Hat-trick

How do you go from zero to blogging in the space of ten days? Three posts, three FOs. That, my friends, is what they call a hat-trick. And to ‘cap’ (ho ho) this happy trinity I give you, of all things, a hat.

And what a hat! This is clearly the champion of all hat patterns. Just look at the cute!

Pattern: Selbu Modern by Kate of Zeitgeist Yarns
Yarn: Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-ply in Oatmeal (a little over one skein) and Sunset (about 2/3 of a skein)
Needles: 2 mm for the ribbing, 3mm for the rest.
Notes: It’s genius! Genius I tell you! Did you not see those decreases? And the overall adorableness? Seriously. Like Melissa said, you really should be knitting it already.

Other than upping my needle size I didn’t change a thing (why would I?), and I only did that because I have a giant head. So even with the larger needles, it’s still on the snug side for a beret, but that just makes it extra warm and cosy.

Could I love this hat any more than I do? No. No I could not. Turns out colourwork is hella fun too, so if you have any suggestions for other small but excellent colourwork projects, I’m all ears.

On an unrelated note, in case you ever wished your vegetables were a little more friendly (and really, which of us doesn’t wish that?) check this out. I find it terrifying, yet fabulous.

So, I lied.

But let’s just gloss over the whole ‘I-swear-I’ll-be-back-tomorrow-to-post-more’ promise, and reconcile ourselves with the fact that compared with the lengthy radio silence preceding the last post, an extra two or three days late for this one isn’t really so terrible. Plus, I have socks to show! Finished ones! Conveniently, I went a little nuts taking pictures of them so I’ll just post a pile of the photos here and that will get me off the hook of having to say anything interesting, right? ‘Kay awesome. It’s a deal.

Pattern: Cozy Cable Socks by the Sailing Knitter
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in “In Vino Veritas”
Needles: 2.5mm plus 2mm for the heels and toes
Notes: No changes except for continuing the cable pattern down the heel flap, a la the Philistine’s lovely pair. Otherwise, great pattern, good times. They fit amazingly well, and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. Oh and Smooshy? Totally my new favourite sock yarn.

Looking over these pictures has taught me two things:
1. I like these socks.
And 2. My legs are horrifyingly pale, thanks to the rain-filled sunless excuse for a summer we had this year, and that they really have no place being exposed to you lovely people. If I weren’t morally opposed to fake tan*, these photos would really make me invest in some.

*Ahem. What I like to pass off as moral opposition may just be my pathetic inability to actually apply the stuff and still look human, but given the choice between admitting this and taking the moral high-ground, well, no contest, right?

Oh the shame.

I am officially hanging my head right now. Like all good (or naive, whatever) bloggers I started out with the firm belief that I would never be one of those bloggers who loses interest after a while and the gaps between posts start to get longer and longer until suddenly it’s been a month since the last one. Not I, surely! Well friends, it’s been a month since my last post. Uh huh. It’s happened. Like it was pretty much always going to, let’s be honest. I don’t know many bloggers who manage to keep up the enthusiastic every-other-day-or-so posts that they start out with. But the real problem? I don’t even really care. I’m making myself post now because if I don’t, I may never, but to be honest I have fairly little desire to. It’s not that I don’t want to blog, it’s just that I keep wanting to write about things that are nothing to do with what this blog is about, and they don’t seem to fit here. And what I don’t seem to want to write about at all, is knitting. Leaves the whole ‘knitblog’ notion in kind of a bad place, don’t you think? Well we’ll see what happens, but I’ve been thinking it may be time for a new direction.

Meanwhile though, while I haven’t been talking about knitting much, I’ve been doing plenty. I finished two pairs of socks, but I have to take proper pictures of the second one still, so I’ll post those tomorrow. The stripey noro ones I mentioned last time have been finished for ages, and well paraded around Ravelry. So if you’ve seen them already, feel free to carry on about your day. If not…. here goes:

Details on their ravelry page here.

On the WIP side of things we have what I think may be the new love of my (knitting) life, this amazing colourwork hat pattern from Zeitgeist Yarns:

Isn’t it cute? I can’t wait till it’s finished so I can wear it.

That’s all for now folks, but I swear I’ll be back tomorrow with more to show for myself. Can’t you just hear the determination in my voice?

Catch-up

I keep waiting for the inevitable low that follows the high of being finished my masters, but so far it hasn’t hit. I’m still deliriously happy. The happy, however, is in danger of wearing off when my bank account is completely emptied (and that day is approaching at a worrying speed) and I still lack any sort of, um… career. But the fact that there are approximately zero jobs to be had here in my chosen field makes the job search kind of depressing. So for the last little while I have been burying my head in the sand and treating myself to the twin pleasures of knitting and copious amounts of movie-watching. Such happy bedfellows, both!

Though I don’t have much to show yet, I thought a quick run-through of what I’ve been working on was in order because lately I keep forgetting to blog things until they’re finished. Or to blog at all, really, but let’s gloss over that for the moment, ‘kay? So I shall now dazzle you with a fashion show of current WIPs, plus one (alarmingly dull) finished knit.

This yarn has gone through at least three previous sock incarnations, all disappointingly ripped before they got very far. But after some tips from Elin this one is coming along much better, and I’m halfway through the second sock.

More sock action here in the form of the Cozy Cables socks. Love this pattern oh so much. The first sock is done, and patiently awaiting its mate. Soon, soon, my pretty.

Next up is a cardigan which is modelled on Parikha’s beautiful cardiganized hourglass, but I’m just making up my version as I go since I don’t have the pattern and figured I didn’t need it. We’ll see about that…

And lastly, in a rare act of knitterly altruism (or last-minute desperation, if we’re being honest) I knit something for someone else: gloves for my Dad for his birthday. I knit him a hat too, but ran out of yarn just before the end so I’ll photograph it once it’s fixed and finished.

(Kindly ignore how ridiculous they look on me – they were made for much larger, Dad-sized hands.)

The pattern for these is Ken from Berroco, and the yarn is Rowan Cocoon, which is exceptionally warm and snug. They’re fairly boring gloves (what with the plain grey and all) but my dad adores them, so I reckon they’ve served their purpose.

Now though, I feel a baking urge hitting me so I’m off to trawl through some recipe books. Happy weekend everyone!

The calm *after* the storm

Hi! I’m back. Kind of. Back, but my head is still a bit out of it. Seems writing my thesis pretty much destroyed my ability to think any other thoughts, so I’m still waiting for that to come back. Also? Writing 20,000 words is a lot of words. And when you finish it leaves you not wanting to write anything else. Which includes blogging. But – it’s FINISHED!!! The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is done. So done. So happy. I handed it all in last Monday and since then there’s been lots of sleeping, lounging, drinking, eating, making merry, and general good, stress-free times. I had completely forgotten what those were. Eh… now to anxiously await my results… Oh, and get a new life plan. Any ideas? I’m open to anything. I just love entering the workforce when all anyone’s talking about is recession recession recession. Cheery times.

But enough of my whining, there’s knitting to share!

After spending the whole month of august as an insomniac monster, I’m so looking forward to september being my month of indulgence. For the last three or so weeks of trying to finish the thesis-monster I would wake up multiple times a night with words racing through my head, trying to think of the perfect way to phrase whatever point I was making that day. If I had gotten to sleep at all, that is. Night after I handed it in? Slept like a baby, and every night since. It’s so good to be getting back to normal.

Pattern: Child’s First Sock in Shell Pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Elephant’s Daydream – 1 skein
Needles: 2.5mm, plus 2.00mm for the heels and toes

Raveled here. Full details are on the rav page.

26

= the number of days left until I get my life back. 1st September: that’s you I’m talking about. My thesis has to be handed in then, and even if it is a gigantic disaster, after that day it will be OVER, and for now that’s all I care about.

I know I haven’t been ’round here in a while, and I probably won’t be much before The Great Looming Deadline (see above), so this is my meagre apology. Anyway, I haven’t been knitting much at all so I have nothing to show. I did sew two dresses though, so if time permits I’ll photograph them and show ‘em off here soon.

In the meantime, have some flowers. They’re dead, but kind of nice anyway, no?

Laters!

Mr Gore? I’d like a word.

What was that you said about global warming? Because seriously: it’s July. And I’m wearing an alpaca and wool sweater. And I’m NOT TOO WARM. What’s up with that? I’d like to know when summer is ever going to get here. Ok? Thanks.

So, I finished the sweater I was knitting – the one I was asking for button-colour-advice on. Never one to attempt to withstand peer pressure, I naturally followed everyone’s suggestions and went with the orange buttons. Really, it was never going to go any other way.

Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in 6285, Oceanic mix. A teeny tiny bit over 4 skeins
Needles: 3.5 mm for the bottom ribbing, 4mm for everything else.

Pattern: None, I just wanted a plain sweater that I could wear all the time, and that would be nice and cosy. Why this urge struck me in summer, I couldn’t say. Although it could have something to do with the fact that it’s freakin freezing (see complaints above).

Anyway, it’s just plain stockinette in the round with set-in sleeves, also knit in the round, and 1×1 ribbing around the hem, cuffs and neck. And of course a button placket at the shoulder. Yay buttons!

I was worried about the alpaca stretching all out of shape, but still didn’t want to knit it in pieces and seam, so I used this ingenious fake-seaming tactic (scroll down, it’s near the end). Go! Make fake seams! They’re amazing! Certainly it hasn’t stretched at all in blocking, we’ll see how it wears.

Know what else? Turns out, making something to fit your specific measurements rather than just following a pattern someone else wrote to fit standard sizes results in a way better fitting finished garment. Who knew?

I have much love for this sweater, despite its plain-ness. I love the colour, the fact that it has orange buttons (natch), and most of all that it’s so cosy. A winner in the wearability stakes!

.

Please excuse me while I pull my hair out, slowly.

So, remember my excitement about getting the yarn for my february lady sweater? I had vague doubts about whether I really wanted the cardigan itself or not, but I definitely wanted to knit it, so I cast on straight away.

And like that, my hesitations were gone. It was love! Who could resist that delicious green? Not I, it seemed. Um, until I finished the first skein of yarn and hard to start a second. Which turned out to be a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COLOUR! Oh the devastation.

See the way the colour changes about halfway down there? And it was WAY more pronounced in reality. Couldn’t stay. So I ripped back to the yoke and decided to alternate skeins for the body (which I should have done from the start, obvs, but shhh). Initially I thought everything was dandy again, but now… Meh. The colour blends better now, but none of the other skeins I have are really as nice a colour as the one I knit the yoke in. And I really fell for that one, so now nothing else will do. Why they are all so different is beyond me. Yeah yeah, handpainted, I know, but still. So now I’m kind of back to thinking I just don’t really want this sweater at all, that I’m just too suggestible and peer pressure made me do it in the first place. ‘Cept every time I see another lovely one appear on ravelry I want it all over again. Sigh.

Anyway I decide to set it aside for awhile and go back to the blue sweater I was working on. Just sleeves to go, so I need to pick out buttons for the shoulder placket it will have. Initial options are as follows:

Thoughts? Opinions? It’s looking like the middle ones right now, but I may go nuts and find different ones altogether. Green perhaps? The possibilities are endless!

Simple.

I have been writing like crazy all week, trying to get a chunk of my thesis out of the way. It went pretty well, but has left me incapable of writing anything else so I give you pictures instead. And not even particularly good ones. Sorry. Meh.

In between bursts of typing like a mad thing, I finished sewing the top that I was working on. You’d think I would also have ironed it properly before photographing it, but I seem to have overlooked that.

Close-up of the pin-tucks that almost ruined my life.

It’s simple and plain, just white cotton with a few little details like the gathers and pin tucks thrown in for interest, and that’s it. But I love the fit, and I’ve already worn it a couple of times since I finished it.

Also? No idea why I look so sullen in these photos. Note to self: stop that.

Surprise! Or…

1 of 4 skeins of Dream in Color Classy in “Happy Forest”

I love when this happens. I wasn’t expecting this to arrive till the end of the week, and then my cheery postman knocked on the door this morning with a box for me. Kind of a bad move though seeing as I’m way down to the wire working on a chunk of my thesis that has to be handed in tomorrow so I really didn’t need such an alluring distraction. Not that that stopped me. The writing still awaits, and instead I swatched. Like, instantly.

Swatchface. Heh heh.

My plan, and the reason I ordered this, was to join in the frenzy that has slowly been picking off knitters the web over, and knit the February Lady Sweater, but now I find myself having doubts. I’ve already cast on, however, and I’m way too indecisive to give in to these doubts so I will most likely keep knitting until it’s kind of too late not to continue, and then eventually end up with a finished cardigan and just never wear it. It’s the least rational, and therefore most likely, outcome. What can I say, that’s how I roll.

Had to include a shot of the receipt for my order because it cracks me up that someone wrote “Enjoy!” on it. Love that. And I have truly taken their advice to heart.

Now, I really really have to do some work. Really. Someone make my knitting decision for me, ‘kay?