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A couple of days ago, I finished the hat that matches the Kitty Hawk mitts I made.
Pattern: Kitty Hawk
Yarn: Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Oak Timberworm and Oleander Hawk Moth.
Needles: US 2 and US 4.
Mods: None, knit as written
So this hat was a lot of fun to knit. It has a really interested construction, and it goes by REALLY quickly. Each of the panels for the top were done in roughly an hour each (I knit them in class; the front and back took a little longer than the sides). I sort of used mattress stitch to sew everything together, but the top seam looks a lot better than the side seams.
When I finished the hat, I showed it to my boyfriend (as I do, and also because I intend to make the hat for myself eventually), and he wasn’t crazy about the shape or the points at the top. I personally LOVE the shape–it’s so interesting and it’s different from the usual rounded top hat. It’ll definitely stand out in a crowd. I can’t wait til I have a moment to knit for myself. I want to make this hat (in addition to a million other things I want to knit for myself).
Til then, it’s shark mittens and socks for other people.
Heeeey, remember that sweater I was making for my boyfriend’s birthday? Well, I finally finished and photographed it. Over a month after it was supposed to be done (the boy’s birthday was December 9). But now it is done!
Pattern: EZ’s Seamless Hybrid
Yarn: Six skeins of Knit Picks Comfy Bulky plus a skein of Comfy sport and half a skein of Comfy fingering, all in Planetarium.
Needles: US 9/5.5 mm
Mods: It’s a very basic sweater pattern. None.
So this sweater… it was an adventure. I started out with high hopes. “It’s in bulky weight!” I thought in October. “It’ll take no time at all!”
And then I ran out of yarn. Six skeins is apparently not enough for a man-sized sweater. So I contacted Knit Picks, the ISO forums, mentioned it in-blog. Nothing. One person had half a skein, which wasn’t gonna cut it. Knit Picks apparently DISCONTINUED the Planetarium line of Comfy Bulky. IDEK. I ended up ordering a skein of Comfy Fingering and two skeins of Comfy sport and using half of it to finish the sweater. Fortunately, the gauge is very similar.
It turns out, though, that six skeins might have been enough after all. It’s a bit too big on Joe, as you can possibly see. I think it’ll shrink in the wash (it’s mostly cotton) and it’ll fit, but I originally knit the sleeves way too long and there was a lot of waste as I picked out the cast on edge and tried to ravel up (apparently decreases will NOT frog in either direction and will, in fact, make you cry sad, sad tears).
Overall, though, despite all the struggles with this sweater, I think it came out well. Joe likes it, and that’s what matters to me, really. He loves cotton, and the sweater is indeed very soft and smooth. Knit Picks Comfy is a pretty good line of yarn–I have a sweater made out of the worsted weight. The first sweater, I actually ever designed, Lilith, which I still wear pretty often.
Anyway, a very happy (belated) birthday to my love, Joe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to knitting a hundred pairs of shark mittens (I got a ton more orders yesterday).
As I mentioned the other day, I am currently working on the hat that matches the Kitty Hawk mitts I recently finished. I’m using the same yarn (Bugga!). The hat has a really interesting construction technique: You knit the hat band (in the round like a stockinette scarf knit in the round) then pick up stitches for a front panel, back panel, and side arch panels, finally seaming the panels together to form the crown of the hat. I think it’s turning out super cute so far:
That’s the back of the band and the back panel (about 1.5 repeats of five done). I have to do some creative stitching to clean up the back seam (the directions should direct you to graft it but it doesn’t), but other than that, I think it looks nice. Here’s what the front looks like:
It curled something awful when I was done knitting the band, but HOLY GOD STEAM BLOCKING IS AMAZING. I’m pretty sure I’ve extolled the virtues of steam blocking before, but let me just say again: AMAZING. You lay out your knitting, hold a hot iron over it, push the steam button and push everything into place. And then it is DONE and it is BLOCKED. No waiting forever for it to dry. No pinning. No desperate squeezing to get excess water. Steam and DONE.
Amazing.
OMGWTFBBQ it’s a finished thing that isn’t shark mittens!!!
Pattern: Kitty Hawk (the mitts; I’m still working on the hat)
Yarn: Sanguine Gryffon Bugga! in Oak Timberworm and Oleander Hawk Moth.
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm dpns
Mods: None. Knit as written.
So these mitts? Super freakin’ cute and steampunk-errific. Yes. I love how they came out and am sad I do not get to keep them (they’re for a WWFY swap). However? PITA to knit. There’s a bunch of rounds of reverse stockinette, and reverse stockinette does not play well with double pointed needles. I got some terrible laddering that was mostly covered up with a good steam block and the straps, but if you look closely, they’re still there.
When I make these for myself, I think I’m going to flip ’em inside out. That way, I can knit stockinette instead of reverse stockinette and the patch thingy that comes out of the twisted rib will still stick out but I won’t have horrible joins. I’m also going to make them shorter (less ribbing, less plain knitting between the patch thing and the thumb gusset) cause it’s sort of a pain to wear long mitts under a sweater or long sleeves or whatever.
That being said, it’s an ADORABLE pattern, and I love the finished result. I love how the finger ribbing is picked up a couple rows down so you get that two layered look. I love the twisted rib cuff (even if I hate knitting it). I love that patterned patch thing. I love the straps. I love the thumb. I seriously love these mitts. It will be a while before I get around to making them again for me, but when I do, I am going to love them.
In other (non-knitting) news, my LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE EVER starts tomorrow. (At one cause I don’t do that early classes thing). I am both totally stoked and totally terrified to think about graduating at the end of the semester. So don’t be surprised if my blog attendance drops a bit while I get into the swing of the new semester. Cheers!
Don’t worry, dear readers, I have indeed been knitting. I’ve been knitting a lot. It just so happens that I’ve been knitting the same thing over and over and over. I’ve been working on approximately a million pairs of shark mittens. Here’s a pair I finished this morning:
Same yarn I always use, Cascade Eco, and some red Valley Northampton for the mouth. They went pretty quickly and were mostly unremarkable. Fortunately, I only have one more pair to knit and then I can start working on other things. Other swap things. I can’t wait to be knitting for myself again.
A non-shark mittens thing I have been doing is some stashing of yarn. I had to order some more yarn for my boyfriend’s birthday sweater (which is still not done), but Knit Picks is discontinuing the Planetarium colorway of Comfy Bulky (why, I have no idea) but I ordered some comfy sport and some comfy fingering to hold together to finish the sweater, which will hopefully work. Since I was already paying shipping and I like yarn, I also threw in some sock yarn:
Stroll in Shoreline Twist (which is Ravenclaw colors, which will result in bitchin’ Ravenclaw socks)
Stroll Handpainted in Tea Party
I also recently bought a couple wool sweaters at the thrift store to unravel for the yarn. I finished the first one yesterday, resulting in four skeins of a very pretty red worsted yarn:
It’s about 514 yards, most of which will most likely be used for mouth parts of shark mittens. But maybe something else. The sweater was like, four dollars, so I’m thinking this was a pretty good deal. I washed another sweater this afternoon, an undyed beige, and once that dries, I’ll have some more yarn to unravel (and also dye). Yay!
It’s hard to believe it’s almost Christmas, isn’t it? This Saturday is the 25th, which means if you haven’t finished your gift knitting by now, there’s a good chance you’ll be up all night on the 24th, trying not to pull your hair out. I am not experiencing this stress, mostly because I’m not really celebrating any holidays this year. I’m spending Christmas and New Year’s with my boyfriend, who is Jewish and does not celebrate Christmas. Though I must say, I’m sort of feeling the lack of Christmas spirit.
Next year I think I’ll have a tree, a little table-top one, which will be the only size that will fit in our apartment next year. Perhaps I’ll wrap some gifts and make some cinnamon rolls. Spend the day in my pajamas and watch a holiday movie.
But this year, I’ll probably be eating Chinese foot and frantically trying to finish the billion trade and commission knits I have. Not to mention this:
(Sorry for the crappy flash picture. I may or may not have woken up this afternoon at three.)
It’s a muchly-finished sweater that was intended as a birthday gift to my boyfriend. We agreed to exchange gifts when I came to visit over Christmas so I had a couple extra weeks to finish it (his birthday was Dec. 9), but now I’ve run out of yarn and Knit Picks doesn’t appear to be selling that color. I’ve put in a desperate request to the ISO forums on Ravelry, but if any of my readers have some extra Comfy Bulky in Planetarium, PLEASE let me know.
I’ve also been working on this:
It’s one almost finished Kitty Hawk mitt for a WWFY swap. I started it because I was sick of shark mittens, but a nearly elbow-length glove in fingering weight yarn takes FOREVER. I’m going to finish the mitt, knit a pair of shark mittens, knit a hat, knit some more shark mittens, then perhaps knit the other mitt.
I currently have five pairs of outstanding shark mittens that I have to knit. So yes, I’ll be knitting these ittens forever.
I finished the first item for my latest WWFY swap, a pair of socks:
Pattern: Monkey
Yarn: Sanguine Gryffon, Bugga! One skein in Metallic Fly
Needles: US 1, two at a time magic loop
Mods: Regular rib instead of twisted rib cause I hate knitting twisted rib
These would have been done a lot more quickly if I hadn’t had to knit so many damn shark mittens. Not that I mind the profit, I just also like knitting socks. I have a bunch more things to knit for this person and also a bunch more shark mittens. So yeah.
But about the socks. I like ’em. They’re too big for me, but they’re not for me and the recipient has larger feet than me, so that’s good. The yarn is wonderful. Soft and squooshy, as a yarn with cashmere in it is bound to be. And I got lots of it in return for all the knitting I’m doing. : ) I really like this particular swap, but I think I’m going to take a break from swapping after I finish everything. There are things I’d like to knit for me.
But socks. I like those.
So I’ve been accidentally radio silent for a bit. In my defense, it was finals weeks. Which is now over! Now I am officially free on winter break, which is full of TV watching and knitting and reading and generally bumming around. HELL YES. Which means I’ve had time to finish a thing that isn’t a pair of shark mittens:
Pattern: My own, but I might write it up cause it’s bitchin’.
Yarn: Some fluffy acrylic nonsense plus white acrylic and black cotton.
Needles: US 6/4 mm
Sorry for the crappy pictures. The view from my window today is this. It’s been raining since last night.
I made this hat on commission for a friend to give as a Christmas present to a friend of hers that really likes foxes. It’s based on this hat from Urban Outfitters. I think I did a pretty good job at copying it.
I really like how this hat came out. The floats where I changed colors are just a liiiiittle tight, but it’s totally still wearable. The fluffy yarn worked out perfectly, and I think the hat looks just like a fox. The yarn I used is a lighter orange than the UO hat, but I think foxes are actually pretty orange, so I made a good color choice.
The earflaps are in acrylic as well (the recipient has a wool allergy), so after I knit them, they were really curly and stiff and unpleasant looking. I took a change and brought out my iron and steam blocked the whole hat. As you can tell by the pictures, it worked out SO WELL. Seriously, why didn’t anyone ever tell me how magical steam blocking acrylic is? It’s much softer, lies flat, and the stitching is much looser, like a commercial knit. WONDERFUL.
So I daresay my friend’s friend will enjoy her Christmas present. I certainly had fun knitting it. : )
In other knitting news: I am still making shark mittens. So there’s that.
So, uh, sorry for the radio silence, people. It’s finals week, which means last week was hell week, during which all of the last minute homework and projects professors assign is due. So yeah. But I have been knitting. I’ve started a pair of socks for a WWFY trade:
And I’m knitting a hat for a commission from a friend:
And of course I’m knitting eighty six bajillion pairs of shark mittens.
At least winter break starts next week.
So… I sort of fell of the NaBloPoMo bandwagon. Well, I tried anyway. And I did pretty well, I think. I posted most days, and I would have posted more often but I had trouble getting photos during the daylight, especially over Thanksgiving break.
Anyway, the third item of my OliviaGoddess WWFY trade finished drying over break and I finally mailed everything off:
Pattern: Cloud Bolero
Yarn: Claudia Handpainted and CEY Jil Eaton Minnow Merino
Needles: Big. Whatever the pattern calls for.
Mods: None. Made the XS.
This came out well but HOLY HELL is the pattern difficult to follow. It’s confusing and jumbled and really difficult to decipher. I’m pretty sure the only reason I could do it was because I made Liesl first (which is very similar). I considered just making a shrug out of Liesl, but OliviaGoddess said Cloud, so Cloud I made.
As for the yarn: The Claudia Handpainted (the variagated) is lovely, wonderful, dense merino. Like the best handspun and also gorgeous. LOVE. It’s hella expensive and it will never grace my fingers again, but damn is it pretty. The other stuff, the Classic Elite on the bottom, is okay. It’s a pretty basic wool single, though a bit too fuzzy for my taste.
So yeah. So much for NaBloPoMo. BUT: The future: more shark mittens (three more pairs by Friday), maybe some socks, HOPEFULLY a sweater for the boyfriend for Christmas.
Christ. It’s finals week next week and I have a ton of knitting to do. Good thing I only have two finals.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 