Ptarmigan in Pneu Mexico

My travel was rescheduled, but here I am, finally, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Guess what I brought along to work on?

The Kirman fair isle sweater.  The bottom hem was done in a scheme I have never encountered before.  Cast on, knit 4 rows, reduce the number of stitches by 10%, knit 4 rows, purl a row, knit 4 more rows, add the 10% back in, knit 4 more rows and then start the pattern.  It will be interesting to see if, when blocked, this method cures the flip-up tendency of your average foldover sweater hem.  Bottom border is done and I'm most of the way through the first pattern repeat. Really pleased so far. The yarn is softer than your usual Shetland, the pattern has enough challenge to keep it interesting without making a knitter want to chuck the whole works into the nearest cactus patch (except for beautiful photographs, of course).

I also brought along the silver scarf for those times when I want to do something simpler. The pattern is easy to memorize and I can keep one eye on the tv.  Wish I had put more beads on the cast-on edge, though, but I guess I could add them later.

Anyway, it's a lovely vacation from the Alaska snow, and great fun to sit outside in the sunshine knitting on the warmer days.

A propos of nothing whatsoever, here is a batch of vegan cupcakes I'm very proud of.  The cake part is marble, frosting is ganache with a dab of vegan "cream cheese" frosting topped with heart sprinkles.  Recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World .  Made for Grandboy's day care valentine party so that the coolest goodie there would be something that he could eat.  Loved the amazement on the teacher's face after a bite.  "This is actually GOOD!"

Packing Up

Sorry I haven't been around here for a while.  Yeah, it's the old story--busy, busy, busy.  But still knitting.  I've got a bunch of things in progress, but not much in the way of Finished Objects.  Something of a bout of startitis and no finishupitis. And now I am packing up for a 2-week trip in which I anticipate having a lot of knitting time.  What to take? Here's the menu:

Winter Flame, a free scarf pattern from Knit Picks (also downloadable from Ravelry) in a cheap silvery yarn, Vanna's Glamour, bought on super sale at Joanne's.  And a few beads for trim.  Intended as a prize for my H2O class promotion next fall.  Just goes to show, I will knit with acrylic if I really fall in love with the look of it.

More of Vanna's Glamour, this time in Ruby Red, a simple long K1P1 scarf to donate to the Red Scarf Project next fall. For some reason the sparkles show up better in the silver than the red, but trust me, they both have a beautiful subtle twinkle.

The big project is Kirman, by Nancy Shroyer for Nancy's Knit Knacks LLC. The pattern is not on Nancy's site.  The copyright is dated 2002, and I think she's forgotten all about it and moved on to hats and ball winders.  It was a kit I bought long, long ago that has mouldered away in the stash until recently resurrected.  It's a fair isle pullover "inspired by the Symmetry and Colors of Oriental Carpets".  I changed a couple of the colors from the original--just couldn't stand the crayon yellow and green.  They've become a light blue and a light teal respectively.  I guess if I take that one, I need nothing else.

Last are Ringo and Elwood.  Well, just Ringo so far.  These mittens are soooo darn cute, but less fun than I thought to actually make.  The long carries call for careful tension.  Yarn is Knitpicks Stroll  sock yarn in Agate Heather and Fedora.  The plan is to make Ringo for one hand and Elwood for the other.  The Grandboy is not very impressed by Ringo, so it's hard to get motivated to polish it off and go on to Elwood.  Still, once I have two mittens I intend to connect them with an i-cord and string them up in his coat and to heck with the child safety mavens.  I seriously cannot recall
a single child back in the "bad old days" who was garrotted with his/her mitten string.  Not even cautionary tales from moms or grandmoms.  I wonder how many of those mavens have spent hours hunting lost mittens or being harangued by daycare providers who can't find them either.

Away on the sleigh

A couple of recent Finished Objects have been carried away on the sleigh and delivered and now can be revealed to a waiting world!

Two knitted necklaces, pattern lost, so recreated from memory of the general idea, which was: cast on a whole bunch of stitches, join in circle, knit stocking stitch for 6 rounds, cast off all but, say, 20 stitches, knit across 'em, cast on another buncha stitches (but fewer than before), st st for 6 rounds, cast off the whole business, and voila! through the magic of the Stocking Stitch Curl, you have a 2-strand knitted necklace with strands joined at the back!

The black one was made with Katia Gatsby yarn, a fingering weight synthetic chain with a little strand of gold.  Beads were added to the smaller strand by threading them on a linen thread that was knitted in with a bead every 6 stitches, advanced 1 st every round to get the spiral effect.  Had to use the thread because the dang beads didn't fit on the yarn!

The beads did fit on the Dream In Color Starry in Visual Purple.  The yarn is really magic-looking--merino sock yarn with a tiny real silver fiber running through that glints like, yes, stars in a purple sky without being blingingly overwhelming.  Beads knitted in here at random, with more on the inner strand than the outer.

You may have to click on the photo to embiggen it and see the matching earrings hooked into the top. After I got the necklaces knitted and tried them on, I could see that they needed matching earrings to look cooler than "some dumb loops of knitting that a knitter made for me."  I cast on 8 stitches, knit a bead in between each stitch, cast off, and used the tails to tie them up in loops.  Tiny dot of glue on the knot, clip the tails, and put them on wires.

One of the recipients missed the earrings entirely until I spoke to her on the phone.  "Oh, wonderful!  I wondered why it was so scratchy on the back of my neck!"

This whole multi-loops thing could be developed in a lot of interesting ways.  I can imagine a lot of same-size loops as a cowl/scarf.  What could you do with/without different colors, different yarns, charms, doughnut beads, feathers, big gauge, felting.......

Update: I found the pattern!  And it's a free download from Ravelry! It's Kirsten Johnstone's sev[en] circle.  

Cheat-Toes

I know, I know.  Long time no post.  What I've been working on has either been not very interesting or secret stuff on contract for Santa Claus.  There will be more to see later, but meanwhile, here's some yarn to look at.

This was going to be for the Claus contract, but the original sock didn't work out so well and Idea 2.0 was in a different gauge that would need to be doubled yarn, necessitating the ordering of another skein and further delay.  Meanwhile, the resemblance of the yarn color to Cheetos struck me, and I had to make a direct comparison.  Unfortunately, weird winter light does tricks even when you go outside in mid-day to try to catch the best that's on offer. The yarn really does match the snacks.  If it's not the winter light bleaching the yarn, then blame the strange day-glo additives coating the Cheetos.

The yarn is Blue Moon midweight Socks That Rock in  Sunstone.  The web site has a better approximation of the color, though no snacks for comparison.

Didja get the title?  It was going to be a sock, but now will be something else.  Cheat-toes? 

I Won! I Won!

Ok, it wasn't the mega-million dollar lottery, but it is pretty cool.  It was a contest on She Shoots Sheep Shots  for a subscription to Knit Circus, an online magazine.  KC has a unique scheme for revenue--the magazine is free to look at.  In order to get the patterns they show, you can either purchase them singly or subscribe and get all of them as a download.  I'm not sure how long my subscription will run, but I got the Winter Issue full pattern download.

The embarrassing thing is that I was notified of my win via a comment on my previous blog post.  Unaccustomed as I am (ahem, I'm talking to you, dear reader/lurker) to receiving comments on my literary effusions, it was many days before I noticed and responded. 

And maybe this is the place to also talk about what I found in the blog stats that Google keeps for me.  I have had hits from Russia, Australia, Denmark, Italy, India, and Hong Kong.  People were searching for the Jali cardigan, the Ptarmigan cowl, and vegan cookies mainly.  No, it's not a major international audience, but it still is kind of a buzz that the power of Google can bring the world to my dusty little old blog.

Finished with Some Objects

Various Finished Objects for show & and tell.  There's the graphic stripe scarf...

And a Baby Surprise jacket and booties for the new granddaughter of a colleague. The yarn is Socks That Rock medium weight in My Wild Irish Girlie, a skein from this year's Rockin Sock Club.

[Aside: I wonder how many warped people like me there are who love sock yarn but aren't keen on wearing handknitted socks.  How crazy is it to belong to a sock club and then knit anything but socks??]

The Surprise Jacket is always a minor miracle.  You knit this very strangely shaped rectanguloid object--

And then sew up two seams and it magically turns into a little jacket.  Awwww.  With little pink heart buttons.  And enough yarn and buttons left over for a darling little pair of booties:

I also managed to resurrect another item from the Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble, the Willow Tunic from Jamieson's Shetland Knitting Book 2.  It had been knitted and just needed sewing up and the neckband added.  Putting it together showed me why I let it slide in the first place--the neck is enormous.  Not so terrible, I guess, because, being made of Shetland yarn, it would be too scratchy to wear against the skin anyway.

Now it's onward and upward with the Christmas knitting!  And the Grandboy needs more mittens.  And his dinosaur sweater.  And a couple more intriguing projects are whispering in the wings...

How Long Can It Go On?

I'm still knitting on the graphic stripe scarf.  Now got over 5 ft of it and there's still plenty of yarn left!  How much longer can it be?  Probably another 2 ft, but I think I'll stop at 6 ft.  That should be long enough to do that double-and-through-the-loop style that's so cool.  At least on other people.

But don't worry about my getting bored with doing the same thing for miles. This is my portable project, good for keeping me out of mischief while keeping the Grandboy out of mischief.  I can say without fear of contradiction that I have the pattern memorized by now, and it's easy to stop and start, say, when somebody climbs on top of the coffee table.

There's another project on the go that demands my full attention when I'm working on it, the Stefan's Dinosaurs cardigan for the aforementioned Grandboy.  It's a whole lot more complicated than I realized when I bought the yarn and plunged in.  (Duh! you quip sagely.  It won a competition.  It wouldn't be just a colorful little old intarsia.  It would have texture.)  And, boy, does it ever have texture!

It has texture moves I've never seen before, like slipped-stitch 2-color bunches of grass and subtle leaf patterns in the green areas, and rough, bumpy dinosaur skin.  Yikes!  You don't know the players without a program:

Now you understand why I have a separate portable project, right?  The body is done in one piece with a chart that I have stitched together from pieces of blown-up pdf files.  Not only have I learned new texture patterns, I've had to learn new computer tricks. This puppy has to stay on a table or desk with the place marker undisturbed!

I've changed the color scheme from the original.  For one thing, the background colors were shades of teal.  Teal!  I ask you--what self-respecting dinosaur would be caught roaming a teal-colored landscape??  Once the teal turned a more pleasing green, dinosaur colors had to shift. Here are the sleeves with some of the other colors:

I like my color scheme a lot better than the original.  Deep primary colors seem more attuned to the preschool aesthetic anyway, don't you think?  I mean, this sweater is for a guy who takes such a fancy to red one day that he colors the whole picture in the coloring book with it.  Staying inside the lines beautifully, but the ground is red; the sky is red; red figures in red vehicles doing red things with obvious enjoyment.  You don't dress a guy like that in teal.