Some days, the mail is just better than others . . .

• Veronica Mars Kickstarter backer t-shirt
• Sundara yarn to make this sweater.  (The color is called "Glacier" and it smells gorgeously of wool and silk, which it is.)
• A new Interweave Knits magazine.
• AND the jury summons is for my husband, not me . . .

A New Twig on the Family Tree

I just finished this sweater for a new great-nephew.  I hope to someday get a picture of this sweet new baby in his sweater, but it looks like it'll be a bit before it fits.  He's an Arizona boy, so it will be worn rather sparingly in the evenings in the winter, I suspect.

Knitters details

• Leaves, or Not by Karen Borrel - a Ravelry download in French or English.  
• Yarn:  Simpliworsted by HiKoo - 2 skeins color 062 Caramel Macchioto and 1 skein Simply Sage.  55% Merino superwash, 28% Acrylic, 17% Nylon, 140 yards in 100 g.
• Needle:  US 6
• Button - a wonderful wood one left over from a Philosopher's Wool kit for a cardigan that was made into a pullover. 
• modifications and notes:  This yarn was heavy for the pattern - I liked the fabric I got with a #6 needle (I knit loosely, so don't judge your gauge by mine) and cast on for a size 6/12 months (22 inch chest finished sweater).  My sweater turned out to be 24 inches around - a rather generous 12-18 month size, I suspect.  Also, the pickup for the collar says to do 2 stitches for every 3 rows in the stockinette section - which works fine on the "straight" fronts.  When I got to the v-neck, it looked better to pick up every row. 

This picture shows how it looked just before I unravelled the last row, having picked up in a 2/3 ratio.  It doesn't lie as smoothly as I wanted.  So I tried again.

This was my first top down raglan sweater - it was easy, but would have been easy the other way round too, I think.  The shawl collar is nicely designed - the pattern doesn't suggest any wrapping for the short rows, but I used these instructions for Japanese short rows.   I'm not sure it makes a big difference one way or another.  a difference, yes, but not a big one.  


This may be a new favorite baby sweater.  I could imagine adding little embroidered flowers for a girl.  What's your go-to baby sweater? 

Just the Same, Only Different

At some point when I finished my son's Urban Aran sweater, I asked my daughter to try it on.  And was pleased (but a little surprised) when she said, "I'd like one of these, too!"

When I began to plan the sweater for her, I realized that she really liked THAT sweater.  She wanted the same, soft, natural looking yarn - Cascade Eco Cloud, which is undyed wool and alpaca.  She even liked the color, so I chose a slightly darker charcoal grey (my son's sweater was dove grey).  Way back when, I'd hoped to make my son's sweater of the charcoal yarn, but my local store didn't have quite enough skeins of the darker color, and there was enough of the lighter grey.

Because I thought the first sweater stretched quite a bit upon wearing, I was careful to make this one smaller.  Still, I ended up doing surgery on the sleeves to shorten them by an inch and a half when I was all done.

Then we came to the zipper.  I'd remembered that my daughter had thought I should have used a zipper with metal teeth for her brother's sweater - so I thought that was what she'd want.  But instead, she asked for buttons.  It took me a while to talk myself into this.  I think the zipper front really suits this sweater.  But it is her sweater, so I started looking at pictures of similar sweaters on Ravelry that had buttons.

In the end, I picked up 3 stitches for every four rows and knit a button band.  After a false start or two, we chose these buttons from Blackwater Abbey Yarns.


Besides looking good on the sweater, they are not overly heavy for a metal button.  Still, since the alpaca makes this yarn very soft and stretchy, I backed the button band with grosgrain ribbon and sewed the buttons on with another, plain plastic button on the back.  I also sewed ribbon on the buttonhole side.

This meant sewing buttonholes in the ribbon before I sewed it in the sweater. And I lined the back yoke, something I think would be unnecessary with a firmer yarn. (This sweater did feel a little If You Give a Mouse a Cookie-ish by the time I finished!)

But in the end, it was all worth it. This sweater looks great with buttons! We're both happy. She's off to spend a semester (the first of two) in Italy in a week. And she'll have this love to keep her warm.

 Urban Aran Sweater

• Cascade Eco Cloud, Charcoal color 1810, about 10 skeins, purchased from Sheep's Clothing
• Celtic Knot buttons, size 7/8" from Blackwater Abbey Yarns
• The original Urban Aran with Toque pattern is out of print.  The peplum cardigan pattern in Bernat #530183, Chill in the Air is the same pattern and available.   
• US size 8 and 9 needles (size 7 for the button band)
• 1-1/2 inch grosgrain ribbon and 3/4 inch La Mode buttons from Joann Fabric
• In Ravelry

A Honey of my OWN

Over spring break, my husband and I were able to travel east to visit our son in his new city.  As I was packing, I realized that the Urban Aran I was knitting for my daughter was not the ideal project for knitting on the airplane.  It's not terribly demanding, but it involves a cable needle, and (usually a good thing) I knit through the balls of yarn pretty quickly.  (I know, I know, it's wonderful to knit cables without a needle.  All the cool kids are doing it.  But I prefer the process and the outcome with the cable needle.  And it's my knitting.  So there.)

I am usually a one-project-at-a-time kind of knitter, but this seemed like an occasion to make an exception.  And, thanks to a little impulse buying at Happy Knits, when I was last in Portland, I had just the thing:  two skeins of Madelinetosh Dk in the Cove colorway.

This yarn came home mainly because I loved the color (which this picture doesn't do justice), and because I thought I might like a Honey Cowl myself.  This was, after all, the very yarn, if not the color, called for in the famous pattern.  

To digress a bit, Happy Knits was my first exposure to Madelinetosh yarns in person.  It's a bigger yarn range than I'd imagine, with many beautiful colors.  I am especially in awe of all the varieties of water themed colors - cove, wellwater, rainwater, baltic, etc.  I want more.

You don't have to watch the video.  You've seen it.  But I do.  Want more. 

So, I knit on my Honey Cowl all the way to Baltimore and back.    And a bit when I got home.  I only dropped the yarn under the seat in front of me once, on the first leg of my flight.  And I have a Honey Cowl of MY OWN. 

I look a little concerned in this picture -- but I'm OK.

The styling isn't so terrific, but this shot does show the lovely shading pretty well.

I really tried hard to finish my Honey while we were in Baltimore.  They have spring there as well, now,  but when we were there, I was jealous of the many young women I saw still in their warm infinity scarves.  Now that I have a scarf that is wooly warm as well as fashionable, spring has at last sprung.  After these shots, my Honey went up on the closet shelf with the other winter scarves.

Here we are on the last and warmest day of our visit.  I guess spring had already started springing!

Easter, belated

On Easter, I delivered the second red beret (Almond Comfit) I knit.  It was just as fun to make the second as the first.   My mom had strongly hinted that she'd like one too.  She and my mother-in-law are pretty good friends and I certainly didn't want  her to be jealous. 

The knitting details aren't that different from the first one - same yarn, same pattern.  My mom's head circumference was between sizes, so the sizing is the only difference.  I used the directions for the largest size, except in the "main body of hat" section - there, I knit the number of rows for the next smaller size.  It seemed to work!
My sister took this lovely picture of the two moms (my mom and my mother-in-law) modelling their hats.

This was on Easter Sunday, when I also gave my sister (and hostess) the Bertie Lou bird I knit.

It was gratifying that my sister loved Bertie's feet, since that was my own tweak to the pattern.  The little steeple in the picture is the top of a wonderful bird-house my brother-in-law created.  So here's Bertie, in her new habitat. 

A Bird in the Hand

A few weeks ago, I tagged along on a trip my husband needed to take to Portland.  He was going to be busy all day, so I "messaged" a friend in the area who I know through an online book group, and who also happens to be a knitter.  As we were making our arrangements to meet for lunch, Martha added, "And you know it's the yarn crawl that weekend?"

Well, no I didn't - but I do now.  If you're ever in Portland for the Rose City Yarn Crawl, well, you'll see that they do it right in Portland.  Prize drawings, patterns, even a live lamb.  Though I didn't visit very many shops, I sure enjoyed the ones I did. 

Probably the most inviting shop we visited was Happy Knits.   I don't know about you, but some shops are just more inspiring than others, and this was a good one for me.  Lots of light, yarn arranged in ways that seemed sane.  And then I saw Bertie Lou. 



And I had to have her.  Or maybe him.  Hard to tell.  Bertie's meant to be a hostess gift for my sister, but I got her outside for a photo shoot before we left.

The kit comes complete with nest - everything you need but the stuffing.  It was the shop's design for 2012's Rose City Yarn Crawl, and was designed by Tai Faux.  In my Ravelry projects here. 

Inspired by Rowan's Esther, Ernie, & Enid, I gave Bertie some feet.


 But not their legs or cute little knees.  Just feet.  I used a little leftover sock yarn - might have been some Mountain Colors Bearfoot (?).  But now, it's bird's foot.

And, as you can see, spring is finally beginning to spring.

I think I'll have to use up some leftover sock yarn and make another! 

 

A Red Hat for Red Hat Society

A while ago, my mother-in-law asked me if I'd make her a hat for her Red Hat Society.  She'd seen another woman wearing a beret to their last meeting, and thought she'd like one herself.

Well, she didn't have to ask twice, though I wasn't able to start right away.  I have the best mother-in-law in the world and I haven't knit for her as much as I'd have liked.  So, I started to sift through ideas on Ravelry, and we both agreed on Almond Comfit.

This little hat is designed by Ysolda Teague.  It takes less than one skein of one of my favorite yarns, Fyberspates Scrumptious Aran.  Actually, I haven't met a weight of Scrumptious I don't love -- merino wool and silk, a rich sheen, great colors.  The version of red at my yarn shop was called Cherry, a bluer red than the Empire Biscuit shown in the original pattern. 

By the way, I had assumed (who knows why) that comfit was a jam or preserve - a spread.  Turns out that's confit -- an almond comfit is a candy, as far as I can tell, like a Jordan almond.  And in fact, red ones are associated with graduations.


Isn't this a great mirror set-up for trying on a hat?

This was VERY fun to knit.  The cast on is unusual.  I tried to begin this hat during a basketball game.  This was appropriate, since we were watching at my mother-in-law's house, and she loves basketball.  But this was not a project to cast on during a game.  The instructions are correct, but they ask you to do some things I hadn't expected.  Once I got home and sat down in the quiet, and actually followed the directions as they were written, and not as I assumed, things went very well.  The instructions suggest a circular needle, but to start with, I found having my stitches on two double-point needles, knitting with a third, easier.  The figure eight cast on is more usual in a circular piece.  This hat is circular, but it is knit back and forth.  Once I figured that out, I was off to the races.


I blocked the hat on a dinner plate - the good china for this one.  

This picture shows the nice shape of the hat.

Almond Confit

• designed by Ysolda Teague
• Fyberspates Scrumptious Aran, 45% silk, 55% merino wool, color 401 Cherry.  I think I used between 2/3 and 3/4 of a 180 yard skein.
• Size 6 needles - but check your gauge, I almost always have to go down a size or two.
• Size 21"
• on Ravelry

 
Isn't this red a great color for her?