jennanddave.com

Since wrapping up Dave's sweater, I've been working on Mavis from the Naturally Noro book. I finished the back last week and the front last night. Because I was jacked up on homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and feeling plucky, I decided to go ahead and cast on the sleeves, work a few rows to set the pattern, and then head off to bed buoyed by a sense of accomplishment.

The chevron pattern for the sleeves is exactly the same as it was for the front and back of the sweater. Except for some reason it wasn't working. I was ending up with five extra stitches at the end of the row instead of just one. So I frogged and tried again. And again. Still, it wasn't working. I headed back to the computer to see if there were any pattern errata for Mavis. Alas, there was nothing. I sent an email to the local knitting guru giving her the exact instructions to see what she came up with. Her reply arrived not too long ago, and in it she said it was working out fine for her, and to stop over-thinking it already. Frankly, I just don't know how to live in this world if I can't overthink things.

So I pondered. And I thought. And I looked at pictures of other people Mavis's online. And I thought some more.

Then, out of the blue, it suddenly occurred to me that I've been knitting the chevron pattern wrong the whole time, and that through some stroke of dumb luck, the wrong way I'd been working it before happened to work with the number of stitches I had to cast on for the front and back of the sweater.

Thus, I am faced with the following conundrum: 1. do I rip out the front and back and do them over, or 2. do I knit the sleeves the proper way while leaving the back and front alone. I should confess that the first option simultaneously makes me want to laugh and cry.

Number two it is.

Posted by Jenn at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Remember way back in mid-September I posted pictures of all the cool stuff I was knitting, then promptly dropped in favor of a non-Christmassy Christmas stocking I was working on? Well, I have since dropped the non-Christmassy stocking and have actually managed to finish something. I don't even want to think about all of the other knitted works in progress that are floating around this site in perennial non-finishedness. To appease the gods, I present you with proof that I have in fact completed something, and that all things considered, I think it came out pretty darned good:

He's on the phone talking field hockey with his new best friend, Megan. I'm behind the camera working myself up into a fit of jealous rage. Here's an action shot of him with his hockey stick before it was snatched away by the future member of the ladies field hockey team, Henry:

I put up all of the details (pattern, yarn) for this sweater over here. It was fun to do, but I'm glad to be done with the miles and miles of stockinette stitch. I think it's slightly too big, although closer examination of the picture with the pattern shows that it's meant to be a little roomy. It still needs to be blocked so you can see the contrast edge around the armholes, but all in all I really like it. I think Dave does too.

Posted by Jenn at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Christmas? Kind of. Not really. Except I'm taking a Christmas Stocking class at Mad About Ewes. I'm learning how to get my knit on Fair Isle style, and I was supposed to learn instarsia but instead we learned something so incredibly annoying to do, I never wanted to do it again until I realized I could use it to sprinkle pretty knit hearts throughout anything I knit and then I was all "I'm sorry really annoying knitting tecnnique, I shall never speak ill of you again." The annoying mystery technique is just a way of carrying yarn behind the yarn you're working with and tacking it down every few stitches or so. It totally kicked my butt. I felt like Elmer Fudd at the piano where he gets his fingers all tied into a knot. Except with some swearing mixed in. Anyway, I bet you're dying to see a picture of my stocking:

Pretty impressive right? Aren't you loving the hearts at the bottom right before the toe decreases? I don't have any need for a xmas stocking so I chose non-Christmassy colors (pink, black, gray). Next week we're duplicate stitching our names on the top but I'm trying to come up with something else to put up there since it's not going to anyone specific. Please feel free to give me some suggestions.

When my mom taught me how to cross-stitch when I was a kid, I remember her saying you don't want the back to look messy because then you're just not doing it right; it should look almost as good as the front. Or something along those lines. Thanks to that sage advice, I'm always conscious of how the backs of my projects look.

Oh the humanity! Had you fooled in that first picture didn't I?

Looks like my balls of yarn threw up all over the place. I'd hate to be the person who had to weave in all those ends. Oh, wait...hmmm...

Meanwhile, because we're all up in the Halloween spirit what with the leaves turning colors and the temps in the 90's, I was inspired to knit a Halloween-themed pumpkin dishcloth:

I got the pattern here but didn't love the chart for the pumpkin so I reworked it to suit my own taste. I like how it came out. Next up, a bat dishcloth.

Posted by Jenn at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today's one of the first days that actually feels like Fall. We drove to a town about an hour and a half north of here on the recommendation of our neighbor and by the time we go to where we were going the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. I snuggled into a cute jacket I bought recently and enjoyed the sight of the cool air blowing some preemptively cast-off leaves about. Boy, can I turn a flowery phrase or what?

With the onset of cool weather, what better thing to talk about than knitting? I haven't mentioned any of the stuff I've been working on lately so I thought I'd document it before I actually finish any of them. Har har.

Vest for Dave
I couldn't get decent lighting for this shot to save my life, so here's a dark picture of what I have of the vest so far:

I'm using Nature Spun by Brown Sheep in Stone and Burnt Sienna. Dave picked the colors out himself and I have to admit they look really great together. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. The pattern I'm using is the "Basic Vest for Men" by "Knitting Pure and Simple". It's pretty straightforward: knit in the round, and then divide for the armholes and work the front and back separately. It's all stockinette stitch which translates to great car and movie knitting. A few more inches and I'll be done with the back.

Sweater for Jenn
I love Noro, so I decided to splurge on a bag full of Silk Garden in color #84. Here's what I've got so far:

Once again, let's hear it for bad lighting. Here's a picture of the pattern I'm making:

There has been some anxiety over this sweater because: 1) the yarn is expensive and pretty and I don't want to make something I'll never wear with it; 2) even when my swatch matches gauge, everything comes out big anyway, so taking that into consideration I'm making a size smaller than what I normally wear (making adjustments in length so that it's not short) which brings us to 3) what if through some miracle I managed to hit gauge for the first time in my entire life and the sweater ends up being too small despite all of my efforts to outsmart myself?

When I finish the back I'm going to take a good long look at it with my handy-dandy measuring tape and either frog it or hug it.

Recent yarn purchase I'm going to use to knit something I'd much rather just walk into a store and buy, and yet...
Future socks:

Schoeller Stahl Limbo Color in color #2539.

All yarns and patterns featured in this post were procured at Mad About Ewes, which also happens to be where I worked off the associated costs. The problem with working in a yarn shop when you're a yarn junkie is that you end up shopping for five or seven hours depending on the hours the store is open on the day you happen to be working. The proprietor is a very smart woman. I'm sure whenever she calls to see if I'm available to watch the store she thinks "Ch-ching!", and not because I'm a great salesperson either.

Posted by Jenn at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was just flipping through the "Knitting with Balls: A hands on guide to knitting for the modern man" book. It's got some pretty cool patterns. (I initially wrote "pretty cute" instead of "pretty cool", but "cute" doesn't exactly scream "manly", does it? Okay, enough with all the quotation marks, and back to the book.) In the introduction there's a synopsis of other knitting books (all five of them) that have been geared specifically towards men. One of them apparently has a pattern for a hammock that's knit using billiard cues. How cool is that? It's too bad they didn't take that idea and reincarnate it somehow. I wonder if I can find the original pattern; I've always wanted a hammock.

Posted by Jenn at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check me out, I totally finished my socks. Both of them, even. In fact, I'm wearing them right now. Every once in a while I stop and hike up my pant legs so I can admire them. You know who's really impressed with my socks? Dave. When I cast on for the first sock, he asked what I was knitting. When I told him, he waxed poetic about how nice it is that I know how to knit something so basic and utilitarian as a sock because how many people know how to do that (The answer is, of course, lots and lots.) and how he's comforted by the knowledge that should all of the knitting machines in the world suddenly stop working tomorrow, his wife will at least be able to keep his sock drawer filled with lots of handknit socks. Henry and I met him after work today and I happened to mention that I was wearing my hot-off-the-needles, brand-spanking-new socks at that very moment and he stopped in his tracks and said "Get out. Nuh-uh." He seemed even more amazed that not only can I knit socks, but I can knit socks that a person can wear! In shoes! And that I was wearing them right then! I might have to knit him a pair...

Anyway, on with the picture:

I used Kid Hollow Farm yarn in color "New Mexico". I used the basic sock pattern I got at my sock knitting class, but instead of working a 2X2 rib followed by straight stockinette stitch for the leg of the sock, I decided to purl for an inch and a half (or so), then switch to stockinette stitch in order to get the folded cuff. They worked up really fast, which made me really happy, because sometimes facing the prospect of a second anything (sock, sleeve, front panel) is a little demoralizing. Actually, the yarn was so pretty, I didn't mind sitting down with it for an hour every night.

Posted by Jenn at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got three hours of sleep last night for no reason other than I just couldn't fall asleep. Dave called right after I put Henry down for his nap (How did he know?) to tell me to not go check my email because then I'd spend all of Henry's nap online which means I'd be cranky by the time he got home (Again, how did he know?). However, I feel a little guilty about not having posted anything at all for a few days, and I'm dying to show off the sweater I finished for Henry. I'm thinking a short and sweet post with lots of pictures of my cute kid wearing a handknitted garment never hurt anybody. I'd like to point out again that I'm really tired so if what I'm writing (or have written thus far) tends to skirt the edges of making sense, go easy on me.

First a picture of the front:

Next, a picture of the back:

Finally, a picture with the hood up:

That last picture is a little too cute isn't it? Henry looks a little too happy. Don't be fooled; he's not happy about the knitted sweater, he's happy because I just told him we're going to be going to the park as soon as I'm done taking his picture.

I'm really happy with how the sweater came out. There was a lot of seaming which was a pain but I spread it out over Wednesday and Thursday so I wouldn't rush through it just to get it over with. If I make the sweater again, I'm definitely going to be picking up the stitches for the hood from the edge of the back piece instead of casting on a bunch of new stitches.

I've already started the socks. I couldn't find a pattern I liked so I decided to try making a cuffed sock. I cast on the appropriate number of stitches from my basic sock pattern and instead of working a 2X2 rib, I purled for an inch and a half, then switched to the knit stitch so that the top folds over to form a cuff. So far I think it looks pretty good. The yarn is knitting up beautifully; I love all of the colors. Pictures next time.

Posted by Jenn at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Friday night knitting group I've been going to has been great not only for all the girl-time but also for all the knitting I'm getting done. Henry's sweater is coming together so quickly, I've already started to think about what's next on the agenda, but more about that later.

Last week I took a picture of the sleeves after I had knitted up about seven inches, but before I got my act together to actually post an update featuring the aforementioned sleeves I had finished them and moved onto some shoulder seaming and hood-knitting. I'll still show you the picture of the pre-finished sleeves because I know you're dying to see what they looked like once upon a time:

Meanwhile, I'd like to get a little something off of my chest in regards to how the hood is dealt with in this particular pattern. It has you leave ten stitches on either side of the front of the sweater on stitch holders. To work the hood you knit the ten stitches on one side, cast on a bunch of stitches, then knit the ten stitches on the other side, then work X amount of inches worth of a 2X2 rib. After completing the first few rows of the pattern, I looked at the huge gaping hole that was created by casting on all of the stitches between the two sets of ten, thought it was weird that Debbie Bliss didn't have you just pick up the those stitches along the back, then carried on knitting the 2X2 rib. About four inches into it I looked at the pattern and saw that later on I'd be seaming the cast-on stitches to the top of the back. It just seems like picking up the stitches would have been a little more elegant. I briefly contemplated ripping out what I'd knitted, but I decided I'd rather do a little extra seaming than have to reknit all of that ribbing.

I'm now working on the trim around the hood. Here's an action shot of me picking up stitches:

Exciting! Soon I'll be sitting at the dining room table with a needle and yarn cursing like a sailor over all the seams to sew and ends to weave in. I can't wait!

Moving on to discussion of the possible next project. One of Henry's current favorite books is "Fox in Sox". Every time I get to the "Who sews Sue's socks?/ Sue sews Sue's socks." bit I get a hankering to knit me some socks. I've got the yarn for it, now all I need is a pattern. I can't decide if I'll stick with the basic sock pattern I always use or try something a little more fancy. One reason I can't decide is because the colors in the yarn are so bright, they might not need the extra oomph a patterned sock would give them. Also, I really haven't found a sock pattern that's really bowled me over. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm making great progress on Henry's cable and rib sweater. The back is complete and I'm almost done with the front. I thought by the time I had finished knitting the 16.5" worth of the cable pattern that makes up the back I'd be ready to take a nice long break from this project, but instead I immediately cast on for the front. I'd show you pictures but I can't seem to locate the camera.

There were a couple of hours worth of knitting excitment that took place Monday night that was pure Jenn. For the size I'm making, I cast on 98 stitches, then knit up to a certain length on the front, after which I knit 38 stitches following the pattern, turned, and then worked those 38 stitches until the length matched that of the back. Then I had to go back to the row I first took the 38 stitches from, bind off 24, then work the other side of the front the same as the first side. No problem. Except when I counted how many stitches I was going to have left after casting off the center 24 stitches, I came up with 36. I thought that was pretty weird, because then the two sides wouldn't match. I decided that there was probably a mistake and that I'm only supposed to cast off 22 stitches at the center front, except I can't just go ahead and make that kind of earth-shattering decision on my own without checking online to make sure that yes there was a mistake in the pattern and that other people out there bound off only 22 stitches without having their sweaters spontaneously combust. So the next hour was spent alternately scrutinizing people's pictures of their Cable and Rib Sweaters to see if their fronts looked even and going back into the living room to curse over the pattern. To add even more fuel to my fire of unwillingness to just go ahead and cast off 22 instead of 24 stitches already was the fact that Debbie Bliss's website doesn't show any revisions for this particular pattern on her errata page. So it must be right, right? I went back and calculated how many stitches were supposed to be on both sides of the front for the other sizes and found they were all even. So finally I sucked it up and cast off 22. Then I exhaled and worked a couple of rows. Then I went to bed because, man, was that exhausting.

I like to follow the rules, especially when it comes to patterns, because although I feel like I know what I'm doing, I'm still not entirely certain that my changing one tiny little thing is going to screw up something much later in the pattern. Unfortunately, my desire for perfection is equal to my desire to not mess with the pattern, which is why Monday was a bit of a nightmare. Every time I decided to cast off 22 stitches, I was worried I was messing up the pattern. On the other hand, every time I decided to cast off 24, I was irritated that the sides were going to be two different widths. It was like a perfect storm.

Posted by Jenn at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since I managed to finish one knitted project last week, that meant I got to go ahead and start another one. I didn't have anything particular in mind so I sat down yesterday with a bunch of pattern books and started flipping through them for inspiration, and what do you know? I was inspired:

The pattern is called "Cable and Rib Sweater with Hood" from "The Baby Knits Book" by Debbie Bliss. Because I was overwhelmed with the excitement that accompanies even thinking about a new knitting project, I immediately bundled up Henry and headed to Mad About Ewes to scope out some yarn. The pattern calls for a cotton yarn, and lots of it. Libby had some cottons, but none of the colors really screamed "Henry" to me. She suggested I look at a new brand of washable merino that she's carrying. It was like fate because not only did I find the perfect color, but the guage matches the pattern perfectly so it should be totally straightforward. The yarn is called Summit Hill and it's put out by Kraemer Yarns. The color is officially called "Jade" which makes me think of greenish blue, but it's more like a bright heathery blue. Yesterday during Henry's nap I swatched and then cast on. Then after he woke up, I snuck in a few rows here and there until he went to bed, after which I plopped on the couch and really reveled in all the cable-y glory. As of right now, here's where I'm at:

and here's a closeup of the cable pattern:

This is what I'll be working on at tonight's knitting group. I think I'll get more props with this project than I did with the toilet paper cover. The conversation last week went something like this:

Knitting Group Lady 1: Oohhhh, what are you making?
KGL2: A sweater for so-and-so!
Entire knitting group: Oohhhh! That's going to be soooo pretty!
KGL3: What are you knitting?
KGL4: A curtain!
EKG: Oooohhhhh! That's so clever! Can I see the pattern? What yarn are you using?
KGL3: Jenn, what are you making?
me: A sushi toilet paper cover!
EKG: *crickets chirping*...ummm....neat....

Later I felt compelled to bring out Salina just to save face because yes, I am that weak. And sensitive.

Posted by Jenn at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My local yarn shop is starting up a Friday Night Knitting night and tonight is the first one. I'm very excited. It's going to be great to get out of the house, and it's going to be extra-great to have an opportunity to sit down and really get some knitting done. All of my projects have fallen by the wayside since early last Fall. I can't decide what to bring, the sushi toilet roll cover or Salina. It would be nice to get the sushi cover done because what knitter doesn't get a rush of satisfaction over finishing a project. Plus, it doesn't require lots of my attention so I can focus on chatting. On the other hand, I've been working on Salina forever and it would be nice to get back into it. I think I'm at the point of starting the second lapel, which would require staring at my notes and the pattern to figure out what I have to do, which leads to having to keep track of where I am as I'm going. Not the hardest thing in the world, but it would probably detract from the chatting aspect of the evening. Probably I'll throw both in my extra-large knitting bag and decide when I get there.

I asked Libby if I could bring anything for snacks. She said she was trying to go as healthy as possible. I'm not kidding when I say that threw me for a total loop. It took me five days to come up with something remotely healthy (hummus and pita chips). I'm a cookies and cakes kind of girl.

Posted by Jenn at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a glimpse of how my week is organized:

Sunday: laundry
Monday: pay the bills
Tuesday: grocery shopping
Wednesday: wash the bed sheets/blankets
Thursday: nothing in particular
Friday: clean the house
Saturday: actually get to spend some time with my husband who kills himself with work during the week. Because he has to. Remember how back in high school and college you thought teachers and professors were kicking back and enjoying life once four o'clock rolled around? So not true. Dave gets up at 7, works for an hour, takes care of the dog, gets to work by 9, stays until 5:30, plays with Henry until it's his bedtime, then works from 9 until 11 or 12. Then he starts all over again the next day. It's insane. Sometimes I feel like I don't see him at all during the week, which isn't true, but really that's what it feels like, so I *love* Friday nights and Saturdays because those are the times he's usually 100% free. My man works hard.

Anyway, most of the stuff listed up above takes place during Henry's naps. As you can tell, I've built in some free days so that I can relax during his nap.

Things I like to do during Henry's nap to relax: nap, have lunch, write something profound to post on this blog, read, knit.

Things I actually do during Henry's nap: surf the internet, suddenly realize I've just wasted 2 hours surfing the internet and that I only have one hour of Henry's nap left, write a completely mundane post, throw down some lunch, lay on the couch with my eyes closed while willing myself to squeeze all of the quality sleep of a two-hour nap into fifteen minutes, fail miserably. It's all very disatisfying.

Today I decided it would be different. I've been wanting to make this sushi toilet paper cover for about three years now. The only problem is the top is crochet, and I don't really know how to do that. So, as soon as Henry went down for a nap, I perused some internet tutorials and worked the directions out as best as I could. Here's what I've got so far:

Not bad, right? The joins are pretty awkward, but frankly I'm impressed it even looks like a circle. Now that I'm a little more comfortable with the technique, I think I'll start over again and see if I can't get it to look a little better. It'll be nice to get to the knitted part because that I can do.

Now I'm off to have a little lunch.

Posted by Jenn at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night Dave and I were up until midnight watching the sheep-to-shawl contest at this year's Pennsylvania Farm Show. Our friend Libby, of Mad About Ewes fame, has been competeing as a member of the "Carl and the Not-So-Lazy Kates" team for the past four or five years.

To give a brief synopsis of the sheep-to-shawl, each team brings a sheep which is shorn at the start of the contest, and then the wool is carded, handspun, and woven into a shawl. It's amazing that you can start off with a fluffy sheep and then two and a half hours later have an actual wearable item coming off of the loom. Makes you feel all warm and gooey inside, especially if you happen to be watching it while snacking on Lunchables in a polyester leisure suit.

What made this year so interesting is that all of the shawls were really attractive. Usually there are a few where you wonder what the teams were thinking when they designed it, and two or three who are clearly up for the top spots. Dave and I waited with baited breath while they announced the winners, thinking that whoever won this year should really be proud because there really was no clear indication of who would win. Wouldn't you know, it was "Carl and the Not-So-Lazy Kates"? There was much whooping in our house, equal to the whooping that occurred when the Pats won the Superbowl the first of the last three times they've won. Their shawl was my favorite (and not just because I happen to know a few people on the team). Their theme was a picture Libby took of the Chillisquaque (brook? creek?) last Spring right after a snowstorm. There were different shades of grays and purples. If the shawl spends any time at her shop before being washed, I'll see if I can get a picture of it.

Dave and I agreed that we probably can't ever go to see the contest in person because there's no doubt we'd end up leaving with a very expensive shawl in our possession. True, true.

Posted by Jenn at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of years ago I was in a yarn shop poking around and I found this really soft yarn in pastel colors. Dave and I had just decided to start trying to get pregnant, and so with visions of cuddly baby blankets and hats floating around in my head, I picked out three skeins and headed to the register. When I imagined my pregnant self, it involved me sitting on the couch, huge, with a box of Dare chocolate cookies on one side of me and a baby-related knitting project on the other. As soon as the second pink line showed up on the pregnancy test, I had an over-whelming desire for salad (the cookies came later) and absolutely no desire to knit. I knit one little sweater and that was it. Those three skeins have been knocking around in my stash while Henry has quickly outgrown the pastel baby stage and leaped into the primary colors of toddler-hood.

While perusing various knitting sites I came across this caterpillar pattern. I thought it was very cute and wanted to make it but didn't know what yarn to use. I went digging around and came up with the three skeins purchased oh-so-long ago. The yarn is Patons Pixie which I'd like to go on the record as stating is the worst yarn to knit with. It actually squeaked on the needles as I was knitting. On the plus side, it's fuzzy enough to hide any mistakes or weird seaming issues you may encounter. Of course, it may also be the reason why you made mistakes and had problems seaming in the first place. I used two strands held together, one pale blue and the other pale green. My guage was off but since it's a simple pattern I decided I didn't care, Henry would just have a large caterpillar. It worked up very quickly. I managed to screw up the increases on a few of the bumps which meant I had to go back and close up some resulting holes, but that was easy enough. I used a black boucle yarn for the eyes and mouth. I initially tried embroidery thread but it disappeared into the Pixie so I needed something with more heft. Aren't you dying to see a picture of the finished product? Promise me you won't laugh:

To give you a better idea of the size, here's one of Henry playing with it. He likes it!

Posted by Jenn at 06:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last month I knitted a pair of fingerless gloves for my dad, but because of all of our various camera troubles, I wasn't able to take a picture of the completed pair until this evening. I used the Knucks pattern from knitty's summer issue, without any embroidered embellishment (although I was briefly tempted to put on "shiznit!").

I don't think I can adequately express exactly how much I loved knitting these gloves. It was such an interesting pattern. You knit all of the fingers and the two thumbs separately and then join them together to knit in the round, so essentially the pattern works from the top down. Often when using double-pointed needles I would pull out four of them and look at the lone fifth one, stuck in the package, never to see the light of day other than to wish its friends luck. I even started wondering why they sold them in fives. Then came the Knucks pattern. There's not much wiggle room after you join the fingers, so out came the fifth needle, practically squeeing with glee over finally being made use of. Here's four of them in action:

It took a few minutes to get comfortable with all of those sharp sticks pointing in every direction, but eventually I did. Here's a shot of the gloves right before the thumb got in on the action:

I used my beloved Rowan Felted Tweed in Cocoa (it's a great color, cocoa brown with flecks of blue) and knit the largest size. Working a few hours every night, it took about a week to make them. Also, because my dad's not a frilly guy, I chose to do the ribbed cuff instead of the textured version. Here's the finished product:

Bonus: Look below if you'd like to get a better idea of what half of my genetic code is like...

Posted by Jenn at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First of all, I'd like to send a happy birthday shout-out to my girl Megan. I'd tell you how old she's turning but, hello!, that goes against the code! Happy Birthday!

In knitting news, I've been working on Salina (from the Rowan Vintage Style book) this past week. When last we left her, I was facing endless rows of stockinette stitch, with only an increase here and a decrease there to make it interesting. Thus, there was not much going on in the way of progress. Fortunately, Dave wanted to make a trip to Lewisburg to scope out all things magnet-y, so what better way to spend the bulk of an eight-hour road trip that you've made four thousand times before and can pretty much navigate in your sleep? If you answered knitting rows and rows of stockinette stitch, give yourself a pat on the back. I wrote on a Post-It which rows had increases and which had decreases, stuck it to the windshield, then settled in for the long haul. I worked my way up to the start of the armhole shaping somewhere in New York. The armhole shaping happens to coincide with dividing the front for the lapels. Unfortunately my stitch holder was in the trunk so I wasn't able to go any further. Also, the pattern has you cast on five extra stitches at the end of a row and I hadn't ever done that. Technically I still haven't because when I asked my mom about it, she said "I know how to do that" and then did it for me. After that bit of excitement, I was back to rows of stockinette stitch.

Two nights ago I reached the point where I could start shaping the lapel, so yesterday evening I put in "Liza with a Z", cut myself a piece of apple pie, then sat down and got to work. Not only did I knit my way up to the point where I can start shaping the shoulder, but I'm so going dressed as Liza for Halloween next year, more specifically this outfit. She's so cute! Also, the shiny red mini dress with the red tights was pretty good too.

So, how about some pictures?

Closeup of the moss stitch lapel:

I love knitting with Rowan Felted Tweed. It looks gorgeous when it's knitted up. You should run out right now and buy some. I envision a world in which every knitter's stash has some Felted Tweed in it. Together, we can make it happen.

Posted by Jenn at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two weekends ago while out for a walk, I happened to notice a pumpkin hat with matching mittens in the window of one of the local yarn shops. Since the weather has been steadily getting colder, I had been thinking about buying Henry some mittens, but after ogling the shop window for a while I was instead inspired to try and use the Fiber Trends pumpkin hat pattern to knit some up. The first attempt came out really sloppy. The comibination of working out a pattern as I went along and the fact that I was doing it at eleven o'clock at night (really tired) conspired against me in that I had to rip out and reknit some parts a number of times which really took a toll on the yarn. The lesson there is no matter how inspired I'm feeling, I really need to just go to bed already, especially when working on dpn's. It wasn't an entirely unsuccessful venture though. I did figure out how I wanted to work everything, so this past Saturday and Sunday while Henry was napping or in bed for the night, I broke out the needles and yarn and went to town. The result:

I used the same yarn I did for the hat (Debbie Bliss Merino DK for the orange and Plymouth Encore DK for the dark green border) which meant my guage was the same as for the hat. I'm thinking of writing out the pattern I used and posting it here. You'd have to buy the pumpkin hat pattern (This is where I got mine) because I used it for the cuff border and don't want to steal someone else's work.

What's that? You'd like one more picture. I guess I could post another one. This is the "I don't need pants because I have a toasty hat and mittens" shot.

Posted by Jenn at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I told you Henry and I were going to be in a commercial for Mad About Ewes? It's all done and it's been posted on Libby's website (scroll down to bottom of page), so go check it out! It's really good and really funny...

Posted by Jenn at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Five or six years ago I bought the perfect sweater. Hit me in all the right places, great color, etc. etc. I should have bought one in every color, but I didn't. Three years ago it started to unravel and I couldn't wear it anymore. I also couldn't bear to throw it out, so I shoved it in the bottom of my closet next to my bright orange sneakers and ten-hole Docs, all of which I pull out every once in a while and wistfully sigh over.

The October after we moved to Lewisburg we came up to Boston to do the whole Fall/pumpkin/caramel apple thing, and while we were staying with my parents, I asked my mom to show me how to knit. One successfully knitted scarf later, I pulled out my sweater and started to think about how to knit up a replica. Dream big, I always say.

This past Spring I took a knitter's math class at Mad About Ewe's. It was all about how to take your own measurements to create a custom sweater. It was interesting and it was fun, but it was also math, which means everything I learned leaked out my ears within fifteen minutes of having figured it out. Math is like that for me. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that one of my mom's biggest frustrations was helping me with math. Her way of learning is to understand why you get the answer you do, whereas my way has more to do with knowing how, and not caring so much about why. I think she forgave me the day I gave her a grandkid.

The other night I was looking for something to do, so I pulled out some yarn, knitted up a swatch, pulled out my worksheets from the Knitter's Math class, and went to work getting a pattern together.

I'm trying for something similar to "The Sweater", but since the yarn is thicker and softer, it won't be an exact copy. It will be a good practice run though. I'm having some guage issues, in that I'm getting the same guage with two different needle sizes (I don't know why this keeps happening to me, but it's really annoying). The guage weirdness means I'm not entirely sure how it's all going to come out width-wise.

So far I've frogged and started over three times:

1. I started out on size 7's but decided a few inches in to switch to size 8 circulars because of aforementioned guage discrepencies.
2. Discovered I'd twisted the stitches when I joined the round.
3. So far so good.

The yarn's not looking bedraggled at all. Really. I knit up another sweater a couple of years ago using the same yarn, but I was so annoyed with how it came out I stuffed it all in a bag and threw it back into my stash. In this picture you can see I'm knitting the body straight from the sleeve of the other sweater.

I repeat: the yarns not looking bedraggled at all. Really.

Finally, here's a closeup of the yarn. It's a light sage color with shiny bits running through. It's Schoeller Stahl Sunshine.

Posted by Jenn at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In preparation for the upcoming fall season, I went ahead and did what millions of other knitters have done for (to?) their kids: knit Henry a pumpkin hat. I used Debbie Bliss Merino DK for the orange and Plymouth Encore DK for the dark green border. The woman at the yarn shop suggested I make the medium size because the guage on the pattern was 5 sts/inch, whereas the yarn I purchased was 5.5 sts/inch. After I swatched, it turned out that I met the guage of the pattern without having to adjust the needle size so I was able to knit the small size after all without having to make any changes. It was a lot of fun to knit and worked up really quickly. The only problem I ran into was when I had to pick up stitches from the green border with the orange yarn. I way overthought what I was supposed to do and thus did the wrong thing. Easy problem to fix after the obligatory five minutes of head-smacking and "duh"-ing.

You know how every time you pick up a book of children's knits the models always have a blissed out "I can't believe I'm wearing this gorgeous knitted garment" look on their face, even when the kids are only a few months old? Well, there has to be some balance in the universe, so I give you this:

Posted by Jenn at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I can't seem to post anything these days without including lots of pictures. Why stop now? This weekend I wove in all the ends on my Mom's Victorian Lace Shawl. Megan and Adrian moved into a huge new house a few weeks ago and they have a carpeted third floor room which they kindly allowed me to take over for a day so I could block it. I was thinking of using Henry's room but we're in and out of it too much, not to mention the fact that the shawl itself is rather large and we would have had to actually move a few items out to make room for it. Saturday morning I headed over to their house, loaded down with six towels, a damp shawl, and lots and lots of T pins. The result?

It didn't take long for it dry because it was a toasty day, so at 7PM I wandered back over and unpinned it. Here's a shot of Megan modeling it.

Notice how it looks like Henry is growing out of her head? She can thank Dave for that. Anyway, I'm very happy with the way it came out. I think my Mom chose a great color. It shows off the lace pattern and it will go with everything.

Posted by Jenn at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This morning I learned how to dye yarn with food coloring. Libby at Mad About Ewes is thinking of offering it as a class next Fall and wanted to run a test class to see how it would work. So four guinea pigs descended on her shop at 11AM and got their dye on. It was a lot of fun. The only hard part about it was being faced with having to do something with the blank canvas of yarn. I could never be an artist because the blank canvas thing always stresses me out. We had blue, yellow, and red dyes with which to work our magic. With the first skein I went really heavy with the dyes. I used lots of red and blue with a bit of yellow here and there. Yellow isn't my favorite color, but it is the key ingredient to making orange and green, so I really saturated the yarn until I got those two colors, forgetting that the last thing you do before steaming the yarn is cover it in saran wrap, roll it up, and mush the colors together. By the time I finished rolling my yarn, tons of dye had been pushed to the end which meant everything at that end looked brown. I was a little bummed. Libby suggested using less dye on the second skein which I did, but I think I undercompensated because it came out very pastel. I might overdye it sometime. Or I might decide I love it and keep it. The first skein came out much better than I thought. The part that I thought would be brown is more of a brownish red. Very Fall-like colors. Anyway, if you live around here and she offers the class, definitely take it. I ended up leaving with eight skeins of undyed yarn so I can give it another go at home.

Posted by Jenn at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been meaning all week to post some pictures of my latest knitting project, Debbie Bliss's Shawl Collared Jacket from her Baby Knits for Beginners book. For whatever reason, I was on a major humbug to finish it, possibly so that Henry could wear it a bit this Spring before the really hot weather officially sets in. The thing about knitting stuff for kids is it goes really fast. Instead of "continue working in stockinette stitch until you have 24 inches", it's "continue working until you have 9 inches". Guess which one I'd rather have to do? Anyway, every night I took pictures, thinking I'd post them the next day, but instead of using Henry's nap time to write a new entry, I would knit instead. Suddenly all the pieces were done and I was facing seaming everything together. So I went ahead and did that and now Henry has a brand spanking new sweater that turned out huge and which he won't be able to wear until he gets at least four or five more months of growing done. Oh well. It'll be great for the Fall. Here are some of the pictures I took along the way:

Finished back piece.

Two front pieces of the cardigan. You can't see it really in the picture, but I don't love how the slip, slip knit's came out. They look clumsier than the knit two together's. I don't think I'll ssk for that kind of decrease anymore.

The finished product. Dave picked out the buttons.

Closeup of the collar.

Posted by Jenn at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A couple of months ago my mom and I were perusing various free knitting patterns from knitty.com and elann.com when we came across the Victorian Lace Shawl. My mom indicated that it sure would be a nice thing to have in her wardrobe, so I offered to knit one for her. After knitting the Charlotte's Web shawl (pictured below), a shawl that required every synapse in my brain to be firing at all times while I was working on it, I figured every other knitting project I could possibly work on from then until the day I die would be easy by comparison.

Charlotte's Web

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Charlotte's Web, because if I hadn't then I wouldn't have offered to knit another shawl. Anyway, what I'm getting at is this shawl was a lot of fun to knit, and was pretty easy to keep track of while working on, which means only half my synapses were firing at a given time, which left the other half of my brain to think about other stuff, like does my lip gloss really taste like strawberry. I've worked on the shawl fairly steadily for the past three months. I had a few mishaps along the way, but generally everything went smoothly. Two things I learned from Charlotte's Web that helped tremendously with this shawl were: 1. embrace stitch markers, they really are your best friends; and 2. after a few pattern repeats I would run some thread through the stitches on my needle so that if I screwed up after that point, I wouldn't have to unravel the entire shawl.

Note the pretty pink threads running through the shawl.

Last night when I reached the point of being able to bind off, I debated whether I should go to bed or get the shawl off the needles. I decided to bind off. It took me an hour. I sat through an entire episode of CSI: Miami, something I've never done before. The pattern has you use a funky bind off that's supposed to help accent the scalloped edging created by the final lace pattern. Here's a picture of where things stood at 11 o'clock last night:

Note all the ends I have to weave in. The pattern uses three different lace repeats, starting with English Mesh Lace at the neck, Horshoe Lace, and ending with Mini Vine Lace, which makes up the majority of the shawl. The pictures don't do justice to the color of the yarn which is an indigo blue. The yarn itself is Peruvian Collection Uros Aran. Now the big quandry is where to block it out because once it's stretched out, it's going to be huge.

Posted by Jenn at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The current bane of my existence is the left Hurry Up Spring Armwarmer. In total, I have knit four of these armwarmers. I knit one but didn't like the colorway, so I scrapped it. I knit a full pair for my mom in a green and blue colorway (her two favorite colors) in Noro Silk Garden. I picked up a couple of skeins of Kureyon so I could knit myself a pair. When I made my mom's, I didn't realize that you're supposed to flip the chart so that the two are mirror images of each other, so I decided to make that adjustment on mine. Big mistake (by the way, I just spelled "mistake" as "misteak". Hee!). If I had done any snooping around online, I would have come across the many people who decided to just knit the chart the same as the right hand. I had to rip everything out after knitting up 15 rows because it wasn't coming out right. I figured out what the problem was, started knitting again, and it was coming out beautifully. I picked it up last night, and finished the whole thing while we watched "Signs" on TV. Only one problem occurred during all of that, and that was that the adjustment to the pattern for the left-hand thumb gusset turned out to be something I didn't like (it offsets the ribbing pattern by one stitch) so I dropped and reversed the stitches to fix it. I wove in the ends, closed up the thumb gusset hole, and slipped that baby on my arm. Something wasn't right. I'd started messing up the chart pattern again towards the end of the armwarmer. I decided that it wasn't a big deal, it looked good anyway, then went up to bed. And tossed. And turned. And freaked out about mean aliens. I should never watch scary movies regardless of how funny/serious they are, and no matter how totally cute Jaoquin Phoenix is. Especially if they have aliens in them. Henry cried around 1:30 and I nearly jumped out of my skin it startled me so much. Finally around 2 or 2:30 I was able to get to sleep. This morning I woke up knowing that I would have to rip everything out to where my mistakes (again, "misteak") started so that's what I did. I figured out (again) what I did wrong (again) and fixed it. I was feeling very pleased with myself whilst admiring my work and realized that actually, I started screwing it up just below the thumb. Once again I figured it looked all right and who would notice, but as I was thinking it I took the needles out and started ripping. Also, I hate unweaving ends. So, now I've knitted back up to where the thumb begins, which is exactly where I started out last night. This time I'm triple-checking every row, and I'm definitely not going to watch any scary movies.

Posted by Jenn at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

In December I decided that since I had eight projects in the works, I wasn't going to allow myself to start anything new until I had scratched some of them off the list. Some got checked off quickly, but others I expended quite a bit of time and energy procrastinating over. One of those projects was the pair of socks I finished knitting on the car ride home. I would share a picture of them with you now, but they're upstairs where Henry is napping and if I went up and got them the creaking of the floorboards would probably wake him up and then I'd spend the next three hours bouncing him on my knee, talking to him through his gorilla, and generally trying to make his life absolutely fantastic and fun until either I collapsed or he fell asleep and I don't want to go there just yet. What I do have a picture of is another project I started off with gusto then put aside for a year. This was one of the few projects Dave would periodically ask about the status of because he was so curious about the end result. Last night, he finally got to see it in all its finished, felted glory:

I wish I had taken a "before" shot so you could see how large it was before felting. It was huge. Perhaps needless to say, I really dig it. I'm thinking about what kind of eyes to add. I could needle felt some black wool on. or I could sew some buttons on. Maybe I could glue googly eyes on. Blue ones. Or orange ones. That would be cool. Anyway, Dave was suitably impressed, then asked the million dollar question, "What are we going to do with it?" I told him that it's going on the fireplace mantle. Duh.

Posted by Jenn at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This past Christmas we (along with a lot of other family) descended upon
Dave's parents for about a week. His parent's were amazing hosts, but one
member of the family was slightly put out by the proliferation of people she
did not know, particularly those of the canine disposition, of which there
were two. This would be Sofie, the cat. She stayed outside a lot, then spent
a lot of time hiding amongst boxes in the basement, and every once in a while
would manage to seek out the comfort of the lap of either of Dave's parents
when the coast was clear. To make up for her feeling put out, I decided to
knit her a cat bed, and since the party for whom it was meant has received
it, I thought I'd post a picture of the end result:

I'm pretty proud of it. I wish I could make a giant one for myself.

In other news, Dave and I are having a hard time deciding what to have for
dinner so we just polished off a tin of honey roasted Planters peanuts. Just
the thought of it now makes me feel slightly sick. I definitely don't recommend
anyone do that.

Posted by Jenn at 10:11 AM | Permalink

I ordered some cotton yarn last week online at elann.com. It came
in Friday and I promptly dropped the insanely difficult blue sweater in order
to make the much less difficult tank top I had in mind. I finished the back
and have started in on the front:

Posted by Jenn at 10:09 AM | Permalink

So I went out last Friday night and picked out some yarn to
make a lovely summer tank top with because, frankly, the melting and refreezing
of snow that's been going on lately has really bummed me out. I picked out
a gorgeous blue color and a pattern. I was on the phone with my mom telling
her about it when I realized I had picked out a wool/mohair blend. Not so
much great for the summer time. Cotton would be ideal. So I decided I would
make a winter/spring sweater out of the yarn. I picked out another pattern.
I started it and ripped it out six times. I've just tonight finished the back
which is a miracle in and of itself, but then I noticed two or three huge
glaring mistakes. I can't decide if I should rip it out or decide that since
it's on the back and I won't see it, then they don't exist. I will knit up
the front and then most likely decide to frog the back, hopefully only halfway
down, but, since I find the pattern so complicated, I'm going to have to resign
myself to the fact that I'll be ripping the whole thing apart.

We had a good time at the Lewisburg Ice and Chocolate Festivals
this past weekend. I've gone back on Atkins so the chocolate festival was
a great treat, particularly since I'd become obsessed with cake since watching
"The Mayor of Casterbridge" (is that how you spell Casterbridge? I have a
sneaking suspicion it's not), don't ask me why. Anyway, I ate lots of cake
tops and left lots of cake bottoms for the trash collectors. Is that bad of
me? There's nothing like: a) frosting and 2) frosting with colored sugar on
top. That gets me every time. I'm thinking of entering the amateur competition
next year with a friend of mine, particularly after the person who was announcing
the winners gleefully declared that she herself had won second place and that
she had only learned to bake the week before. She was very cute, but more
than that, she gave us hope that we might have a pretty good chance of winning
something. So other than the festival action, Dave has been working unbelievably
hard and I've been feeling guilty about living the good life while Dave works
unbelievably hard. Congratulations, you're all caught up!

Posted by Jenn at 10:06 AM | Permalink