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?

Because I wanted a black cardigan

I wanted a quite plain, black cardigan.  And here it is.  Miriam, designed for Quince & Co., by Carrie Bostick Hoge.  Designed for Quince & Co. Chickadee, I used Imperial Yarn's Tracie Too, 2 ply 6.0 Sport in color # 23, Black.


Knit as written, except for a few (I think now unnecessary) decreases in the back of the garter stitch band around the front & neck.  Reading comments on Ravelry, it seemed like a good idea, but I think it might have been better left as written.  On the other hand, I wish I'd knit a bigger size sleeve - the sleeves are awfully narrow, usually not something I've worried about with my knitting.

I really like this yarn - understated but wonderful.  I hope to knit with it again.  And I love that the sheep it comes from live only a few hours from my home. 

Knitty gritty:

• Miriam, by Carrie Bostick Hoge
• 4 skeins Tracie Too yarn,  4 oz., 395 yards, 100% wool, grown in Oregon.  I have quite a lot left, but perhaps not a whole (big) skein.
• Size 2 and 1 needles (US sizes) - though I'd only use the 2 if I did it again.  
• Size 35 3/4 (back width at underarm, 18 3/4)

On Ravelry here. 

Thanks to my niece, Marie, for taking the first picture. 

Blog Mustache

"Blog mustache" -- that's what it said on my to-do list yesterday.  Those are words I never thought I'd have on my list, but there it was, even if it stayed undone until today.

About a week before Valentine's Day, one of my co-workers suggested we have a "mustache contest" to celebrate Valentine's Day.  The only rules were that you had to make your own mustache -- you could buy supplies, but you couldn't go out and buy a mustache.  Since all the teachers in our program are female, and the kids are under 12, no one was growing one.

Of course, I immediately thought of knitting one.  So over the weekend I did a little googling, and a little Ravelry searching, and found Holly's instructions for a Knitted Moustache.  Then I did a little scrounging through my extensive collection of left-over yarn.  And I sat down to watch Downton Abbey (Episode 6)

By the end of the evening, I had this:


Knit of some leftover Fyberspates Scrumptious DK,  merino/silk, color slate, on size 3 needles.  Stuffed with some polyester stuffing.  The little heart is made of some leftover Venezia Worsted, alpaca/silk.  Instead of yarn, I used some elastic thread to make the ear loops.

It also lends an  air of silly distinction to men:


Though it can also have a Snidely Whiplash vibe:




I did not win the contest, one of the students did, which is totally right. But I have this cool mustache to show for it, so I win too!

Alterations, Wherein I disagree with Shakespeare

The bard said, "Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,"

Which, when speaking of love, is true, or ought to be true.  But when speaking of sweaters, sometimes, love alters.

My mom sent me home a few months ago with two of the vests I have made for her over the years.  She's lost some weight, and they really didn't fit any more.

And so:

If that's not love, I don't know what is:  taking my scissors to Grant Avenue.

Parenthetically, the link to Grant Avenue shows a sweater that is much shorter (at least on the model) than the one I knit.  And is shorter than most of the ones on Ravelry.  And to the original in Pacific Coast Highway.  I'd swear I knit it as written.  Just for the record.   Also, if I need a little extra cash some day, it looks like rather than sell plasma, I'll sell my vintage Starmores.  And, again for the record, I'm not selling.

When I finished, I had this -

(Sorry for the wonky picture).  I had to overlay the placket at the hem.  However, by doing this, I didn't have to re-knit them.

Which from the inside looks like this:


Unfortunately,  I didn't take any pictures of the post-alteration try-ons, but both garments were about 4 inches smaller, and looked fine.

The other garment had side seams, so that was easier, both actually and psychologically.  It was an adaptation of the Navajo Pullover from Knitting in America (which was later reprinted as America Knits).  When it was new, it looked like this (the one on the left).
 
(I'd knit my step-dad the actual Navajo pullover, which was always too warm, so I cut THAT down to a vest [thus my reputation as a knitwear alterations expert]).

And here is a "back-in-the-day" shot of Grant Avenue.



I'm sad to say I couldn't find a good link to the actual Navajo pullover sweater - the pictures on Ravelry are of my vest. Sadly, La Lana Wool has closed - sad for many reasons, but especially because the yarn was so fantastic. I used most of the leftovers of the hand-spun, hand-dyed colored yarns in hats in years past, but still have some of the machine-spun black left. The Hebridean yarn I used for Grant was a treat as well. Pulling out the leftovers to use, or have on hand, for these alterations was to remember some months of happy knitting.

And now, I hope my mom has some more years of happy wearing.