Month: March 2018

Finished Object – Diamond Girl Hat

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I finished my new hat last night. I soaked it in wool wash and blocked it on a balloon over night. This morning I was happy to discover that it had dried enough to wear. I love it when I don’t have to wait a few days to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

The pattern is Diamond Girl by Lane Wilkins. The pattern was well written and easy to follow. I love the look of the lace, but I do not like how she has you close up the hat at the crown. It looks a little wonky to me.

The yarn is South Dakota Yarn Co. and I love it. It is naturally dyed with spinach and copper (My favorite leafy green! My favorite statue medium!). The wool is from sheep that were raised sustainably in Minnesota. The yarn was a little crunchy, which lots of vegetative material in it. I don’t mind that, as I like thinking about where my yarn came from while I’m knitting with it. A little bit of VM reminds me of the sheep out enjoying the pasture. The yarn blocked beautifully, and softened up significantly.

I love the hat. I’m currently sitting at my dining room table wearing it. I do not anticipate taking it off any time soon.

Have a great weekend!

 

WIP Wednesday: 12/52

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Happy Wednesday. It’s going to be 60 this afternoon, so it feels like spring is actually here. It’s not the weather that is feeling springy, so is my knitting. All of my projects are small – I’m not in the mood for a big, bulky project.

My knit while the kids play project is a pair of socks for Audrey. I’m about one inch from starting the toe on the first sock. These go fast when I actually take the time to work on them. They are just really boring, so I avoid working on them at all costs.20180328_1310381146532628.jpg

This is my first time working with this yarn, Sandnes Garn Sisu, and I like it. The yarn feels like it will hold up well, which is good, because I fully intend for both kids to eventually wear these socks. I love the color. It is such a bright blue, both kids seem happy with it.

I’m also making a hat for myself out of the South Dakota Yarn Co. I picked up at Fiberpalooza. The pattern, Diamond Girl, looks great with the yarn. I am using sport weight instead of DK weight, which will be good for a spring hat. I love how the hat is knitting up, but I am reminded why I haven’t knit lace in five years – you actually have to think about it. I’m not used to thinking about my knitting. 20180328_1311581281478462.jpg

In addition to the two real projects I’m working on, I’ve started keeping a dishcloth on the needles in the fruit bowl on my dining room table. Why? Because toddlers eat for a really long time. Each meal lasts about an hour. That makes for a lot of sitting at the table encouraging them to eat or be done with the meal. I’ve made two and a half dishcloths with this new technique over the past week. That is even more impressive when you realize I was gone for three days last week. I plan to keep a dishcloth going until I’ve replenished our dishcloth drawer (all of our dishcloths seemed to get holes at the same time).

Overall I’m not in much of a knitting mood lately. Or a reading mood. You would think I would be getting a lot of cleaning and organizing done, but you would be wrong. I’m mostly sitting around trying to figure out what to do with my downtime.

What do you like to do when you aren’t knitting?

WIP Wednesday: 11/52

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Do you remember last week when I couldn’t decide if the yarn I picked out was beautiful or hideous? I have my answer.

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Ugly Socks

So I made some really ugly socks. The more I look at them the more they delight me, even though I know they are garish and not at all my style. I am annoyed with how the yarn pooled. I normally don’t mind pooling, but this was too much .

The good news is the pattern was fun and flew. The pattern is Play Nice Socks by Meanest Mommy Knits. I really like Lisa’s patterns. If you are looking for a new sock pattern I suggest giving her a try.

As for the work in progress portion of my WIP Wednesday post? I have nothing on needles (OK, fine, I still have the cardigan in my closet and my sock yarn blanket, but I don’t have any updates on those).

I’m going to cast on two projects tonight. New socks for Audrey (which will be socks for Elliot next) and a new hat for myself in the South Dakota Yarn Co. I picked up last weekend.

I don’t anticipate those projects taking too long. I have a few more hats I would like to make, and I always like to make socks. I really need to come up with my next big project. I have enough DK yarn to make the kids a sweater, I just need to find a pattern that I like.

Have a great week!

Fiberpalooza Recap

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Today was Fiberpalooza day. The gym of the elementary school in Winterset (about 30 minutes from Des Moines) is taken over by yarn and notions vendors. It is a fabulous market, and I look forward to it every year.

I loved looking at all the vendors had to offer. There was some beautiful yarn. There were dyers that I have knit with in the past, and knew I loved. There were new fibers and colors to explore. In the end I stuck with my yarn diet. I was shocked. I assumed that I would go over my earned amount.

I almost did. I was standing in line at the Fiber Cuiro and Sundries booth with some Bluefaced Leicester Silk blend in a stunning green when it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t buy a skein of that yarn until I knit a pair of socks with the skein of Fiber Curio and Sundries yarn I already own. Just because yarn is beautiful it doesn’t mean I need to buy it. I haven’t knit with the skein I own in a year, I can wait until next year to get a new skein.

Keeping myself to two skeins meant making darn sure that the two skeins I picked were worth it. Putting that much thought into buying single skeins is something I’ve never done in the past, and I am amazed at how much it changed my approach to picking out the yarn. It had to be perfect. I found two skeins that were just what I was looking for.20180317_110745389728761.jpg

I picked up a skein of South Dakota Yarn Co. Sport Weight yarn that was dyed with spinach and copper. It is a lovely shade of green, and is destined to be a hat on my head before next winter. I was tempted by her sock yarn, but went with the sport weight because it is some of the yarn she recently started carrying from a sheep farm in Lonsdale, MN that uses sustainable farming practices. I love the wool is produced in MN, dyed in SD, and is destined to be knit in IA. The hat will be a completely Midwestern product.

The second skein I picked up was Yarn Geek Fibers in Ada Lovelace. This skein is destined to be socks for John. The colors are great, and having socks named after a computer programmer is perfect for my programming husband.

After looking around the market we headed to the town square to check out some of the shops. We wandered into the yarn store. They have a wonderful selection, and I almost always leave with something I didn’t know I needed. This time I wasn’t tempted by the yarns. I explored the notions, something I usually don’t do. I found replacement buttons for Elliot’s cardigan. They are the same color and style, just a quarter-inch bigger than the ones that are already on his cardigan. I picked up four extra, anticipating that I would probably make that sweater again. I also picked up a new row counter. I usually use the County app to keep track of rows, but I’m trying to use my phone less. This counter is awesome. I love how it just stays on my finger and is always at the ready.

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A lot of the vendors we talked to are also going to the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival in June. I’m looking forward to checking that out in a few months. With any luck I will have earned a few skeins. Even if I haven’t, I think I will enjoy looking at the sheep and talking to the producers.

Do you have any markets you love to visit?

WIP Wednesday: 10/52

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You guys, I got so much knitting done this week. I don’t know how it happened. The kids took a couple of extra long naps, and wham, I finish two of the projects I was working on last week. It is a good feeling to actually make progress.

The first thing I finished was the cowl for my sister. I picked out the color and the pattern without consulting her after a conversation where she mentioned in passing that she would like a cowl. I told her I would make her another one if she didn’t like it, but she did so I don’t have to do that. It was a fast pattern to knit. It was pretty unmemorable, as far as projects go, which is illustrated by the fact that I don’t even have a picture of it.

I also finished Elliot’s cardigan. Audrey posed for the photos in it because Elliot will not sit still for photos.

I love the cardigan so much I bought the rest of Jenny Wiebe’s Little Old Man collection of cardigans. I hope to make him a Harvey cardigan later this year. I have had some red worsted wool in my stash for years, and this might be the project for it.

I’ve been working on finishing my Candy Shoppe Socks. I have been playing around with vanilla socks, and I like the simple detail I’ve come up with. It is a simple rib that goes down the foot on the outer edge. It makes vanilla socks slightly less mind numbing to work on.

I do love how fast Felici knits up. I hope to finish these tonight or tomorrow.

The next socks up are Play Nice Socks by Lisa Beth Houchins knit up in A Whimsical Wood Yarn Co in the Wicked Ass colorway. Ivy dubbed the colorway Ethical Toucan, and that is a really good description of the colors. I bought the yarn because I couldn’t decide if the yarn was beautiful or hideous.

20180314_1854301297892388.jpgIn addition to starting a new pair of socks, I am also going to cast on another The Favorite Knit Slouchy or finally make the Gretel Tam for myself (now that I’ve been talking about for months). It all depends on how long it takes me to memorize the Play Nice Socks repeat. If I have a hard time memorizing it, or if it is something I have to keep thinking about, I’m going to cast on the slouchy hat. I need to have at least one mindless project on the needles.

Once I’ve decided on a hat I’m going to start looking at my stash to come up with another big project. I have the yarn to make myself a sweater, but I’m holding out until September, as I think I’ve convinced Ivy to have a bang out a sweater month with me. We’ll see how that goes. It is to be determined if she has actually agreed of if I had a full glass of wine and heard what I wanted to hear.

What do you think I should make next?

WIP Wednesday: 9/52

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It feels like I’ve accomplished a lot of knitting this week. I finished two projects, my St. Patrick’s Day socks and the birthday party hat. It has been a long time since I have felt like I’ve accomplished a lot with my knitting.

The hat is the favorite knit slouchy by Jamie Sande. It is the third time I’ve made this hat, and it won’t be the last. It’s really easy, and you end up with a hat that is fashionable. Often what I like to knit and what is hip are two totally different things, but in this case they actually intersect.20180303_193845(0)1053835290.jpg

I made that hat for my friend’s birthday party. She put the hat on after she opened it and wore it for the rest of the night. I love it when it is clear that my knitted gift is appreciated.

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I also finished my St. Patrick’s Day socks. I used Born in a Barn Fiber Arts yarn, which is some of my favorite yarn I have ever worked with. I’m excited to go to Fiberpalooza again in a couple of weeks, as I get to check out her stuff again. I was playing around with my own design when I was knitting them, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. I am thinking about writing up the pattern.

My goal for the week was to finish the hat and the socks before I started on Elliot’s cardigan again. I thought I would a sleeve knit by now, but that hasn’t happened. Because I have to keep track of the decreases on the sleeves it isn’t something I want to work on when I’m knitting with others or when the kids are awake.
I started two new projects this week. Both projects are good for knitting when hanging out with friends.

I’m making a cowl out of super bulky yarn. My sister recently told me she wanted a cowl, so when I discovered some super bulky in my stash I decided to make her one. I did not consult her on the pattern or the yarn. She might hate it. That is OK, because if I’m being honest, I just want to have a project that helps me burn through 100 g of yarn very quickly. Fiberpalooza is only a few weeks away, and I would like to earn as much yarn as possible (I’m taking my yarn diet very seriously this year).

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I also started a pair of kind of vanilla socks. They are vanilla socks, but with a small rib detail so they aren’t quite so boring to knit. I am using Felici, which always seems to knit up quickly. There is something about self striping yarn – it makes me keep going and going to see what the next stripe will bring. I love it.

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I always have a pair of socks on the needles, and I’ve developed a plan for this year when approaching socks. I am going to alternate between indie dyers and cheaper sock yarn. I have enough in my stash that I should be able to get through this year without buying more (even though I’m totally going to buy more when my yarn diet allows for it). I would love to knit exclusively with indie dyers, but my budget does not allow for it. I think knitting every other pair with extra fancy yarn will be a nice treat. I imagine it will also get me to slow down and enjoy the fancy yarn and quickly knit through the mass-produced yarn. I look forward to seeing if my hypothesis holds true.

For the next week I’m hoping to finish Elliot’s sweater. I would like to finish the cowl too. If I’m really lucky I’ll also finish a sock. That is a lot of knitting though, so I might be setting unattainable knitting goals for the week. What do you hope to knit this week?