Pattern Release: Palestra

This past holiday season, while we were away in a warmer climate getting lots of sunshine and extra rest, I got an urge to knit some quick socks. I'm sure you're thinking, "But Sarah, you always knit socks pretty quickly!" No, my friends, I mean really quick socks -- like a sock in a day, without spending the whole day knitting. You know what makes great quick socks? Sport weight yarn!

Back when my friend Lisa and I were deciding on colors for Xenolith, she sent me three skeins of her sport weight Traveler base to use as the main color for the two hats. There were two grays (a light and a dark) and a light blue. Obviously with only two hats, there was a skein that wasn't used, and I just knew I had to use it for some socks. Plain gray socks can be a bit dull, and there were some light blue leftovers from one of the hat samples, so, I thought, why not combine them? One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had a pair of sporty shortie socks.

I'm calling this pattern Palestra, the Italian word for "gym" (and also, coincidentally, the name of the sports arena at my alma mater), mainly because these feel like the hand-knit equivalent of a sports sock. They're a basic ankle sock, but with a few twists. First, I've incorporated some short rows on the back of the ankle to create a little pull-on tab, much like the tab you might see in store-bought athletic socks. If short rows intimidate you, you can always omit them, but I'll throw it out there that short rows in garter stitch are really easy because you don't have to pick up the wraps -- they blend right in!

The second twist is a bit of colorwork -- and trust me, this is dead-easy colorwork. If you've never done it before or have only done a little, this is a great way to practice. At most, you're only ever carrying an unused color two stitches, which makes it ideal to practice keeping your tension even. An added bonus is that the section of colorwork around the middle of the foot ends up being nice and squishy from the extra fabric created by the floats.

It might look like there's more stranded work here than there actually is; two of the four sections with color are worked in horizontal stripes, so you're only using one color at a time! But using two colors certainly makes it a lot more fun to work and wear.

I've graded this pattern to five sizes, so you can make it for everyone from small children to adults with large feet. Most people will need one skein of yarn or less for the main color and just small amounts for the contrast color. If you've got some sport weight mini skeins lying around, this would be a great way to use them up!

On the Podium

As you may have already guessed from the title of this post, I did indeed finish my Ravellenic Games project -- just barely!

Pattern: Helenium by Amanda Scheuzger
Yarn: Knit Picks Simply Wool Worsted in Wendy, 5.32 skeins, and Chroma Worsted in Lupine, 0.54 skeins
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: February 9/February 24

I worked on my sweater nearly the whole way to our destination on Saturday (I couldn't work on it for the first 30-45 minutes or so because we left so early that it was still dark). One of the group ended up not being able to come, so I was able to spread out a bit in the car and not have to worry about elbowing my fellow passengers while I knit. I took a brief break when we arrived for the baby shower but pulled my knitting out again later in the afternoon and then stayed up later than usual (I didn't go to bed until after 11!) to finish it Saturday evening when we got to our hotel.

The finishing was not without a bit of drama, unfortunately. In my rush to get out the door on Saturday morning -- I got up at my usual time and didn't have any caffeine until we were already on the road -- I forgot to grab my notions bag, so I didn't have any tapestry needles with me to do all the finishing. That meant I had to fudge things with what I had on hand, so really all I did was try to do the grafts on the needles, using a spare needle to pull the yarn through, and tuck the ends inside rather than fully weaving them in. It felt a bit like cheating, but as my mother said when I mentioned this, I would have done everything completely if I'd had my tapestry needles with me, so really I was just making do with the resources I had. When I got back from the trip yesterday, I undid all the messy grafts and redid them properly as well as wove in all the ends -- fixing everything after the fact, I suppose.

I really enjoyed knitting this pattern, and feel like I learned a lot about brioche by knitting the two-color yoke. There were a couple of rounds that were challenging, particularly one of the last rounds, which involves a 4-into-1 decrease, but overall it was much easier than I was expecting. I foresee a lot more shaped brioche in my future!

As to the yarn, I really cannot say enough nice things about Simply Wool. It's a great workhorse yarn that reminds me very much of Cascade 220 (but at a better price!). Every single one of the skeins I received was a bit overweight, and I actually ended up with one skein completely untouched and one mostly unused, so I have a good amount left to do something with. I have a feeling that the next time I need a basic worsted weight wool, this will be the first yarn I think of. Judging by the supply Knit Picks seems to have, it's been a very popular yarn line, and I hope it's one they'll continue and perhaps expand (maybe they'll do some dyed colors in the future?).

The Chroma worked well as far as color effect is concerned, but next time I do two-color brioche, I won't be working with a yarn that's a soft-spun single. Most of the frustrations with the process had to do with the yarn snagging, sticking, or pilling, and I found myself twisting an awful lot of the Chroma as I prepared to knit with it because it seemed to be falling apart. I know that's an expected hazard when you're working with a yarn like this, and I think it was worth it in this instance for the fantastic slow color change, but I doubt I'd do it again (although Rainbow now wants me to make something for her with the leftovers, so I may have to eat my words).

I am really, really happy with how this project turned out, and frankly I'm very proud of myself for getting it done. For a while there, I was really doubting that I'd make it, but now it's officially tied for the fastest sweater I've ever made (the last one I made this fast was this sweater that I was knitting for a test knit -- and it was certainly an easier knit). I definitely challenged myself with this pattern, and not just in the amount of time I had to complete it -- and I think that was pretty much the intended purpose of doing the Ravellenic Games in the first place. I am bit bummed that our weather seems to be headed toward spring and I likely won't get many opportunities to wear this sweater before I have to pack it away for the summer -- because it's very thick and cozy, perfect for more typical winter weather -- but I have zero regret about making it. It's really a spectacular piece (and that's a comment on the design, not my ability in executing it), and it got commented on by everyone who saw it over the weekend, the vast majority of them nonknitters. Even if I don't get much wear out of it this season, it'll be so nice knowing that I have a real statement piece in my wardrobe to wear to knitter-centric events where it will really be admired.

We're Down to the Wire

Time is quickly running out on my Ravellenic Games project, but I am giving my best Olympic effort to get my sweater done in time. Last night I finally started the two-color brioche yoke, a section that is only 40 rounds long but yet is likely to be the most involved section of the entire sweater. I only got 11 rounds completed last night, in large part because I messed up on the first complicated round (the first round with shaping) and had to tink back at least twice. But now it is moving along.

It turns out that the increases and decreases in this yoke pattern are much more intuitive than I would have expected. The challenge is simply remembering which one to use when and counting stitches consistently. As you can see in the photo, I'm using stitch markers between every repeat so that I don't have to count numbers that are two big. It also makes it much easier to see where the mistake is when I mess up, as I did last night.

Although the Chroma Worsted I am using is a bit fussy to work with (as any single-ply yarn would be), I am loving how the colors are gently transitioning, and I think I will end up with a little bit of all the colors in the skein in the finished yoke.

I will be working more on this tonight, of course, but I expect I'll be knitting to the last minute on my trip to get it done. We're leaving early tomorrow morning and coming back Sunday. I expect it will be a bit awkward to knit on this in the car, but I'm going to do it in order to have a chance of finishing on time (the closing ceremonies at the Olympics start at 6 a.m. local time on Sunday, so really I need to have this finished up by Saturday night before I go to bed). I have no idea how much knitting time I'll have once we get to our destination, but I'm sure I can manage at least a bit of time. Ideally, I'll be able to finish the knitting in the car and use any extra time to weave in ends and graft the underarms.

I won't be posting this weekend, so you'll have to wait until next week to find out if I finished in time or not. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

It Doesn't Look Much Different

I fear I am running out of time on my Ravellenic sweater. I am working feverishly on it every night, but there is only so much knitting I can get done in an evening. I am getting ever closer to the brioche: I have one more raglan decrease round to do, some short rows, and then a few set-up rounds to knit before I join in the yoke color and get down to business. I'm hopeful that tonight I'll at least make it that far. Here's where it stands at this moment:

The good news is that as the rounds have gotten smaller thanks to the decreases, they've also gotten easier to manage -- those first few rounds after you join the body and the sleeves are so annoyingly awkward! I'm still having to rearrange the entire sweater as I knit, and that won't go away, but anything that makes the process a bit easier makes me a happier knitter.

It's increasingly looking like I'll need to work on this in the car on my trip this weekend if I want to finish in time. It's not ideal, but I will do what I need to in order to meet the deadline.

Meanwhile, I've been working on a new sock design at work during my lunch break (because the sweater is too bulky to fit in my work bag -- though if I really need the extra time I might break down and carry an additional bag). It's moving along much faster, as you would expect. The first sock was finished last week and I'm already nearly halfway done with the second. I've shared some peeks of this on my Instagram account, but this is the first time I've shared a clear shot.

This is just the first pattern in what will be a mini collection that I'm doing as a collaboration with Marian of Marianated Yarns. The socks are obviously up first, but upcoming are a hat and a cowl, both of which will feature coordinating yarn colors and variations on the stranded motif. Marian's yarns are brand new to me, and I have not been disappointed. I'm particularly excited to break into the skeins of her Playtime DK she sent because the yarn has a cabled construction that should make for some really excellent stitch definition.

It's Almost a Sweater

I didn't post yesterday because Sundays are for blogging about spinning, and there has been not one lick of spinning done in probably two weeks. There has, however, been a lot of sweater knitting, which is why I'm posting a day earlier than usual.

I'm coming off a long weekend -- Rainbow had no school of Friday, so I took the day off to be with her, and then was out of the house most of the day Saturday. We dropped her off at my in-law's on Saturday afternoon, and she was staying with them that night, yesterday, and today (when she has another day off from school), so that meant that the Mister and I had the house to ourselves yesterday. While there were certainly the usual chores and errands to do, I got in a lot more knitting time than usual. By the time I was ready for bed last night, I had not only finished the body of my sweater but had managed to join the body and sleeves so that I'm ready to start my yoke.

I know this isn't a great photo, but it's the best I could do on an overcast morning. Now that the pieces are joined, I've got several inches of the main color to knit with raglan decreases followed by a set of short rows. Then I'll finally get to the brioche.

The little ball of yarn you can see to the right of the sweater is all that's remaining of my fourth skein. I have three left, and I'm not sure I'll use all of them, though I know that the brioche section will eat yarn.

The deadline to finish this sweater is this weekend (sometime on Sunday -- I have to look up the exact time), but I'm really hoping to have it finished Friday night because I'll be leaving super early for a trip for the weekend on Saturday morning and I'm not sure this will work as car knitting. Keep your fingers crossed!

Slogging

For some strange reason, I had it in my head that when I reached the end of this week, I'd be done with the sleeves and the body of my sweater and would be ready to start the yoke. I'm not even close to that point. Although it is going a bit faster now that I no long have the awkwardness of being close to the cast on, I'm still in the middle of the brioche at the bottom of the sweater and only a bit past halfway at that.

The upside is that I am past halfway on the brioche, and once I get though the rest, I will be moving up to larger needles and knitting in stockinette, which I can pretty much do in my sleep. I also have a lot of knitting time in the weekend ahead. Tomorrow I am taking the day off to spend the day with Rainbow, whose school is closed for an in-service day. On Saturday, she'll be gone most of the day at a Brownies activity, and then we're taking her to my in-laws' to stay over Saturday and Sunday night (her school is closed on Monday as well). That means that I've got the majority of three days in the weekend ahead to work on the body -- in between all the stuff that has to get done, of course -- and I'm hoping that's sufficient to get me to the joining point. Although the end point for the Olympics and the Ravellenic Games is next Sunday, I really feel like I need to be finished on Friday because I'm headed out of town for a baby shower next Saturday, and despite having hours in the car to get there, I don't think two-color brioche in a crowded car is optimal (though it certainly would be interesting). So please send all your speed-knitting mojo my way this weekend!

All Sorts of Things

Sometimes when it rains, it pours. After worrying that I wouldn't have much content for the blog because of my monogamous sweater knitting, I find myself with rather an abundance of content instead. I'll try to keep it brief so as not to bore you, but there is a lot to talk about.

First, let's start with the FOs! I did indeed finish up the baby sweater Thursday night after I posted, and I blocked it over the weekend. All that it needs to be an official FO are buttons, which I'm hoping to tackle by the weekend.

Pattern: Hyphen by Lisa Chemery
Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy Worsted (75% cotton, 25% acrylic) in Carrot, approximately 2.3 skeins
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 7 (4.5 mm)
Started/Completed: January 30/February 8
Mods: unintentionally made the body an inch longer than called for

This pattern was a pure delight to knit. It was easy to knit, with little need to pay close attention to the pattern (though perhaps I should have paid slightly closer attention or I wouldn't have made my unintentional mod). The stitch pattern around the yoke and the wrists is deceptively easy to do but looks great. I'm very happy with how this turned out. Rainbow is also a fan, so I'd say it's highly likely I'll be making another one in the near future in the largest size.

Also blocked over the weekend was my handspun brioche cowl, which has been done for some time but has had to wait patiently for its spa treatment and photo shoot.

I didn't use a real pattern for this; it's just basic brioche worked in the round over about 250 stitches on size 3 (3.25 mm) needles until I just about ran out of yarn. The colors have been so hard to capture accurately, but I think this photo does a reasonable job.

As far as WIPs are concerned, my Helenium is my main one, and honestly I couldn't be happier with how it's going thus far. After casting on first thing on Friday morning, by the end of the weekend I had one sleeve done and most of the second knit. We woke up yesterday to a surprising snowfall that came with a two-hour delay for Rainbow, so while we were sitting around, I finished the second sleeve. I'm now onto the body, which should be relatively fast once I get past the brioche at the bottom -- it's stockinette in the round, and there is no shaping.

Finally, remember this hat?

This is my Xenolith pattern, which I released last fall as part of a collaboration with my friend Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works. It was initially available only as part of a kit, but now it's available as a standalone pattern in my Ravelry shop. The hat only uses small amounts of five colors, so if you have a bunch of minis or leftovers sitting around in your stash, this is the perfect way to use them up.

[buy now]

A Possible Hiatus

It's Sunday, and usually that means spinning, but when Sunday falls in the middle of the Ravellenic Games and I'm trying to knit a sweater in two weeks, that means spinning gets largely ignored. I am taking a pause in my spinning for the time being, though it's possible I may find some time to do some if I'm really productive with my sweater knitting. Still, there's been a little more progress since the last time you saw a bobbin shot.

These are the first singles in the final color for my sweater, Sky. I was expecting the yarn to turn out a bit darker than the fiber as the other colors did, but these singles look pretty similar the original fiber. Perhaps the yarn will be a bit darker when plied, though I'll have to wait a while to see if that's the case. All things considered, it feels good to be past the halfway point on this project, and I'm definitely excited to get to the knitting part.

Hard to Contain

It's hard to contain my excitement, that is -- the Olympics start tomorrow, and that means the start of the Ravellenic Games! I have been dying to cast on my Helenium sweater, but I am being very good and not cheating. I have wound all the yarn, however, and have a new pair of needles ready to go (because the ChiaoGoo Red Lace needles in the size I need have gone missing), so all that's left to do before I can cast on tomorrow is to go through the pattern and highlight all the pertinent information for my size.

There actually is one other thing I need to do before I start my sweater, and that's to finish the baby sweater. That should be no problem at all, because all I have left to do is knit half a sleeve (and the bottom half of the sleeve at that). I've even woven in all my ends thus far, so once the sleeve is dealt with, all that will remain to do is to block and sew on some buttons.

This has really been a fun and relaxing knit, and I think I could have finished it even faster had I focused on it a bit more. Even though I'll be knitting almost up to the wire to get it done before serious sweater knitting starts, I will have finished it more than two weeks before it needed to be done, so that's an accomplishment.

I suspect there will soon be another one of these on the needles, as Rainbow has really gushed over it and is in need of a new sweater, as the only hand-knit one that currently fits her is a light fingering weight one. But she's really more in need of a new pair of mittens first. If only there were more hours in the day!

Pattern Release: Non-Euclidian

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, then you surely know I'm a huge fan of hand-knit socks. I almost always have a sock WIP on the go, and I have knit enough of them in my knitting career that I could probably knit one in my sleep.

After knitting hundreds of socks, however, I find myself perpetually curious in new ways to knit them (at least within my usual MO of cuff down). I've tried different methods of doing the gusset decreases, doing a simultaneous heel flap and gusset, and of course many different heels. While knitting my daughter's last couple of pairs of socks, I thought about whether it would be possible to create what is essentially a gusset for the heel and have the snug fit one gets with a traditional flap and gusset decreases. The only way to know for sure was to try, and while it took more than one attempt to get the fit just right, I'm happy to report that it worked as well as I'd hoped.

Non-Euclidian is a twist on the traditional stockinette sock. Rather than working back and forth to make a heel flap, increases create a pocket of fabric to hug the heel. Short rows are then worked under the heel to decrease the extra stitches. The result is two triangular areas of fabric covering a three-dimensional part of the foot -- hence the name.

I've written up the pattern in the form of a stockinette sock, but the beauty of the heel is that, much like many other heels, it can be substituted for any other heel. So you can plop it into any other sock pattern or use it in conjunction with your favorite stitch pattern.

The pattern has been graded to five sizes -- to fit a foot circumference of 6, 7 (8, 9, 10) in./15, 18 (20.5, 23, 25.5) cm -- to fit a wide range of child and adult feet. As you can see, it works well with self-striping yarn, but really any kind of sock yarn is going to place nice. I've suggested a dense gauge of 9 stitches per inch for durability (because the heel has no reinforcement like the slip-stitch method usually used in heel flaps), but if you prefer to work to a different gauge, it's easy to adapt the method to your stitch count.

Good Enticements

As much as I am enjoying my sweater spin, there does come a moment in all large projects when you get a bit sick of spinning the same thing. I've done very little spinning this week, and I'm still in the middle of my first bobbin for the next skein.

This skein will transition from Bay, the medium blue, to Sky, the light blue. I'm excited to finally spin some of the lightest color!

What is certainly not helping me stay focused is the arrival of pretty fiber to distract me. First, my December shipment from the Southern Cross Fibre club finally showed up this past week, and it's a real beauty. I braided it so you could see all the colors:

This is a colorway called Kandinsky, and it's on one of my favorite fiber, Rambouillet. This will be a very fun spin!

I also received a set of batts that I ordered from the FatCatKnits Etsy shop. Although Ginny is no longer dyeing fiber, she's using what she still has to card up some gorgeous batts. I just couldn't resist these.

These are a blend of Merino, Rambouillet, Polwarth, and Targhee (basically all my favorite wools) with silk, flax, silk noil, and angelina.

I am really tempted to spin up these new acquisitions right away, but I think I will leave them as motivation for finishing up my sweater spin.

Onto Smaller Things

Since last I posted, the giant crochet bag has been felted, fully dried, and adorned with handles. Here's the final product (admittedly not the best photo, but the best I could do with the early morning light -- or lack thereof):

The handles were a prize from a KAL last year. The set came with wooden buttons as well, but after I tried a couple, I wasn't completely happy with how they looked (plus the holes in the buttons didn't exactly line up with the holes in the handles), so I took them off. They're sewn on with waxed linen thread that came with the handles and buttons; there wasn't a lot of it, so I could only go through each set of holes twice. Still, the handles feel pretty securely sewn on, and I can always reinforce them at a later date if need be.

I am still working on the handspun cowl, though I'm in the home stretch at this point -- just about five more colorways still to knit. I'm hoping to finish it up before the weekend is out. Here's an obligatory progress shot (please excuse the ugly office floor and furniture in the background):

Meanwhile, in the week or so I have left before the Ravellenic Games start and I cast on for my sweater, I'm attempting to bang out a baby sweater. I have a shower to go to later this month, so naturally I wanted a hand knit to bring. This is yet another terrible photo due to low light; trust me when I say the color is bright and cheerful in real life.

This is the Hyphen cardigan by Lisa Chemery, and I'm knitting it up in Knit Picks Comfy Worsted, a cotton/acrylic blend. The family I'm knitting for lives in southern Florida, so I didn't think wool would get used much, and this yarn is soft and easy care. The color also screams Miami to me:

I'm really enjoying the pattern so far, and I'm also enjoying the fact that it's knitting up very quickly. Tonight I should be able to knit up the last textured section and get to the point were I separate the sleeve and body stitches. The pattern is simple but clever, and I can definitely see myself knitting this again, perhaps even in the largest size for Rainbow.

A Big Finish

I don't have completely final photos just yet, but look at what I finished crocheting Sunday night!

I probably should have taken measurements of the bag at this point, but in all my excitement about finishing, I completely forgot. Suffice it to say that it was large enough to be a Rainbow cozy:

I didn't use a pattern for this and pretty much just winged it the whole way through. I started with a chain and did a round of single crochet on both sides of it, then I increased on the ends (again, winging it) until it the base seemed big enough and then carried on doing single crochet pretty much all the way up. I used a K/6.5 mm hook for most of it (it was actually an unlabeled hook that came with one of Rainbow's potholder looms) but switched over to a J/6.0 mm hook when I got to the light gray at the top to keep the bag from flaring out too much (I know it looks tapered at the top here, but I think it's an optical illusion). The whole bag is single crochet with the exception of the dark blue at the very top. In an effort to try to make the top lip a bit thicker, I did a round of double crochet and then a round of back post single crochet; if you look closely, you might be able to see it. The squiggly pink line in the middle was just me playing around, and sadly it doesn't seem to stand out much after felting. All the yarns I used were either partial skeins or single skeins of non-superwash wool leftover from other projects: Cascade 220 (solid and heathered), Ella Rae Classic, Patons Classic Wool Merino and SWS, and Knit Picks Telemark. Final yardage? More than 1,340 yards!

Oh yes, did I mention that I felted this giant thing? I wasn't sure how well felting would go given that the fabric was pretty dense already, but I figured I didn't have anything to lose by trying. Our washer very inconveniently seems to have sprung a leak over the weekend, so by default that meant I got to try felting in the dryer. It actually worked remarkably well. I got the bag soaking wet and threw it in on heavy duty with all the felted dryer balls we have. It took two cycles, but it's pretty much fully felted and it has shrunk up a lot. It's currently drying on the radiator, and as soon as it's no longer damp, I'll be sewing on the braided leather handles I won as a KAL prize last year.

With that big project done, I used my crafty time last night to swatch for my Ravellenic Games sweater. I'm going to be attempting to knit Helenium, and while I was pretty sure I knew what needle size to use, I knew swatching would be a good thing (especially considering I have more than a week until I can cast on). I'm happy to report that it worked out beautifully.

The Knit Picks Simply Wool is really nice to work with and makes extremely squishy garter stitch. I'm very nearly spot on for gauge -- stitch gauge is perfect and row gauge is off by only a quarter of a row per inch. I threw in the bit of brioche to test the colorfastness of the Chroma, and it seems to be pretty good (though I may wash the swatch again with wool wash to be sure). I will likely have to go down more more needle size for the brioche section, but I'm happy with how everything looks and am excited to cast on next week!

In the meantime, I am trying to finish up my handspun brioche cowl and will also be casting on tonight for a baby sweater. It needs to be done before the end of February, but I figure it's a good idea to get it done before the Ravellenics start and I'll be focusing all my time on getting my sweater done.

And Then There Were Three

Thanks to a lot of extra spinning time the past couple of weeks, I have finished the third (and, thus far, largest) skein of handspun for my sweater spin. I started plying Friday night and finished it up yesterday afternoon. It's a monster, at 8 ounces and 653 yards of three-ply fingering weight.

This skein used two different colorways of HipStrings Buoy (37.5% BFL, 37.5% Shetland, and 25% Manx Loaghtan). I split up the fiber into smaller bits so that the colors gradually shift from the purple to the blue

Here is how the completed skeins look together, as they will be used in the sweater:

I've got two more skeins left to spin -- the medium blue transitioning to the lightest blue and the lightest blue on its own -- and it's looking like I will have enough yardage. These three skeins alone total 1,270 yards, and technically the pattern calls for only about 400 yards more than that. But having more yardage means I can make the larger of the two sizes I'm considering and make the sleeves full length if I wish. I'm excited to start knitting the sweater, but the spinning has been so enjoyable that I'm not altogether sad that I still have more to do!

Already Looking Ahead

I've still got both the handspun cowl and the crochet bag in progress, but not being done with them yet doesn't mean that I'm not already planning for the next projects. I think I mentioned last week that I'd ordered yarn from Knit Picks. It came earlier this week, and I finally got a chance to snap some photos (thanks to my lightbox, because there is no natural light happening these days when I'm actually home on a weekday).

First, I ordered three skeins of Comfy Fingering for a baby sweater I need to knit for a shower next month.

The family I'm knitting for lives in Miami, so I thought a bright color in a cotton blend would be best. They aren't finding out the sex of the baby, so I'm going to be making Hyphen, which I think is suitable for boys and girls. I'll be casting on as soon as I finish up the crochet bag.

I also ordered yarn for a sweater for me. I've had my eye on Helenium since it came out, and I finally decided that it was time to knit it. I may even attempt it for the Ravellenic Games, which seems doable considering that it's knit in worsted weight and most of it is stockinette in the round. I ordered KP's new Simply Wool Worsted, which is completely undyed and comes only in the natural colors of the sheep. Apparently it's been a popular yarn, because a bunch of colors were out of stock, so the shade I ended up with is a cream with a hint of gray called Wendy. For the brioche colorwork, I ordered a skein of Chroma Worsted in Lupine.

The Simply Wool reminds me a lot of Cascade 220, a yarn I have used a lot and love, so I'm sure I will love this. I'm a tad bit worried about the Chroma bleeding, so I may skein it up and give it a citric acid treatment just in case. The games don't start until February 9, so I have a couple of weeks to do that and swatch. It's been a while since I knit myself a sweater, so I'm excited to get going! That excitement should be a good motivator to finish up my current projects, too.

Feeling Bicraftual

I fear my posts for the next week or so are going to be very repetitive, as I'm continuing to work on the same two projects (three, if you count spinning). First, there's my handspun brioche cowl, which is coming along slowly but steadily. I posted this photo on Instagram yesterday and it got more likes than I've ever received, so I guess it's a good project!

I'm further along than what's shown here, but the light has already gone for the day and I didn't want to bother taking a shoddy photo.

While I work on that project during the day (a bit before work and during my lunch breaks), I've been doing a lot of crocheting at night. I think I'm getting close to being done with my giant bag. In case you were wondering just how big it is, well, it's now large enough to fit an 8-year-old:

Apparently it also makes a very cozy hood if your head is a little cold:

I should be able to finish up the last partial skein of Cascade 220 tonight and then I have some bits and bobs of some old Knit Picks yarn to work in. There's already more than 1,000 yards of yarn in this project, and I expect I'll have at least a couple of hundred more by the time I'm ready to call it done. Felting this should be a fun experiment -- I might try felting in the dryer just for the heck of it -- and then I have some leather purse handles that I'm planning to sew on. I'm excited by how much my crochet has seemed to have improved over the course of this project, and I'm eager to try some more. I might make some felted bowls with some of the scraps I still have in the stash (because felting will hide my inconsistencies), and perhaps sometime this year I'll try an actual pattern.

The Last Bobbin

Just a short post from me tonight, as I've just spent a couple of hours cooking and cleaning and I'm about ready to drop.

I'm still spinning Buoy for my sweater, but the end of the third skein is in sight. I'm officially onto the third and final bobbin, and I'm more than a quarter of way into that. Here are the two finished bobbins, patiently waiting for their triplet to be finished so they can be plied:

For now, I'm ignoring the fact that I have at least two more skeins to spin for this project (perhaps more, because now I'm thinking I might want to do some smaller skeins so the sleeves match). I'll be happy to finish up this skein and may perhaps take a bit of a break with some other fiber in other colors. With any luck, you'll be seeing a finished skein in this spot next Sunday!

Just Too Cute

This has been a decidedly weird week -- not work or school on Monday, plus a two-hour delay for Rainbow (and thus me) yesterday -- so I am having trouble remembering what day it is without checking the calendar, but thankfully my crafting has not suffered. After finishing up Rainbow's projects over the weekend, I was feeling like I was on a roll, so I promptly cast on and finished a little hat in a matter of two evenings.

Pre-blocking FO shot

Pattern: Happy Happy Birthday Hat by NellKnits
Yarn: scraps of Knit Picks Swish Worsted (the cake and flame), Cascade 220 Superwash (the icing), and Cascade 220 Superwash Paints (the candle)
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) Addi Turbos, magic loop
Started/Completed: January 15/January 16
Mods: did an alternate decrease method for the bobbles

This was a fun, quick little knit, albeit a bit fiddly at times (bobbles, I'm looking at you). It's destined to be a gift for a family friend who will turn 1 next month. I was a little concerned that it was too small, but I was able to block it out much larger than it looks here and I think it will be okay for fit. As noted above, the one very minor modification I made was to change the way the bobbles are decreased. They're created by increasing from one stitch to five, and the pattern calls for decreasing back to one by knitting the five stitches together. My needles were just blunt enough to preclude such a maneuver, however, so I figured out an alternate way to achieve the same effect: I slipped the first two stitches (separately) from the left to the right needle so that the center stitch of the bobble was the first one on the left needle. Then I passed the stitch to the left of that stitch over it and off the needle. I transferred the stitch to the right needle and passed the stitch to the right of it over and off the needle. I transferred the stitch back to the left needle and repeated these two steps once more, essentially binding off the two stitches on either side of the center stitch of the bobble, and then knit the remaining stitch. I'm sure this is a legitimate decrease that someone has already thought up, but I kind of made it up in the moment and it seemed to work well.

Though there's still yarn remaining from this little hat, it feels really good to have done an entire project using only stash yarn (especially considering I ordered some new yarn online yesterday -- but more on that when it arrives).

Meanwhile, my lunchtime knitting has become my handspun brioche cowl, which is moving along slowly but steadily. I think that if it were in a single color it might become a bit of a slog, but the frequent color changes due to the small amounts of fiber that were combined is making for an interesting knit. It's somewhat akin to knitting with self-striping yarn; there's definitely an urge to keep going to get to the next color.

Yes, that is sunshine on my knitting!

I'm also continuing to work on my giant crocheted bag, though I don't have a photo to share (I'll need to get one this weekend when I can get it in decent natural light). I've noticed that as I work on it more, my speed is increasing, which is a good sign. Ideally, I'd like to get it done by the end of the month, though we'll see if that actually happens.

The weekend ahead looks pretty calm; we've got nothing on the calendar other than a birthday lunch for my father-in-law on Saturday. Though of course there will be the usual errands and chores to get done, that means extra crafting time for me!

A Bit of a Finishing Spree

I'm not sure what came over me over the long weekend, but I managed to finish up two projects, both of them for Rainbow. First, there was her new brioche cowl, which I was aiming to get done in time for her to wear it skiing on Sunday. I managed that with plenty of time to spare though not much yarn -- those little snippets you see here were all that was left after binding off and weaving in the ends.

The colors are, in reality, a bit brighter than this, but I think the winter light combined with the fact that the base yarn was a dark gray make it really hard to capture them. I didn't use a pattern for this; I just cast on until I had enough stitches to comfortably fit around a 16 inch needle and then worked in brioche until I was almost out of yarn, then bound off. It turned out a bit wider and shorter than I would have liked, but Rainbow was elated by it and reported that it kept her very warm while skiing with no itchiness.

Not long after that was done, I finished up her new pair of socks -- and this time the stripes match up perfectly!

Pattern: Vanilla Is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Hibiscus
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm) Addi Sock Rockets, magic loop
Started/Completed: December 25, 2017/January 13, 2018
Mods: used backward-loop m1s instead of lifted m1s

These really did not take much time at all to knit; they were started when we went to the movies on Christmas Day, but then I don't think I touched them again until the day we came home from our trip, so most of the knitting has been done during my lunch breaks the past week. I made the pattern again at Rainbow's request, and I once again made the legs rather long so that they're nearly knee socks on her. I think you could say that she likes them -- this was her reaction upon receiving them:

If all goes according to plan this evening, I should have another FO by my next post -- a baby hat that's already at least halfway done. I didn't bother taking an in-progress photo because with something so small all you can see is the needles poking everywhere, but this is the pattern I'm using. I'm also using all scraps and leftovers from my stash!

I did cast on one new project for me over the weekend, and it's the infinity cowl I was planning with the giant skein of handspun. I haven't gotten very far, but I like what I have.

It looks like I will get some stripes, and I think the brioche stitch will help to blend the transitions really well. This is one that I'm in for the long haul; I'm working it on size 3/3.25 mm needles so as to have a relatively dense fabric and a finished cowl that's not enormous, but that means I have 250 stitches on the needles, so even one round take a bit of time. The good news is that this is simple enough that I can pick it up and knit a bit on it whenever the mood strikes without having to think too much.

Making Up for Lost Time

Usually when I return from my December vacation, I am anxious to spend extra hours at my wheel because I've gone a couple of weeks without spinning and missed it terribly. This year was no exception. Over the past week, while there has been a fair amount of the usual knitting, I've definitely spent bonus hours at my Lendrum. Aside from just getting reacquainted after the weeks away, I've been wanting to spin more to get the yarn done for my handspun Boxy because I'm anxious to start the knitting. There's still quite a lot of spinning to do, but as of yesterday I have finished the first bobbin of skein number three, which will be an 8 oz. skein.

I think the entire bobbin took me four to five hours to spin, so that means I can probably get the next two done in the next two weeks if I continue my current spinning schedule. There are still two more skeins to spin after this one is done, one of which will be another 8 oz.-er, so I think if I want to get all the spinning done in a reasonable amount of time, I really need to stay focused (and that means not getting distracted by the new fiber that's arrived over the past several weeks).

Meanwhile, I finished up two knitting projects yesterday, so that means I'm ready to cast on something new -- and this something new will be my skein of fiber minis.

That's a standard skein of sock yarn next to it, to give you an idea of just how big it is. My plan is to knit another big brioche infinity cowl, but I'll be working on small needles so that the fabric stays dense and the cowl doesn't overwhelm me. If all goes according to plan, I will be casting on later today.

Tomorrow the entire family has off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it sounds like I will be spending at least part of it teaching a friend to spin! She's already a knitter but recently started doing some needle felting and then fell down the spinning rabbit hole. She's got some supplies ordered but as I have plenty of fiber on hand, I told her to come over and play. I've also convinced her to come with me to Maryland Sheep & Wool this year, so I'm hoping to have her spinning well on her own by then so she can take full advantage of all the fiber and tools at the festival.

Another Ending

I'm sorry to say that this post brings news of yet another LYS closing. Last Saturday was the last day of business for Knit One, and I made one last trip there with my friend Amy as everything in the store was 50% off. I didn't necessarily need any more yarn, but part of me want to go because Knit One was my LYS when I first got obsessively into knitting, back when I lived by myself in an apartment very close by. Despite the fact that I hadn't been to the shop in years and didn't feel much of a connection to it any longer, I did feel sad when I heard it was closing because it played a special role in a key part of my knitting career.

As you would expect, there wasn't much left in the way of stock when we got there and less still in terms of yarn I'd actually be interested in buying. But I did find a few skeins to come home with me, all intended to be used for Rainbow. First, I found three skeins of Araucania Huasco, a worsted weight merino in a lovely pale blue. With a bit more than 650 yards, I think that should be enough to do a sweater for her (we're currently eyeing the Gone Astray cardigan).

I also found this lone skein of Trekking XXL in shades of purple that will do very nicely for another pair of socks or a hat.

Finally, because buttons are always needed and can be so hard to find, I bought a tube of these clear plastic buttons because they seemed like they would go with anything. I have a total of 20 with the one that was connected to the top of the tube, so that should be enough for several sweaters.

I am still plugging away on my WIPs, though I've got one more than I did the last time I posted because I have cast on for Rainbow's cowl using the yarn we dyed. She is thrilled with how the colors turned out, which in turn makes me quite happy.

This is currently the top priority of my WIPs because I'd like to have it finished by the weekend in time for the skiing trip she and the Mister have planned for this Sunday. It's supposed to be very cold again, so she will need all the warm accessories I can get on her. We're also expecting another winter storm to move through Friday night and Saturday, so I am planning on spending most of Saturday holed up at home with my wool -- not entirely a bad way to spend a weekend, if you ask me!