I have finally finished the Suburban Wrap for my totally Knitworthy niece and popped it into the mail today. Check out this piece of wonderfulness!
I am so happy with the looks and drape of this wrap. Do you remember the Knitworthy niece? Here she is flashing the fabulous mitts that I made her last winter. Yep, that it winter in California in the background there. Green grass… how odd! We won’t even talk about that tree trunk next to her!
My niece saw the Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli on her facebook feed, shared the post with me, and the rest was history. As soon as I saw it I knew that this was a knit that was calling my name. I dug in the stash, sent her some yarn choices, and after finishing up some works in progress I cast on and got to work several weeks ago.
My niece loves color (did you notice her hair?), and as soon as I showed her this yarn combo it was the one. All of these yarns were already in the stash… win!
This project was just one chunk of fun knitting after another. So much fun, in fact, that I got into a little tendonitis trouble because I knit too long at a time as I raced along to get to the next color section. Lace. Stripes. Textured knitting. An interesting shape and rows that were a manageable stitch count. In other words, everything that a knitter’s heart could want. My project notes on Ravelry are here.
This afternoon I popped the wrap into a box and mailed it off to California where I hope it will be useful in the cool evenings to come. It made my heart happy to send it off. I can’t wait to hear that it has arrived safely.
Then I hit the yarn stash hunting for some yarn, in more sedate colors, to make one for myself.
This morning I work up on fire! I cleaned out the stash room, sorted all the knitted socks, mitts, and shawls into moth-proof bins, and organized the yarn for a few potential projects. While I was still feeling positive (and knitting powerful: call me Wool Wonder Woman!) I set aside three pairs of socks that needed mending and then headed downstairs to watch the weather forecast with the noon news while I worked.
I really am a scrap hound when it comes to the leftovers from knitting projects. Somewhere in this box is the yarn that I need to mend my socks.
Two pairs of socks had simple little holes that were fast and easy to darn. There, done! Back into the sock bin you two. The last sock, however, was a mending job of another order. This was going to take a little courage and ingenuity to get done.
Poor little heel-less sock. There is too much fabric gone for this to be the normal darning job.I started this repair job by picking up a row of stitches in the heel flap a couple of rows above the worn spot. I picked up a total of 34 stitches across the flap.I knitted eight rows of the heel flap pattern and then turned the heel just like I would have with the original sock. You can see the new turned heel at the bottom of the picture. I ended with 20 stitches on the needle when the heel turn was done. I then picked up 20 stitches on the foot of the sock at the location where the new heel matched up (upper needle).I used the tail of the yarn from the heel construction to join it to the bottom of the sock with Kitchener stitch. The join is to the right of the stitches still on the needles. The tattered remnants of the original heel is now hidden inside the sock.Here is the finished heel: the fixed sock is the one on the right; you can see the line where I picked up stitches to start the new heel. I decided to just leave the tattered remains of the old heel (with the worst of the ends trimmed off) inside the sock as it felt fine once it was on my foot.Here they are! I have a favorite pair of socks returned to service after an hour of knitting braveness.
I just love these socks, and am very happy to have them back. I think that they are about 5 years old, and with the repaired heel I hope to have a few more years of wearing them.
Sock pattern: Lotus by Andrienne Fong. The pattern is one in the book The Joy of Sox by Linda Kopp.
I am finishing up the Hitchhiker that I have been working on for the last two weeks, and then that is it. My needles will be bare. As soon as I have knitted the last three teeth on this baby it is over. To make things worse I also just finished reading a series of books, and haven’t found a new one to settle into. I am going through a serious slump. I’ve been listlessly wandering the house when I haven’t been out shoveling snow. I’m even considering vacuuming and cooking vats of comfort food. I’m making the cats nervous. I need new projects!!
Here’s my Hitchhiker back at the beginning. It’s almost done; I should finish it tonight.
Notice that I didn’t say I needed more yarn. The truth is, I always want more yarn. It’s an endless need with me. To try to nip a trip out to the yarn store in the bud I went online to check patterns on Ravelry and then started digging in the yarn stash. I think that I want to make some shawls now. Lace and beads!!
Well, here are the two big contenders on Ravelry. The first one is Edith’s Secret by Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmreich. I was aware of the Downton Abbey MKAL that was happening using Lorna’s Laces yarn (hosted by Jimmy Beans Wool). I kind of wanted to make a shawl with them, but there were 5 choices of yarn colors, and without knowing what the final product would look like I kept procrastinating and never did join in. The shawls are now done, however, and gee… they look really nice.. The different color combinations are up on Ravelry, and I have a better idea of what I like. The shawls have lace and beads… I think that I really need to make one of these.
The other shawl that I think that I’ll make is Sidere by Hilary Smith Callis. It calls for a heavy lace-weight yarn, but I’m thinking that I can get away with a light fingering and throw some beads in too. Anyway, the plan is to make an Edith’s Secret first, and then to knit a Sidere.
Into the stash! I need two contrasting colors of yarn for Edith’s Secret. One should be variegated, and the other just a monochromatic painted yarn. I have got to have some of that! I need at least 420 yards of each color, and it should be fingering.
Wow, this is cool. I love these colors. There may not be enough yardage as each of these is only about 385 yards. Several people on Ravelry said they almost ran out.These yarns have enough yardage, and people will certainly see me coming. It could be that these two will be a little more color saturation than I can pull off in a shawl. Time to go look at more neutral yarns.I love this variegated yarn. The pink is laceweight, and will need to be doubled to use. It’s do-able, but seriously, I’m a grandmother. Do I want to wear this shade of pink?This is it! This is the same variegated yarn as the picture right above, but I guess the snow and the grey tone it down in the picture. I’m going to make the lace details in the grey yarn and then use beads that accent the rose colors in the variegated yarn.
Well, that was easy. Seriously, I was loosing sleep over this yarn selection process. Today I wound all of the yarn that I thought was excessively yummy (even if I wasn’t sure what I would knit with them right now) and loaded my project bag with the cakes of yarn. I am happy! I have projects lined up again, and I am ready to cast on!
Oh, by the way, it’s almost March. Here’s a preview of the March New Year’s resolution sock.
One of the yarns that didn’t get chosen for the Edith’s Secret shawl will become the March sock!
What can I say? I had some more of the Freia yarn in a turquoise-blue-purple colorway called Blue Velvet, and a tube of beads that kind of looked like they would go with the yarn. The beads , size 6, are called Serenity Mix by Miyuki. I had to get knitting!
These beads were a mixture of greens, purple, yellow and clear in pastel colors. Pretty good fit!
The last time I knit this cowl (Zuzu’s Petals by Carina Spencer) I was reaching the end of the cowl just as I arrived at the most flashy color in the ball of yarn. To get some of that color into the cowl I knitted a picot edging to use up more yarn and to make sure that I captured the color. I weighed the leftover yarn from the first cowl and discovered that it was 7 grams. To reduce the amount of light yarn for this new cowl, and to maximize the amount of purple color at the end of my cowl project, I pulled off 5 grams of yarn from the middle of the ball before I cast on.
I decided to attach the beads to only the lace portion of the cowl, and only in the part of the pattern that was one knit stitch with a yarn over to either side of it. (YO, K1, YO). To attach the bead I slipped a bead onto this isolated knit stitch with a small crochet hook, put the stitch back onto the knitting needle and then knitted it. This placed the bead at the tip of the petals in the lace pattern.
I decided to place the beads into the lace so that they would be at the tip of the petals.
The edging of the cowl has a pattern of stacked YO,K1,YO sections. I added a new bead into each of these knit stitches.
Beads at the edge of the lace pattern. I put a bead into each YO,K1,YO part of the lace edging.
When I got to the end of the cowl I was just getting to the start of the purple yarn. Curses! I thought I was so clever to remove yarn at the start of the knitting, but it just didn’t work out for me . I had to put on another picot edging to get any of that purple onto the cowl. I weighed the leftover yarn again when I was done knitting, and there was 5 grams left over. I must have knitted tighter, or the yarn was a little thinner (this is one-ply rustic spun yarn), or… Such is life in the knitting universe. Clever tricks will just get you so far. Another lesson learned.
Here’s the finished cowl. I just barely got that purple color in, and had to bind off with the picot edging again to do it.
Now I’m wondering what it would look like if I added beads in a scattered fashion through out the stockinette portion at the beginning of the cowl? Heading to the yarn stash to see what I can find. 🙂
Yarn, Books & Roses 