Kiss My Knits!

While Turtlegirl was getting her socks off at Sock Summit 2009, I took care of her boys Calvin and Ripple. Also her fish. Which died. But the cats are thriving, so that was good enough to earn me some loot! Look what she brought me back from Sock Summit! Socks That Rock Rare Gems. Turtlegirl knows me so well. These are exactly my colors. I’m all about the cool tones.

Incidentally, Turtlegirl has a really cool sock pattern named after her cats Calvin and Ripple (Ravelry link). It’s really two patterns in one, with one sock named Calvin (wild and unpredictable) and one named Ripple (the traditional old man with traditional construction). I’ve seen them finished in person (Jane Prater did a particularly nice one), and they’re really cool, so if you’re looking for two new patterns for the price of one, I recommend it.

Thanks, Turtlegirl, I love my new yarn!

Pattern: Cedar Creek
Yarn: Creatively Dyed “Calypso” in colorway Mabolo
Needles: US size 0 (2mm) for foot and leg, US size 1 (2.25mm) for heel flap
Ravelry project page

Notes:This is one sturdy heel flap. They have you slipping stitches every row instead of every other, which is what I was used to. It’s an easy pattern to memorize but still requires some attention, making it good “on the go” knitting. If I had it to do over again I would have done a 1×1 ribbed cuff instead of the picot edge called for.

The yarn bled a little bit of blue but not much in its after-knitting soak. The skein is 500 yards and I’ve got plenty left. There’s no pooling or flashing, but the leg of one sock is noticeably darker than the other. Must have just been a darker patch which occurred during the dyeing process.

I have wide feet, but I’m usually a loose knitter so I didn’t increase from the called-for 60 to the 64 my gut said I should be using for the foot. They’re a little snugger than perhaps they should be. The pattern was clearly written and included a chart for the 12-stitch 4-row repeat. Like I say, it didn’t take long to get it down pat. I’d make these again.

The day the sock queen, Turtlegirl, links to me happens to be the day that I have actually finished my Cedar Creek socks (Ravelry project link). If they’re dry in time, Turtlegirl, I’ll bring them to knit night tonight.

(P.S. Your sock blockers rule.)

So I’m working through my stash with an eye toward making sellable things.

So the question is, what do you think of this color combination? I *think* I like it, but I also keep thinking, “it’s like if Oscar the Grouch went to Mardi Gras.”

Opinions?

Have no money. Am selling off possessions on eBay. No, really.

So why, why did I go into a yarn store? It was madness! Madness, I say!

Walked out with one skein of Colinette Tagliatelli.

Am now on severe yarn diet. Also, severe food diet if credit card gets declined. Whimper.

ETA: On the up side, I am fortunate to have kind friends like Tessima, who sent me the yarn I used to make this soft and funky firecracker scarf. Thanks, Tessima!

So I’ve got this friend, let’s call her “Tessima” to protect her anonymity, who was getting on my case about using too much chunky and bulky and other “fat” synonym yarns. I wanted to make “Tessima” something, but the thing I had wanted to make her was a scarf out of Brown Sheep Burly Spun in Strawberry. See, there’s that word “burly” so I didn’t think it was going to fly. Her loss, because man, it was lookin’ cute. So, I thought, well, I’ve got the pattern for the reverse bloom flower washcloth, and this “Tessima” tends to like bath products. Gee, I hope that didn’t out her. I happen to have two skeins of soft, fuzzy Crystal Palace cotton chenille in red and blue, so that seemed ideal. It’s soft and cushy and absorbent.

So I worked up one petal, then looked at it and thought, “hmm. This gives me an idea.” So I made up this heart washcloth. (That’s a bar of Ivory next to it for scale.)

There’s room for improvement in the pattern. It looks kinda neat and knits up quick, but I think it’d look better smaller and rounder, and without so much flaring out on the inside of the bifurcation of the heart. I also don’t want the lobes flapping around and smacking someone in the face. If I can get this perfected, this might be something I could sell fairly cheaply.

Whatcha think? Suggestions, comments?

The last hat was too big, so I’d be damned if I was going to make that same mistake again, and I hate sending things to people that aren’t quite right. The things not being quite right, not the people not being quite right. Most of my friends are “not quite right” if you know what I mean.

Bah. I make no sense. Where’s my coffee?

(slurp)

Ahhh, that’s better. So, using some more of the Noro Lily, here’s a little knot hat sized to fit newborn to about three months. The colors are more pastel than they appear in that photo. It was fortunate how the Lily made lovely swirls up the fabric. I’m very pleased.

I think this colorway of the Lily may be discontinued, so I’m considering going back to my local yarn shop to snap up another skein. This was a quick and easy knit, and I’d happily do it again for any future babies.

I finally bought the pattern to the Bottoms Up Bucket Hat from ChicKnits. I was going to make it for yet another baby. (Seriously, people. Just keep one foot on the floor. I can’t knit fast enough.) It knitted up nicely in Noro Lily, a blend of 70% cotton and 30% silk. It was fun! However, I knew it would be a little bit big. Soo… now, once again, I will probably wind up knitting another baby gift.

Aaanyway, here it is on my resident 5-year-old model. Brim down, and then with brim up. I’m thinking about making a little flower pin to go on the brim. We’ll see.

Just in time for a baby shower tomorrow night, I’ve completed booties and hat. They wanted something pink, so it’s pink with a vengeance. The hat is a combination of the “Li’l Devil Baby Hat” and the “Official Kitty62 Hat” from kittyville.com. I believe there’s an adult devil hat in “Stitch ‘N Bitch” too. In retrospect, I could have gone smaller and it would have been fine. The hat and booties together only used about 2/3 of a skein of Lamb’s Pride Worsted, and I even doubled it on the booties to make ’em nice and thick. So the whole project came in for less than 7 bucks in materials. We’ll leave aside the question of labor, of course.

It’s too small for my five-year-old, but nonetheless I made her put it on (before I attached the pom-poms) so I could see it. And now I must share with all of you.

I do like to do something new for every project, so for this one, the new thing was a provisional cast-on around a crochet chain. And pom-poms. I’d never made pom-poms. Pretty easy, since McGyverish directions are out there on the web. 🙂

I’m pleased! Now, I must wrap. And no, I won’t be hand-crafting the wrapping paper.

Yet another friend is having a baby. This friend was a bridesmaid in my wedding, so whatever I make for her, it HAS to be right. So far I started this, which, making the 12 month size, was way too big. (That’s from the Haiku pattern in Knitty, by the way, and is just too cute for words.) I’m not going to frog it, but will finish it as other projects allow. I’m already halfway around the body and it’s a perfectly good project.

Then I decided to make some felted booties, and thought that I’d do them from a nice high-end yarn. I picked Naturwolle, which is handspun by a woman in Black Forest in Germany. Nice stuff, which it ought to be for the price. We even have a brand new yarn store in town that carries it, and other super-ritzy mildly overpriced yarns, so I picked some up. Unfortunately, the store’s lighting isn’t that hot, and apparently my EYES aren’t that hot either, and I didn’t realize just how much of this wasn’t pink. Morever, I didn’t perceive the green at all until I had knit it up.

I knitted up these booties and then felted them down into these. That shiny thing is a quarter for scale. Now, these are pretty cute little moccasins, and I think every baby needs a pair of earthy little shoes to lounge around in, but whatever I make for my friend has to be pink. This was made known in no uncertain terms. Pink. These aren’t quite what they’re looking for, I feel sure.

So now I get to drop back and do something else. This time, I’m just lettin’ go of all the fanciness and making a nice hat and bootie set in “Victorian Pink” Lamb’s Pride Bulky. It’s about $6.50 a skein as opposed to $22 for the Naturwolle. I figure I can do little felted flowers on the front of the booties and it’ll be a nice touch.

The baby shower is Sunday. Wish me luck.