Scarfiss

Last Fall, we were staying with my brother for a weekend.  I brought along some fingerless mitts that I had made for my niece, and they were a great hit.  Later that weekend, I was working on a scarf for our SnB contribution to the local homeless shelter, Riley asked what I was making, and I told her a scarf.  Without missing a beat, she said “I need scarfiss!”  Yes that was a correct spelling, pronounced scarf-ISS.

Last winter I searched for some fun pink fluffy yarn to make a keyhole scarf with.  I ended up combining some cotton yarn with some soft pink baby wool.  Part way through the project I realized that I was going to run out of yarn, luckily I mentioned it at my SnB knitting group, and one of my fellow knitters came to the rescue with the exact correct yarn.  Here is the finished scarf newly worn by Riley:

And of course, I could not forget her brother!  Orange is his dad’s favorite color, so an orange hat it was:

They are too cute together!

Two Nancies

After a weekend at Vogue Knitting Live, our local yarn shop Knit Nirvana hosted Nancy Bush and Nancy Marchant on Monday evening for show and tell, wine and book signing.  Nancy and Nancy both showed examples from their books in a mini fashion show.  I forgot to take my camera, so consequently these photos are with my cell phone, I took more of people’s feet than anything else!

Nancy Bush is the Estonian expert; lace, socks and history.  She is a great teacher I have taken classes from her in the past.  Some of these models I have seen prior, but always so worth seeing again.  These are mostly from her book Knitted Lace of Estonia:

Nancy Marchant is the Brioche lady.  I was not familiar with her, or her books, but as I was leaving, the thought came to me that I had knit a Brioche hat, and sure enough it was a Nancy Marchant pattern from the Vogue Hats book. 

 

Brioche is essentially Fisherman’s rib, but with a pattern attached.  Consequently it is very soft and squishy, warm but light weight, and most importantly reversible.  This was made with 2 very different handspun yarns.  I like the purple side facing the best.

Here is Nancy showing one of her lovely scarves.  Apologies again for the very poor photo.

She has her first book,  Knitting Brioche that was previously published,

and a new hot off the presses one that was at the store.  I gave the copy I had in hand to someone else, always other opportunities.

 

Nancy M also has a Brioche scarf in the upcoming Holiday issue of Vogue.  Applying Brioche to lace knitting.

A couple of her scarves were with gradients, which got me to thinking….

Knitters are amazing!

Both my SnB group and a monthly Saturday group agreed to knit scarves for the local group, PADS, which works with homeless people.  At the end of February, we were able to deliver 20 scarves to the organization, still in time for this cold, lingering, nasty winter.  I am so proud of my fellow knitters, whenever there is a call, they step up.  This is right on top of knitting for the American Heart Association Go Red charity event.

Here are some photos that we took before delivering them.

I chose to make a shawl, this is the pattern In the Age of Brass and Steam.  Just wish that it had been a bit larger.  We hope to repeat this next Fall, and I will make a couple of shawls for that.

Finished

Just in time for my friend Sheila’s birthday party, I finished blocking the leaf shawl and weaving in ends.  I chose to block it with a ruffled edge, which I think was the intended result.  My blocking photo is very fuzzy, but wanted to include it for those who are making the shawl, there were a couple of “extreme blocking” examples on Ravelry which seemed to distort the pattern into something that it did not want to be.  That given, this was a challenging shawl to block out, and in retrospect I should have used my blocking wires.

And here is my friend Julie modeling it at the party:

Pattern: Dunabe
Pattern Source: Janel Laidman’s Knitterati Sock Club 2012, September pattern
Yarn: Handspun from Fiber Optic roving
Needles: US 6
Date Started: 10/ /12
Date Finished: 10/19/12
Finished Dimensions: “Shawlette size”

Blocking is Everything!

I finally gave a proper blocking to my doily lap blanket, otherwise known as the Hemlock Ring Blanket,  that I made a couple of years ago.  It looks so much better than the lump that has been sitting on my couch for the past 2 years.  Blocking is everything!

And I am almost finished with my KAL mystery scarf project from Janel Laidman’s Knitterati sock club.  3 rows from the end and I run out of handspun yarn!  Luckily I love Fiber Optic so much that I had the end of a blue-green gradient as a single.  I Navajo plyed it (with a couple of practices), and have what I think will be a lovely blue ending to this scarf.

Catch-Up

I have gotten a bit behind in my sock club knitting the past couple of months.  I hope to rectify that shortly, but first let me show you what arrived in mid-July, a beautiful blue yarn by Dirty Water DyeWorks, color : Fathom, along with another project bag, and a Sock Report clear bag.  Dirty Water  also carries the cutest project bags from Three Bags Full, I think that they may be ones that I spotted with CookieA when I was in her classes.  Definitely have to put those on my wish list!

Instead of casting this on for socks first, I opted to go with the mystery KAL scarf project.  I am using some of my own handspun, Blackberry Jamble pencil roving from Fiber Optic:

It is knitting up so incredibly nice.  I love spinning this pencil roving, this was my third hank of it, and the first thing that I spun on my new Jensen wheel, I got 496 yards, so I am hoping it is enough-otherwise the edging will be bound off with another fiber.  My spinning is not as even as I am able to get just a couple of months later, but beautiful non-the-less.  I would highly recommend this fiber for beginning knitters, as it is easy to draft out.  I have almost finished with Clue #2 of 3, having had a very bad false start where I knit garter stitch instead of stockinette well into the second clue.

And finally from the CookieA 2012 sock club, this gorgeous green sock yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm (color: Genmaicha), and looking at her webpage I see lots of luscious fiber.  This is the good/bad thing about these sock clubs, I am introduced to fibers and vendors that I would not otherwise find, the bad news is that I am introduced to new sources of wool and yarn.  My difficulty with this month will be which of the 2 sock patterns to knit with, they are both so cute.  One however is a different type of sock knit, so I will most likely attempt that one.

Knitting Legacy

I made Dan a continuous loop scarf for Christmas to keep his neck warm while working on the computer and sitting around the house.  Sofia liked it, and wanted to make one of her own.  So, she went to my stash and chose yarn.  And of course it was the cashmere silk (the variegated) and alpaca silk (soft green) blends.  She does have discriminating tastes.  I helped her start with a provisional cast-on, and she just knit in garter stitch, alternating the variegated with the solid every 2 rows.   When the knitting was finished, I Kirchner stitched the beginning and end together, and wove in the ends (I will teach her those skills eventually), and you have a continuous loop with no clear start or stop.  Her knitting is very even, and she made this up quickly.

Both sides have a distinctly beautiful look, and work well when wound around the neck.  I always hate a scarf that has an ugly side, because I inevitably have that showing.  Excuse her T-shirt beneath the scarf.

This is so soft, it really turned out lovely.  She told me that her and a few friends from work are starting their own SnB group next month, so we looked at Ravelry for a simple sweater, and she picked a pattern that is a great first sweater.  Not only is it relatively easy, but it is cute, so it will be worn.  I am so happy that she is discovering knitting.  And, I am sure that she is so happy to have my stash to shop from.

Hunkering Down

If the weathermen are to be believed we have one heck of a storm coming towards Chicago the next 2 days, followed by some cold air.   I do often have my doubts about their reliability.  In my next life I want to come back as a weatherman, as they can be wrong most of the time, and still keep their jobs.  In fact, I think that I guess as well as them sometimes.  But this might be different.  Warnings are coming from all sources, and sides.  I went to the grocery store today to make sure that I had enough food for 3-4 days, it was packed, you would have thought that it was the day before a major holiday.  Additional cat food will be purchased on my way to knitting tonight—that would actually be the most painful thing to run out of.  Lloyd would just look at me and go to his bed, but the cats would be non-stop yelling.

Running out of yarn for knitting or fiber for spinning will not be a problem however.  I have been finishing spinning up the rest of the green and purple Fiber Optics roving, and will ply it together tonight.  That way I will have enough to finish my Herbivore scarf while I sit with knitting, books, animals and movies tomorrow and weather out the storm.   I am supposed to teach tomorrow night and Wednesday morning, but unless something changes, I will be cancelling my classes tomorrow afternoon.

Here is my progress on Herbivore.   Once you get the set-up rows, it is a very easy knit.

Cotton Candy Scarf

My first project from weaving to knitting.  I called this “Cotton Candy”, as it reminded me of the colors and fluffiness of the cotton candy at the county fair.  Every year I would look wistfully at it, as my mother would refuse to buy it for us.  Was it the cost, or the product?  I never knew, but I also refused to buy my children cotton candy at the amusement park…

Just a simple garter stitch scarf, gifted wool whose province I do not know, and bulky yarn due to the early stages of my learning curve on the spinning wheel.

I think that I will send this to my best blog commenter, who always has such wonderful words of support for me.

Oh Henry!

Was it worth it, I am not sure yet.  Ask me much later.  This scarf took way too long for my tastes.  The pattern Henry, was simple and straight-forward.  The problem was small needles, dark light weight yarn (Malabrigo sock yarn), and 500+ stitches per row.  The end result is a very dense fabric that has the look of a woven scarf instead of a knitted one.  I think that the pattern definitely appeals to men who shy away from wearing many overtly hand-knit things in public, especially with a nappy winter trench coat.  The scarf is undeniably soft, and the drape of the fabric is wonderful.

Mistakes are very hard to correct in this pattern.  At one point I found that I had a mistake, and had to unknit several rows.  That proved, by experiment, to be a better solution than taking the scarf completely off the needles.  Whenever I finished a band of the herringbone pattern, I would show it hopefully to my husband and say:  “Is this wide enough for a scarf for you?”.  He would always hold up his hand, and I watched in horror as he spread his fingers wider and said:  “just about this much more”.  I finally put my foot down when the yarn was running out, and I would have had to search my stash for the 1/2 skein that matched this.  I think that the size is good.  If I ever considered making this again, it would not be with a sock yarn, and with bigger needles.  I had issues with my thumb and left hand hurting whenever I worked on this for too long.

Moral of the story: When you read on Ravelry about people taking one year to knit a scarf, take heed.  I was very smug, thought I am such a fast knitter that I started this 2 weeks before Christmas thinking that I could finish it up for his stocking.

I still need to block this, but it is cold, and my husband gave his scarf to a dear friend who was stranded here last weekend on his way to DC.  He is wearing it as I write.