Backlog

So much for blogging more frequently. On the bright side, I have plenty to share. For starters, I finished my quilt!

The pattern is Jeni Baker's Half Square Triangle Sampler Quilt - a great intro pattern that breaks the various steps of the quilt-making process down into manageable pieces. The fabrics are an assortment of Alison Glass prints. I may have fallen down the Alison Glass rabbit hole since I just started cutting more of her fabric for a quilt for Tadpole.

My mom finished this lovely quilt, too, which she gave us as an anniversary present. Thanks, mom!

I love this shot of the girls trying to figure out what on earth we're doing.

And no, I haven't forgotten that this is a knitting blog. I finished my Stasis pullover a few weeks ago, too.

I don't remember if the pattern suggested this or if I just wanted to use the sleeve as a swatch but it was a brilliant idea to work the sleeves first on this sweater. There are miles and miles of plain stockinette. It's a lovely yarn and I'm a huge fan of green but that much stockinette was rather boring after a while. So it was really nice to be able to jump right into the yoke once I had finished the body section. And when you're starting, the sleeves seem to go so much faster than if you've just finished knitting a giant tube for the body and know you need to work two more tubes before you can get to the fun part.

The girls helped out with this photo shoot, too. They stopped by for periodic check-ins but either had any interest in showing her face to the camera.

Despite my general neglect this summer, the garden has produced some wonderful tomatoes and other goodies. I'm a huge fan of halving the cherry tomatoes and using them in this terrific baked orzo with eggplant and mozzarella dish, which is in the queue for this weekend. 

I didn't remember buying a larger variety of tomato when Tadpole and I went plant shopping last May. But we've been having a grand time chopping them up and making a simple tomato sauce with fresh basil from the garden. Even the kids like it. 

I'm still at a loss as to what to do with the peppers. We're drying the small hot peppers - more for decoration than anything else. Any suggestions for what to do with the Spanish red peppers? Paella, maybe?

Ramblings

I wasn't planning to knit anything for the holidays this year but I ended up knitting three xmas gifts (technically four, since I made a matching hat and cowl for my mother). In reverse order of finishes, mum got the Scrollwork hat and cowl set worked in Malabrigo Rios.

The cables are fantastic, the instructions clear, and the fit of the cowl is great for cold, windy days. And Rios is a delightful yarn to knit with. Although I have to confess that after binge-listening to the knit.fm podcast over the last couple of weeks and hearing Pam Allen discuss all of the nasty chemicals that go into making a wool yarn super wash, I'm a bit put off the idea of buying more at this point. Probably a good thing for my stash.

Anyway, Rios seemed to be my go-to yarn for knitted gifts this season since I also used it to whip up a Lacunae hat for my grandfather. I had worked a similar hat for Mr. Tinks and Frogs several years ago and decided to support the designer and actually purchase the pattern this time around since I didn't want to think too hard about the crown shaping. I should have just unvented the pattern again since I ended up working the crown shaping three times before finding something that would fit an average man-sized head.

To distract you from the fact that I don't have a good picture of that one, let me show you my sister's present, fetchingly modeled by Tadpole:

It actually looks half-way decent on me, too.

This is Shibui's Pebble/Peak Hat worked in Shubui Pebble held double. I cannot say enough good things about this yarn (except for maybe the price point, which is actually quite reasonable when you consider the fiber content). And the hat pattern is delightful - an interesting twisted rib pattern at the hem, several inches of stockinette you can zoom through, finished off with some clever grafting at the top.

Having been so productive with my holiday knitting, I really wanted to treat myself to something special. I'd been eyeing Gable from the latest Wool People and thought I'd try it in the Knitspot Stone Soup Fingering, which had recently come into my LYS. I eagerly picked out a color and brought some skeins home. Unusual for me, I sat right down to wind the first skein so that I could start swatching and ended up with this:

That's right, 19 separate segments of yarn were wound together into the skein. Let's just say I won't be trying that yarn again for a while. I'm very grateful for how gracefully my LYS handled the situation and let me return all four skeins. But doesn't change the sour taste I have from the whole experience and fact that I desperately want to be knitting a sweater right now (a sweater for me, that is). Anyway, I can take a hint - no sweaters for me for the time being.

So I went back to my trusty Rios and started up some more gift knitting. I love the cushy cables!

Now I just need to find the time to finish the piece and pop it in the mail. 

Time is always short around here but I've been making some for my newest crafty pursuit. Thanks to a blissful four-hour quilting extravaganza (courtesy of Mr. Tinks and Frogs for wrangling the girls and sending me out the door last weekend), I finished squaring up what must have been hundreds of half-square triangles and started laying out blocks.

I think I'm in love. Now I just need to lay out the last row of squares and start piecing everything together. Bets on how long that will take?

And I've been practicing my free motion quilting. Tadpole and I went to my favorite fabric store together a couple of weeks ago and she asked if I would make a quilt for one of her toys. How could I resist? So she's getting a mini quilt with all-over pebble free motion quilting using fabrics and thread that she picked out.

It's by no means perfect but I'm definitely seeing progress. Now if only I could figure out how to keep the thread from breaking while I'm working. Maybe I'll come up with an answer by the time I finish this piece. Fingers crossed!

Happy

Did I finish the mittens I mentioned last time? Yes, yes I did. I can't remember the last time a knitting FO has made me this happy.

Pattern: Snowfling Mitts by Tanis Lavalle

Yarns: Tanis Fiber Arts Yellow Label DK Weight and Tanis Fiber Arts Purple Label Cashmere Sock (I bought them as a kit here)

Needle: size 3 circular for magic loop

Cashmere lined mittens, where have you been all my life?

The mitts were fun to knit and (when I actually sat down to work on them) pretty quick, all things considered. The linings - essentially a second pair of mittens attached to the first - worked up much more quickly than I expected. It's no wonder I have my eye on the new mitten kit available from Tanis Fiber Arts.

I'm pretty pleased with my new sweater, too.

Pattern: Rocky Coast Cardigan by Hannah Fettig

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Aran Merino

Needles: size 7 for the body, size 6 for the ribbing

I ended up working the sleeves flat after discovering that even with alternating skeins, the stitch counts on the sleeves caused some truly horrendous flashing. Once I'd acknowledged the fact that I needed to frog several inches worth of sleeve to see if I could get the colors to play nicely together, the sleeves flew right by.

This was my first time working with the Sundara yarn and I'm not sure I would use it again. I'd be tempted by a less variegated color but each skein had at least one knot and the yarn is already pilling. (To be fair on that last point, I've worn the sweater every weekend since I finished it so it's seeing a fair amount of wear.)

The shape - an open front raglan cardigan - was perfect for a post-baby body. 

I find myself drawn to more fitted pullovers and I'm itching to try Custom Fit (Amy Herzog's program that fits sweater patterns to your measurements). But I don't particularly want to make a sweater to fit my current measurements. My next commitment to a sweater will come after I've made a commitment to the treadmill. Sadly, knitting is not an aerobic exercise.

Especially when one has recently discovered Nantucket Cranberry Pie (i.e., cranberry sauce with a sugar cookie baked on top). If, like me, you had an extra bag of cranberries sitting in the fridge after Thanksgiving, then you may need this recipe to help polish it off. It's quite good with fresh whipped cream on top. Don't ask me how I know.

Fall Sweaters

Has it really been almost two months since I last touched the blog? It's been snowing this week and I realized that I had better share some fall sweater pics before winter fully arrives and the leaves in the background look completely out of place.

Sprout has been sporting a bevy of hand knits this season, only one of which is not a hand-me-down:

The pattern is the delightful Wee Wildflower, worked in MadelineTosh pashmina (a truly fantastic yarn). I don't recall what size I worked - probably 12 months, rather than 6 - but I remembered to pull the sweater out just in the nick of time before Sprout outgrew it. Instead of working the sleeves flat and then sewing them onto the body, I picked up stitches around the edge of the armscye and worked short rows to shape the sleeve cap before knitting the sleeves top-down. This let me eek out every last inch of yarn for roughly bracelet-length sleeves.

Where would we be without an FO shot involving Sprout eating grass?

Just because I haven't been cranking out new baby knits doesn't mean the little one is deprived of a lovely set of sweaters to wear. Remember this one?

Tadpole's Purple Sweater has been a big hit with Sprout, too.

I pulled out another old favorite last weekend. It never ceases to amaze me how much Sprout looks like her sister did at this age.

Sprout isn't the only one with a new sweater this fall - I finished one for myself, too! And by the time I get back to posting about the sweater, I may have even finished my new mittens.

Did I mention that they're lined with cashmere? I can't wait either.

Double Trouble (or, adventures in getting two small children to smile for the camera)

Something about finishing that shawl a little while ago has set of a finishing frenzy (full disclosure: no, I haven't mailed it yet). I wrapped up a sweater for each of the girls and managed to get pictures of both of them wearing their new sweaters at the same time. I should have bought a lottery ticket because that never happens around here.

First up: my baby version of Amy Miller's Princess Fiona pattern for Sprout.

Next, a basic raglan for Tadpole with the raglan decreases hidden in a braid cable.

I really tried to get good pictures of the girls together in their new sweaters. And I usually managed to get a good shot of one but the other was either acting up or melting down. Like this one -

Tadpole looks fantastic and is actually smiling for the camera but Sprout is just done with the situation and is about to wail.

We went outside and had a rollicking time trying to get the girls to look in the same direction at once. Art direction went something like, "Tadpole, look at the camera!" and "Sprout, don't eat the grass!" Someone is constitutionally incapable of staying on her back these days. Anyway, it gave me a push to add "learn to adjust the shutter speed on my camera" to my to do list. (Yes, that list is about three miles long at this point.)

Back to the sweaters. I managed to eek a full-sleeved sweater for Tadpole out of my single 400 yard skein of worsted weight yarn. How? Dumb luck. The sleeves were narrow and that is what saved me - I had about 12 inches left after I finished the i-cord bind-of on the second cuff.

The raglan cables really are my favorite part of this sweater. A close second is the contrast between the seed stitch body and the stockinette sleeves. Such a great mix of textures -- perfect for the subtle shading in the skein.

I had thought to do a baby version for Sprout using the orange yarn you can see above but the seed stitch that didn't seem so bad worked in worsted weight was mind numbing when worked in a fingering weight yarn. So instead I did this:

A top-down stockinette pullover with bracelet sleeves, a placket at the back, and an interesting lace detail at the side (not that you can see it here).

Better now? I may have swatched on this one to figure out my stitch gauge. I don't think there was too much thought behind the initial cast-on (I went with the number of stitches that looked "about right," however you want to define that very technical term). The placket was thrown in so that I didn't have to worry about whether I had made the neck opening too small. Raglan sleeves were a similar choice: they generally fit without any fussing with the proportions. I threw in a slight a-line shape to the body to make sure there was plenty of room and ripped back the bottom hem when I needed some extra yardage to finish the sleeves.

If I were to do it again, I'd change the proportions of the back/front and sleeves at the top of the sweater to make the sleeves narrower and the back/front wider. That said, I'm pretty pleased with this one.

And Sprout is, too.

Knitting with Baby

I finished a February Baby Sweater for my February baby the other day:

The yarn is Knitting Notions sport weight that I had picked up a couple of years ago, thinking to make something for Tadpole. That didn't happen so I thought to use the yarn for Sprout. I'd initially tried a bottom-up henley design of my own making (quick pic here) but ultimately decided that I didn't like the way the colors in this kettle dyed yarn flashed across the body of the sweater. So the yarn went back into the frog pond for reincarnation.

After I had knit the garter stitch yoke, I frantically searched through my Barbara Walker stitch dictionaries for a 7-stitch lace pattern to swap out for EZ's choice of gull lace. Nothing caught my eye and an hour later (precious knitting time gone), I settled in for gull lace after all. The knitting flew by - even the sleeves, which I might have complained about just a bit since I wanted this piece to be done - and the gull lace turned out to be the perfect stitch pattern for spreading out the slight variations in the yarn.

Miss Sprout even obliged for a photo shoot:

There she is with her serious face, contemplating the milk she's about to spit up all over her nice new sweater.

Here's how you can tell this is not my first kid: I wiped the spit up off the sweater and then picked the camera back up to continue shooting. Once we were done, I popped the sweater in the sink for the wash and wet blocking I should have given it in the first place.

My new little sweater model has obliged on a couple of other photo shoots, sans spit-up:

My Pomander cardigan fits reasonably well now with room to grow. I know I've said it before but this really is a delightful pattern, well written and full of thoughtful details. The designer has a gorgeous jumper pattern knit using Loft. I'm having visions of knitting coordinating jumpers for the girls. (Note to self: finish your current WIPs first!)

Another favorite: EZ's Baby Surplice Jacket.

These two may be my new go-to baby knits patterns. The EZ pattern has some of the same clever shaping as her BSJ and is also designed to grow with the baby. In other words, you don't have to worry so much about size - it should fit the recipient for a while (i.e. several months, which is quite a bit in baby time).

I've got another sweater for Miss Sprout on the needles right now and I'm making slow but steady progress with mostly middle of the night spurts of productivity. When her sister was this age, I found myself getting frustrated when she wouldn't go back to sleep in the middle of the night (or go back to sleep soundly enough to transfer to her crib so that I could go back to sleep, too). Looking back on that period, I wished that I had just focused on enjoying the snuggles and time with my small daughter. (I also realized that rocking a baby in the middle of the night was prime knitting time and the knitting might have helped me calm down a bit). I told myself that I would do better if there ever were a next time. Now that the next time is here, I can't say that I don't want to go back to sleep but the midnight wakings (and staying awake) are less fraught and I've had some wonderful times enjoying getting to know this new little person in our lives and making something for her to wear while I'm at it.

Birthdays

Late winter is birthday season at chez Tinks and Frogs. Mr. Tinks and Frogs and Tadpole share a birthday and collectively turned 34 last week. I made three batches of cream cheese frosting. Let's just say that my taste buds are readjusting to life with a bit less sugar. In addition to three different varieties of cake (chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for Tadpole, chocolate cake balls for her to take to school on her birthday, and carrot cake as requested by Mr. Tinks and Frogs), I also managed to finish up handmade gifts just in the nick of time.

For Mr. Tinks and Frogs, a new sweater.

This is Armas, knit in Tosh Vintage on size 7 needles. The original pattern calls for bulky weight yarn but I reworked the numbers for worsted weight since this was the yarn that called to me in the shop last year. (That's right, for his birthday last year Mr. Tinks and Frogs got the yarn and the promise of a sweater eventually).

How much yarn did I use? Less than I had bought, certainly. I know I have some unused skeins sitting in my desk drawer and, if I remembered how many I had acquired in the first place (which I don't), or looked in the drawer to see exactly how much I had left (a no-go at the moment since I'm holding a sleeping baby while I type this one-handed), then I might be able to give a reasonable estimate. Let's just leave it at "?" for now.

This is a top down raglan cardigan with a henley placket. Note that the placket is not centered in the design - it's slightly offset. Had I noticed this when I started knitting, I would have adjusted things so that the button bands were centered. Of course, by the time I noticed this feature, the sweater was essentially done and I wasn't about to frog a year's worth of work so that the front would be perfectly balanced.

The back, on the other hand, is just fantastic.

All in all, this one is a big hit. Interesting to knit but not too fussy for the recipient. (Actually, Mr. Tinks and Frogs is a big fan of intricate sweaters like these two.)

Ms. Tadpole also got a handmade gift: a quilt!

The points aren't always perfect but I'm still really pleased with this project.

I have a nice sized stack of squares left over that will become a something. And there is a similar collection of green batiks sitting on my shelf, destined to become something for Sprout. I'm thinking flying geese, perhaps. Probably giant geese so I have a chance of finishing before the end of my maternity leave.

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.