Archive for 2012 December

2012 Knitting Year In Review

I thought it might be fun to look back at my knitting progress this year, so I went through my Ravelry project pages and tallied it all up. And holy wow–I finished 27 projects this year. Nine of those were full-sized sweater designs.

That’s a lot of knitting, yo.

Anyway, I though it would be fun to show you a quick snapshot of the projects I finished this year:

Here are the self-designed sweaters (minus two that are secret designs for yarn companies–I can’t blog about those until they’re published next year):

Hats, all but one of which are my own design:
Other accessories (lace shawl design for a forthcoming book not shown):

And finally, small sweaters (two for my niece, one for the Christmas tree):

Think I can beat my own record in 2013?

FO Friday: Options Slippers

I hope everyone out there in blogland is having a great holiday season! I took advantage of the free time during the 24th and 25th to whip up a set of slippers for me:

I have needed slippers for a while (I have a pair of felted ones from years ago, but they have holes in them!). These are perfect–easy to make, warm and cushy, and green (my fave!).

The specs:

Pattern: Options Slippers for Women by Kris Basta (Ravelry Link)

Yarn: doubled Araucania Toconao, left over from a large sweater design I have yet to blog here, but will soon (it’s in testing and should be released pretty soon!). The yarn is squooshy on its own, but holding it double on size 8 needles makes an incredibly thick fabric I want to squish all the time. I used about a skein and a half for both slippers.

Notes: The pattern is pretty interesting–there are lots of options (duh, see the pattern name). You can go with a bulky yarn or a worsted held double, several different types of soles, and use one of several methods to attach the soles to the uppers. I went with the knitted sole, but broke out the crochet hook to “sew” them together.

I’m pretty proud of my crochet job, actually. I am not a crocheter by any stretch of the imagination, and I sort of winged it (wung it? Surely not) on the exact technique… but the join turned out fine and, dare I say it, even pretty!

And I finished these just in time! This is what the backyard looked like on December 26th:

I don’t know if you can tell, but it’s snowing in this picture. Hard. We got about 7 inches of snow in four or five hours… nothing insane, but definitely conditions that make me appreciate having warm, squishy slippers.

Pre-Christmas Check In!

T minus five days until Christmas! After seeing some seriously panicked threads on Ravelry, I’m really happy I decided to go easy on the gift knitting this year.

This could have been me.

No one in my family reads my blog regularly except for my husband (hi honey!), so I feel safe in sharing my gifting plans. I’m going to give my Texture Times Two hat and scarf to my mom.

Picture this….

….on my adorable mother! Isn’t it perfect?

I usually try to hang onto my samples, but she loved them so much when I showed them to her that I can’t resist surprising her.

I also mailed off the Sweet Peasy for my niece.

The Latte Baby Coat, though… I decided not to send it. After blocking, I discovered the buttons I’d been planning to use were too big for the buttonholes (boo!). Also, the front edge is a little ruffly. Possibly it’s one of those things only I would ever notice, but I hate gifting imperfect things, y’know? So I think I’m going to buy new buttons, reblock it, and give it to her next month.

But even that’s not enough to kill my relaxed mood. So different from last December, when I was frantically trying to finish these:

Ironically, we aren’t even going to be there to use them this year.

Are you knitting any gifts this year? How’s it going?

New Pattern Release: Texture Times Two!

I have two new pattern releases for you today! Here’s the Texture Times Two Hat and Scarf:

The pattern stitch I used is nice at first glance, but the coolest thing about it is the wrong side, which looks completely different:

It’s like the accessories have a split personality–classy on one side, sort of kooky and fun on the other. Plus I love it when scarves have an attractive backside (because who doesn’t love those? Hehehe. Yes, I am twelve).

The pattern is easy enough to memorize pretty quickly, but difficult enough to stay interesting through a whole scarf and matching hat. I knit mine in buttery-soft Malabrigo Worsted (you might remember the skeins of Purple Mystery from my birthday haul), which made the whole knitting experience highly enjoyable.

The patterns are for sale for $3.50 each here and here, or through my Ravelry store. If you want both patterns, you can buy the set for $6.00 (about a 15% discount).

I can trust you guys to keep a secret, right? After seeing my mom’s reaction to the FOs, I’m planning to give them to her for a Christmas present. Shhhh….

FO Friday: Latte Baby Coat

Two FO Fridays in a row! Baby sweaters are addictive, yo.

Again, apologies for the non-modeled, craptastic blocking shot. My niece lives about 1500 miles away, so getting her to model the FO wasn’t really feasible.

The specs:

Pattern: Latte Baby Coat by Lisa Chemery (Ravelry link). I made the largest size (3T-4T). The pattern was well-written. It included tons of options, which makes for a slightly more cluttered pattern, but I always appreciate having choices.

Yarn: Cascade Eco+, 1 skein in Purple Jewel Heather. The pattern calls for 1.5 skeins for the hooded version in the largest size, but mine took only one, and I had a good sized ball left over. I did rip out my swatch, though–if I had kept a decent-sized swatch, I might have been closer to the end of the skein.

This yarn has been marinating in my stash for more than a year, and it was good to finally use some of it up. I usually avoid baby/toddler knits with non-superwash yarns, but since this is more of a coat anyway and likely won’t fit her next year, I’m not going to be terribly upset if it gets ruined. Plus it was really quick on #10 needles!

Notes: It turned out really cute! I was worried about rippling on the edge, so I bound off very tightly the first time… and then had to rip it out and re-do it when I realized her face wouldn’t fit into the tiny head opening. Doh. But I think I got the tension right the second time.

The balloon is something I’ve recently started using to block hoods. It works like a charm! No more flattened or weird-looking hoods.

When it’s dry, I’ll sew on buttons. I’ve got these neat Celtic knot ones in my button stash that should be perfect.

And it’s good that I’m done with baby knits… because a huge box of yarn just arrived for two commissioned designs that will be due in the new year. Unfortunately, they need to be kept secret, but I can tell you I’m about a fourth of the way through a gorgeous cabled pullover in one of my favorite colors. More on that later….