hats

Indie Design Gift-A-Long 2016!

One of my favorite times of the year is upon us—Gift-A-Long time!

If you’re not familiar with the event, here’s a quick primer. It’s hosted on Ravelry, where hundreds of independent knitting and crochet designers discount a bundle of their patterns for a week to kick things off. Thousands of crafters participate in craftalongs to make things for loved ones (or themselves!) during the busy holiday season. There are all kinds of fun games, lots and lots (and lots!) of friendly chatting, and some amazing prizes. You can get all the details and play along in the Gift-A-Long group on Ravelry.

This year, I aimed for a mix of my most popular patterns and quick gift-type items for the discount bundle. You can see most of the discounted patterns in my collage here:

The rest can be viewed in my discount bundle on Ravelry.

And since this is one of the only times of the year when I give myself permission to knit other people’s patterns, I’m having a great time browsing the bundles of eligible patterns! So far I’ve picked out this adorable Manfred Aviator Hat from designer Kate Agner, which I’m making for my little guy:

I have a stash of super-bulky yarn I was given as a gift last year, so I’m also contemplating some instant gratification projects. These TV Time Socks from designer Shannon Squire look like awesome around-the-house socks:

I’m also eyeing the beautiful Sorrento Hat by Sarah Sundermeyer, although I’m not sure it’ll look as nice as the one pictured with my single-color yarn.

So many possibilities, so little time!

Friday Roundup: New Pattern and a Birthday!

What I’m Knitting

More pattern writing than knitting this week, but with a payoff—my Tierney Hat pattern is now released!

It’s knit in beautiful Madelinetosh DK yarn and can be purchased from Ravelry for $5 here.

Now I’m back to work on the blanket squares! #7 is done and #8 is started… the finish line is in sight!

What I’m Cooking

A couple of surprisingly cold days last week gave me a hankering for chili, so I made a huge pot and happily ate leftovers for several days. Perfect with some (lactose-free) cheese and homemade cornbread muffins:

For my son’s second birthday last week, I decided to make him a cake. But since he’s dairy-free and mostly sugar-free (and so were many of the friends/family who came to his little party), I challenged myself to make a vegan, refined-sugar free cake. The cake part was made with coconut sugar, and the icing was mostly pureed dates with cocoa and some flavorings. I was surprised (and so was everyone else, ha!) at how good it was!

Here’s the birthday boy blowing out his candle (with an assist from Daddy):

What I’m Reading

I’m almost done with The Morrigan’s Curse—what a great book!

Friday Roundup: Hat FO!

What I’m Knitting

I finished the cabled hat and even managed a photoshoot! (It was a bit of a chore to go through and crop out the 6-months preggo belly on all the pictures, though!)

Here are the specs!

Pattern: My own, currently titled “Tierney Hat,” although that may be subject to change. I have it up for testing now, so hopefully I’ll have the pattern released in about three weeks.

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Jade. I looooove this colorway. It’s probably one of my top three desert-island colors. And the Tosh was so nice to work with that I didn’t even mind all that purling!

Notes: My original concept was for a mostly simple and basic hat with a pop of visual interest (and interest for the knitter!). I had to fiddle with the closed-loop cable a bunch to get it to work out the way I wanted, but I’m really happy with the way it came out!

I’m back to working on secret projects next week, but hopefully I’ll have something I can show off by next Friday!

What I’m Cooking

Some overripe bananas inspired me to make these tasty banana-walnut muffins this week (sometimes I think 90% of my baking is inspired by overripe bananas, haha):

And although the picture is nothing to write home about, the Pad Thai I made for my weekly meal-for-a-crowd came out awesome! I finally got the timing just right so the rice noodles were perfectly done, something I’ve had trouble with in the past.

What I’m Reading

I finished the second book in the Masterminds series last night. This one ended on a huge cliffhanger just like the first one, grrr! So since I have to wait for the next one to be released, I picked up another Gordon Korman book from the library, one that I’ve seen recommended quite a bit as being a very funny middle grade novel.

Friday Roundup: Winging It

What I’m Knitting

I hoped to have a finished hat to show off today, but alas, that was not to be. Because the cable motif came out nearly a full inch shorter in the hat than in the swatch (??? I still don’t understand how that happened—same needles and everything!), the top decreases have been giving me fits. Here’s where I am now, after I ripped back to the start of the decreases for the fourth or fifth time:

I think I’ve finally come up with a solution that will work, so stay tuned to see if it does!

What I’m Cooking

Quinoa, black bean, and corn stuffed peppers (adding avocado on the top definitely kicked them up a notch. SO GOOD.):

I had a craving for buttermilk-style biscuits at the beginning of the week. I haven’t had many cravings, despite being nearly 28 weeks pregnant… but when one does strike, LOOK OUT. I began assembling my ingredients to make some yummy vegan biscuits, and then nearly cried when I realized we were completely out of almond milk, soy milk, or any reasonable substitute.

Cranky pregnant woman wanted her dang biscuits, so I improvised with the thin liquid from a can of coconut milk and crossed my fingers. Turns out adding more fatty liquid makes biscuits even more tasty—who knew? (Although I feel like I could have predicted this.)

They weren’t very pretty, though. Well, I take that back. They were gorgeous if all I show you is this shot:

But that was actually the only one that came out looking like someone over the age of 5 made it, haha.

What I’m Reading

I finished Masterminds, which was great but had a killer cliffhanger ending! So I picked up the next one in the series, which is just as good so far. Hopefully this one doesn’t do the same type of cliffhanger, because the next one isn’t written yet…

Friday Roundup: Back in the Groove

What I’m Knitting:

I’ve been doing a whole lot of planning and swatching this week for two designs. One is for a submission that I can’t show you, but the other is a hat to match the Mystic Falls Mitts I released last fall. These ones (did I ever show off the final pics here? I lose track of these things…):

I knew I wanted the hat to have a similar feel, but not quite the same pattern. The mitts were an experiment in yarn dominance and required switching the dominant yarn halfway through the back colorwork. Since I’d have to do much more than two panels on the hat, switching yarns all the time could get really annoying, really fast. So I’m scrapping that idea for the hat and focusing on getting the colorwork swirls along with the square check pattern on the palms in there.

My swatch has been ripped out a few times and doesn’t look like much at the moment, but here’s an idea of how it might look (as long as I like the way the swatch comes out!):

What I’m Cooking

Remember the tasty vegan alfredo that I forgot to take a picture of last week? Well, I liked it so much that I made it again this week. Over some gluten-free pasta and veggies with some garlic bread on the side, it was delicious:

For my weekly meal-for-a-crowd, I made shepherd’s pie with a new recipe, one that used parsnips (really good!) and skipped the lentils. The big revelation was the vegan, gluten-free gravy I tried out to go on top. I figured it wouldn’t be that great, but it ended up being delicious! (Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea.)

What I’m Reading

I finished the first book in a new YA series this week, The Naturals. It was really good, and I’ve already snagged the second one so I can keep going.

Friday Roundup: A Whole Lotta Knitting

What I’m Knitting

Thanks to the Indie Design Gift-A-Long (still in full swing until the end of the year!), I’ve finished several projects this week!

First, this adorable aviator hat for my son. Seriously though, I don’t know how this kid is so adorable. I had about 12 unbelievably cute photos to choose from here.

Here are the specs on the hat:

Pattern: Jules for Aviators and Explorers, by Gabrielle Danskknit

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted Bare, hand-dyed by none other than my husband! He gave me this yarn a few years ago as a present and I was saving it for a special project. I was worried Ronan would find it too scratchy, but he doesn’t seem to care at all! He loves the hat and keeps insisting on wearing it around the house. Mommy knitter win. :-)

Notes: This is a great pattern—very easy to follow. The designer has a whole range of adorable aviator hats in different styles and yarn weights in her Ravelry store, so it was hard to choose just one! This might be my new go-to gift for baby showers, since the finished hat is so darned cute and the earflaps make it practical for fall and winter babes.

I also finished two more projects this week, from the same pattern. I had decided that the GAL was a great opportunity to try a technique I’ve been avoiding for years—steeking! I started out with two yarns I thought were both 100% wool and knit up this coffee cozy:

It looks all innocent there, but it almost fell apart completely! Turns out one of the yarns I used, despite being exactly the same color as a 100% wool yarn I have in my leftovers stash, was actually mostly acrylic. So when I crocheted the reinforcement and cut the steek, the slippery yarn ends started popping right out of the crochet steek. I only managed to salvage it by stitching all the ends down:

Not pretty.

So, determined to get this steeking thing right, I tried again with actual wool. This time it worked very well!

I need to work on doing the crochet reinforcement properly on the cast-on/BO row so my edges are a little funky, but the ends stayed secure! And it looks a whole lot better on the inside:

The pattern I used was Bucket List Coffee Accessories by Michele Bernstein. I’m happy to have steeking checked off my own knitter’s bucket list!

I’m working on one more GAL pattern, and then I need to switch over to a commissioned secret design project that yarn just arrived for. But hopefully I’ll have another FO to show off next week!

What I’m Cooking

The next recipe up in my Appetite for Reduction cookbook challenge was a roasted root vegetable Thai-style curry. It called for rutabagas and parsnips, which I never use, but I was surprised to find that I quite liked them both. An even bigger surprise—my son LOVED the roasted rutabaga pieces. He probably ate a quarter of the rutabaga all by himself.

I went off cookbook for my weekly meal-for-a-crowd. This is a spaghetti squash lasagna, made with a totally delicious tofu and basil based vegan ricotta. It came out really, really well! I love the idea of using spaghetti squash to healthify lasagna when I’m craving comfort food, so this is definitely going in the “make again” file.

What I’m Reading

I started a new young adult series this week. I’ve read the author’s previous series and I liked them a lot, so it’s no surprise that I’m already halfway through this one and enjoying it!

Friday Roundup: Baby Hat Edition

What I’m Knitting

I know I said I’d be working on the green textured sweater design this week, but I had to put that on hold for some emergency baby knitting (we’ve all been there, right?). A good friend of mine just had a baby boy a few days ago, so I cast on this mini-sized Koolhaas Hat for her little guy:

The yarn is buttery-soft Knit Picks Comfy in a lovely heathered gray colorway. This is my first time using Comfy, and I really like it! It’s 75% cotton, 25% acrylic, which is just about the perfect blend for my taste. It isn’t as heavy or unyielding as 100% cotton, and the touch of acrylic makes it really easy to wash.

Just when I was at the decreases of that hat, I decided I wanted to work up a little hat for a baby shower I’m attending tomorrow. This decision may or may not have been influenced by the fact that the guest of honor had another baby shower in a different town last week, and every. single. thing was purchased off their registry when I looked a few days ago. Oh well–one of a kind presents are good too, right?

So I cast on a super-quick baby bonnet this morning and have been knitting furiously in the car on the way to run errands (when I wasn’t the one driving, of course!). This one is also in Knit Picks cotton, some Simply Cotton Worsted left over from my Kari Baby Blanket. I’m ready for the decreases and on track to get it finished tonight:

What I’m Cooking

Another round of the delicious, wine-infused mushroom stroganoff (this time with added broccoli to up the veggies) over quinoa pasta:

I had a head of cauliflower to use up a few days later and was planning to roast it… but that took about 45 minutes and the husband and son were hungry now. So I steamed it and mashed it with garlic, Earth Balance spread, and chives from the garden, then served it with veggie burgers. Delicious! The baby LOVED it. He ate a whole plate by himself.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working on The Dream Thieves–but I do have some other writing/reading related news! One of my manuscripts is in a really cool online contest called The Writer’s Voice (modeled after the show The Voice, apparently, but I’ve never seen it so that doesn’t mean much to me!). The contest entries went live today, and in a few days, literary agents are going to request to see manuscripts they find interesting. Wish me luck! If you’d like to check out my entry, it’s here.

Updates!

Whew, lots of stuff happening around chez Triona Designs recently. I’ve released two more patterns:

Bubblicious Hat:

Nolan Vest, which comes with instructions for v-neck and scoop neck as well as two different colorwork placements:

I’ve also been hard at work on several secret designs for yarn companies. Some of them are even for adults! Here’s a sneak peek of one that should be released this spring:

And last but certainly not least, I’m participating in the Indie Designer Gift-A-Long on Ravelry for the second year in a row!

If you’re not familiar with the event, check out the Ravelry group here for all the info. The fun starts this Thursday at 8 pm EST and goes all the way to the end of the year.

The prizes are killer this year (I personally donated some yarny goodness, but I saw at least a dozen things I’d love in the prize list!). I’m going to pick out a pattern or two that I’d like to make and jump into the knitalong fun.

I have several interviews scheduled with fellow Gift-A-Long indie designers coming up. Watch this space!

FO Friday: Blue Tosh Chunky Hat

I finished a hat this week! (Okay, actually I finished it the week before, but finally got it together to take some pictures this week.)

It’s in Tosh Chunky, just like Dandelion Clock (pattern now available on Ravelry here!). Man, do I ever love this yarn. It’s just like Tosh Vintage, which is probably my favorite yarn ever, except FOs get done even more quickly. This color is Mica–isn’t it pretty?

Usually I have to rip out and reknit the decreases at the top of a new hat design a few times until they look right, but this one made this pretty floral-looking design on the first try! Bonus. :-)

You guys were so helpful with name ideas last time–any thoughts on this one? I’m drawing a complete blank.

WIP Wednesday: Still Bevin, and Dandelion Clock

I’m still plugging away on my Bevin sweater. I’ve made real progress this week, though. Here’s last week’s shot:

And here’s this week’s!

As you can see, I’ve finished the front and just completed the twisted-stitch motif on the back. I’ve been feeling like it’s going really slowly, but hey–nothing like pictures to show you the objective view of things.

I’ve also been working on the pattern writing for the white hat I showed you on Friday.

I went back and forth on a name several times. Molly of deepbluerenegade suggested Dandelion, which I really liked, but a quick Ravelry search turned up pages and pages of patterns with this name. So in the interest of making the pattern easier to find, I decided to go with… drumroll please…

Dandelion Clock!

If you’re wondering what timekeeping has to do with anything, Dandelion Clock is actually a common name for these things, from a kids’ game where the number of puffs it takes to blow off the seeds is supposed to tell the time:

I think it works rather well. :-)