Baby booties

Whenever a new baby is born in our family or circle of friends, my mom knits something for the new arrival. Sometimes it’s a tiny sweater or a hat, but usually it’s a pair of baby booties.

A couple of my friends had a baby boy earlier this summer, so I thought I would continue the tradition.

(Christine’s stay-on baby booties, with a few modifications: a few extra stitches and rows since it won’t be cold enough for the recipient to need these for a few months yet, and I want them to still fit by then, and 2×2 twisted rib cuffs instead of rolled ones because I like them better; here are mine on ravelry.)

Baby things make wonderful projects because they’re so small that they seem to fly right off the needles. Especially in the summer, when you really don’t want a half-finished sweater or blanket sitting on your lap as you knit, working on a pair of booties is great. Plus, they’re just so cute!

Another sweater on the needles

Way back in March, I happened across the pattern for Halliard, by Kate Gilbert, in the pages of the Twist Collective (an on-line knitting magazine/cooperative that I love). As soon as I saw it I knew I had to knit it. It’s really just a very lovely sweater.

But the pattern calls for an Aran-weight yarn, which would result in a very thick and warm sweater. I prefer my sweaters to be a bit lighter than what I would get from an Aran-weight yarn, so I decided to try knitting it in a sport-weight instead:

That’s Imperial Stock Ranch Tracie, in Spring Sage. The pattern calls for US size 9 needles, but of course with a different weight yarn, I had to use different needles – US size 2s! Quite a change. In order to get the sizing and proportions right, I’ve been following the instructions for size 39″ (the size I actually want the sweater to be), and the instructions for size 51″ (the size I’d have to knit, given my gauge, to get a 39″ sweater), as well as improvising, measuring, and trying-on (those last two items being the only fool-proof way to knit a sweater that actually fits). So far it’s going surprisingly well!

Hopefully I’ll have a finished sweater before it’s cold enough to need one again next fall.

Green sweater – done!

The green sweater is finally finished! It only took two years and two months from start to finish, but it was worth it. Sometimes my projects seem to need a break (or two, or three…) before I can get them done.

I ended up modifying this pattern (Jennifer Lang’s Victoria Yoke Pullover) a bit; the original has sleeves that end just above the elbow, but I wanted long sleeves on this one (to date, most of my knitted sweaters have featured 3/4 length sleeves – mostly due to impatience on my part, but sometimes 3/4 sleeves just aren’t warm enough).

Overall, this was an enjoyable sweater to knit; that’s an especially good thing, because due to measuring error(s), I knit the body at least 2.5 times, and the right sleeve twice (luckily the sleeves are the same, so the left sleeve worked out on the first try). But all’s well that ends well, right?

February lady sweater – done!

I love how this sweater came out! Blocking it really added a lot of length (about 6 inches, in fact), and evened out the lace pattern nicely.

Finished just in time for spring (if not for February).

February lady sweater

My parents gave me some lovely Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester DK for Christmas:

(That’s in the colorway “Mahogany” in case you’re curious.)

So I decided to jumped on the band-wagon and knit pamela wynne’s February Lady Sweater. (Rav link to my version!) This is a very popular pattern, much knitted and loved. And I can see why: in addition to being free (always a plus), it’s well-written and results in a beautiful, wearable sweater. As with all of my favorite patterns, there was enough variation in the knitting to keep me interested, but not so much that I got frustrated and put it down. The main pattern is a simple lace repeat,

the Gull Lace Pattern, that’s somewhat addicting to work. Once you finish one row, you want to work the next one just to see the lace continue.

My sweater is blocking as I type; the last step is to go find some buttons and sew them on. With any luck I’ll be wearing it next week!

Green sweater

Lately, when I reach for a knitting project, I inevitably pick up a sweater-in-progress. I have lots of works-in-progress, of course, because starting a new project is much more exciting than finishing an old one, and those projects represent a wide variety of objects-to-be. Some are mittens, some are hats, some are blankets, some are loch ness monsters (it’s true!), and some are sweaters.

This is Jennifer Lang’s Victoria Yoke Pullover (here’s my version on ravelry). This one’s been on the needles for a while now… in fact, I couldn’t remember off the top of my head when exactly I started it, but according to my records: January 2009! Yikes. And, just as when I knitted Liesl, apparently I had some gauge issues because the first time around, this sweater was huge. Really big. So I ripped it back and, as you can see, the size issue has been remedied. Now I’ve just got to finish the sleeves and give it a good blocking. Piece of cake, right?

Christmas mittens – done

Here they are! (Here they are on ravelry.) I hope the recipient enjoys them.

Happy holidays and happy knitting, everyone!

Christmas mittens

So I decided to knit a pair of mittens as a Christmas gift. First I picked out some nice yarn at the lovely new yarn store in Moscow (the Yarn Underground, definitely worth a visit). I went with Imperial Stock Ranch Tracie, a 2-ply sport weight yarn with a nice loft, in the aptly-named colorway “Spiced Poppy”.

It’s a “crunchy” kind of yarn, that is, it’s a little rustic, and softness is not it’s strong suit (though this particular yarn is a lot softer than some other crunchy yarns I’ve squeezed). But crunchy yarns tend to be some of my favorites; I like how they feel when I’m knitting with them, and I like how they result in a knitted fabric with good stitch definition.

Once I’d settled on the yarn, I had to pick out a pattern. I decided to re-knit a pattern I designed last year, the Spruce Tree Mittens. Since the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, I split the skein of Tracie in half and am holding the yarn double in order to get the correct gauge. I hadn’t thought about this pattern in a while, and it’s been fun to re-visit it and remember why I liked it enough to write it down in the first place.

One mitten down, one mitten to go!

Happy Thanksgiving

As you can see, winter has finally arrived in my corner of the world, just in time to make Thanksgiving look all pretty and festive.

And because it’s Thanksgiving, I’m in need of a good social knitting project; one that’s small and portable enough to travel with me, and also simple enough that I don’t have to keep referring to the pattern while I’m knitting it. So I decided to knit another autumn scarf, this time in a simple, natural alpaca yarn:

My girlfriend brought this back for me from a work-trip to Ecuador last summer. Wasn’t that nice of her? It’s a really lovely alpaca yarn, approximately sport-weight and in a nice natural tan-ish brown-ish color. I’ve got two skeins of it, so I think I’m just going to continue knitting the scarf until the yarn runs out, and however wide that makes the scarf, that’s how wide it’ll be.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Autumn scarf

Here it is, my autumn scarf!

My inspiration for this project was the yarn I used (Noro Silk Garden Sock). Noro yarn is known for beautiful colorways that typically have long runs of colors; this particular ball of yarn had been in my stash for quite a while, and I was searching for a project that would take advantage of the long color runs. Thus, the autumn scarf was born! The scarf is knit lengthwise, so the stripes are long and narrow and run the horizontal length of the scarf. The pattern is very simple; it’s really just a garter stitch scarf, with a few eyelet rows thrown in there to keep it interesting. I can’t claim to have invented this pattern, as many, many knitters have made lengthwise garter stitch scarves in the past, but I’ll include the specs of mine here for the sake of those who are interested in the details.

Here’s how I did it:

Autumn Scarf

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn, one skein Col. No. S245 (100 grams fingering weight yarn)

Needles: 24 inch (60 cm) or longer US size 5 (3.75 mm) circular needles (or size needed to obtain gauge)

Gauge (prior to blocking): 20 stitches, 28 rows for 4 inch (10 cm) x 4 inch (10 cm) block in garter stitch

Finished measurements (after blocking): 80 inches (203 cm) long, 5.25 inches (13 cm) wide

Definitions:

k: knit

k2tog tbl: knit two stitches together through back loops (results in a decrease of one stitch)

p: purl

p2tog: purl two stitches together (results in a decrease of one stitch)

st(s): stitch(es)

YO: yarn over: wrap yarn once around right-hand needle, from front to back (results in an increase of one stitch)

Instructions for scarf:

Loosely cast-on 315 sts using US size 5 (3.75 mm) circular needles, or size needed to obtain gauge

Row 1: k every st

Rows 2 – 6: repeat row 1

Row 7: p1, [YO, p2tog], repeat from [ to ] to end of row

Repeat rows 1 – 7 five times more

Repeat rows 1 – 5 one time more

Loosely bind-off all sts by [k2tog tbl, slip st back to left-hand needle], repeat from [ to ] to end of row

Cut yarn, leaving tail of about 6 inches (15 cm) in length; bring tail through final bind-off st and pull snug

Weave in ends using tapestry needle; block if desired.

There is one major caveat I have to mention: I intended to use as much of one ball of yarn as possible, in order to make the scarf as wide as I could (and I only had one ball of this yarn in my stash, so going over one ball wasn’t an option); and at the end, I had exactly SEVEN INCHES of yarn leftover! So if your gauge is any looser than mine, you’ll have to plan accordingly.

Have fun!