Major Knitter

A Fear of Pretty Yarn

There should be a name for this condition.  I have so many wonderful yarns yet for some reason I find it difficult to knit my very pretty yarn.  This is generally a condition that manifests itself when I receive a gift of yarn from a friend, or hand-dye my own yarn, or buy an especially expensive skein of yarn.

Here's the perfect example.  I've had this gorgeous skein of pink yarn from James's store J.O.Y. (Joy of Yarn) in New Zealand for quite some time.  It's been sitting on my shelf making me happy every time I look at it.  But I wanted to be sure to knit something very special out of it - not just a plain stockinette sock.  So it sits.  I give my pretty yarn too much power over me.  I look at sock patterns and find them unworthy of the yarn.  So insted of knitting my pretty yarn, I grab something that is less inspiring (e.g. that meets the qualifications for a simple stockinette sock).

But today I am conquering that inertia.  I wound the Vintage Purls yarn in the JOY colorway and cast on for a pair of socks.  I don't know if I'll make stockinette or decide on a pattern, but at least I've started.  This yarn is simply too pretty to sit on my shelf.  

How about you?  Do you have souvenir yarn or yarn that is simply too precious to knit?

 

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I know it seems like I just knit a pair of cashmere socks for BF... but that was Valentine's Day.  Today is our annivesrary.  BF commented that I had never made him socks for Valentine's Day in the past.  I looked at my Ravelry queue - and sure enough - this year was a first.  He most definitely gets them for his birthday and Christmas.  Sometimes he gets them for our anniversary.  This year he's doing quite well and getting them for all four events.  But I decided to be thrifty this year and use up the leftover odds and ends of cashmere.  The socks require approximately 124 grams of yarn.  Each skein has 50g - so I inevitably buy a third skein and end up with leftovers.  

Here's all the leftover sock yarn and my kitchen yarn scale ready to divvy up the yarn into two equal parts.

I carefully wound each ball into two equal balls - weighing them precisely to aid in my multi-color socks.  I removed the white and black leftover cashmere as I felt it was a bit too shocking of a contrast for the rest of these colors.  Plus - I have 80g for each sock and I generally only use 58g.  So I already had plenty and felt I could make a decent pair out of this mix.

Worsted weight socks on US Size 6 needles knit up very quickly.  In no time at all I had a finished pair of socks.

Well, I had a finished pair of socks, except for the weaving in of all these loose ends.

It took about 2/3 as much time to weave in the loose ends as it did to knit the entire socks, but it was well worth the work.  You can see on the wrong side of this sock where I wove in all the ends.  

In less than two days I managed to knit what started out as leftover socks and quickly became my favorite pair of BF's cashmere socks.  I am drawn to the bright, cheery colors.  I like the way the stripes change from the leg to the cuff.  The wild and crazy colors have me singing "this thing -- called love..." all week.

 

Happy Anniversary! 

 

Lindaly's Hearts

I've been busy knitting up the heart swatches for Lindaly's blankets.  I have more yarn than I need - so I'm just stitching up a storm.  Once I have several swatches, Lindaly, Secundogeniture and I will start piecing them together and deciding which ones stay and which ones go.  So far, these all seem like winners.  These nine swatches represent the nine different colors in her blanket.  The rest of the swatches will blend these colors and repeat the heart theme.  I'm not sure of the final product... but I have some ideas running through my head.  Let's see where this goes.

Now to work on some new swatch patterns to show Lindaly next week.

Knitting Gifts I Received

At Christmas, I always receive some knitting gifts as well as giving them.  This year I received some wonderful surprises.  

My Scouting friend Kathy found this book and immediately thought of me.  No Idle Hands by Anne L. Macdonald is about the social history of American knitting.  I'm quite interested in learning more.  I love it!

My good friend James made me these adorable mini Christmas stockings filled with chocolates from New Zealand.  Oops!  We ate the chocolate before we could take the picture!  Thanks James.  He's always so good about getting his gifts in the mail early in December.  My gifts are going out this week as New Year's gifts.  Sigh.  

My friend Julie sent me the Lorna's Laces Sportsmate in the Christmas at Downton Abbey colorway for the Downton Abbey Mystery KAL.  This will be my first Mystery KAL and I'm looking forward to it!  Thanks Julie!

My final knitting related gift of the year is lot with all the new colors from Knit Picks Palette.  Remember how BF bought me the entire palette a few years ago?  I just love it and it brightens my Knit Nook and makes me very happy.  It's always fun to have all the colors for projects - especially all my mini knits!  

Isn't it great?  I have the best friends ever.  They know me so well.  Thank you everyone.  Now I have to start knitting!  Here's hoping you got some wonderful gifts for knitting, too.

Christmas Gifts I Knit

I always like to make gifts.  Generally, I do not knit a lot of holiday gifts because I hate the pressure of deadline knitting.  Knitting is something I enjoy.  Everything else in my life has deadlines and pressure.  I don't want that for my knitting.  But this year, I made some handknit gifts.  Here are just a few.  I modeled these pictures for Ravelry.  

First up is the eternity Beaded Rib Scarf I made to go with Kayla's hat.

I knit BF a pair of festive green cashmere socks for Christmas.

A miniature cashmere sock ornament with the same yarn. 

A couple of my kitschy little chickens for my step-MIL whose kitchen is decorated in chickens.  

I also gifted some of my 2012 handknit Christmas ornaments - Let It Snowmen!

The Piece de Resistance was the denim blue Sampler Blanket I made for Kayla.  Here's a picture before I put it under the tree.  I finished it on Dec 23rd... but didn't have time to block it, so I made a blocking/washing lesson be part of the gift.  It's currently down on the pool table drying.  It looks great and so warm.  

That's the most I've ever gifted for handmade gifts for Christmas.  How about you?

 

Secret Santa

Yesterday my knitting group met before Christmas and thanks to Michelle we had a Secret Santa exchange.  We could either buy a gift under $20 or make something that would take an afternoon to make - but no more.  It was such fun to see the handmade gifts and knitting related gifts being opened.  

Kathy drew my name and she made me this amazing Wilma pillow.

Wilma's not quite sure what to make of this.  "Are they making a tribute to me?"

Yes Wilma - it's always about you.  You're so adorable that we pay tribute to you always.  :D

My gift was easy - easy to come up with an idea and easy to make.  Michelle had hinted that she wanted one of my owl hats.  Ask and ye shall receive!

I didn't get pictures of the rest of the gifts - but it was lots and lots of fun.  We have a very generous and talented group of ladies.  And we even managed to get a little bit of knitting accomplished.

Joanne managed to finish her knit camel for a Christmas present.  Isn't it a hoot?

Betsy made us all some homemade vanilla extract similar to this one.  It will come in handy for my future baking escapades.  Mmmmm.

Every Wednesday is a great day because it's Knitting Day... but this was an especially fun day.  Merry Christmas everyone!  Ho! Ho! Ho!

That's What Friends Are For

This past summer, two members of our knitting group moved out of the state of Connecticut.  It decimated our knitting group.  We knew about Lisa's imminent departure for two years.  So in January, we started planning a group farewell gift and celebrated with a farewell luncheon where we delivered our friendship blanket.  It was wonderful.  In contrast, Estella, found out she was moving and was gone in less than two weeks from start to finish.  Our heads were still spinning with the news and we barely had time to get our acts together to manage a farewell breakfast.  We knew we wanted to also do a big friendship gift, but there just wasn't time.  

So last week, our expedited (yes - five months is expedited in my opinion for a group project!) gift was finally shipped to Estella in a festive holiday shipping box.  Estella wrote to say that a surprise arrived and she put it under the tree.  

Someone immediately came up with the idea to have her open up her gift via a Google+ Chatroom (or Skype).  So at our Wednesday knitting group, we dialed both Lisa and Estella into our joint video chat and watched Estella open her gift.

 

Estella was tickled pink.  She makes blankets for her family, and they always fight over who gets the blanket.  This one will be just for Estella.  She's already told them!  And each time she wraps up under her friendship blanket, she'll be getting a hug from each and everyone of us in her Connecticut knitting group.

Details:  Sampler Blanket pattern from Westport Yarns
Yarn:  5 skeins Cascade Yarns Eco+ - Sapphire
Needles:   US Size 10.5
Knitters:  five friends
Blocker:    one friend
Crocheters:  two friends (one for seaming and one for edging) 

Enjoy Estella!  All eight of us wish you all the best and miss you dearly!

Second Verse, Same as the First.

OK.  Not really.  But I did knit up another Beaded Rib Hat designed by Laura Hein at my LYS - Westport Yarns.  Instead of the Lobster Pot Cashmere Bulky, this time I used Lamb's Pride Bulky (85% wool 15% mohair)

I used a US Size 8 needle and 1 skein of the Lamb's Pride Bulky.  Since I knit loosely, I modified the pattern by only casting on 72 sts.  

It's a very warm hat and the pattern is unisex - so it's doubly useful.

Whether you're knitting in Lamb's Pride or Lobster Pot - no matter which one fits into your budget - you'll love the way they both knit up for Laura Hein's Beaded Rib Hat.  It's only available at Westport Yarns.  Give 'em a call today.  You'll be glad you did.

 

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday Baby

It's that time of year again and that means I'm knitting a pair of worsted weight cashmere socks for BF's birthday.

Happy Birthday!  Hope it's a great one.

 

So Long My Friend

My knitting group is losing a key member this month.  We've known that Lisa would be moving at the end of this summer for more than a year, but that doesn't make it any easier now that the time has come to bid her farewell.  So to honor our dear friend, we decided to hold a farewell luncheon.  Our hostess Joan made the cutest little name place cards

We each brought some special dish to the luncheon and created quite a delectable array of food.

And of course, we did the only logical thing a knitting group could do.  We knit her a friendship blanket.  

She had no idea... which is saying something since we've been knitting it on the sly since about February or March.  We couldn't post anything on Ravelry and kept saying that we had all "lost our knitting mojo."

She loved her blanket and it will be a wonderful hug from her knitting friends when she's in the midwest.  We'll miss you!  You're a treasure!