The big green thing - finished.

In my last post I showed a photo of some big green thing all bunched up in my sewing machine.

Well, I finished it, washed it and wore it to my bi-annual advisory board meeting. I'm super happy in the pictures, not just because of the nice jacket, but also because my board meeting was over. It is the end point of a lot of hard work.









The jacket is knit with Álafoss Lopi (Bulky weight Icelandic wool) on size 10.5 needle. The actual knitting only took 3 weeks as I worked on nothing else. For a few weeks I couldn't do the actual finishing since I was working late and on the weekend, but I got a little break right before the meeting and was able to finish it just in time and wash it (in the washing machine on handwash). I've wanted to make this jacket for over 3 years. I got the yarn three years ago and I finally have it ;) I'm really happy with it.

The big green thing.

Look what is in my sewing machine. Yep, steek in progress. This is what I call an exciting Saturday night!!!

The year 2011 in knits - Part 5 - the sock edition

I made 5 pairs of socks in the year 2011, thereof 4 in a row in June and the fifth in August. I have to say, sock knitting and traveling go very well together. In June I traveled with my fiends Ingibjörg and Nancy to Alabama and Kentucky and then later in the month I went on a conference in Montréal, and in August I went to Iceland.

The first two pairs of sock were for my daughters. The first one was for Kamilla, blue ones of course as that's her favorite color. (Ravelry link)





The second pair was for her sister Ása. I was hoping they were pink enough. It seems that they were, but they are a bit too scratchy for her. She doesn't tolerate wool very well, although she is getting better wearing it. (Ravelry Link)





Both those socks were knit from the same pattern. My go-to pattern for simple, mindless socks. The pattern is a toe-up pattern by Ann Budd that appeared in the 2007 summer edition of Interweave Knits. It has sizing for all different sizes of foots, but in this case I was using a gauge that was tighter than given in the pattern since I was using size 0 (2 mm) needles to make a more durable sock (I don't know why since they'll probably outgrow them before they'd out wear them!). So I just started the toe and increased until it fit around their foot. My cast-on was the trusted old Turkish cast-on which is described in the pattern, but I really like this tutorial. The Turkish cast-on looks like a toe closed with a kitchener stitch! It's also very simple.

These socks each took one skein of 50 g sock yarn. This means that this will be the last time I can count on one skein of sock yarn to make socks for them! My kids are growing up!

My third pair was knit up when I went to a conference in Canada. I don't know what the yarn is. I had recently gotten it in a yarn exchange that my Athens, OH knitting group had. Again, the same pattern as for the first two socks in this traveling sock knitting frenzy. I never took a picture of them when they were completed. Maybe since middle of summer in SE Ohio is no time to wear wool socks! I really love these socks, they are thin and the patterning was very interesting. They are also knit on size 0 (2 mm) needles, but they are a bit big nonetheless. Could be due to the fact that I used 80 stitches around! Ahemm.... (Ravelry link)





The forth pair was not knit on the road, but it was heavily influenced by the fact that I exchanged the kid's toys out for my leftover yarn. I was able to do this because my friend Ingibjörg took my daughter's to Iceland when she left. So I was very inspired to use up the leftover yarn. I made a pair of 'International Socks of Doom' which is a super quick pattern as it knits up with a simple, yet interesting rib in dk/sport weight yarn. It also helped that I was using 3.0mm needles instead of the 2.0 mm needles I'd used for the previous 3 pairs! The pattern was originally used a weapon in the 'Sock Wars'. I knit the socks both at the same time, but on separate pairs of double pointed needles. (Ravelry link)






The fifth and the last socks were knit on route to Iceland and back from Iceland. I also got the yarn from the yarn swap (same as my pink socks above), and in that case the previous owner had named the yarn 'Clown barf', partly because of the colors, and partly because it had incredible number of knots in it. I used the same toe-up pattern as before, but because the yarn didn't have a lot of yardage, I made them short (they reach just above the ankle). The yarn was from Great Adirondack Yarn Co.

Here one of the socks is pictured with a prototype of my step-mom's design (that I got to keep since she has a new design adorning her home). (Ravelry link)

The year 2011 in knits - Part 4

I've not quite forgotten this series. Here is the next project. It's a bathmat. Not just any bathmat, but the great Absorba bathmat of Mason-Dixon fame. I'd wanted to make this bathmat since the book came out, but double worsted Peaches'n Creme is hard to come by. You have to order it from the producer and when they were going out of business I figured this was my last chance to make the bathmat out of the yarn it was designed with. It didn't hurt that there was a 50% off sale to get rid of inventory!

The pattern is knit in the log-style knitting Mason-Dixon made so popular, but with double worsted (ca. bulky weight) cotton yarn held triple! Triple! The fabric is thick and squishy and I love it. I even have yarn for another one! Hopefully that will be knit sooner rather than later.






I learned how to do a version of double knitting where you slip the stitch in the back while you knit the stitch in the front so you can knit a tube back and forward. This is really neat for small circumferences, like these soap sweaters. I made 3 pairs of soap sweaters and granny dishcloths for gifts. Very quick project and makes a nice present for someone. I only took a picture of one of the soap sweaters and here it is:





The next project I finished in 2011 actually got it´s very own blog post. It's a pink wool dress blogged right here.

The yellow jacket

I was very excited about this one jacket called the Sunrise Circle Jacket. I even had my mom send me plötulopi to make it out of. Apparently, I started it in November 2008. That's over three years ago! I worked on it for a while, finished the back, but then it hibernated for a bit. It came out of hibernation in 2009, and I made one sleeve (and front) before it hibernated again. I finally finished the second sleeve and front in September 2010. That was 1 and a half a year ago. I had started to sew it up when I stopped and set it aside.

I figured I didn't have much work left and that it was silly to let this jacket lay in the closet when I could very well need a nice and warm jacket in dead of winter. So yesterday I decided to take it out and see how the pieces fit. First I noticed that the back wasn't all the way done and then I noticed that the two shoulders were far from being even (see the photo below).




Actually, on of the shoulders was much bigger than the other. The two red lines should be the same size in the photo below.



After looking at it and pondering this for a while I noticed that the gauge was hugely different from one piece to the other. It obviously doesn't pay to do one part one year and the other the next! In the photo below the blue and the red box are the same size and you can see the difference in the gauge.



So what to do, what to do!!!!

After talking it over with my mom, I think that the best solution is to frog the bigger half and try to re-knit it, or frog the entire thing and use the yarn for something else!

p.s. this is approximately how it should look. So close, yet so far away!

The year 2011 in knits - Part 3

Next up are 3 little fun projects that I just had a blast doing. They are all from the same book: Amigurumi knits. I can't believe I never blogged about these. They are the perfect blog fodder!

The first one was a cucumber (Ravelry link). It must have looked very yummie, because the dog ended up 'eating' it.





The second one was an earthworm (Ravelry link).





I actually made two earthworms, one for my kids and the other for a birthday gift for friend's son along with a kids' fishing pole.





The third was a garlic(Ravelry link). Obviously the dog doesn't like garlic because this one has been completely untouched unlike the cucumber - or could it be because it's made out of acrylic while the cucumber is made out of wool!

The year 2011 in knits - Part 2

Ahem, in my last post I was chronologically showing you my projects from last year, but I discovered I have finished 3 projects before the socks I started the first post with.

The first project of 2011 was started on Jan 1st and finished the next day. It was a dishcloth that was gifted before I remembered to take a picture. It was a dishcloth based on the granny dishcloth but with a twist. The pattern is from Ravelry. I used Sugar n'cream in 'warm brown' apparently. This project was 'obviously' not blogged (since I didn't even take a picture).

My next project was fun. It got a life of its own and ended up as Oscar (ravelry link), the e-reader (Kobo) cover. Oscar was blogged here.

Oscar was a rectangle knit out of Lorna's laces Shepherd Worsted in seed stitch (alternate knit and purl). He is very soft.





So far, these were small quick projects I left out, but the last one was neither. It was Tomten for my daughter. The yarn was plötulopi (icelandic unspun wool) held double and most of it was gifted to my by a dear knitting friend in a birthday game in 2008. I don't know who loved this yarn more, me or my dog, she chewed it at every opportunity.

The tomten was blogged and here is the ravelry link.