Here’s my trip to Maryland last weekend in a series of pictures and minimal of pesky words. I managed to convince my friend Allison to accompany me, and it was mucho fun!

People! I’m the silly looking one in the green shirt. Everyone else is: Olga; Cristi; Lolly, Isel, and Jenna; Jess; Jody and Christy; and Christa (who recognized me from my mascot, Tissue-San!). We went to the Ravelry meetup in the afternoon, but didn’t stay terribly long. And go figure, I don’t have any photos of the people that we spent the most time with - Chris and NanC, fellow Texan fiber enthusiasts.

Sheepdogs! I want to get a sheepdog and watch it herd the cats. The sheep were hilarious. They were such sheep, all huddled together and generally clueless.

Baaaaaa! Heh.

DC! We skipped the Rav party to meet up another friend of mine in DC. Next year I will party with the knitters, next year. We did some touristy things on Sunday, including the adventure of finding street parking near the National Mall. Fun!

Of course, you want to see what I bought, right? I was quite restrained and spent a little over half my budget (where my budget was what I spent last year).

The last thing that I need is worsted-weight, scarf yarn, but the Brooks Farm Solana was irresistible. It’s a bit more purpley than it looks here, and I’m going to call the other color orange rather than brown, so that I can wear my future worsted-weight scarf with my black jacket.

Tess Super Sock and Baby. I heart this stuff, and I know I’ll use it. At this rate, I’ll never knit through all of my sock yarn.

Fiber roll call, from top to bottom (the links to go individual flickr photos):

Camel fiber from the Fold (we stopped by after all the crazy STR junkies left).
60/20/20 Angora/merino/silk batts from Wild Meadow Farms.
50/50 Merino/silk from Cloverleaf Farm.
BFL from Cloverleaf Farm.
70/30 Merino/tussah from Cloverleaf Farm.

As you can maybe tell, I really liked the Cloverleaf Farm booth. They had pretty awesome prices - the BFL was $10! I should have bought more. Now to get spinning!

1. Endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

2. Blogging about endless stockinette in black fingering-weight cotton.

I’m slowly phylloing my way to a completed sweater, but ugh! So much stockinette! I’m really trying to finish this one before I leave for Baltimore on Friday. There is one sleeve remaining, then the sweater gets a bath and a date with our dryer. My fingers will be crossed the whole time as I hope and pray that my row gauge really does shrink from 9 sts/inch to 11, as my swatch said it would. I’ve been doubting this the entire time I’ve knit the sweater, but swatches don’t lie, right? A side affect of the change in row gauge is that I get to knit the sweater 20% more than my desired length, which adds to the fun of endless, black, soul-sucking stockinette.

I did get a ton of knitting done over the weekend in the car to and from Austin! Our goal was to hit the Texas wine trail for some wine tasting, which was surprisingly tasty. We also celebrated Staci’s milestone birthday, had a tasty gospel brunch with Sarah (praise jesus for migas!), and visited with an old friend of Rob’s. Fun!

I’m endlessly amused by Texas’ love for, well, Texas, so I had to snap a photo of this as we left our hotel:

Um, maybe I kind of sort of want a Texas wafflemaker now. We’ll see how much money I end up spending on yarn this weekend.

I love Krista’s yarns and fiber. I have two more braids of her fiber in the stash, and they’re the prettiest things around!

I became very used to spinning really thin yarn when I made the Funky Carolina sock yarn, so this is practice in spinning something thicker. I did pretty well with this - it’s worsted weightish. And pretty. That paw is Silver, making her entrance. I can’t take photos of yarn without the kittehs getting involved.

So when I spin, I have a 50/50 chance of producing crap. This is crap. The fiber is great, more Pigeonroof Studios, but the spinning is awful. I tried to spin the singles tightly so that it would look extra smooshy when I plied it, and the singles had little corkscrews in them. I figured the coils would go away when I plied it (when some twist is removed from the singles), but they did not. Yuck.

This is the February shipment of the Hello Yarn fiber club. BFL is like buttah. I heart it greatly.

I think I’ve mastered the art of two plies, and I’m ready to move on to something else. Maybe adding a ply? Spinning a soft single? I bought a Spin Off magazine last week, and it’s full of cool techniques!

There’s also been some knitting - I picked up the Phyllo Yoked Pullover again. I’m going to MDSW in a couple of weeks (yay!), and I thought I could maybe finish this in time to wear in the cool MD weather. When Blackie isn’t sleeping on it, of course. I’m about halfway finished with the waist increases and then I’ve got both sleeves to knit. Can our brave knitter conquer miles of stockinette in fingering weight yarn? Stay tuned!

Pattern: Leyburn Socks
Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock!, the wool/nylon blend one

I’m in a bit of a knitting funk these days, and the only thing I can manage to finish is socks. So socks it is! I’ve had this yarn in my stash forever, because I’ve been stumped as to what to make with it. I really believe that slip-stitch patterns are the perfect thing for variegated yarn. I’ve wanted to knit the Leyburn pattern for a while, too (I swatched it in some Koigu last year), and this is the perfect marriage of yarn and pattern!

I followed the pattern very loosely, as I paired the stitch pattern with a Widdershins-esque toe-up heel flap. My heel turn is a bit different from the Widdershins one, though - for some reason Widdershins heel turn is half the depth of a normal top-down heel flap. I also worked a Magic Cast On for the first time, and it was like magic! Much better than dealing with a short-row toe.

I changed around the Leyburn stitch counts, too - the foot is 34 instep stitches and 31 sole stitches, and leg was 64 stitches. I should have increased some stitches around the heel flap (or worked a longer flap), since the floats are a bit stretched out there.

This was the first time that I’ve used Lisa Souza yarns. I love the non-pooling dye job, but the yarn felt very nylony when I was knitting with it. She also sells a 100% merino sock yarn, which my pampered fingers demand, apparently. I also love the generous 4 ounce put up - I have a sizeable ball of yarn leftover.

I wrote this entire post without mentioning the obvious fraternal nature of the socks, which is really a testament to my diminishing anal retentiveness. It’s part of the beauty of handpainted yarns, right?

I’m in the minority here, but I really prefer knitting socks top-down! I hate, hate, hate working the sewn bindoff for toe-up socks, and I hate even more undoing the sewn bindoff because it’s too tight. Knitting socks toe-up also requires a bit more math before you start, since you need to know your heel depth and the number of stitches before the heel turn to figure out how many gusset increases that must be worked. I probably won’t be working any more toe-up socks, unless I’m really, really afraid of running out of yarn.

In keeping with the sock-a-month theme, the socks above were March’s pair, and these are April’s.

Pattern: None - just a 64 stitch top-down stockinette sock with an afterthought heel
Yarn: My handspun! 3 ply (navajo plied) from some Funky Carolina superwash merino in the Missed colorway

Handspun socks! There’s not much to say about these, except that I spun the yarn! I can’t believe that these turned out so well. The handspun was mostly fingering weight (I used a US 1.5 needle and got 8 stitches/inch), but was a bit thicker for the second sock’s cuff. I think that the thick portion was where I started out spinning, and the uber thin portion was toward the end. I can say that spinning worsted weight yarn goes much, much faster than a 3 ply sock yarn!

My first afterthought heel! I chose the afterthought heel so that the stripes wouldn’t be interrupted, and I heart it. Normal short-row heels don’t fit my massive instep very well, so I worked a few even rounds before decreases to give me some extra ease in that area. The instep stitches are still stretched out, so I’ll try more even rounds next time.

The right sock has very short stripes, so I ended up cutting the yarn in a couple of places on the left sock to keep the stripes from getting too out of control. I also knit the first sock on the short side, since I was afraid of running out of yarn, and I extended it an inch after the second sock was complete. I must have missed this lesson in Knitting 101, but if you pick out the cast on edge to frog the top ribbing, you’ll have to pick out every. single. stitch. No frogging from the cast on edge. I ended up snipping a stitch and cutting off the ribbing, knitting an extra inch, and then grafting the sock back together. I can’t even tell where the graft is, so yay!

Pattern: The charts are a modified version of the Intricate Stag Bag, the general size is sort of based on the We Call Them Pirates hat.
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tangerine, Dale of Norway Baby Ull in a charcoal grey

Every Thanksgiving, we visit Rob’s parents in a rural area of Pennsylvania. That’s right before hunting season begins, so we usually don hunter’s orange if we walk around outdoors. I’ve been wanting to make Rob’s dad a stranded hat with a deer motif for years, and when I saw the Intricate Stag Hat pattern, I was sold!

Rob’s parents were in town a couple of weeks ago, so the hat was quickly finished and gifted. It’s a bit large on Rob’s head, but it fits his dad’s 24" melon perfectly.

I modified the chart a bit by moving the trees away from the deer by a few stitches, creating some treetops, and adding a third tree. The pattern repeats on the back of the hat.

I used fingering weight yarns so that I could cram the whole scene onto the hat. I’ve used Dale of Norway Baby Ull before, and I’d use it again in a heartbeat, it’s soft like buttah. This was my first time using Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn - it’s quite tightly plied, but it blocked into a beautifully cohesive fabric.

The biggest challenge with this hat was tensioning the very long floats in the chart. The floats were extremely long at the very top of the hat, so I stopped the stranded knitting and duplicate stitched the top of the trees. I’ve never been much of a duplicate stitch fan, but it’s fairly invisible. It’s difficult for me to tell visually where the stranded knitting ends and the duplicate stitch begins, although the texture of the fabric changes at the duplicate stitch area.

A lining knit with the Baby Ull finished off the hat. Knitting the lining was the same amount of knitting as a sock, what a slog. I’ve offered Rob’s dad a liner replacement if the hat isn’t warm enough - it seemed fine when I was knitting it, but the hat is pretty thin. Overall, I’m happy with the hat, but I’m not yearning to struggle with any super long floats in the near future!

It pleases me. I’ve been following around the poor kittehs all weekend, and they are clearly tired of the camera already.

I realized that I’ve got a number of photos uploaded to flickr that I never blogged about. I’ve got a big finished project that I’m too tired to coherently post about right now, so here’s some sewing miscellany to tide you over.

I finally stitched the diamonds together, and boy, that was No Fun. The paper mockup was helpful, but I still had difficulties lining up the rows of diamonds. There’s a couple of corners where you can see a jog but hopefully it won’t be too noticeable! I’m thinking that a 1/8" shift isn’t terribly glaring. If I were to sew these again, I’d mark some darts along the diamond edges to help with lining them up. Small cutting errors really throw the alignment off in this project.

The diamond strip is destined for a pillow. The front will just be this panel and some linen, and the back will be patterned with a hidden zipper down the center. I’m also planning on sewing piping around the edge in a contrast fabric.

I’m still trying to decide what pillow #2 will be. I was originally going to simplify the diamond idea by cutting longer parallelograms (so a diagonal stripe of diamonds would be one piece), but then I saw this:

The small clipping is a pillow from a recentish Domino magazine. Rather than using striped fabric, I thought it would be a great idea to piece the stripes together myself with all the leftover linen and blue+orange fabrics. The jury’s still out on this one because it does look like a ton of work. Although it will undoubtedly be easier to figure out than the diamonds!

Pattern: Child’s First Sock in Shell Pattern, from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Yarn Botanika Merino/Tencel in colorway Rum Runner

I heart the look of this pattern! Naturally, I made some modifications:

• I changed the top rib to 2×2. I prefer my rib to consistently match (or not match) with the sock patterning, and the 2×1 rib didn’t sync with the pattern repeat.
• I flipped the chart for the second sock.
• I’ve read that the gusset depth is pretty shallow for this pattern, so I extended it to 16 slipped stitches.

The only issue I have with these socks is the yarn dye job. I really wanted a semisolid yarn, but I opened up the skein to find this:

The yarn was tied too tightly before it was dyed and the dye barely penetrated in that spot. There were lots of white flecks in about 75% the skein. The left sock leg was knit with the semisolid portion, and the patterning in the rest of the socks is obscured by all that white. Boo, but I like them anyway!

In the meantime, I’ve been obsessing about things a bit.

This is the beginnings of the Phyllo Yoked Pullover from Knitting Nature. This is the fourth project that I’ve knit from the book, and it won’t be the last. I’m making this as a mini-knitalong with Lolly and Jody, and a couple of weeks ago Lolly went ahead and started hers. That spurred me to finally swatch, then I blinked and had a completed yoke. Whoa!

I’m very, very loosely following the pattern - I’m knitting the yoke according to the phyllo chart and the rest of the sweater is from my own numbers. I wanted to use a thinner yarn to shrink the yoke pattern vertically so that I could wear this sweater without having to layer a shirt underneath. I do live in Texas, after all, and layering season is quickly drawing to a close. The Rowan 4 ply Cotton is working perfectly so far. I extended the lace chart by one diamond, and the patterning is the perfect length. Perhaps the color isn’t the best color to show off the yoke pattern, but I want this sweater in black, so black it is.

I knit the fun part first (similar to my Tangled Yoke construction (you should click on that link if you like kittens. gah, they were so cute!)) and now I need to think and do math, which means that this sweater has already been cast aside for something else fun. Norah did some interesting shaping in the front of the sweater to make the front neckline fall lower than the back, which I’m going to try to mimic with short rows. Then it’s all stockinette till the cows come home.

Obsession number two comes in fabric form. I’ve been very good at my yarn diet. The only thing I’ve purchased so far this year was a wee bit of sock yarn. However! All that saved money has funded my brand new fiber stash. And my fabric stash. Not good.

I’ve been thinking, dreaming, pondering about blue and orange lately, hence the sudden expansion. We have a bluish-grey couch and a light greenish-blue chair, and I’ve been planning on making pillows for them forever. Have you noticed that all of the good fabrics contain brown? They do! This greenish-blue and orange combo will be perfect accents.

I’ve had diamonds on the mind lately, too, and I’m finally getting around to figuring out a patchworky pillowy pattern. You would not believe how difficult it is to line up diamonds until you cut them out for some coasters and then try to piece them together as you watch your machine devour all of the tiny little diamond shapes. Or maybe that’s just me. Drafting pattern pieces ahead of time is a much smarter way to go.

The scraps (ha! the pillows will only use wee amounts) might go to a baby quilt. Or maybe I’ll just line them up and take more photos of them.

Pattern: Robot (rav link) from Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy, Mochimochiland Heart
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted and scraps of Louet Gems for Mr. Roboto, Wool/Sarisilk blend scraps for the heart

This is another of those thrown-in-a-drawer, procrastinate-on-the-finishing projects. I had originally knit Mr. Roboto as a graduation gift for Rob (whose degree is in robotics). He graduated about a year and a half ago. Poor neglected Mr. Roboto!

The pattern instructs you to knit both sides of the robot flat, then seam him together. I had the bright idea of knitting him in the round and kitchenering his vertical seams together. I’m not sure that this saved me much work, and I think it produced more ends to weave in. Also, I knit him flat along the length of the intarsia panel, so I had to seam that side anyway.

Then I embroidered the most hideous face on the poor robot, prompting the delay in finishing. I finally bought a boatload of safety eyes, ripped my embroidery, and started over. I tried to embroider the heart to have the same expression as Mr. Roboto, but the heart just looks kind of sad - Rob even pointed it out. Awww!

Overall, Rob was very happy with his V-day gift, and Mr. Roboto is happy to be out of that drawer. Now, if Mr. Roboto could just find a little love…

That’s my sock yarn stash, all 12 skeins of it. I did buy some since making the sock-a-month pledge - the green skeins in the middle that look like they were attacked by cats. Because they were. You can click on the photo to see details on everything.

I fear that my sock-knitting motivation is going to wane once summer hits Houston (um, next month), but I’m going strong for now. I’m planning to knit the next bunch of socks according to Project Spectrum colors. Air is already looking like it’s going to be a weak season, but the other months are well represented in the stash. The fiery looking yarn in the upper-right will be March’s pair.

I may have accidentally added a thirteenth skein to the sock yarn pile.

That wheel that I’ve been borrowing? Well, now it’s mine. This is the first yarn that I’ve spun on it since I bought it - it’s Funky Carolina superwash merino in the Missed colorway.

I wanted to give Navajo-plying a go, so I decided to spin some skinny singles so that the 3ply yarn wouldn’t be too thick. At no point in time did I realize that I would end up with sock yarn. Yup, this is 119g and 350 yards, and pretty darn close to fingering weight. It’s by no means perfect, but I love it anyway!

Oooh, and today is also my two-year blogiversary. Crazy, huh? I’ve got to say, I do have big arrow-pierced hearts for the knitters! It’s such a great, supportive community, and I’m happy to be a part of it. Yay for yarn!

Pattern: Counterpane Clutch from Handknit Holidays
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, less than one skein!

What seemed like a simple project at the time became a monster. I first knit this when I bought Handknit Holidays, out of some Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk. I remember being pretty frustrated that it took a little over one skein to make the bag, and the hairiness of the bag was not the look I was going for. So the bag sat in a corner for the longest time. I would root around in my yarn stash and uncover one of the halves, then guiltily stuff it back into its deep, dark corner to hibernate.

Then, last April, I bought a couple of skeins of Pure Silk from Yarntopia’s anniversary sale. The clutch looks much better in a smoother yarn, so the Alpaca Silk got frogged (and subsequently became Center Square). Then I proceeded to stuff the reknit bag into a deep, dark corner to hibernate.

Why all the procrastination? Ugh, the finishing details! I had originally planned to buy a metal claspy purse frame for the bag, which would have cost more than the yarn used to knit it! The clasp ended up being backordered, then gone forever, and I finally just went with a boring old zipper.

I made one small modification to the knitting portion of the bag - I provisionally cast on both sides, then kitchenered the bottom together. No seams! I don’t remember why I didn’t just knit the bag in the round, maybe because of the clasp details? If you’re installing a zipper, you might as well just knit it in the round and make it seamless.

The knitting part of this bag was quick and easy. You can easily get one bag out of a skein of Pure Silk. I even had enough extra yarn that I knit a wrist strap with (but the strap looked crappy and was removed).

I chose the invisible zipper purely because it’s such a close color match, but I’m pleased with the choice now.

The next step was the lining. You should definitely block the bag before figuring out the lining. I drafted a pattern for the lining (scallops and all), which was too small. Then I drafted another one. I actually made two linings - an outer lining that you can see through the lace pattern, and an inner lining that’s a teeny bit smaller. I interfaced both linings, but did not sew them together. The inner lining also has a pocket on each side that’s credit card / money sized. I’m always worried that I’m going to lose money when taking things in and out of pocketless clutches.

Last step - zipper installation. This part is No Fun. I wedged the zipper between the two lining layers, which looks very tidy. There was lots of basting and swearing and rebasting involved with zipper installation. Then there were a few attempts to find a stitch that will look pretty on the inside. I think I succeeded, but seriously, between the Tangled Yoke ribbon facing and this zipper, I was handstitching for a solid week.

My final verdict? Meh. I probably won’t use it much. First off, the yarn is extremely fuzzy and the bag looks quite worn already.

It’s like little sunspots erupting from the surface of the bag. From what? The abuse of being ignored for all this time? The most wear that the bag endured was living in a desk drawer for a few months (as an attempt to get me to finish the damn thing). I now realize that this fuzziness and wear is common with single-ply silk yarns. Boo. The other issue is completely my fault - I didn’t interface the lining enough. I used a fusible interfacing, likely lightweight. The bag is pretty floppy and looks pretty silly. I haven’t tried loading it with my cellphone and lipgloss yet, but it doesn’t look good.

And what about the other four finish-in-January projects?

• Tangled Yoke - needs a single ribbon facing for the buttonhole side. I need to figure out buttonholes on my sewing machine - there’s no way that I’m hand stitching them.
• Petal - No longer looks hacked apart. I need to figure out the sleeve caps, which don’t fit the sleeves terribly well.
• Intricate Stag Hat - no progress.
• Mr. Roboto - Almost done! I think he’s going to become a valentine’s day gift for rob (rather than a graduation gift, an event which occurred almost two years ago).

Now we’re striving for finish-by-Spring. Hopefully!

Pattern: Socks for Veronik, from the Interweave Knits Holiday ‘07 issue
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, color Firefly

These socks certainly brighten up the dreary days around here! We don’t really get much of a winter in Houston, but the city is trying it’s best with two solid weeks of grey and drizzle. I don’t mind the gloomy weather, it gives me the rare opportunity to get some wear out of all my handknits.

Lest you think I’m always lounging about in pointy shoes and handknit socks…

The reality is that I’m working from home in my pj’s. I do like the blue, white, and yellow combo, though!

These are my first continental project and they turned out pretty well! The sole of the sock has some tension issues, but those will probably even out with wear. I followed the pattern exactly which gives you a fairly long leg in the sock. If I were to knit these again, I’d shorten them by a pattern repeat or two. The small garter edge looks pretty, but doesn’t do much to hold up the sock when faced with my generously sized calves.

This is my first time working with Lorna’s Laces for a whole project - I’ve swatched a variegated colorway of the Shepherd Sock and swapped it away because it pooled so badly. Yellow’s never my first choice, colorwise, but I’ve warmed up to it quite a bit. The yarn itself was wonderful to work with and I’d definitely use it again. I wish I could buy the semisolid colorways locally.

I realized recently that I have exactly 12 skeins of sock yarn in my stash. If I knit a sock a month, I’ll be sock yarn stashless by the end of the year, and that sounds fabulous to me.

I’m getting a jump on February’s pair - a Child’s First Sock in some Yarn Botanika merino/tencel yarn. I’ve loved this pattern since forever and I’m excited to knit these up! Shhhh, don’t tell my unfinished objects about this one.

Rob and I are going to visit the family this weekend, so this will be the perfect travel project. I’m rushing to finish the Tangled Yoke today - it’s very close to completion, and I’m determined to get some wear out of it!

This is the start of a second Sock for Veronik, from the Interweave Knits Holiday issue. I received the first sock from Erin in a swap last fall, and I’m finally getting around to knitting the other one now. This is a photo from last week - I’ve turned the heel and I’m at the final foot stretch right now. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces in the Firefly colorway.

This is my first fully continentally-knit project. I’ve been meaning to switch to continental knitting because of it’s speed for a while now, but this swap has given me the motivation to finally do so. Erin knit the sock on size 1 needles, and my english-knitting gauge would have been way too tight for that needle size. Since my continental knitting is looser, I figured that I could get away with the size 1’s without swatching. So far, that’s working well.

I’m actually knitting this sock combined, which means that the purls are wrapped the opposite way. This is a much more (to me) fluid movement than normal continental purling, and it supposedly improves your tension. However, the combined knitting is causing me to have the most awful knitting tension, ever. I never had issues with rowing-out when I knit english-style, but the difference between my knit and purl rows were glaringly obvious when I worked the stockinette heel of this sock. It turns out that my combined purling technique brings forward so little yarn that the loops are much tighter than my continental knit stitches. I have to purl extremely loosely, while knitting very tightly, to get even tension. It’s actually pretty difficult for me to remember to purl that loosely when knitting mindless stockinette.

So! The plan is to do some major swatching with regular old continental purling and see how that works out.

This was supposed to be a Christmas gift for Rob’s dad. Cancelling our trip gave me such a relief for this one - there was no way that it would have been done in time. Rob’s family has a house in a rural area, and everyone dons hunter’s orange when the hunters are a hunting. I’ve been meaning to knit Rob’s dad an orange, reindeer hat for a couple of years, and the second I saw Norah Gaughan’s Intricate Stag Bag pattern, I knew I wanted to hat-ify it.

I was on the prowl for the perfect searing orange yarn, and Jet pointed out the perfect skein when she was in town in October. Literally - we were in a yarn store and I was telling her about my plight for the perfect yarn, and she pointed out the perfect skein! The orange is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tangerine, and the grey is Dale of Norway Baby Ull. I’m knitting this on US 2 needles, and the hat is two pattern repeats of the 92 stitch pattern. I fiddled with the chart to make it fit my gauge by moving the trees away from the deer by a few stitches and adding a third tree.

The hat looks pretty much the same right now. I finished knitting the crown, but frogged it all back to this point. My floats were very large in the crown, above the deer’s horns and top of the middle tree. I’m not weaving the black behind the orange because it’s a bit thicker and it shows, and the black stitches were extremely loose. I might duplicate stitch the tops of the two taller trees. Is that totally cheating? Will I be kicked out of the Fair Isle club?

(2007 finished knits - I feel that there should be more, given all the knitting I do!
1. Scarves, 2. Utopia Hat, 3. Stockinette Socks, 4. Nephew hat and mittens, 5. Endpaper Mitts, 6. Ironwork Sock, 7. Mad Color Weave, 8. Ol’ Stripey, 9. Ironwork Socks, 10 and 11. Garnstudio Baby Jacket and Saartje’s booties, 12. Spring Things shawl, 13. Airy Wrap Around Lace Sweater, 14. Dotty Cat Bed, 15. Sarcelle detail, 16. Asymmetrical Cardigan)

1. Your best FO of the year

Is it totally self-centered to say the Ironwork Socks? I still heart them and I’d really love to knit a pair for myself some day.

2. Best FO of the year made by a blog you link to

I’m a sucker for the cute, so I’ll say Pam’s froggy hat. Awwww!

3. Best yarn you tried

Nature’s Palette sock yarn. I adore the colors so much, I’ll definitely buy it again. I also really love the fiber composition of Brooks Farm Four Play, although I’m not as in love with the variegated colorways.

4. Best new book/mag/pattern of 2007

I recently rediscovered the Natural Knitter book on my shelf. I don’t love it so much for the patterns, but the book itself is absolutely beautiful, and I really enjoy reading the yarn company profiles.

I must say that 2007 is the year that I’ve learned not to buy knitting books sight-unseen. I feel extremely meh about both Fitted Knits and Lace Style, and I’ll be destashing them this year.

5. Best new knitting technique or gadget you tried in 2007

I finally figured out how to do a provisional cast on using a crochet hook. It saves so much time and twisting when you’re casting on a large number of stitches (Tangled Yoke’s yoke had 300+ stitches, the Stag hat below was almost 200).

(2007 in stitches - lots of straight lines and gifts, but it was great to dust off the old Kenmore 8 after years of nonuse. I’m too lazy to list these individually, so you can clicky on the pic to see what’s what.)

6. Top 5 inspirations–what five things inspired you the most over the past year?

One of my fave things about the big R is finding people’s innovative variations of patterns. A few quick examples from my faves list: Emilee’s fitted Glasgow Pullover (which is definitely in my queue), a Venezia knit with Noro sock yarn (love that idea!), a not-so-Little Smocked Cardigan, a fitted Sand Dollar pullover, and a Sunflower Hat.

7. Designer who most amazed & inspired you throughout the year

Norah Gaughan, hands down. She’s so creative, and I love so many of her designs. I’ll be knitting a few more things from Knitting Nature this coming year.

8. Knitting resolutions for 2008–what’s next for you and your blog?

First up, finishing all the UFO’s.

The orange thing hasn’t even been blogged yet - it’s the last of the FO fury projects, a hat for Rob’s dad. And yikes, the clutch and robot were on last year’s list! I get easily stalled at mistakes and finishing details, which is something I need to work on.

After that, 2008 is going to be the year of the sweater. I have so much sweater yarn, and I need to start knitting through it. I’m also planning on more sewing, hopefully a quilt is in my future!

(see the coaster backs here)

The coaster redo! These are similar to the other coasters, but better sewn and better fabric composition. They also feature an elephant butt, as promised.

The pattern is from the Simple Coasters tutorial, with two small mods. First, I clipped the batting corners before sewing the layers together, which makes the batting trimming step easier and lowers the bulk in the corners. I also didn’t hand-stitch the opening part shut, I topstitched around the coasters instead.

The pattern for these potholders is from the Amy Butler In Stitches book. I absolutely heart that book - all of the instructions are crystal clear. As a novice sewer, I sit around, thinking questions like, “do I backstitch at the ends or not?” and the book answers them every time.

The potholder fronts clearly match the coasters, but I followed the pattern to the letter in potholder assembly. These coasters are like little quilts with handles in the back. I’m especially impressed with the binding step - binding attachment is so clever! This pattern is the perfect thing to make if you’re interested in dipping your toe into the quilting pond. I have to say I’m eager to make a larger, quilty project!

I do need one thing before taking that leap into quilting - a walking foot. I don’t have one, and contents definitely shifted as I quilted the layers together. My top and bottom layers shifted by about a half inch, which is pretty significant when the binding is only a half-inch wide. If you look closely at these, you can see that the patterned blocks aren’t all the same size, especially the elephant - he’s larger than the rest due to shifting. There’s also a few puckers that were introduced during the quilting step. I think these are the most handmade looking item in the bunch, which I’m sort of bummed about.

A couple of other, small changes: I skipped the grommet, because I didn’t want to slice and dice the finished potholders to add one. There’s no way that I was redoing these if I screwed that up! I also selected some heat-resistant batting instead of the high-loft stuff that was recommended. The batting looks metally-shiny, and makes a distinct crunching sound when you bend the potholders. I didn’t realize how noticeable the sound would be, and I’d definitely pick a different batting next time.

Ooh, one last thing that I almost forgot - to bias or not to bias-cut your bias tape? Thanks for all the recommendations when I asked this question - the consensus is that bias-cut tape drapes better and is more flexible than the alternatives. For these potholders, I cut the polka-dot binding perpendicular to the selvedge, and the scallopy one on the bias. For this small project, the difference was negligible. The polka-dot binding looks worse, but I think that’s because I constructed it first.

Placemats! These are constructed exactly the same as the coasters, just bigger. I had originally cut them to be 15 by 20 inches (the same dimensions as the placemats in the In Stitches book), but that seemed huge to me. I trimmed an inch off each side to make them 14 by 19 inches. The one inch trimming worked out well, since each color block is 2 inches (plus seam allowance) wide.

Staggering the color blocks was a very smart idea, as accuracy wasn’t my strong suit here. I’ve been using this cheapo rotary cutter, and the blade dulls extremely quickly. Would investing in a nicer cutter be worthwhile? The cutter itself is fine, it’s the cheapo blades that make me bonkers.

I used my two food fabrics for backings, then picked the others based on color. I want to run away and marry that number fabric, I keep trying to devise projects that need the number treatment!

All in all, these projects were a great way to use up some of my ever growing fabric stash. I’ve been buying lots of fat quarters and 1/8 yards of fabrics, and many are down to scraps after finishing these projects. If I were to make these again, I would cut the largest items first - I was struggling to find large enough pieces of fabric for the placemat backs, and just barely ran out of the brown cotton with one placemat front to go. Now to go and replenish that stash - have you seen the Echino Woodland Damask print? And the Full Moon Forest collection? Want!

Unfortunately, my crafty spirit has been broken after all those scarves - I’ve just started to get back into knitting, working on FO Fury item #4. I had intended the FO Fury series to be more, well, furious, but I dropped everything the second we decided that we weren’t traveling for the holiday. I’ve also been taking a bit of a blog break these days. I think I need to go ahead and Mark All Read and start anew - I’m incredibly behind in my blog reading, and you guys post entirely too frequently!

I did create something over the past week:

This is 52g of Skeintily Clad merino in an unknown colorway - the original fiber is here. It’s buttery soft, yum!

I’m borrowing Amy’s wheel again, so expect more spinning this coming month. I’m relaxing my goals of finishing all UFO’s by the end of the year in favor of spinning through all the stash I’ve purchased in the past week. Rob and I didn’t really do the gift exchange thing this year, so I bought some fibery gifts for myself. My goal is to spin through everything before the wheel gets returned, we’ll see if that happens…

If you’re a female in our family that’s receiving a gift from me, there’s a good chance that you’re getting a scarf!

Pattern: Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf
Yarn: Colinette Giotto, color Castagna

When we were in London last year, I actively sought out places to buy Colinette yarn, since the price is right when you’re not importing it into the US. My mother is allergic to wool, so I chose to buy some Giotto to make her a scarf. It’s a cotton ribbon yarn that’s half shiny, half matte. The shiny strands are unwoven, they run parallel between the edges of matte binder.

I swatched the yarn last year and have been trying to destash it ever since! I’ve come to realize that I despise working with ribbon yarns because the twistiness drives me crazy. Also, it’s entirely too easy to pierce the unwoven center of this yarn. I was determined to get this yarn out of my stash, and I now know to stay far, far away from this stuff in the future.

I found the pattern via Ravelry, and I think it works well with the yarn. One down!

Pattern: Cream of Spinach Scarf
Yarn: Brooks Farm Riata

We saw Rob’s Aunt last year and sort of dropped the ball, gift-wise, so I thought I’d make her a scarf this year. Again, I found the pattern via the Rav, and I’m really happy with the result. The scarf has tons of drape, and the one-row pattern meant that this scarf was finished in a matter of days. Riata comes in some huge whopping skeins (375 yards), and I had plenty leftover from this generously-sized scarf.

I won two skeins of this yarn last year at Kid and Ewe (a wee little fiber festival in Boerne, TX), and this is the first one that I’ve knit up. It’s gorgeous stuff, each of its three plies has a different fiber composition - fuzzy mohair, matte wool, and shiny wool/silk. I kept staring at the yarn as I was knitting it, marveling at the contrast of textures. Those Brooks Farm people really know how to make a yarn.

Pattern: My So-Called Scarf
Yarn: Brooks Farm Four Play

My family exchanges names for gift-giving for Christmas, and I pulled my aunt’s name. I figured that I should really make her a scarf since I’m making Rob’s aunt one, hence scarf #3.

Speaking of lovely Brooks Farm Yarn, I would definitely qualify Four Play as one of my desert-island yarns. It was incredible to work with, so so soft and shiny. Good stuff, there. Everyone and their mother has made one of these So-Called scarves, and it’s a great pattern. The best part is that it lies perfectly flat, no pins, sweat, or tears needed. I’m especially pleased that I knit the entire scarf with one skein of the Four Play (270 yards) - it’s on the skinny size (5″ wide), but will be perfect for my aunt.

This is the last of the holiday knits, whew. I’m working on one more item, but I realized that the colorwork hat on size 2 needles (with a full lining) is so not getting done anytime soon. It also turns out that our holiday deadline is extended a bit - we’re staying here this year, thanks to Rob and his whack back. He’s having a wee bit of outpatient surgery tomorrow, so it will be a very balmy holiday for us!

Pattern: Top-down stockinette over 58 stitches with a short row heel and your standard toe (closeup here)
Yarn: Lonesome Stone Mountain Feat in Cran Brulee

Boring old stockinette socks for my mother-in-law. She loved! adored! raved! about the socks I made her last year, so she guaranteed herself a handknit gift this year.

I swatched this yarn with a few different patterns - I wanted something with textural interest, but the yarn was giving me fits:

I’m not buying variegated yarns any more. No, really, I mean it this time.

I bought the yarn during our trip last month in Boulder, at Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins. It’s produced in CO - the perfect souvenir yarn! The yarn was a bit thick-and-thin in nature, and it’s definitely the beefiest yarn I’ve ever knit socks with. I’m pleased with the final result, they’ll keep Rob’s mom’s toes toasty.

SS and S was a great yarn shop, huge and inviting with tons of yarn. I did have one issue with it - I was thisclose to buying some Koigu there, but they were selling it for $14 a skein! It’s usually $12, and the highest I’d previously seen it was $13.50 at Purl. I was priced out of my dear Koigu, so sad.

Pattern: Utopia Hat
Yarn: Malabrigo in Forest

A warm, cozy hat for my brother, who lives in the cold, cold land of Buffalo. I found the pattern via Ravelry - this will become a theme this year. I do wish that the pattern listed the hat’s finished size - I had to do some swatching and ripping and reknitting to get this to work. I knit the Malabrigo very tightly on size 4 or 5 needles, and added two pattern repeats (48 stitches) to the pattern. My brother has a monstrous head, and I’m not entirely sure that this will fit him. It will likely be too short, so I didn’t weave in the top end in anticipation of some holiday frogging.

The yarn was lovely to work with, as always. I have some Manos in the stash, but I think it’s a wee bit scratchy for a gift hat.

Next up: a bevy of scarves.

Here’s quickie project to start off the FO frenzy - Coasters!

In keeping with my sew-straight-lines theme, I’m making a friend of mine a set of sewn square items. Coasters are first up, and can I just say that these are super fast to put together? I followed this Simple Coasters tutorial (which I found on the Sew, Mama, Sew handmade holidays list, which is full of good stuff) and had zero problems putting these together. I made one modification to the pattern - I didn’t stitch the turning hole closed, but instead folded it inward and topstitched the whole coaster. I picked up that idea from the Bend-the-Rules Sewing book. I’ll do anything to avoid hand-sewing!

The elephant is my favorite!

Despite the inherent cuteness of these little things, I’m making a new set. The anal-retentive part of me just can’t look past the non-centered squares and the sloppy topstitching. I’m almost done with version 2.0, and I can confirm that it will contain an elephant butt square. Because I am twelve.

A question to all you sewers out there - is it necessary to cut bias tape on the bias? Will my small project self-destruct if I cut it with the grain?

Meet Mica, another Soto Softies creature (recall Igor, the stuffed praying mantis. Rob’s still scratching his head about that one). Maritza’s softies are so cute and so incredibly well made, it’s a wonder that I don’t have an army of them by now.

Mica arrived last week, and I’ve already put her to good use.

She’s almost at the toe for a pair of socks for my mother-in-law. I’m sort-of-maybe a bit behind on my ambitious schedule of holiday crafting, but I will not be deterred. You can expect to see a bevy of finished objects next week!

Here she’s helping Rob write a final exam. She has an amazing knowledge of robotics, who knew? I don’t recall if I ever mentioned it here, but Rob is teaching a class on top of his full-time work at a certain space agency. The semester’s almost over, and I for one welcome the return of Rob’s free time!