It's all in the details ...

So Friday night's post saw me humbled, unable to cast on properly. But I've been called "stubborn" on occasion, and thus, I present to you, this:

Pattern: Ela's Favorite Hat from One Skein Wonders by Judith Durant
Yarn: Noro Silver Thaw
Gauge: 4.25 sts/in
Needles: Size 7 and 8 as called for in the pattern
Started: 3/16/07 Finished: 3/17/07

Cute, right? Trouble is, it was supposed to be a hat for me.

The problem: I didn't pay close enough attention to the details in the pattern.

There was nothing in the descriptive text that stated if this was an adult hat, child hat, or baby hat. The book encompasses all types of projects, and the photographs of the projects show only the item, not the item actually being worn by a human being. So the only tip-off that this was a child's hat was in a single line:

Measurements: Approximately 18.5" (47cm) circumference

Now, if this were a sweater pattern, that would have been the first line I read. But it was a hat, and looked kind of adult-like in the photo, and so I ignored that line completely.

And the Belle has a new hat.

Not a terrible thing, since I still have not put the pompoms on her scarf, and so she has yet to receive a knitted object from me. And she likes the hat.

But I am still hatless.

On the other hand, I loved this yarn, and since it's on closeout at Webs, I'm going to buy more. I'll try to modify the hat pattern for myself, and maybe make a scarf, too.

In a better turn of events, my Secret Pal timed her package perfectly to arrive on St. Patrick's Day. In the package was a bag of Dove Dark Chocolates, a cute notebook with a green cover (that has already made its way to my knitting bag), the book Knit One Felt Too, and this lovely handpainted sock yarn:


Thanks so much to The Unknowable.

Round and Round, the Mermaid goes ...

Behold, the never-ending Mermaid Socks! Pattern from Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks, Warm Feet. Yarn is Fearless Fibers superwash merino, in the Glorious Green colorway. The socks were knit on size 1 and 0 dpns. Cast on was January 27, 2007 -- socks were finished on March 9, 2007.

The knitting of the socks was a bit of a saga, so if you just want to ogle their loveliness and keep away from the drama, you may click off now. You have been warned.

These were knit for Meg Weaver, my partner in the Knittyboard Sock Swap. Meg said that she liked "plain" socks, in solid, heathery, or lightly variegated colors, and that her feet were always cold so she liked wool. She preferred short row heels. She thought that maybe she'd like a twisted rib or eyelet rib sock. Easy, right?

When the rules of the Sock Swap were posted, we were told to sign up in one of three groups based on socks that we have knit before this exchange:

• Sock Newbies (0 pairs)
• Sock Beginners (1-5)
• Sock Pros (5+)

I signed up for Sock Beginners (1 complete pair of socks, plus two Christmas stockings that I only half-counted because they were knit flat and seamed). My partner informed me that she had been knitting for 13 years (!) but was kind of new to socks so she signed up for beginner as well. But immediately I felt the pressure.

I had 3 wonderful skeins of Fearless Fiber yarn, including 2 almost solids, in brown and green. So I decided to swatch and do a "practice" sock with the brown, then make Meg's socks. I could not find one solid definition of "twisted rib," so decided to try a couple of different ones. I swatched and didn't like them. I then received Cool Socks, Warm Feet in a book swap, and instantly fell in love with the Mermaid Socks shown in the book. They were ribbed, and it was twisted (well, spiral, really). It had a short-row heel (which I had never done) that looked a bit easier than the ones I'd seen with picking up wraps, etc. And better yet, I had also just purchased the 2 Lucy Neatby Sock DVDs, and much of the sock is demonstrated by Lucy herself on these DVDs.

By that point, two weeks had gone by, and I was feeling the time pressure. I disposed of the "test" sock and went right to the main event. I cast on, and knit. And knit, and knit, and knit. I saw reference on some blogs that this sock took a l-o-n-g time. So I knit, and knit, and knit. Turned the heel with only minimal problems, though it took 6 hours of my life. Began the foot. And then, about 8 or 10 rows into the foot, the knitting emerged from behind the needles, and ... CRISIS! The pattern did not match up. The ribbing was off by two stitches. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't that bad, that it was a design feature. I kept knitting. After a few inches, I could no longer live in denial. It was right on the top of the foot where it met the ankle -- the most visible part of the sock. I was afraid to frog in case I couldn't recapture the stitches, and I did not want to relive those 6 hours turning the heel again. I waited a few days until I could go to my knitting class and enlist the help of my instructor, who is now dubbed Saint Mary of the Golden Needles.

Mary saved my sock. She helped me rip back and pick up the stitches in the proper manner, and then she did much of the un-knitting for me, since she is about 1,000 times faster at it than I am. She guided me through determining the proper place to resume the pattern. She answered my stupid questions like, 'is that a yarn over, or a mistake?' She has my eternal gratitude.

The rest of the sock, and the next, went mainly without incident. It just took a long, long time. And my work schedule was not only packed, but involved much travel, which took away from my knitting. In all, I was 10 days late for the February deadline. Considering that I lost close to that amount of time with my error on sock #1, it's not too bad.

Oh, and remember my frustration that the leg of the sock was too short, despite having measured and re-measured? Well, when I received the socks that Meg knit for me, I was delighted to see this:


They are identical in height. Insert large sigh of relief here.

Overall, these were a fun knit, even with the stress I put on myself. I learned a lot, and really pushed myself. I'm not sure that I would have continued on, if these were for myself ... or at least, I would have lived with the error. But in the process of fixing the problems, I learned better how to read my knitting, how to think before blindly following the written pattern. I also learned how to weave in ends as I go, which is a skill that I will use going forward.

And I will make them again, using a self-striping yarn -- what this pattern was really designed to highlight. Next time I think I may reverse the pattern on one sock so that they spiral toward each other, or away from each other (depending on which sock goes on which foot). But I will definitely knit them again.

Finally, show and tell!!

They are done!!
My first "real" socks ever.

Yarn: Knitpicks Simple Stripes, in the Sunset colorway
8 sts./in, size 1 dpns

Pattern: Charlene Schurch's Garter Rib Socks pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. However, I omitted the garter rib and did plain stockinette.

Time: approximately 3 weeks. I don't really remember when I cast on.

Notes: They fit Bean's foot perfectly; the cuffs are slouchy because she wanted ankle socks, and I didn't adjust the number of stitches at the cast-on. I think that if I had knit these to fit at her calf, they would probably be OK -- but I'm not positive. She likes them, regardless.

They are "fraternal" socks, in that the stripes don't match ... I tried, and came within 2 rows of matching, but then the 2nd ball of yarn did a weird thing and changed pattern on me. It's OK, she's been wearing mismatched socks (intentionally) since Christmas, so these are not any different.

Point of interest: I finished sock #1 but did not graft the toe before finishing sock #2. So the other night, I had 2 socks with just the toe graft left. Coincidentally, I had that day received in the mail Lucy Neatby's Sock Techniques DVD. On that DVD, she demonstrates her "toe chimney" method of finishing.

Being that these socks were for a non-picky 7 year old, I decided to experiment. The first sock was finished using the toe chimney method. The second sock was done in the traditional Kitchener stitch.

Here are the results (sorry the photos aren't clearer; I hope you can see the difference).

photo 1: toe chimney method
photo 2: kitchener stitch method

Prior to this, I had only kitchenered worsted weight toes. They came out just fine. So when I was working the toe chimney, I was thinking that it was too fiddly, was taking too long, and might not be worth the extra effort. Then I kitchenered the second toe. What a mess. I was so afraid of pulling the stitches too tightly that I left a huge gap in the first stitches. If the Bean had worn it like that, she would have put a toe through it on the first wearing.

I was later able to adjust the stitches by tightening along the entire toe, which ended up taking even longer than the toe chimeny method. And frankly, Kitchenering on the tiny needles with tiny yarn was far more fiddly than the chimney method. So I think that from now on, it's a toe chimney for me.

How I spent the first day of the year

I finished these, finally!


I did the complete second mitten today, from cast-on to bind off. I hadn't intended on that, as I already had about 4" of the ribbing done, but I got so frustrated with the dpns and this yarn that I frogged it all and started again on magic loop. I knit most of the day -- it took a lot longer than I remember mitten #1 taking. I finished at 11:15.

They are OK -- the stripes almost match up (I think they are off by 2 rows). The second mitten has some problems, especially where I needed to pick up the stitches at the base of the thumb. It's a good thing that it's for a 7 year old -- one who will probably lose at least one of the mittens before the winter is over. I didn't sweat the details, just wanted them done.

The Bean was very excited when she came downstairs this morning and found the completed pair of mittens at her breakfast spot. Too bad that it's 45 degrees today.

The details:

• Pattern: An amalgam of two -- a basic mitten pattern was given to me by the LYS when I purchased yarn. However, it was knit back and forth, and I wanted to do a full project with dpns (ha!), so I converted it to in the round (with the help of my knitting instructor). When it came time for the decreases, I used another pattern that I found on the web to figure out how and when to decrease.
• Yarn: Martifil Stripe 7934, less than 1 skein ($16.00 per ball). It's really nice yarn, if a little splitty. There are few places where there was some dark blue "flashing" in spots (you can see it on the right mitten in the photo). Not my fault, though The Bean noticed right away, saying "you made a couple of mistakes." I made more than a couple mistakes, but this was not one of them.
• Needles: size 5 & 7, dpn (mitten #1) and magic loop(mitten #2)
• Time: Hard to judge. Mitten #1 took a couple of days, and mitten #2 took most of one day.
• New techniques learned: picking up stitches for the thumb (not so successful on my own -- mitten #1 was done under the guidance of my knitting instructor; I fudged mitten #2 and it is pretty messy.

Mmmmmalabrigio -- done!

Since I've started reading message boards and blogs devoted to knitting, I noticed that posts about Malabrigo yarn would always read 'Mmmmmmmalabrigo'. I never quite understood just what was so wonderful. But this scarf made me see the light.
It's done and blocked, in plenty of time to give to Mom for Christmas. She has blue eyes, and this should set them off nicely.

Finished size: 5" x 60" after blocking
Pattern: given to me by a LYS when I purchased yarn. Basically it's a 2 cable scarf, with seed stitch border.
Yarn: Malabrigo, 1 skein
Needles: size 7
Time: cast on Tuesday evening, finished Monday evening.
New techniques learned: this is the first pattern I've done where I didn't need to refer to the pattern -- I could "read" my knitting and knew what to do next. I also tracked rows (6 row repeat) by looping a piece of waste yarn on the end of the needle (one loop per row in the repeat).

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care ...

(click photo to see a larger version)

Done and blocked!! These are gifts for my brother (striped) and his fiancee (Fair Isle) as they celebrate their first Christmas as an engaged couple.

Pattern: from Nicky's Knitted Christmas Stockings, by Nicky Epstein
Yarn: Lopi
Needles: size 9
Time: approximately 10 days for each stocking, mostly evening knitting
New techniques learned: Stranding (2 and 3 color), duplicate stitch, short rows, Kitchener stitch
Adaptations: The original pattern called for Wool-Ease and size 7 needles, so these worked up a bit larger than the ones shown in the pattern. The ones in the pattern are approximately 22" long,and mine are 24" long. The Fair Isle Snowflake stocking had a fair isle chart for the snowflake but mentioned that it could be done in duplicate stitch, which is the route I took.

Notes:

These were really fun to knit, and I'm a teensy bit sorry I have to give them away. They look quite nice hanging from my fireplace.

The pattern was very clear and easy to follow. The booklet starts out with one main stocking pattern, and the other stockings are all variations on the main pattern.

I love the way they look in the Lopi, but I didn't actually like knitting with the Lopi. Eventually I got used to it, but at first it felt like knitting with burlap, and it hurt my hands.

These are knit flat and then seamed. I still have yet to knit a traditional pair of socks, so I'm a bit sorry that I didn't do stockings made in the round, but I still learned short rows to turn the heel, and I kitchenered the toe (not too bad -- it might be more difficult on regular socks because of the thinner yarn, but I thought these came out fine).

The Fair Isle at the top of the stocking wasn't as difficult as I had feared, though it was slow because I'm a thrower and was trying to carry both colors in my right hand -- it usually ended up with me dropping the unused color and picking it up again when needed. I still managed to knit a bit too tightly, so the top pulls in a bit in the Fair Isle section, but it's not too bad and it blocked out almost totally. The neat thing about the pattern is that the top of the stocking is 10 rows of the green, and then a turning row -- the top is then turned in and tacked to cover the loose strands of the Fair Isle. It made it much easier because I wasn't quite so worried about the strands. Our current Christmas stockings (knit by someone else) are all Fair Isle, and the strands make it almost impossible to pull our goodies out smoothly.

The duplicate stitch took me just about forever. I had to rip it out a few times because I was off a stitch somewhere, making the pattern lopsided. At one point I wised up and just covered my mistake with another duplicate stitch in the original green -- it doesn't show at all. And the strands from the duplicate stitch are a bit messy on the inside.

I can't wait to make stockings for our family.

Well, one hand will be warm.

First-ever mitten finished!!

Knitting class was very busy last night, with a couple of new knitters needing a lot of the instructor's attention, but I did manage to finish. It's definitely a newbie mitten .. I can see the dpn ladders, and the thumb is a little wonky; the top of the hand is a bit too pointy for my taste as well.

This is for Bean, but it almost fits me ... my fingers hit the edges of the mitten, but it definitely fits width-wise. I did try it on the Bean, though, and she says it fits fine. There is growing room at the top.

This is, alas, only the first mitten of a pair.

Yarn is called 'Stripe' .. I need to dig out the ball band to get the manufacturer's name, as I couldn't find it on Yarndex. It's a worsted weight self-striping yarn, and I really like it except for one issue which you can't see in the photo ... at one point in the strip repeat, there is a small "flash" of dark blue -- maybe 4 stitches worth, but not in a row. It looks like a mistake. In fact, when she tried it on, Bean noticed.