar with the EPS) for the upper sleeve circumference and 20% of the key number for the ribbing. Increase evenly from the top of the ribbing to a couple of inches above the elbow, working straight to the underarm, and you have a sleeve.

There are many ways to handle decreases on the yoke - raglan, set-in sleeves, and saddle shoulders, just to name a few. Raglan shaping is my go-to sleeve treatment. It looks good on me - my shoulders are neither too wide nor too narrow - and, more importantly, it's easy! Plus, you can throw in a fun cable between the decreases to make things a bit more interesting.

The v-neck shaping was a bit trickier, but only because I have no handy formula for that like I do with the raglan seams (work straight for an inch or so after joining the sleeves to the body, then decrease every 4th round a couple of times, then decrease every other round). So, I started decreasing around the spot where the sleeves joined the body and decreases every 4th round until there were no more front stitches to decrease, except for a selvedge stitch. In other words, once I was decreasing the sleeve stitches every other row, I calculated when I needed to stop decreasing at the neck edges.

How, exactly? Take the number of stitches on the sleeve and divide by 2. Then subtract this number from the total number of stitches on the front edge. This last figure is the number of front body stitches that can/should be decreased.

Yes, this sweater involved a fair amount of math but it was very easy math and the basic formula works every time. At least for me. It certainly fits while I'm very pregnant.

Now I just have to wait and see how it looks when I'm not so pregnant.

And, because I so enjoy the various shots of snow in the woods around the blogosphere, I thought you might enjoy a pic of snow in the city. This is the view looking north from our building towards the loop. That's the ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower on the left.

Snow Day!

2011-02-02T20:35:00.000-06:00

We had a little snow storm over the last two days. Not a huge deal - Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I went out to move the car earlier this evening and you could still see the tops of the cars parked on the street (most of them). Chicago got hammered and both of our employers closed up shop for today. A chance to sleep in, we got to catch up on some cleaning and organizing that we've been meaning to do for a while, and I got to finish up a couple of WIPs that have been hanging around here for a bit too long.

This is what things looked like when I got up this morning:

Trust me, there's a street out there. You just can't see it.

I'm going to be selfish and save some of my FO shots for later - it's not often that I get to take pictures in natural light in the middle of winter and I want to milk that a bit longer.

For today, I finally got around to weaving in the ends on my replacement favorite socks:

Pattern: Gentleman's Shooting Stockings with Fluted Pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, colorway ? (rare gem) with a hint of Black Parade at the toe
Needles: size 1 addi lace 47" circular needle for magic loop
Mods: I didn't make any on purpose. But because I ran out of yarn on the last toe, I probably made the legs a bit longer than I have in the past.

I know I've said it before but this really is one of my absolute favorite sock patterns. The fit is great, thanks to a pattern that is stretchy but snug at the same time. The pattern shows off handpainted yarns without obscuring the coloring. And, perhaps most importantly, the pattern is super easy to memorize and I can knit it while I read. There's even calf shaping, which makes for a very nice fit.

Hmm, I've almost talked myself into casting on for another pair right now.

So what else did we do here at chez Tinks and Frogs? We spent quite a bit of time watching the snow.

It was utterly fascinating.

The day certainly ended well - my boss just called to say that the building is closed tomorrow, too. Snow days really are a beautiful thing. Especially when you get two!

One more day

2011-01-25T20:24:00.000-06:00

Or, why I really should have thought a bit more about other projects while finishing up the honey baby blanket.

"One more day." That's what I have been telling myself for the last several days. One more day and I'll actually have something to show the blog. Of course, it's a bit tough to share new things (and by new things, I mean pictures) when weekends are the only chance I get to take pictures in natural light, but we'll ignore that for the moment, shall we?

So where was I? Right, I finished the honey baby blanket and then I . . . Well, I've almost finished a new pair of socks. The knitting is done - I just need to weave in the ends. Perhaps I should start taking bets on how long that will take. Actually, I really should get cracking on that since several of my go-to socks are showing some serious signs of wear. (Note to self: knit more socks)

I also almost finished Snug, an adorable and quick (when you sit down and work on it, not when you let it languish in the knitting basket) knit.

I've actually woven in the ends on this one but it still needs a bath and some buttons (and all of the ends need to be trimmed). I'll do a real FO post on this one when it's officially "done."

Let's see, I made some progress on my current black hole project, aka the alpaca cardigan that I'm making up as I go along. It took me a couple of days to work up the energy but I finally picked up stitches for the ribbing that goes up the sides and around the neck. There were a lot of stitches. I honestly don't know how many - I figured I would be more likely to finish that task if I didn't count (except for making sure that I had the correct multiple of stitches). I had some delusional hopes of finishing that sweater last weekend. This weekend may be a bit too ambitious, too.

And then I frogged a few things. First, Bridgewater is off the needles and not in a good way. The pattern is lovely, the yarn I was using is lovely. But knitting garter stitch in alpaca laceweight yarn is not lovely. Not for me at least. I had to look at it too much in order to maintain something resembling a consistent gauge, and that cancels out much of the appeal of garter stitch for me: being able to knit while I read. There are several versions of this pattern on ravelry that are worked in malabrigo lace. I have a feeling I'll steal a page from that book once the stash diet is over.

I also frogged my Cardigan for Tadpole (loosely modeled on the popular Cardigan for Merry). I really liked how the yarn (dream in color smooshy) was knitting up in the pattern. But my sizing was off and I was agonizing about whether I'd have enough yarn for the hood. Plus, no matter how many times I started this project (3 or 4, I don't remember), I still couldn't get the join between the body and the cabled edges to look quite right. See that dip between the cable and the stockinette sections at the bottom of the picture?

Ultimately, the pattern just didn't seem worth the amount of time I was putting into it. I'll give it another go soon (ish) in a heavier yarn. Now I'm flipping through Barbara Walker treasuries looking for a stitch pattern that matches the baby sweater idea I have in my head for this yarn. And if all else fails, this skein would make a lovely pair of Cookie A socks for me.

There's a secret project hiding in the wings, too, but it's for someone who reads this blog so I'm going to keep quiet about it for now.

Instead, I'll leave you with this since it's time for me to run and knit while watching the State of the Union:

(Nayyir and his toy beaver, who keeps him company while we're away at work)

Honey, I finished the baby blanket

2011-01-16T15:23:00.000-06:00

I finished a little something this week.

What, you want to see the whole thing?

Better now? Before I forget, here are the specs:

Pattern: Honey Baby by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Briar Rose Fibers Sea Pearl, custom colorway, 2 skeins (there's enough left over to make a cap and booties)
Needles: size 4 circulars (16", 24", and 47" lengths) for the main part of the blanket, size 3 DPNs and 47" circular for the edging
Size: 42" square
Time to Knit: 28 days (wow!)
Mods: None. And I really mean it this time. I actually knit this piece exactly as written (I think).

You start in the center of the square, provisionally casting on 8 stitches, and then jump into the first section: bee hive. The first time I started this blanket, I used DPNs to start the center section and worked on them until the piece was big enough to transfer to a 16" circular needle. This time around, I used magic loop instead and was much happier. I'm just not a fan of DPNs - I find them awkward and it's often difficult to keep the correct tension on a yo at the beginning or end of the needle. Not only was I much happier starting with magic loop but the early rows seemed to go much faster.

Then, after a little breather (aka, 4 plain rows), you switch into the bee swarm pattern. This was my least favorite section to knit. It was interesting - it had better be with lace patterning on every row, but it looked rather wonky while I was knitting it. Also, while the lace was easy enough to read (at least to be able to catch when I was doing something wrong), it wasn't so logical that I could just knit without often checking the chart. Happily, this section is relatively short.

This last section was my favorite. It was just so much fun! The bee pattern is very similar to the insect pattern in Kai-Mei. As with that sock pattern, just trust the chart until you've done one iteration of the bee. I promise it works, even if the directions sound strange.

Put it all together and voila:

Yes, there's edging, too. A lot of it. And I'm pretty sure I've blocked all memory of actually knitting it.

Here's a quick pick of the blanket and its recipient:

6 more weeks to go!

Teaser

2011-01-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

I actually finished the edging! I put in a big push on Monday evening and it's done. Now I just have to weave in four ends (that's right, four, for the entire blanket) and block the piece. There will definitely be pics this weekend, assuming the sun comes out to play.

Meanwhile, I'm working my way through a couple of WIPs in the knitting basket. Snug is almost done so I hope to have a couple of FOs to share this weekend.

Since I'm fresh out of knitting pics, here's a quick look at what else is growing around here at chez Tinks and Frogs.

I spoke a little too soon

2011-01-09T18:36:00.000-06:00

Ever since I cast on for the honey baby blanket, I've been sticking to a pretty good schedule: one section per week. Honestly, it just worked out that way for the first chart pattern and after that I set each succeeding section as my knitting goal for the next week. I finished the final lace chart last weekend and only the edging was left to do. Naturally, I expected to have finished the knitting by now. Does this look like a finished blanket to you?

Nope, it doesn't look like a finished blanket to me, either. I keep asking the other members of chez Tinks and Frogs for help with the edging but to no avail. Mr. Tinks and Frogs has been hard at work clearing out our second bedroom in preparation for the painters who are coming tomorrow, so that seems like a reasonable excuse. Nayyir, on the other hand, has been hard at work not being hard at work (he might have mentioned something about the difficulties in knitting when one doesn't have opposable thumbs but it's sometime tough to tell when he's talking in his sleep). So what gives?

I was going strong through Sunday and into Monday. And then on Tuesday I managed to fall asleep over the knitting. Don't get me wrong, as far as knitted on edgings go this one is fairly entertaining. That said, working the same 8-stitch, 4-row repeat over and over while sitting in a warm, dimly lit room and listening to an audiobook can get a bit soporific. I've learned my lesson: no more knitted on edgings in bed. It's just too dangerous. Thank goodness Mr. Tinks and Frogs noticed what had happened before I poked an eye out with one of my addi lace needles (those things are pointy!).

I confess, after the excitement of the various stitch patterns in the body of the blanket, I'm getting just a little bit bored. Any and every new thing has the power to distract me these days. Maybe that would explain where this came from:

That sock just came out of nowhere. I even cast on for its mate yesterday and have managed a few rows of ribbing while waiting for an appointment this afternoon.

At least my distraction can help serve as motivation to finish up the blanket (I hope!). I was extra good the other day and walked home from work, as opposed to taking the train. The last, windy leg of my little trek reminded me that I've been meaning to knit up a pair of lined stranded colorwork mittens to help keep my fingers warm. After spending more time surfing ravelry than I care to admit, I finally settled on this pattern. A bit more project browsing later, I decided that I absolutely had to have this kit and screw the stash diet (it was one of those weeks, what can I say?). But then I looked at the exchange rate and saw that the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar right now and just couldn't justify spending over $60 for a mitten kit when I'm supposed to be working down the stash. Happily, this made me think a bit more creatively about the yarns that I do have around the apartment and it turns out I have a great option after all.

But I can't cast on until the edging is done. Wish me luck!

Wrapping up

2010-12-31T12:33:00.000-06:00

Last year I did a big year-end wrap-up post (technically it was this year) going through everything that I had made in 2009. I'll probably try to pull something like that together this weekend for 2010 but first I've got too much to catch up on from the last two weeks to even think about the last year.

First off, Mr. Tinks and Frogs wanted me to pass along his thanks to everyone who commented on his weaving post - he really enjoyed hearing from all of you.

Speaking of Mr. Tinks and Frogs, I managed to sneak in a surprise xmas gift. And I do really mean a surprise (I could have sworn my cover was blown a few times but he assured me he didn't know I was even working on this).

Technically, he already knew about sock #1 (finished sometime in November), but he's so used to me taking months to finish a pair that sock #2 was a complete surprise. I worked on these before he got home in the evenings (a side benefit of having a significantly shorter commute) and then had to send him off on some last-minute holiday shopping on the 24th so that I could have more secret knitting time, but they're done!

The yarn is Lorna's Laces shepherd sock in the Pullman colorway - something that Mr. Tinks and Frogs had picked out a few months ago. (As a quick aside, you may be interested to know that Lorna's Laces is a Chicago company and a lot of its colorways are named after Chicago neighborhoods. The Pullman neighborhood is on the south side of the city, located a bit south and west of the loop.)

What's that funky looking sock construction? It's the Upstream architecture from Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. It's worked toe up and all of the gusset/arch increases are on the top of the foot, which is great for people like DH who have what I like to think of as "giant sized hobbit feet." You can't really see it in the picture because the socks are quite slimming, but take my word for it that socks for size 11 feet, knit up at a gauge of 8.5 spi and 11 rpi are enormous and use a lot of stitches.

What else have I kept under wraps? I've been debating whether to call this next project "done" because it still needs a button, but I'd love to get it off my WIP list so here it is. My handspun BSJ:

I had quite a close call with this little project. The yarn, as I mentioned, is handspun - a Grafton batt purchased ages ago that I had spun up into a navajo-plied fingering weight yarn. These batts have between 3 and 4 ounces of fiber in them and I knew I had around 300 yards of finished yarn (maybe a bit more but I'm notoriously bad about taking yardage notes when I spin) and no way to get any more. I was planning on making a full BSJ, with a button placket and everything, but this is how much yarn I had. Actually, I was quite nervous that I wouldn't even be able to finish the bind-off. But I made it! With about 10 inches to spare. That wasn't nerve-wracking. No, not at all.

That's ok, the yarn makes up for just about anything, don't you think?

Now I've just got to find a button and sew it on. I can do that in two months, right?

As you can see, I'm getting my act together on the baby knitting front, but I've still got a long way to go (and plenty of things that I want to knit - more on that later). For now, I want to get you up to speed on the project that has kept me enthralled for the past few weeks. But first, a little bit of background:

When I found out I was pregnant, there was one project that I knew I definitely wanted to knit for the tadpole: Anne Hanson's Honey Baby Blanket (rav link). My mother graciously offered to get the original pattern yarn as a birthday present to me and we spent a couple of weeks pouring over the dyer's website to pick the color. While I loved the yellow that Anne had originally used, Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I have far too much pink in our complexions to look good in yellow, so I didn't think the tadpole would either. I'm also not a huge fan of baby pastel colors and that ruled out any of the kits. Finally, after much debate and a healthy dose of stalking different colors on Ravelry, I picked out the Oakmoss colorway. As pictured, it was a medium green with hints of gold and brown - really, really lovely. And safely gender neutral since we didn't know at that point.

The oakmoss page for the particular yarn the pattern called for said something like "the color is a bit more yellow than shown here." So I looked at how the color appeared elsewhere on the website and found a more yellow-green version that was still very pretty. Mom went ahead and placed the order and several weeks later I got the yarn (no shipping confirmation or tracking number, but that's a gripe for another day). The yarn base was lovely - it's a 2-ply superwash fingering weight yarn with a very nice sheen. But it was certainly "a bit more yellow" than what I had expected. I thought I had picked a green and what came was this:

Don't get me wrong, the yarn is lovely. It's just not what I wanted. It has too much green in it to be old gold and not enough green to be, well, green. Just ignore it, I told myself, maybe it'll look different/better/something once it's knit up. So I knit and knit, working my way through chart A of the pattern.

There were times and certain lighting conditions where I rather liked the piece, but ultimately I decided that I just didn't like the yarn for that project. I don't know that I've ever scrapped a project because of the yarn before and it was actually a pretty tough decision to frog this one. After all this was the project that I wanted to knit for the tadpole and there were some times when I actually liked what it looked like. But only liking the thing some of the time wasn't good enough.

So I frogged. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even re-wound that first skein I was working through). Let's just say that I stole the needle back.

Then came the three-day period where I'm pretty sure I looked at every single fingering weight yarn on the market, trying to find a replacement that felt right. Sure, there were some really lovely gender-appropriate colors available on the original dyer's website but between what felt a bit like a bait and switch with the color we'd ordered and what seemed like a complete lack of customer service (not bad customer service necessarily, just a lack of communication), I wasn't inclined to go there again. Which is really too bad - the yarn base was beautiful, the skeins came nicely packaged in a pretty bag and tied with a bit of laceweight that made me want to go buy that yarn in every color available, and I'd been reading such glowing reviews of this dyer for a couple of years now. Maybe if I see some at a fiber festival. Maybe. But I'm just not ready to buy anything from her right now.

Finally, when I was getting just a little bit (to say the least!) frustrated at not finding what I was looking for (a difficult thing when you can't describe it any more clearly than "I'll know it when I see it"), I clicked over to the Briar Rose website. I've used Briar Rose fibers and yarns before, most recently in the Coraline that I worked up during the Knitting Olympics, so I knew the yarns would be stunning. What I didn't remember was whether Chris had fingering weight yarns available. She did! And Sea Pearl was exactly what I was looking for - it even came in a colorway that screamed "this is it!" There was just one problem: the website had only one skein available and I needed two.

Keeping my fingers crossed, I sent Chris, the owner and dyer-extraordinare of Briar Rose Fibers, a message through ravelry asking if she would be willing to custom dye two skeins of sea pearl to match what I had seen on her website, and if this could be done sometime in the next month. The next day I got a message back saying yes, she'd be delighted to do it and would two weeks be a quick enough turn-around? Let me just say that I've met Chris all of three times in the past few years - each time at a fiber festival when her booth has been absolutely packed (and rightly so - her yarns and fibers are nothing short of gorgeous) - and we've exchanged a few comments via ravelry in that time. Amazingly, she remembered exactly who I was when I wrote to her and sounded eager and enthusiastic about my yarn request. I don't usually go in for warm fuzzy feelings, but that's the only way I can describe our exchanges as we talked about the yarn (she assured me that the tencel in sea pearl made the yarn relatively tough to felt, i.e. (hopefully) impervious to baby drool, and wanted to make sure she knew exactly what colors I wanted in the yarn so that it came out of the dye pot just right). It was the perfect way to kick start Honey Baby, v2.

Two weeks (and a shipping confirmation, with tracking number!) later, I had this:

Perfect, no?

As soon as I had finished up my mother's Peaks Island, I cast on for the Honey Baby and off I went.

The first week saw me through chart A (what you see above, as I switched from a 24" to a 47" circular needle). Week two got me through chart B. Now week three is drawing to a close and I'm hoping to finish up chart C by the end of the weekend. Only 12 more rows to go but at 700-ish stitches, the rows are taking a bit longer these days.

Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I drove up to Minnesota to visit with family earlier this week, so I had several hours of car knitting to spend with this fantastic project. Every time I pick it up, I can't get over how much I love the yarn - it fits the project perfectly and is exactly what I was looking for.

These pictures are a couple of weeks old but new ones will have to wait until the sun comes back out. Keep your fingers crossed for this weekend. But for now, it's time for me to get back to the blanket. I can't wait to see how the piece looks once it's all done!

Outsourcing revealed - a guest post from Mr. Tinks and Frogs

2010-12-21T07:30:00.098-06:00

What's all this "outsourcing" I've been hinting at over the last few weeks? Mr. Tinks and Frogs kindly agreed to make one of our xmas gifts this year - a scarf for my grandfather. Plus, he also agreed to write a blog post about his adventures with weaving this year. So, without further ado, here it is:

Last March we decided our household needed another fiber habit, so Rue presented me with this:

(That's a Kromski rigid heddle loom. With a scarf on it. My scarf! Which has just come off the loom and is soon to be my first handmade Xmas present of the season.* Not that I'm proud or anything.)

This is actually the third project to come off the loom. The first was an experiment in texture and learning the loom - a project only the creator could love. But the second turned out a bit better.

Let's take one more look at that, shall we?

That's Noro sock yarn repurposed for weaving a scarf, but it does OK for weaving projects as well.

So, three projects done so far. The goal is one more for the holiday season. Which brings us to point one about weaving (point zero being: can't you make amazing things?!) - starting is the worst part. Or perhaps more nicely put: once you've got a project on the loom, it's all downhill from there. But, after an evening of warping (often helped by some wine), you get something like this:

That knot brings us to point two about weaving: yarn does break. Particularly when you're keeping it under tension. Maybe sometime I should try weaving with some of the yarn meant for weaving, rather than simply helping Rue work through her stash. Certainly the Noro, with just a single ply and varying widths which at times got caught in the heddle, was at times somewhat frustrating to weave with. But with results like this, how can I not keep working with it?

*Rue reminded me that I did knit a scarf for my father a couple of years ago. So this is not my first handmade Xmas present. But it is the first woven project.

On a roll (FO: Peaks Island Hood)

2010-12-19T13:09:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, my knitting goal was to finish my mom's Peaks Island. Check! (I'm close to meeting my knitting goal for this weekend, too, but that will have to wait for another post.)

Now I just have to wrap it up and stick it in the mail. Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I hopped outside for a quick photo shoot yesterday. Very quick, indeed, since it was a balmy 12 degrees outside.

Still, that was definitely long enough to capture just how gorgeous this yarn is.

Happily, I even have an entire skein left over that I get to turn into a hat for me. I'm thinking Habitat. But before I get carried away with thoughts of new knits, here are the specs on this latest FO:

Pattern: Peaks Island Hood by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: 2 skeins Malabrigo Rios, colorway purpuras
Needle: size 8 addi lace circular
Mods: other than adding a few more rows in the shorter leg of the scarf to account for my smaller row gauge, none at all. (Ok, I didn't put buttons on - see below.)

Other notes: I noticed this the first time I knit this pattern, but it really hit me on this iteration - as written (or at least as I knit it) the pattern produces a short leg that is way too short to look like the pattern picture. In the pattern photo, the legs cross nicely and there is plenty of room to button the legs together comfortably. Not so here. The long leg hangs down twice as far as the short one and it would look really odd to button them together like that. But it does look lovely flung back around your neck/shoulder again.

So no buttons for the moment. I think it looks great as is. Merry Xmas, Mom!

Can I at least try them on first?

2010-12-14T20:17:00.001-06:00

The following conversation took place as Mr. Tinks and Frogs and I were folding laundry and I just had to share.

Me (pointing to a sad looking blue wad): Do you remember what I said about a certain pair of socks?
Him: huh?
Me: And their machine washability, or lack thereof?
Him: uh ...
Me: You realize this is going to be a blog post, right?
Him: Can I at least try them on first?
[short pause]
Him: Hey look, my foot still fits! That's even kind of where the heel is supposed to be.

Moral of this story: even the best of husbands should not get hand-wash only socks.

On the home stretch

2010-12-11T13:05:00.000-06:00

The end of my holiday knitting is in sight! I've got one last project to finish up and then I'm done. So what snuck into my knitting queue at the end of last month? Another Peak's Island, this time in the to-die-for (or rather, tweak-the-rules-on-the-stash-diet) Malabrigo Rios.

I knit the seed stitch portion above the shell pattern while we watched the new Denzel Washington movie over Thanksgiving weekend - this is a good pattern for dark movie theaters.

But what about the stash diet? Yes, yes, I know, the stash diet is a bit of a sore subject around here and this project fell into one of the few exceptions I had left in the rules: gifts for which I had no appropriate stash yarn.

My mom and sister came out to visit for Thanksgiving weekend and we got to show them just how cold and windy it can get here in Chicago. Of course, this also meant that I got to show off what a great winter accessory Peaks Island is (paired with a hat, of course). So it was only natural that my mom and I decided that a Peaks Island Hood would be the perfect gift for her. I knew I didn't have anything appropriate in the stash (shocking, really, given the shear size of the stash at this point), my mom fell in love with Rios when we went to my LYS (who wouldn't?), and the shop had a 20% off sale. What else was I supposed to do? Besides, it's a quick project and I'll be back to stash busting soon enough.

Seriously, how can you resist this yarn?

Alright, time for me to get back to work. I hope to have this project finished in the next day or two. Don't worry, I'm much farther along than the first picture would suggest. It's completely doable . . . I think.

FO: Venezia Pillows

2010-12-06T21:45:00.000-06:00

I've actually got progress to show on the gift-knitting front. My Venezia Pillows are done!

For the moment, I'm going to ignore the fact that these were supposed to be a birthday present for N, whose birthday is in mid-November, and just enjoy the fact that I have another FO. N, I hope you like your birthday/xmas present.

Here's the back:

This shot makes it much more clear that I flipped the colors for pillow #2. The venezia pattern is so well-balanced that you have to look closely to see which color is dominant. Not so with the lozenge pattern on the back. And that's a big part of how I avoided "second pillow syndrome." It's much easier to knit #2 when it's not exactly the same as #1.

The yarn, Cascade 220 Heathers, performs very nicely in stranded colorwork. Far better than I had expected, actually.

This was definitely a pattern mod, albeit a heavy modification of Eunny Jang's gorgeous Venezia Pullover (ravelry link). I'm not going to put out a pattern on this one (even a free pattern) since that comes far too close to a copyright violation for my liking (also, any "pattern" should really include a copy of the chart that I put together and that would definitely violate copyright).

All that said, I will happily share my notes/design process for anyone who wants to make some of these. Here goes . . .

How to Make Venezia Pillows

Yarn: 1 skein each of a Main Color and a Contrast Color in Cascade 220 for one pillow. To be on the safe side, shoot for 2 pillows (2 skeins of each color). The venezia pattern is balanced, i.e., it uses up the same amount of each color. The lozenge pattern on the back is not balanced - it uses up far more of the main color than the contrast color. I was able to finish the first pillow with only one skein of each color but had to steal a bit of those leftovers in the main color to finish pillow #2. If you like living on the wild side, go ahead and try one pillow (just don't say I didn't warn you).

Needles: I used size 6 circular needles for the striped top and bottom (more on that in a minute) and size 8 circular needles for the colorwork sections. That was what I needed to maintain consistent gauge. Of course, use whatever combination works for you.

Gauge: I got 5.5 stitches per inch in the venezia chart pattern on size 8 needles. Stitch gauge is what matters here. Row gauge is pretty much irrelevant since you just knit until the piece covers your pillow form.

Here's a quick cheat on figuring out gauge (yes, do a swatch, but this will help you figure out which needles to start with so that you only need to swatch once): I like the way Cascade 220 knits up on size 7 needles - I get 5 spi with that combination. Since I know that stranded colorwork compresses stitch gauge, I went up one needle size to get something close to 5spi (I ended up with 5.5 spi). And because I know that I get 5spi with size 7 needles, I needed to go down to size 6 needles to hit 5.5 spi to match my colorwork gauge.

Figuring out how big to make your pillow (aka, how many stitches you need to cast on):

1. Measure your pillow form. I bought 14" pillow forms, which measured 14.125 inches on a side (28.25" total).

2. Chart out the venezia pattern (yes you will need the actual sweater pattern for this - it's in an old issue of Interweave Knits (check out one of the links above for details)). I made a 73-stitch chart (one right side, one left side, and one center stitch). Happily, the lozenge pattern also worked out to 73 stitches (it's a multiple of 6 plus 1).

3. Multiply the number of stitches in your venezia chart by your stitch gauge. Subtract this number from half the circumference of your pillow. Now add about half an inch worth of stitches to this number (ease). This tells you how many extra stitches you need to add. Finally, figure out a stripe pattern to act as a filler for those extra stitches.

I used this border/side pattern: 2 MC, 1 CC, 1 MC, 1 CC, 1MC, 1 CC, 2 MC (9 stitches).

When visualizing the pattern, it goes something like this: 9 border stitches, 73 venezia chart stitches, 9 border stitches, 73 lozenge pattern stitches.

Actually Knitting the Thing:

1. Cast on 164 stitches with the center color from your border pattern using the smaller needle size (that's my number - you should use whatever you need for your gauge and your pillow form). In my 9 stitch border pattern, the center color is CC. Join, being careful not to twist, for working in the round.

If you leave a very long tail here, you can use it to close up the bottom of the pillow cover later.

2. Work half of the border pattern, starting with the center color. In my case the rows looked like this: 1 CC, 1 MC, 1 CC, 2 MC

3. Switch to larger needles and work colorwork pattern (9 border stitches, 73 venezia chart stitches, 9 border stitches, 73 lozenge pattern stitches).

4. Keep knitting until the piece is long enough to cover your pillow form. Actually, when you're an inch or two away from that point, measure the length of your striped section at the bottom of the tube. Now subtract that number from the amount you need to knit to cover the pillow - this will tell you where to stop the colorwork pattern and work border stripes like you did on the bottom (just reverse what you did below).

5. When you've knit enough to cover the pillow, turn the work inside out and close with a 3-needle bind off.

6. Lightly steam block to even out the stitches.

7. Put the pillow form in the knitted cover and sew the cast on edge shut. I did something that vaguely resembled kitchener stitch and that worked out pretty well.

8. I hate to say this, but tie a knot (or three) in the end of your yarn and hide the knot under the edge of the pillow cover like you would when sewing or quilting.

9. Flip the colors (if desired) and knit a second one.

All things holey

2010-11-29T19:19:00.000-06:00

My sock drawer is having a bit of a crisis: my favorite socks are all developing holes in the heels. It started out with the first pair of Kai-Mei socks that I had knit. Technically, these weren't in the sock drawer; I found them hidden in the closet with a couple of hand-wash only pairs of socks that I decided to wash last night. But they still had very nice almost holes in the heels. (Almost holes = sections that with only the slightest bit of wear will turn into nice big whopping holes, usually a stitch holding on for dear life by only one ply in a 3- or 4-ply yarn.) This morning when I went to grab a pair of socks to wear I noticed that one of my favorites was about to go. They look like these, but in the dusky aurora colorway (these were a gift for my dad a couple of years ago).

It's Gentleman's Shooting Stockings with Fluted Pattern from Nancy Bush's fantastic book Knitting Vintage Socks. I wear these socks all the time and you can definitely tell: the almost hole sits right next to the spot I've already darned on the heel.

Then when I got home this evening and pulled my boots off, I noticed that my shibui Pomatomus socks were looking pretty weak in the heels. I'll bet that they have only a few more wears left in them. Unfortunately, my malabrigo Pomatomus socks have seen better days, too.

This got me thinking, why are all of my favorite socks starting to go now? Then it hit me: I knit these all about two years ago when I was a teaching assistant and had plenty of in-class knitting time (not that I didn't have knitting time in the classes I was taking but that's another story). It seems like all the socks that I knit that semester are on their final stretch. I'd been putting off knitting more socks for me because my sock drawer seemed so full but it seems like it's time to get cracking.

Of course, I have several projects that I want to finish up first and I was able to make some good progress on them this weekend.

The alpaca cardigan is progressing nicely. I've joined the body and arms together and have made it through the first few rounds of raglan decreases.

It still needs a fair amount of work. After I finish the raglan seams, I'm planning a wide (3") ribbed edging up the sides and around the neck. Then it will just need some aggressive blocking on the ribbed sections since I want them to fall in line with the stockinette rather than pulling in like, well, ribbing.

I was most productive on the second of the Venezia pillows. At this point I have about half a chart repeat left before the edging rows. Hopefully I can finish that project up this week. Here's a quick shot of how it looks with the colors reversed:

I may have started a couple of other projects, too, but those will have to wait for another post. I've got a pillow to finish!

My first pattern!

2010-11-21T20:11:00.001-06:00

I finished another scarflet a few weeks ago and haven't posted about it until now because I've been working on the pattern, too.

This one was worked with a single skein of Handmaiden Casbah on size 4 needles.

A while back Rachel had asked what I'm planning on knitting for holiday gifts this year. The short answer is "not a lot" - actually, I'm "outsourcing." But more on that later.

Anyway, I thought I'd offer you all a little pre-holiday gift instead: my first pattern.

Larch is a quick and easy little neck scarf that can be worked in a single skein of fingering or sock weight yarn.

I've linked to the ravelry pattern page because that's where I've posted the pdf. If you're reading this in a feed reader, the link is also available in the right sidebar on the main page of this blog.

I'd love to post the pdf here (or on google docs), along with a thumbnail pic. So, for those of you out there with more blogger/techie skills than I have, here are a couple of questions:

How do I post a pdf on blogger?
How do I put a thumbnail picture in the sidebar that links to the pattern? (I'd love something like the right-hand pattern list here)

Enjoy!

Random Monday

2010-11-15T21:28:00.002-06:00

I've been meaning to post for several days now but somehow things just kept coming up (little things like work and the fact that the apartment needed cleaning - that sort of stuff). So, to make up for lost time and because I don't have any better ideas for organization tonight, we're going to have Random Monday.

Here goes . . .

1. My yarn diet has been a spectacular failure so far. This happened:

(only the two WIPs on that table are not new yarn)

I had such good intentions last month of going on a yarn diet and working through the stash. And then we went out to Portland where I knew I was going to be able to pet Shelter (and want to buy some, to be perfectly honest) so I made an exception. But no new yarn purchases after that. I was pretty good. There was a rough week at work that resulted in a skein of Dream in Color smooshy in a lovely deep purple (it's a new color - I don't see it on their website). And then I heard about the Dream in Color factory sale this past Saturday. I hemmed and hawed. I love that company, but I should be on a yarn diet, but it's on sale, oh fine. Yes, the internal monologue sounded something quite like that. So DH and I drove out to one of the western suburbs Saturday morning and picked up some new additions for the stash. A delightful time was had by all. And believe it or not, my stash bins are actually rather full at the moment so I'm going to make it official:

2. I'm on a stash diet and I really mean it this time. New rule: no one residing in chez tinks and frogs is allowed to buy new yarn until 2011. That should take care of the little snaffoo I had a few months ago with the casbah for my pea vines shawl. I'm married to a yarn enabler, what can I say (other than thank you, of course)?

3. (more like 1(a)) If you're a yarn company with a website, it would be really nice if you'd update your color page. Posting on ravelry (with a link to facebook) that you've put out new colors is all well and good but if I want to see those colors again a couple of months later, I don't want to have to search forum threads. I should be able to just look on your website. Moving on.

4. I feel the stirrings of a strong case of startitis coming on.

That's 5 skeins of Groovy in a lovely (but hard to photograph) deep blueish green. It's slated to become a snug for tadpole, a thorpe for me, and something else depending on how much is left.

Here we have 3 skeins of smooshy, one of my absolute favorite sock yarns (if not my favorite). From right to left, these will become a pair of rick socks for me (it's all I can do not to cast on for those this very instant - does pregnancy cause yarn cravings, too?), husband socks, and something for tadpole.

This delightful skein is Dream in Color's new yarn base. Like smooshy, it's a superwash merino. But unlike smooshy, it is composed of 8 plies (compared with smooshy's 3). This should make for less pilling and more durability in the finished piece. I'm thinking that this little lovely wants to be something from Cookie A.'s sock book.

5. Have you seen Cookie A.'s latest offering? There are some old favorites like monkey socks that have been reworked in various sizes (a welcome addition for those of us with larger feet). Plus there are plenty of new and interesting designs, too. Even better, you can purchase this book as a pdf and then print out whatever pattern you're currently working on and mark it up to your heart's content without having to worry about losing it or defacing a beautifully photographed book. Or you could just read it on the new toy that your spouse is eyeing and that you want to "borrow."

How does a sock book fit in with the yarn diet? Well, it's not yarn but it goes against the spirit of the diet (especially when I have one lovely Cookie A. sock book already that I haven't worked all the way through). I guess the jury's still out on that one.

6. Speaking of socks, I finished a pair of husband socks last week.

The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, a nice sock yarn that wears well and has a great price point, not to mention lovely heathered colors. Of course, the 20% nylon fiber content that makes it wear so well also makes this yarn not quite as fun to knit (at least for me - I prefer a softer, smooshier yarn in my hands). But I absolutely despise darning socks so this one might be worth it since it wears so well. DH, who wouldn't take off the socks for the rest of the night after the photo shoot, assures me that they are indeed quite comfy.

What's the pattern? These look a lot like Anne Hanson's Bricker pattern and that's certainly what I was shooting for. But when I looked at the pattern, I realized that DH's feet were way too big for any of her sizing options. I didn't want to rework someone else's pattern so I pulled out my Barbara Walker treasuries and found a similar stitch pattern. Then I just plugged that pattern and my gauge into the basic sock size that fits DH (gigantic, in case you were wondering). It took two skeins of yarn (I do have plenty of leftovers) but now he's got a nice new pair of socks.

7. Which is a really good thing since I frogged everything that I had done on his latest pair of socks because they were too big. DH has absolutely enormous feet and I still haven't internalized their actual size. I started a basic sock in Cat Bordhi's upstream master pattern out of Lorna's Laces shepherd sock for DH a week or two ago and knit happily from the toe until the start of the heel shaping. I kept looking at the sock and thinking "this is really big," so I gave in and had him try it on and it was really big. Note to self: when Cat Bordhi gives you a table, pick a number from the table. Don't do your own math.

8. Second note to self: when you start sock #2, cast on 12 stitches on each needle with Judy's Magic Cast-on.

9. Tadpole hasn't been neglected either. I finally finished something for her instead of just frogging it. I had the day off work on Thursday so after taking care of various other things I started flipping through Barbara Walker volume 3, looking for a fun motif to put on a baby vest that I could knit out of a leftover most-of-a-skein of Dream in Color classy. Seven hours later I had this:

I'm pretty thrilled. Of course, I also have a few changes that I want to make to the design: mostly, I want to switch the bottom edging and seed stitch border out for garter stitch, which should add some more cohesion to the piece. Also, it would be nice to knit the whole thing out of one color. Happily, I have a full skein of classy in the stash so I'll whip up another one of these shortly. I even hope to have a pattern out soon.

10. Last, but certainly not least, two of my good friends have birthdays today. So happy birthday M and N! N, your present is half done. What do you think?

Pillow # 2 is on the needles so they'll be coming to you soon. And M, your present isn't knitted but I hope you like it, too!

Ok, I think that's quite enough for Random Monday. I'd better be going - I've got a stash to work through!

FO: Terra

2010-11-07T14:35:00.000-06:00

I'm in love. Thank goodness I have an understanding husband because I just can't get enough of this new wrap from Jared Flood. Here are the specs and then I'll go back to gushing.

Pattern: Terra by Jared Flood

Yarn: 4.25 (ish) skeins of Shelter in colorway Wool Socks

Needles: size 8 32" Addi Lace circular

Mods: none. absolutely none.

At first I was a bit worried about how (if) I was going to wear this piece since I often find large lace shawls a bit awkward and difficult to wear. But this is just a big cozy wrap. Adding in a pair of mittens, Terra provided all the warmth I needed while modeling outside yesterday (and I don't normally think of a long sleeved shirt as enough in 40-degree weather). I don't think I took Terra off all afternoon.

Shelter is an absolutely gorgeous yarn. It's pricey, so I won't be knitting all of my sweaters out of it (not that I wouldn't happily do that in a heartbeat) but it is well worth the price. The yarn has a bit of lanolin still in it, which you can feel while knitting - the yarn is soft but not super-soft. Boy, does that change after a bit of a bath. I soaked Terra in lukewarm water with a bit of Eucalan for 20 minutes and the transformation was amazing. The yarn bloomed a bit - not enough to really change gauge (but, to be perfectly honest, I didn't think about gauge at all on this project) - and became incredibly soft. It's absolutely stunning.

One thing you should be aware of with this yarn, however, is that there is a fair amount of vegetable matter. If that bothers you, don't buy it. But don't worry, it's pretty easy to deal with. I wound each skein by hand - no ball winder, just a swift and my fingers. After untwisting each skein, I'd pick off all of the pieces of VM that I could see. Then I put the skein on the swift and piked off other pieces of VM as I came to them while winding the ball. I still had to pick an occasional piece out here and there while knitting but it didn't interrupt me much at all. Just be careful when picking out the VM. Because this is a woolen spun yarn, the fibers and VM can get very tangled together and you run the risk of breaking the yarn if you're not careful when removing pieces of VM.

One other nice thing about this yarn: it spit splices very well. I only had two ends to weave in: the cast on and the bind off tails.

And, before I forget, here are two things you should know about this pattern. First, you need 5 skeins, not 4 as the pattern calls for. I'd seen this mentioned a few times on ravelry before I bought the yarn and I'm really happy I followed this advice. Second, the sewn bind-off takes forever. It's not just you, this technique really does take ages. Far longer than you would think. But it's a great bind-off and I wouldn't use any other one for this project. It's incredibly elastic and blends in well with the garter stitch edge.

I wonder if I should make another one in green . . .

Hitting a wall

2010-11-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed a conspicuous lack of baby knits here lately. Trust me, it's not for lack of trying or even a desire to keep things a secret (although the cat's pretty much out of the bag at this point anyway). I've cast on for several things for the tadpole and have plenty more that I would love to knit.

Here's my problem - I need an answer to an important question: how big are babies?

Yes, yes, I know I'll find out soon enough but I'd really like to know little things like how big the neck opening has to be if I'm knitting a cardigan. I started a February Baby Sweater last week with some gorgeous handspun (I'm sure I have a picture somewhere but I can't find it at the moment and my camera is not playing well with the lights in our apartment) but decided that the neck opening was way too small. Naturally, I frogged and then started over again with more stitches and pretty much made things up as I went. I'm at the point where you divide for the sleeves and the proportions just look a bit funny (did I mention that I was making this up along the way? or that I was knitting it during a day-long conference and so couldn't really focus on it and look like I was paying more attention to the sweater than the presenter?). This one is going to join the frog pond soon along with the rest of my failed baby projects. Resurrection will have to wait until I have taken the time to do a bit of research into baby proportions.

Of course, I'm thinking about this right now because I plan to sneak some knitting into what will probably be a fairly tedious event tomorrow and a baby item sounded perfect, except for the fact that I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to knitting for very small people. It's all well and good to say that the sweater will fit the recipient at some point when the gift is going to someone else's kid. But when I want to make something for my own to wear, I want to make it seasonally appropriate and that means I need to have an idea of how big the tadpole is going to be and when.

So, it's time to ask for help. Do you know any good resources for basic baby measurements/proportions? Honestly, I just need chest and neck circumference at various ages/weights but any recommendations will be very welcome.

(totally random photo just so I have one)

Thanks in advance! I'm off to figure out what to knit tomorrow. Maybe a sock. Maybe a shawl. Who knows?

At last

2010-10-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

These socks took me way too long to finish.

Pattern: Marlene Socks by Cookie A.

Yarn: 1 skein of Dream in Color smooshy in colorway Gothic Rose

Needles: size 2 addi lace circular for magic loop

Mods: I opted to do the ribbed toe from the pattern picture rather than the written instructions. Other than that, I knit these exactly as written. Unusual, I know.

It's a great pattern, I love the yarn, and the color is fabulous. So what gives? Part of the problem was that I made a rather large mistake when knitting the first sock several months ago. I don't remember exactly what I did except that I ended up with too few stitches along the bottom of the foot but I didn't realize this until I had gotten almost to the end of the toe. Naturally, I ripped back to the heel flap and reworked the foot but by this point it felt like I had knit two socks and I didn't really have the heart to cast on for the second sock.

Fast forward to our apple picking expedition last month when I cast on for sock #2 during the car ride. Everything was progressing smoothly until last week. DH had brought a little bug back with him from Portland - just a sore throat and stuffy nose, nothing major. Except that it hit me like a steam roller and put me out of commission for four days. I barely knit, that's how yucky I felt.

I knew I was truly starting to feel better when I picked up this sock again and it's interesting yet easily memorizable repeats were a great companion as I recuperated.

Now that they're done and I've worn them once, what do I think? The fit is great - snug but not tight - and they don't fall down. I am hopeful that the twisted stitch heel flap will hold up reasonably well. I just have one little worry: my big toes were stretching the knitted fabric pretty thin by the end of the day. I don't think the socks are too small, I just think the fabric isn't as dense in the twisted stitch ribbing as I'm used to. Dream in color yarns tend to bulk up a bit in the wash for me and I'm hoping it does so here. Otherwise, I may be darning the toes pretty soon.

Once I had finished up the second Marlene sock, I needed a nice feel-good project to help me kick my cold. So I cast on with my new acquisition from the Portland trip and I've been knitting on it exclusively ever since.

Can you blame me?

Almost an emergency

2010-10-22T18:26:00.000-05:00

In which a crisis was averted but I nevertheless shamelessly dredge up old photos from my iPhoto archives to distract you from the shocking lack of knitting content over the past week.

I was in a bit of a panic this morning. The temperature was a bit nippy outside and it was time to head to work so I reached into my bag and pulled out . . . one mitten. That's right, one mitten where there were supposed to be two. Not only are these my go-to hand warmers until the weather turns arctic but they were a lovely gift made several years ago by my good friend N.

See, they're really nice:

Naturally, I was rather upset at this situation and started to envision all of the horrible places I could have lost the second mitten in the pair. Visions of a poor, mangled mitten stuck on the subway tracks kept running through my mind. I pushed those thoughts aside and took off for work, all the while trying to conjure up what I would do for a replacement.

First, I thought I should hop on ravelry after work and find some nice new stranded colorwork pattern to use up some of the leftovers from this project:

This was a Christmas 2005 gift for my father that I had knit up using the guidelines and copious charts from Alice Starmore's fabulous book, Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting, which I was lucky enough to get my hands on (read: "borrow" indefinitely from my mother) when it was still out of print. I have a lot of fingering weight yarn left over from this project and really need to do something with it.

The plan sounded great during the first leg of my commute this morning. I would use stash yarn, I'd get to play with a new pattern, what could be better? But then I realized that I really wanted replacement mittens ready on Monday. I know I'm a relatively speedy knitter but I can't produce two brand new mittens knit in tiny gauge in some sort of intricate pattern all in just over two days, especially with everything else that needs to get done this weekend.

Time for plan B: see if I already had a finished mitten somewhere that just needed a mate. After all, one mitten sounds doable. Maybe. I was in luck! Hidden in one corner of the stash is a single Galileo Mitten (rav link).

According to iPhoto, I was working on this in late fall/early winter 2008 and that sounds about right. I really should finish this pair. It's a lovely pattern. It's even lovelier if I pay a bit more attention to the chart than it looks like I did about a third of the way up the hand. Sure I could go back and fix that bit, but isn't it better to just leave the mistake for Arachne?

Anyway, the whole issue turned out to be moot since what did I find on my desk when I got home this evening? The second mitten of course. It was just hiding under the scarf I had taken out of my work bag the night before.

What a relief. But I sure appreciate the walk through memory lane and the added incentive to finish a second (or even third!) pair of mittens. After all, my nightmare of losing a mitten to the CTA could still come true.

Go west, young knitter!

2010-10-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

That's what I've been hearing for months, ever since one of my good friends from school moved back home to Portland. (Actually, it was more like "come visit, come visit - Portland's a great city!" but my version makes for a catchier blog title.) So when a three-day weekend appeared this month, we happily packed our bags and headed off to the Pacific Northwest for a visit.

Yes, yes, I know you're all saying, but what about the sweater? I finished Hallett's Ledge just in the nick of time, sewing the buttons on Thursday evening. Of course, this meant that I didn't have time to cast on for the secret project - that had to wait until we got back home.

You saw a little tease earlier this week and now here's the front:

Sorry, none of the front shots turned out well. This was the best one and it only works when I cut my head out of it. The back shots turned out much better.

It's a fabulous sweater and I absolutely love it. Thanks for a great pattern, Elinor!

Here's the rundown:

Pattern: Hallett's Ledge by Elinor Brown, available in the Fall 2010 Twist Collective

Size: 35" (although the bust blocked out to something closer to 34", which probably looks a bit better on me than 35" would have. That said, I didn't block this one very aggressively.)

Yarn: 5 skeins of Cascade 220 Heathers in colorway Olympic Rain Forest. I added some extra length to the sweater (more on that in a minute) and still had a bit of yarn left over so 5 skeins is plenty for the 35" size.

Needles: size 8 addi lace circular needles. That's right, one needle size for everything - even the ribbing. I was a bit skeptical at first but it all turned out in the end.

Mods: Like I do with many of my sweaters, I added length to the body and the sleeves. Here, I added the extra rows in the ribbing part of the body and then worked the cabled sections as written (adding my extra ribbing length to the pattern figures when the directions read something like "work until piece measures X inches long"). The extra length meant that I had to fudge the button band, too, but happily that turned out to be very easy since I could just use the directions for the largest size. Other than figuring out how best to pick up the stitches, there was no math involved at all.

This probably isn't a mod, but I'll mention it here anyway. On the cabled part of the sweater, the pattern isn't entirely clear on how much you should incorporate the waist increases into the cabled pattern. In the 35" size the increases grow into another of the wide cable panels, but the panel never gets big enough to fit the entire braid pattern. If you were to religiously follow the chart here, the side/increase sections look a bit wonky since the cables look more like mistakes than design features. I threw in a cable here and there as I was waffling back and forth about how carefully to follow the chart. Honestly, it doesn't really matter since the stitches hide under the arm anyway. That said, if I were to knit this again, I'd keep the increase panels in stockinette and not worry about adding in the cables at all.

Final thoughts: Rachel had asked a little while ago what I thought of using Cascade 220 on this piece and I punted a bit in my answer, wanting to wait until I had finished the piece before giving my final verdict. Honestly, I'd love to use a slightly thicker yarn on this sweater - something more along the lines of the Rowan Felted Tweed in the original (or perhaps Jared Flood's new yarn). While the Cascade did full a bit while blocking, it just doesn't produce as thick and cushy a fabric as I really like. That's not to say that Cascade isn't a great yarn, because it is. I just like something with a woolier hand. All that said, I knit this sweater with $40 worth of yarn and one of the woolier options would have cost me about $100. So was it worth it to me to spend the extra money? No. I'm really happy with this one and have no regrets about using Cascade. In fact, I'm thrilled to have been able to use stash yarn - something I've been trying to do more of over the past year with varying degrees of success. But more importantly, I think the Cascade looks fantastic in the cabled pattern on this sweater. Great stitch definition, and that's what matters here.

Ok, that's a lot of text so you're probably due for another pic, right?

I really wasn't kidding when I said that none of the front shots came out well. Of course, we had a good reason for being distracted. Just look at this:

We spent Sunday out along the coast and the views were nothing short of spectacular. Saturday took us through downtown Portland, which was equally fabulous in it's own way. Did you know that public transit is free in downtown Portland? Besides that, it's clean, friendly, and easily accessible. Even better, it took us to all sorts of fun places like Saturday Market, Powell's Books, and two different yarn stores.

First off was Twisted, a really nifty little shop just outside of downtown. I got to pet some of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL Sport and let me tell you, it's divine. Sadly, it did not follow my rule for the trip which allowed souvenir purchases so long as they were local (ok on that front) and not something I could get in Chicago (there's the problem: I live near The Fold). Instead, I picked up two 4oz braids of Imperial Stock Ranch columbia sliver in the colorway Spring Sage.

This will likely turn into a winter scarf/shawl/thing. As soon as I get another project or two off the needles, of course.

Later in the day we made our way to Knit Purl, a lovely shop right in the middle of downtown Portland. Besides having a fabulous selection of yarns, Knit Purl also had a great spot for non-knitting spouses to hang out, which was much appreciated (it's also very close to Powell's in case your companion gets too antsy).

I have to confess that I broke down a little bit at Knit Purl. True, it was planned (to a certain extent). As you've probably heard, Jared Flood has come out with his own line of yarn. Having followed his blog for several years now, I was prepared to order some of this new yarn on faith alone. Happily, I didn't have to since Knit Purl is one of the stores that carries the line. It's gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Yes, I know it's a bit pricey ($12.50 for a 140 yard skein) but the hand is beautiful and the knitted fabric is to die for. If you like wooly tweeds in beautiful colors, try this yarn. I was even able to swatch a bit in it at the shop and can assure you that it's fun to knit, too (DH agrees, since he also knit a bit on the swatch). There's a bit of lanolin in the skein but that washes right out, leaving a beautiful light-weight yet substantial feeling fabric.

I brought home five skeins in the Wool Socks colorway to turn into Terra.

Wasn't I on a yarn diet? Yes, although I had told myself that I could have a present for passing the bar exam. Initially I was thinking that I would look for fiber to spin for something from A Fine Fleece. There was just one little problem with that idea: I really want to spin and knit Portland (rav link) but that project will have to wait a bit longer.

As you can see, I'm not really knitting pullovers these days.

Hint

2010-10-12T22:09:00.000-05:00

Guess what we did this weekend?

DH and I headed out to the pacific northwest to visit a good friend of ours and in between hitting some fabulous yarn shops in Portland we managed to snap some FO pics.

This is just a little tease to tide you over until the real FO post since it's going to take me another day or two to get things settled around here. We had a very lonely kitty to contend with when we walked through the door Monday night. Speaking of lonely kitties, I've just been informed that I'm three days behind on someone's quota of cuddles and I'd better get cracking.

I hope you all had as wonderful a weekend as we did!