Cloches

I don't recall much about these hats except they were so adorable and so simple. The first one was done with a kit that I bought sight unseen from Kids Knits. I think the wool for that first one was Dalel of Norway. I made about five of them over a period of one week last winter; the one I made for Pilar was beautiful alpaca silk in brown but she wouldn't let me put a flower on it. She's no fun. Pictured here, modelled by Anna and Haley, we have one in cashmere, one in wool and one of unknown fiber. See why I try to document better? Going out with little girls wearing these hats turned heads everywhere we went.

Baby CableSocks

Artyarn Merino, Baby Cable socks (Charlene Schurch)

I've been knitting like a maniac on these socks (this sock, I suppose). I'm loving it. I can't wait to finish.

My nicely composed report on progress just evaporated and I'm annoyed so for now I'll just post the progress shot and say goodnight. I'll have the heel turned in time to knit with the new group tomorrow and pick up pointers!

About six weeks ago, Anna's soccer team was practicing in a common green space in front of the coaches' house. It was a beautiful not-summer-not-fall evening so the whole family went. As I sat watching, but mostly knitting, a neighbor approached and asked about my project (it was the Koigu Ballet Cashmere that I can scarcely make myself take off) . I had been told by the coach's wife that her neighbor was an amazing knitter so I was more than pleased she stopped by.

We had a great chat and exchanged emails. She's invited me to join her group of knit friends who gather about once per week during the cold months to knit and compare projects. It sounded great but I've been very busy. A couple of days ago I replied to one of her distributions commenting on a really great felted wool bag she'd made. It led to a whole big discussion of projects and my commenting on my frustration, need to get beyond it, with socks. She's an ace-sock knitter, as well (wouldn't you know it...) and has offered to spend time with me on my problem areas.

So it is that for the time being I have cast aside (you see the pun?) my Lara in favor of getting some socks to the point where I need help. This is ArtYarns Ultramerino in a beautiful almost-watermelonish colorway. More subdued though. And those are US 4 Lantern Moon DPN's---heavenly to knit on. I'm going to use a four-stitch slip cable pattern. It should be delicate and nice.

Watermelon Sweater: Complete

Long overdue is this photograph of Anna in her Watermelon sweater:













July 5, 2006
Its hard to tell much about this project (you can get a closer look without leaving this page by right clicking on the photo and select "open link in new window") but the base fiber is a pima
cotton/wool (80/20) variegated (makes me think of watermelons--peach, green, pale yellow). The back is finished and I'm about one third finished with the front. It will be a short-sleeved, v-neck pullover for Anna Banana. I'm going to alternate the peach/green stripes with the variegated until the yoke which will be all peach. I'm not sure what I'll do with sleeves. Probably all variegated. Its based on a very basic pattern by Ann Norling that I personally find to be pretty boxy but in a fiber with good body it drapes well enough to conceal the strong shape. Haley's is finished and is gorgeous. If I can get her to put it on, I'll put up a photo. The yarn I'm using is Sierra Quattro which not only feels fabulous as you knit it but its also allegedly machine wash/dryable. Ha! And at only 9 bucks for 195 meters, I'm getting these sweaters done for under 30 bucks each.

July13, 2006
Anna's Sweater Is almost finished. I'm about to switch to peach for the neck shaping. I can't decide whether to do short- or three-quarter sleeves and what color (or combo) to use. Suggestions? The fabric of the sweater is fairly heavy so going to 3/4 sleeve would make it a late fall/most of winter garment but short sleeves would be strictly spring/fall. Decisions, decisions...



July 17, 2006
Anna's watermelon sweater is showing definite signs of near-completion: front and back both finished, the first sleeve over half done. I couldn't make up my mind about sleeve pattern so as it stands right now I'm going for the 3/4 length. I'm going to make two different ones: the one you see part of (green and peach with small tweed accents at cuff and break). The second is going to be largely the tweed with three or so stripes of peach and green at the upper arm. I'm hoping I'll like having mis-matched sleeves for this playful sweater, otherwise I'll pick which one I like best and make one more, use the other one for something for another little girl. The colors are photographing very hot, not sure why. To be sure, they're quite vivid but not quite this much. I'm *really* unhappy with the marks left in the fabric by the mid-row increases. They're a good reason to make a third sleeve since I'm not about to frog this one at this point. I guess I'll get lots of practice with the M1R technique since kfkb doesn't seem to work so well in this cotton.

July 18
Well, I cast off Anna's first sleeve. Between the mid-row increases looking crappy and it fitting more snugly than I'd like, I'm going to frog it and give it another go. Good news is that I really like the color layout.

July 22, 2006

I worked on Anna's sleeve yesterday; its about 1.5 inches from being finished; looks great. I did bar increases on the knit side and they look MUCH better and aren't any more difficult than the "easy" kind. Fab. Only bad news is that now I'm out of green yarn. I'm not sure what to do about that. I could rip out the test sleeve but that won't really give me enough now that I've increased the width of the sleeve. I'm thinking I'll do the second sleeve with peach/tweed and green stripes at cuff and break. But I'm not buying another skein of yarn for 6 inches of sleeve. If I'm a good girl today, I might get both finished and be able to make a start on my Krista tee or work on Cara's Baby Brights.

July 29, 2006 Friggin' Froggin'
Remember how I said I was nearly out of green yarn after the first sleeve? Well, turns out I had enough of it to do roughly 75% of what I wanted to do; that meant I had to rip out the test sleeve I had done previously to get about 8 inches of yarn to finish. Because I have no clue how to frog from the bottom up, I had work top down. As I didn't want to spend my time pulling out the peach yarn to get to the green, I cut across the tweed band and pulled out from there. I hate unravelling work. I just pressed through because I really do want to drop it with the finisher tomorrow. And guess what? As I was finishing up a row, I saw a twisted stitch about 6 back. So I pulled out and something funky happened and I had really screwed things up. So here are the sleeves as they look when I decided it was time to take a rest. I had to run a safety line about three rows down and do more frogging. Bleh. But I should finish this tonight with no problem.



Stitch-n-Bitch At Woolwinder's tomorrow the topic is going to be "learn to knit the other way"...eg, if you're a "wrapper" like me, you can learn the "right" way or Continental knitting which involves much more subtle movements and should speed up knitting. Not that I care to knit terribly fast but hey, if they're going to show me AND give me wine, I'm there. Anyway, you just can't say Continental to me without my envisioning this clip I was fortunate enough to find at YouTube.


Bethy and I were capable of spending days on end sitting around chatting as we knit and watched movies. I really miss those days together. It may be what I miss most, just the idle times, watching our families grow up...

Finished: 8/6/06

Anna's watermelon sleeves are finished and as soon as I block the pieces, they're off to the finisher. Isn't it cute? She'll be so squeezable in it...