Not exactly a mystery

I really love mystery knit-a-longs. For the uninitiated, a mystery knit-a-long is when a designer releases a pattern is stages (called "clues") and you don't get any pictures of the pattern in advance so you don't know what it looks like until you finish knitting all the clues. Usually you know the general type of item you are making--socks, shawl, hat, etc.--but nothing more.

I totally understand how many people HATE mystery patterns. Knitting takes time. Lots and lots (and lots) of time. Why would you devote a large portion of your free crafty time making something that might be completely not to your liking. I get that. I have nothing against people who refuse to participate in mystery patterns. I love them. I think it's because I am not necessarily after a finished item. I like to knit for the process of knitting. Getting a finished project at the end is almost like a bonus--I get the magic of knitting and happen to also end up with a hat. I don't have a strong emotional attachment to the object when I'm done with the knitting. I've given lots of things away that I wanted to knit, but knew I'd never wear. When I can't find a good home for something that I know I'm not going to wear, it goes to the Good Will. All of this is really just to say that I love mystery knits and don't mind if when I'm done it's not something I love.

Of course, if I do end up with something I love, all the better. The 2012 mystery hat pattern by Wolly Wormhead was amazingly fun to knit and also turned out to be a hat I love to wear.

Usually mystery patterns don't have a name until after the full pattern is released. This pattern got the name Encircle after they mystery ended. Sadly, I didn't knit this as a mystery. I bought the pattern, but I had just gotten my law license and was frantic with job searching, working as a contract drafter of legal documents, and had a full teaching schedule at the yarn shop I was working at. I watched the clues come and go without casting on. It was fun to watch the ladies in my knitting group progress through the mystery. I wish I had gotten the fun of wondering "what next." So it goes.

The first clue was the brim, which is actually a tube that you knit in the round and sew together when it is long enough to go around your head. Because you knit it as a tube, when then ends of the tube are sewn together it makes a double thick layer of fabric--perfect for keeping ears extra warm. I've also found that I love the smoothness of the stockinette brim as opposed to a traditional ribbed brim. 

The rest of the hat is a background of purls dotted with fun little cabled circles. The band fits nice and snug, but the body of the hat has a nice slouch to it. The decreases at the top happen really rapidly giving the hat the nice little puff ball look. The cables are small and I had no problem working them without a cable needle so I found that the project went very quick. 

The yarn I used is Knitted Wit Sport Superwash Falkland in the colorway Bobbin's Blue. I love how bright the color is. Perfect for the grey drizzly days we get so often during the Portland winter. It's also nice and soft. I was worried that it might feel a bit scratchy as falkland is a longer fiber and longer fibers tend to be "itchier." It's not. It's perfectly comfortable on my ears and forehead. The dyer for Knitted Wit actually lives in Portland and sells at many of the local shops. Her colors over the last two season have been amazingly rich and I would say that her color saturation rivals some of the big shots like Madelinetosh and Sweet Georgia (don't worry, my devotion to MT is still strong as ever, but it's nice to have options.) 

I'm hoping that as we head into summer (summer is just starting here in Portland) I'll be able to find a mystery knit-a-long or two that I can actually commit to knitting as the clues are published. Commuting for 1.75 hours each day on the train will help considerably if I can find one that doesn't involve lots of colors or a complicated chart. Know of any that are coming up?

Shapely

I know that when I focus I can knit up a sweater in 3 to 4 weeks depending on how complicated it is. I don't know why then I always end up spending at least 6 months to make one. I'm just not good with project monogamy. I know I would have more things to wear if I could focus on one project at a time, but I am fickle. (So maybe I do know why it takes me so long to finish things...) Here is my latests 6-month sweater.

That is Shapely Boyfriend by Stefanie Japel from the 2011 Deep Fall issue of knitty.  I taught a seamless sweater class on it at For Yarns Sake last spring and worked through it in advance of the class. The class focused on the shaping of the body, so I didn't bother to finish the sleeves before the class. Once the class was over it went into hibernation--hence the 6 months to finish.

The only alteration I made to the pattern was to shorten it. As designed, it's a below-the-bum sweater but I tend not to like that look unless it's a looser coat-style. For something I'm going to wear all day as part of an outfit it prefer waist-length styles. Because I shortened the cardigan I made fewer button holes than called for. Other than that, I knit this exactly to pattern.

The yarn I used is Malabrigo Rios in the colorway Teal Feathers. I did not behave like a good knitter and alternate skeins. If I were teaching I would tell all my students that the must alternate skeins, but in my own personal knitting, I take risks. Luckily my skeins were very well matched and I didn't end up with any striping. I used just under 5 skeins, but if I had made it as long as recommended I would have needed to break into a 6th.

The yarn is super soft and I love that I can just throw it in the washing machine and dryer. The magic of superwash. I love it. The buttons were cheap ones I got a Jo-Anns, but they work really well with the sweater I think. I finished back in August, so it didn't get a lot of wear right off the needles. This past winter it saw a lot of wear though. It's experienced some mild pilling, but nothing surprising for a 100% merino yarn, and nothing my sweater stone can't easily take care of.

My current knitting continues at a snails pace, but I still have a backlog of projects from last year that I can show you. 

Dashing

This knitting year doesn't seen to be off to any better of a start than last year. It's already May and I've completed 2 projects so far this year. Granted, one was a blanket, but that is still a woefully small number of projects for me. Sometimes I'm able to knit on the trail while I commute, but often in the morning I'm too exhausted and at the end of the day the train is packed and I have to stand... lame-o!

Luckily (?) I was terrible at blogging last year (not that I've done great this year...) so I still have a back log of projects from last year that you all haven't seen yet. Almost a year ago now, I finished a pair of fingerless mitts for my best friend Bob. Because, you know, July is when you have a serious need for gloves... See.

They are Dashing by Cheryl Niamath from the Spring 2007 Knitty. I've intended to make them since the pattern was published but I never really had a push to cast it on. Until 6 years later when Bob said something like "I think those gloves that let you still use your fingers are cool" and WHAMO time for some knitting.

I made a few adjustments to the pattern. I only knit 10 rounds before the first cable and 9 rounds after the last cable to shorten them a bit. Also, I used the Jenny's Stretchy Bind Off around the fingers and thumb to make sure it would not be too tight. Other than  that I followed the pattern as written. 

I used the absolutely amazing Dream in Color Classy with Cashmere to knit these. The colorway is Grey Tabby. It is so fantastically soft. It's also spun nice and tight so I don't think it will pill much even though it's a merino-cashmere blend. In my mind that makes it a pretty heavenly yarn. 

While they didn't get much use in July, I did see them in the wild several times over the winter. I suppose I can't rule out that they were being worn for my benefit, but it seemed genuine. Every knitter knows that's a win. 

Urchin

The last of the projects that I finished early last year, before I even moved, was Urchin by Ysolda Teague. This is one of Ysolda's very early patterns from the 2007 Fall Knitty. The reason I chose to make it is the unique construction. It's knit vertically around your head and joined when you have the needed circumferences, rather than starting circularly and knitting from the brim to the top.

I HATE that the brim is folded under in all my pictures. I think it looks crazy. One of the problems with getting a non-knitter without much enthusiasm for hand-mades to take your photos... They're more concerned with snapping the shots and getting out of the cold than with making sure you have awesome photos for Ravelry. Some people's priorities are so out of whack. 

(I also wish I had been told about that one straggly strand of hair, it would have been so easy to tuck into the hat. Sigh. First world problems.) I knit the smallest size which makes a much more beanie style hat than the beret shape that the larger sizes tend to form. All in all it took two days of knitting to make this (and I probably only spent 2-3 hours each day.) Nevermind that Ravelry says it took me a week to make. That's just a product of the fact that last year was so bad for me knitting-wise. 

I used a fun yarn by Colinette called Calligraphy. The colorway is call Gaughin.  It's a loosely spun thick-thin yarn that's a bulky 100% wool. It wasn't bad to work with and the project came out nice, but I don't feel anything more than "meh" for the yarn. Cute, serviceable, but I'm not losing my mind over it. I would use it again if I found a pattern I thought it would compliment, but I'm not going out of my way to stash it (unlike Madelinetosh which I aggressively horde incase of an unexpected sheep apocalypse.)  

Honestly, I can't tell you how this has held up over the past year because... I don't know where it is! I know, I know. Losing hand knits sucks. All that work, the expense of the yarn, the memories of what was going on in my life as I was making it. It sucks. I'm a serial hand-knit loser though... mittens, hats, scarves, I just can't seem to hold on to woolies. I'm going to have to either get my sh*t together and keep track of my things, or adopt a more zen mentality about losing them. Le sigh. 

Persephone

Every knitter had those meh projects. Projects you work and work on, and when you finish you look down and just think... eh... not for me. Persephone was that way for me. I taught a class last March about cables and this was the featured project. The original is a scarf, but I got so tired of the cables after about two feet that I turned mine into a a cowl with buttons.

I should have known I was never going to be able to finish a whole scarf in this pattern. 1) I dislike knitting scarves in general because they feel like never-ending swatches. 2) I dislike scarf patters that are not reversible because I am anal and the fact that the "wrong" side shows drives me bonkers. 3) I dislike heavily cabled projects because they make my hands crampy when I knit them. 4) This pattern is not charted, it is only written, and I strongly prefer to  All of these things and problems related to my personal knitting preferences, not problems with the pattern.

 I didn't write down my modifications, but they were dead easy. Basically I stopped knitting the body after 2 feet or so and then in the final garter stitch portion I threw in a row with 3 evenly spaced button holes, then finished the garter stitch portion. Then I played around with the best placement for the buttons and decided I liked the "folded over" look. I sewed on the buttons and ta-da. 

The yarn is Madelinetosh DK (I know, you're not surprised) in Moorland. It blocks out in cables amazingly! Their plied yarns are not the softest (except for Pashmina) but they have amazing stitch definition and they are plied nice and tight so they wear forever without looking ratty the way that some yarns get after a while. Basically the yarn was fantastic, but I still feel meh about the finished project.  

Oh Hai

Ah hem hem... So hey... How's it going? Been a while... Almost a year you say? My how time flies. I feel like I should say I'm sorry, but really I'm not. The last year has brought a lot of changes to my life. I don't even think I mentioned it in my last post, but when I wrote it (February of 2013, I know...) I had just gotten my first job as an attorney 5 days before the post. I was commuting a long way to work every day and felt just exhausted by the end of the day. It's hard to even imagine, but really I stopped knitting from pretty much February through July. Dark days.

Ryan and I stopped being a couple in May, and that was sad. In July I moved closer to work. Sadly, closer to work meant further from a lot of other things, including my knitting group. While I had my suspicions early on, by July I was feeling like my job was not a great fit for me (that's the extremely reserved, internet appropriate, way to describe how I was feeling anyway...) By late October I decided a new job needed to be at the top of my priority list and by the end of November I had an offer on the table. Mid-December I started my new job (still attorney work, just a much different office atmosphere) and it's been fabulous so far.

The new job came with the caveat that I would have to take the Washington state Bar exam. Portland being so close to Washington, my new office does a lot of work in both states so I need to be dual licensed. If you're thinking now that my miraculous return to blogging may have something to do with procrastinating studying for a test that is one month away... Shut up.

Look. Knitting.

That is the extremely popular Selbu Modern hat by Kate Gagnon Osborne. It is available for free on Ravelry. I had wanted to make it for a very long time. When I started teaching a series of hat classes at my LYS focusing on different techniques, I chose this hat as the colorwork-focused class project. 

The yarn I used was Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Antique Lace and Clematis. Antique Lace has got to be one of my favorite Madelinetosh colors. It's sort of a boring neutral, but something about it is so enticing to me. Of course, I love pretty much everything Madelinetosh so maybe it's not very surprising that this was so enjoyable for me. Even being knit on tiny needles (US 0 and US 2) this was a very fast knit for me. 

Sadly, that hat was knit last January, and I'm just now getting around to showing it to you. It's kept me nice and warm for two winters now and it's the hat I grab above my others if I can find it... I am not high-functioning in the morning, so it's good I have so many hats--there's usually one that's within grabbing range as I'm leaving the house. On the other hand, it's probably good I have a few projects back-logged, since it will give me things to show you on a semi-regular basis as I get back into my knitting groove. Feels good to be back.   

Swallowtail

So the stashdown is not going exactly as planned. As of February I have increased my stash by 191,969 - 191,682 = 287 yards. Now, when you take into account that I acquired TWO sweater's worth of yarn in January, it's clear I actually moved a lot out of my stash, to only increase by 287 yards.

Also, I should point out, I didn't pay for any of the yarn. One sweater's worth was part of my birthday present from Ryan. The other was purchased by my dad because the sweater will be for him.

One of the projects that helped me move some yardage out (about 500 yards) was my Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A Clark. I loved every minute of making this.

I mentioned before, the first time I made this pattern early in my knitting career, it was a bit too hard and I found the experience unpleasant because I was making so many mistakes and having to tink back hundreds of lace stitches fairly often.  This time it was completely smooth sailing. 

Forgive my bleary face, I had just woken up.

I prefer to wear this pinned with one of my shawl pins. The one in the picture is my favorite. It's from Plover Designs, a local Portland craftswoman. I have several from her. 

The yarn I used is Malabrigo's new Rastita line. It's made the same way as their super chunky Rasta, but in a DK weight. It's a 100% merino wool single ply, but the single has been slightly felted to cut down on fuzziness and make it a bit stronger. The color I used is called Cereza. It was a complete joy to work with. 

Now I'm working on a heavily cabled cowl. It's slow going because of all the cables, and also not going to move that much yardage out of my stash, but after it's done, I'll be starting a sweater and that should clear a good 1,200 yards. On the other hand, our Madelinetosh order is due in at the shop any day...