About that stash diet ...

I really wasn't planning on buying new yarn. Especially after that skein of lace weight that I picked up when my mother was visiting last weekend - when you hear your grandmother would like a lace shawl (and you don't have anything in the stash in the appropriate color family) that's a special dispensation from any yarn diet in my book.

And then this happened later in the week:

That's right - I ran out of yarn on the last round of the fifth color from the end of the garter striped edging on my Rams and Yowes blanket. And not just on the last round, a third of the way from the end-of-round marker (the dark green clip below):

I knew it was going to be close. After all, I had finished the previous color with about two yards to spare. So at around 10:30 on Wednesday night (always a time for clear-headed thinking), I started frantically searching for more yarn to finish the last set of stripes. I'm low on the remaining colors, too, and didn't want to chance it now that I'd run out of one color.

Luckily, I found two options: order more from Jamieson & Smith on Shetland and know that I probably won't be able to pick up this project until after we get back from our vacation, which starts next week, or cross my fingers and see if the Chicago shop listed on ravelry as a potential supplier has the colors I need in stock. (Normally I'd be a dye lot purist but this is for the underside of the blanket border and slight color variances really won't bother me there.)

Success! Windy Knitty responded to my email shortly after they opened the next morning with the terrific news that they did in fact have exactly what I needed, and would be kind enough to set the skeins aside until the weekend so that I could come pick them up.

In the meantime, I've had fun working on Mr. Tinks and Frogs' birthday sweater, which now looks much less like a shrug than when he tried it on a week or two ago.

We took a family excursion up to Andersonville this morning (Tadpole LOVES the train) and I am now the happy owner of enough yarn to finish my blanket.

But I couldn't come away from such a lovely shop (and it is lovely, perhaps my favorite shop in the city now) with just the J&S shetland, not when they had a fantastic selection of indie dyers in gorgeous semi-solids - my favorites.

This Fleur de Fiber (a Chicago dyer I'd never seen before) in a fingering weight merino/seacell blend will be a something for me.

And Tadpole suggested that she should have a green sweater. We decided on this worsted weight from Neighborhood Fiber Company:

A girl after her mama's heart, don't you think? Now I've just got to come up with a sweater pattern that will work with only 400 yards. This one is definitely going to be top-down!

Popping in

I was all set to post about my latest FO - the first in my latest destashing operation - when I realized that I had probably better save the full write-up for after the recipient actually received it (which, in turn, requires that I get the package out the door). So I'll just give a little sneak peek for now:

Boy, did I find a nice new baby knit. I will definitely be making more of these!

I'm the meantime, I've been plugging away happily on a longer-term project. 

I'm a few rows farther along on the edging than you can see in this picture - I'm on the last color before turning the edge and working the back side of the double- sided edging! This one is taking a little while. If I remember correctly, the rows are several hundred stitches long at this point (closer to 1000 than 500). I'm certainly not going to check that number right now! But I did work out that each row takes about 40 minutes (10 minutes per side isn't bad). Multiply that by four rows for each of the nine colors, plus a couple extra rows for the turn, and you get a number I don't want to think about. All I know is that I'm almost halfway!

Miss Marple

Several months ago, when I was knitting her a purple cabled jumper, Tadpole informed me that she would like a yellow sweater. Happy to oblige, I picked out some buttercup colored Cascade 220 from my local yarn shop and cast on for Miss Marple. 

I don't always have the most cooperative knitwear model but she was thrilled to do a photo shoot for this one. 

I can't speak to the other sizes but the sleeve caps and armscyes still seem too big to me on the 4T size. Perhaps it was a gauge issue - I might have knit more loosely on the short row sleeve caps than elsewhere. But if I were to knit this again (and I very we'll might), I'd make the armsceye smaller and reduce the number of sleeve stitches at the upper arm accordingly. 

Otherwise, this was a great pattern. The lace was simple but just enough to keep things interesting. I always like short row sleeve caps. And there was minimal finishing (especially because I worked the neck and button bands at the same time, rather than doing the neck band first as the pattern suggested). 

I'm calling this one a winner!

Operation stash down - the baby knits edition

I have another trip coming up on Monday so it's time to start thinking about baby knits again. Quite a few of my friends either just had babies or are busily growing new ones, so I think my new de-stashing effort here will be baby knits. They're fun, quick, and make great travel projects!

While I'm at it, I figured it would be a good idea to capture all of my favorite baby patterns all in one place (hopefully one that is quicker to find than going through my haphazard ravelry tags).

Sweaters

Sweaters are perhaps my favorite item to knit for babies. They're such a fun way to try new techniques and styles without putting in the time necessary for an adult sweater. Think of them as mini swatches.

Coastal Kids has some great selections. My little oak was a huge hit at the shower last weekend. (Sorry, I forgot to take any measurements before wrapping it up. Call it "baby sized" - it'll fit the baby at some point). And Wee Wildflower has been on my list for some time. Other favorite sweater patterns include (in no particular order):

Good for Girls

February Baby Sweater (EZ),  Marguerite (short sleeved with a lacy bodice), Half Past (cables and a bit of lace), Entrechat (short sleeved, nice texture, and a peplum hem), Lilleput (garter stripes, 'nuff said), (Petit) Artichaut (textured shrug), Korrigan (cabled yoke), Goldilocks (dress with mock cable bodice), and Maile Sweater (botanical lace).

Good for Boys

All in a nutshell (squirrels!), McDreamy Jumper (textured raglan), Oscar (great shawl collar and textured body), and Cervide (sideways cabled yoke).

Gender Neutral

Baby Surprise Jacket (EZ), Babe in the woods (pine lace and garter on the yoke), Pomander (interesting cabled yoke), Bilbo Cardigan (big cables and a cute tasseled hood), Latte Baby Coat (nice textured panels), Little Fisher Pullover (LOVE the honeycomb cables), Temari Kimono Jacket (great cables on the body), Livingston (subtle cables on the body), Tadpole's Purple Sweater (shamelessly pushing my pattern here - textured asymmetrical cardigan), and Sunnyside (cabled cardigan).

Or you could adapt an adult sweater for baby (often just by changing to a smaller yarn, although there is still a bit of number crunching involved.

Tea leaves looks great tiny.

And so does Leaflet

Vests are also a great choice when you're worried about yardage. These patterns all look tempting: Anemone (lace and garter stitch), Louise (more lace), and Little Pearl Vest (garter yoke). Of course, you can turn almost any sweater pattern into a vest if you're running short of yarn.

Dresses are lovely, too. I can't wait to try these: Paulette (subtle texture and pleating), Sproutlette Dress (leaf lace detail), and Muti Dress (lace yoke).

Hats are great quick baby knits. I've knit Aviatrix Baby Hat several times now and highly recommend it!

Pikku-Pete is next on my hat list.

And if you're feeling truly ambitious, you could always do a blanket. Some blankets are made to be used and actively loved.

While others are heirlooms - fun to knit, great to look at, and too delicate for day to day wear.

Patterns I'd like to try include Olympic Forest Baby Blanket (tree cables), Orion's Belt (stranded colorwork!), Reversible Celtic Patterns Baby Blanket (double knitting - not for the faint of heart), Twinkle Twinkle Blanket (subtle texture), Norma (lace square), Undercover (pine cone lace square), Baby Blanket Latvian Garden (more stranded colorwork!).

Hopefully this list sparks your interest as much as it does mine. It's time for me to go dig through my stash and see what I should start next (just as soon as I finish sewing the buttons onto Miss Marple).

Practicing my frogging

Has it really been two months? I know "write blog post" has been on my mental to-do list for several weekends in a row now but I hadn't realized quite how long it had been until Blogger informed me that I've ben derelict in my blogging duties. Remember my other goal for the year - figure out a better work-life balance? You can guess how well that has gone.

Actually, that's not quite true. I've been better about spending time with family, reading a book here and there, and taking a bit of downtime to knit. I just haven't blogged about any of it. But I have plenty to share and, if I can swing it, maybe I'll even have an FO or two after this weekend.

I feel like I've been living up to the name of this blog recently. There's been a lot of frogging. And tinking. And dropping down several rows to fix something. Let's just say that I've refreshed my skills at fixing mistakes. Yes, I probably could have avoided quite a few of those had I slowed down to think things through and plan out what I was doing (life lesson there?) but who wants to plan when you only have a few minutes to knit?

First up: Miss Marple, a lovely little girls' cardigan with lace detailing at the front edges.

Apparently I was half asleep when I did the neckline shaping on the right side front and had to rip it back and rework. But that was fairly straightforward. And the back neck shaping only took two or three attempts to get just right. (I subbed out short row shaping for the stepped bind offs in the pattern and it always helps when you start that in the right place - note to self for next time). All in all, it didn't take too long to get to this:

I'm using a Cascade 220 solid for this one (Tadpole had requested a yellow sweater). It's a great workhorse yarn but I keep daydreaming about how this would look in Quince & Co. yarns. I think it's fair to say that I'm suffering from "grass is greener syndrome." The sleeve cap looks a bit big to me but I've learned that I should not trust my instincts when it comes to toddler sizing (at least for my toddler). I'll keep you posted on the sizing once the sweater is done and I've convinced Tadpole to try it on.

Next up: Little Oak was an accident. J and I were up in the burbs last month when he said, "hey, isn't that a yarn store?" (Good husband, right?) 20 minutes later we walked out with this lovely skein of Dream in Color Everlasting DK. It's splitty as heck but takes color gloriously. With no babies in mind, I cast on for Little Oak within a day or so (almost unheard of for me). Luckily for me, one of my work friends is having a girl and the shower is next week so I have both a deadline and a recipient.

The cables are fun to work. Much more fun if you count your stitches accurately when setting them up and you don't have to frog the beginning of the yoke three times before you can get to the good parts. Ask me how I know.

I definitely don't have enough yardage to work full sleeves for this one so I provisionally cast on at the yoke join and I'll work short sleeves (just a couple rows of stockinette before a shot bit of ribbing) to finish the piece off.

I seem to be having a bit of trouble with yarn shops in the burbs. We've been house hunting. Unsuccessfully. And I've comfort shopped. Can you blame me?

These (the result of another trek to see houses in the burbs) will turn into a striped version of Wee Wildflower for Tadpole. But I'd better do a solid one first to make sure I know how the pockets work. I'll likely do intarsia pockets but want to have a better handle on how they are constructed before I jump into the striped version.

And what about J's sweater? A few weeks ago it looked like this:

It's a bit longer now but not by much. I haven't touched it in the last couple of weeks (sweaters for small people are distracting). It's a lovely color, more like this:

This weekend I'm hoping to make some time to sit down and figure out how to make forward progress on Armas again. I'm getting close to splitting the yoke into body and sleeves and I'd better remember to have J try it on first to make sure I've accurately calculated the yoke depth. 

But for now, I need to go see if I can convince Tadpole to come look at buttons with me at our local yarn shop. That's her favorite part of the store so I think my odds are pretty good.

Snippets

If I could get pictures from the good camera straight into twitter, I would have been tempted to tweet these musings over the last couple of weeks. In no particular order, here's a bit of catch-up:

First up, my travel knitting of choice: Dovetail Cowl by Carina Spencer. It's a lovely little piece that I would definitely knit again (the larger version the second time).

LOVE the yarn! I used Swans Island merino/alpaca blend in oatmeal. It feels like butter. Remember when we all thought malabrigo worsted was the softest merino you could find? Try the Swans Island. Trust me.

There was not quite enough of it for my mod to extend the pattern chart. So I stole from the rolled stockinette edge at the bottom to finish the upper ribbing. I wasn't that fond of the rolled edge anyway. Maybe on the bigger cowl.

My one-week trip for work got extended to two. That's a long time. So I did what any respectable knitter with available funds would do: I bought yarn. Rocky Coast will be mine!

I may have also bought a mitten kit from Tanis Fiber Arts. In my defense, the last time I saw a mitten kit that I liked from Tanis, I told myself to be good and wait until I was ready to knit the pattern. But when I was finally ready, the kit had been discontinued. Lesson learned: just buy it.

These are for summer. Because I just can't knit mittens in winter. Mittens are the epitome of delayed gratification and when I'm walking home from work and the wind is in my face, I want the new mittens now. 

Shoot, I saw this while grabbing the link for the mitten kit. It's really tempting. Please remind me that I do not need more yarn now. 

Last weekend I took scissors to my rams and yowes. It went from this

to this:

I'm now three colors into the garter stitch edging. That's a lot of garter stitch. This may take a little while.

(And note to self: the next time you do a steeking project, re-read Eunny's Steek Chronicles before starting. I used a checkerboard steek where vertical lines would have been easier to see when doing the crochet reinforcement. And I really should have spit spliced at the color changes rather than just leaving the ends to be cut with the steek. There are a few little hanging floats that got inadvertently snipped. I don't think they'll be a problem. I hope.)

Finally, my two favorite people have new handknits. Or rather, the smaller one has a finished handknit jumper that she didn't want to wear this morning (but it's done!). And the larger one has another promise of a sweater as one of his b-day gifts. But this is better than my promise-of-a-sweater from two years ago: this time I have the yarn and I even swatched!

That's it, the new sign of true love: swatching. I don't do it for just anyone.

This and that

I would be in the midst of a truly terrible case of startitis now if I actually cast on for each of the patterns I've been eyeing lately. But instead I've been daydreaming about future projects while running into dead ends on current ones. Take Wurm, for example. This was a quick, easy knit (addictive even) in a lovely yarn (Sundara sport merino two). But the finished project just isn't for me. The slouchy hat style that looks good on so many people just looks odd on me. You'd really see that if I showed you one of the head-on photos that Mr. Tinks and Frogs took last weekend, but there's a good reason that I'm not sharing those shots.

Tadpole looks fetching in everything but even she can't quite pull this hat off.

So if you'd like a hand-knit green Wurm in the medium size, shoot me an email at tinksandfrogs AT gmail DOT com and I'll happily pop it in the mail and send it your way. (If there's a lot of interest I'll use a random number generator and post the winner on the blog.)

I've been really excited by Rams and Yowes lately. You see, I'm in the last row of sheep on the center section of the blanket. It's just so much fun to watch the pattern grow and I absolutely love this one.

Can you blame me? There's just one small problem: this is by no stretch of the imagination a travel project. And I have a fair amount of travel to do for work this month. Last weekend - right before my first trip - I procrastinated my way through the weekend knitting along on the sheep while putting off the decision of what to bring with me for the plane. (Come to think of it, I'm doing the exact same thing this weekend, too.)

In that case, I'd better get cracking and figure out what to bring when I have to get back on a plane tomorrow. Last week I brought this:

The bodice of tadpole's jumper is several inches longer now - I divided the front and back at the armholes while flying home on Friday. But despite the fact that I was able to knit quite a bit on the plane, I didn't make that much forward progress. I'd get half a row and realize that I really didn't want to do something that way (or, more often than I care to admit, I noticed that I had crossed the cables the wrong way for an entire row) and had to undo what I had just knit. I'll do my designing at home for this next bit, I think.

So what to knit? It doesn't help that I'm distracted by this lovely sweater in the new Wool People or this blanket and this scarf by Stephen West. I frogged my Nanook sweater last weekend so that the yarn can become this sweater instead, but even I acknowledge that I really should swatch before starting an adult size sweater. Kristen's new pattern is especially tempting but I'm not sure I have the right yarn in the stash. Perhaps a toddler sized sweater instead? Possibly this or this? I'd also toyed with the idea of colorwork mittens - that wouldn't be too fiddly for travel, right? Oh, I'd better go sit and knit some more sheep while I think about this some more.