Chunkeanie

Now, the Chunkeanie hat is supposed to be a chunky beanie, but I've got non-chunky yarn.  I'm going to increase the number of stitches (and then the corresponding decreases) to fit the gauge that I can expect.  (I'm being bad and not actually checking my gauge... but I've made enough men's hats that I know around 100 sts in worsted weight yarn on size 6 needles will fit well.)  

I used 59 g (130 yards) of KnitPicks Full Circle Yarn (ponderosa) that was left over from Keith's sweater.  I knit the hat on size 6 knitting needles.

My Modifications & Notes from Construction:

• Cast on 96 sts (*I would do 100, but the pattern calls for mulitiple of 8 stitches in each of the different sizes.)  
• 3" Brim - 21 Rows of 1x1 ribbing.  
• Reverse Stockinette before decreases - 28 rows (nice to see that my gauge is consistent!)  
• Additional decreases:
• Decrease Round 0.1: *ssk, p20, K2tog* around. (88 sts)
• Decrease Round 0.2: *K1, P20, K1* across
• Decrease Round 0.3: *ssk, p18, K2tog* across (80 sts)
• Decrease Round 0.4: *K1, P18, K1* across
• Continue decreasing as written for large hat.  

I love the final product.  This hat looks great whether you want to fold the brim or leave it with some volume.  I know that this is a pattern I will come back to in the future.  

Spinning Wheel!

If you follow me on Facebook, you may be aware of the amazing early Christmas present that arrived on my birthday in December... a Kromski Fantasia Spinning Wheel! 

It took a lot of self control to not open her immediately, but I wasn't sure how long the assembly would take so Keith and I decided to wait until the weekend to set her up.  I was determined to do most of the assembly myself in case I ever needed to do maintenance on her.   Besides, I really should have an understanding on how the spinning wheel works, right?  

Unwrapping each piece is like opening a new present.  Some of the assembly instructions were a little hard to follow (according to this perfectionist), but there are handy videos to help you see how things should fit together.  The instructions did not come with the names of the parts.  Most I sort of knew, but many we just had to figure out (the videos helped).

Meet Sandry.  I named her after one of my favorite characters from the Tamora Pierce Circle Universe whose magic appears through spinning and weaving.  (Too bad she never knits!)

When the wheel showed up, I realized that I didn't have anything to test spin on it.  I ran (well, speed walked/danced) to my LYS to get some roving.  They do not have a great selection, but I knew from a past visit that they had some little balls that would be perfect for testing out the wheel.  I didn't want to start spinning some lovely hand dyed roving until I got a feel for how the wheel worked.  When I got home, I immediately dyed some roving myself to be my first full project on the wheel.  (Stay tuned for a future post.)

Before I knew it I was spinning!  The brake band was the hardest thing to manage.  I'm sure it will take me a while to get the feel for what this tension should be.  I am really glad I had some "waste" roving to practice with.

The wheel is FAST.  I knew that it would be faster than the drop spindle, but I still did not appreciate how fast it would really be.  I had a bit too much spin on this first yarn, and I'm on the smallest whorl ratio! Maybe I don't need the additional 14:1/20:1 whorl...  In no time I had gone though this little bit of roving and was ready to wind it onto my niddy noddy. 

The best difference of having a spinning wheel over a drop spindle (after the speed and ease, of course) is the built in lazy kate.  Winding yarn off of the drop spindle was always one of the biggest pains, and now it is such a pleasure!   In this first spinning session, I spun about 80 ft (20 wraps *4 ft) of yarn. I am not sure what I will use it for because it isn't the softest yarn ever, but I am happy to have had something to practice with.  The roving that I handpainted was dry by the afternoon, and I was ready to start spinning it. 

Yarn Spun 12/15/2012 - I will have notes on when I finished spinning the yarn on all of these posts to help me keep track of the important information of the yarn for when I enter it in the Ravelry stash.  As of this moment, there are a bunch of new hand spun yarns that I need to enter but have not gotten around to yet.  Thank goodness I keep notes in Blogger! 

 

Men's Knits: 20 New Classics

Men's Knits: 20 New Classics by Erika Knight

As a woman, I find it much easier to knit for other women than it is to knit for men. This issue isn't just about me being female, I have met male knitters who struggle to find good, modern knitting patterns for men. I recently checked out a bunch of men's knitting books I had never seen before from my local library. (Thank you Evanston Public Library for being the source of so much content for my blog!)

I love it when I open a knitting book and there are thumbnails of all of the designs in the contents. Right away I have an amazing summary of what the book is about.

The patterns include:

• Pullovers - 11
• Vests - 2 (but there are at least 4 different vests you can make from these two patterns)
• Cardigans - 5
• Scarves - 2
• Hats - 2

I like that the book is focused mostly on sweaters. These designs are very classic, and you should be able to find one that will suit your men's taste. I love that these designs are so simple that they are basically a blank slate to add your own colorwork.

I have been looking a lot at sweater vest patterns recently. My SIL wants us to have an ugly Christmas sweater tradition (Her sweater dress with reindeer isn't ugly at all, but I know what she is going for.) I cannot see myself making Keith a whole sweater that he may only wear once a year, but I would love to design a vest for him. Sorry for the digression from the review, but the Plain, Argyll and Check Vests is the type of silhouette that I would go for.

Don't come to this book if you don't already know how to knit. There are instructions for garment care and fiber selection, but there is no how-to-knit section here.

This book shows pictures of each garment flat (as the schematic) in addition to multiple modeled photos. I give this book an A+ for showing off the sweaters. You wouldn't look at these sweaters and immediately go to thinking that they are hand knit, which speaks to a level of refinement to the designs.

I think my favorite sweater of the bunch is the Herringbone Sweater - and not just because it is knit with baby alpaca! I love the herringbone zigzags, and the sweater is so classic and lovely. Too bad Keith won't wear V-neck sweaters... but a crew neck wouldn't be as wonderful with the design.

Cake Dyeing Experiment

I recently started a new series on my YouTube Channel called Dyeing Experiments.  I have made many dyeing tutorials on the fly where I haven't exactly known what the outcome was going to be, so I decided that rather than calling some of these tutorials, I should go ahead and name them what they are... Experiments!

Logic would dictate that when you are dyeing whole cakes of yarn, a cake that is more tightly wound would absorb color slower than a loosely wound cake.  But why not try it out?  The extremes between these two cakes will also highlight how even two similarly wound skeins in a dyepot won't come out identical.

Before the challenge, I weight the two balls of yarn.  The tight cake had 99g, and the loose cake weight 98 g. There is a greater surface area to the looser wound cake, so even though dye penetration should be easier, there is also a greater access to yarn just on the outside of the cake.  I cannot wait to see what is going to happen! 

The insides of both cakes had a really cool look.  The deepest portion has a purple tinge, which is rimmed by a pale blue halo before getting to the darkest outside portion.  Of course, the colors are overall darker on the loose cake than the tight cake. 

The loose cake took up way more color than the tight cake, as we hypothesized.  This doesn't mean that the tighter cake isn't beautiful, because it has a gorgeous mottled quality to it.  In the picture below, it looks like there is a lot of white left in the tight cake, but it is really a pale blue.  Every bit of yarn did take up SOME color. 

I am still amazed that these came out of the same pot.  The colors coordinate really nicely together, but other than that they do not look like they are twins at all.  I think that I will want to combine both of these skeins into a single project.  Any suggestions?

Want to see every step of this experiment?  Check out the video below:

Black and White Hitchhiker

When my mom saw my hitchhiker scarf, she wanted one of her own.  She requested it to be in black and white, which was somewhat problematic to me.  Hitchhiker looks great in variegated yarns, but black and white is not something that I could dye on my own.  I could make it with two different colored yarns for stripes, but that takes away some of the magic of pooling.

When I was at Vogue Knitting Live, I scoured the marketplace to find a skein that would fit my vision.  I found a really cool black and white skein in the  Sophie's Toes Booth,  (I think the name was Owl something) but there were hints of yellow that made it just not quite right.  (Her yarns are fantastic though, so you should check out her Etsy shop!)

Finally, in the Lost City Knits booth, I found the perfect skein.  "Hitchcock" goes from a deep grey/black to a very pale grey.  It is not quite black/white, but looks great with any black heavy outfit.  Plus it would work with any type of color.  385 yards/100 g superwash merino yarn.

The yarn still smells strongly of vinegar, but maybe I'll block the project when I'm done.  Certainly I can wash it and lightly block it (something I haven't bothered to do with my other hitchhikers.)  The vinegar sent went away while I was knitting the yarn, I think it just needed some airing out!  

I love the way the colors pooled when I wound the skein into a ball!

My concern for the project is that there are only 385 yards.  I want the scarf to be large enough to work well.  I decided to knit this one on size 6 knitting needles, rather than size 4 that I have used for the three others.  I started with 109 g and  2 g remained at the end.

Sherry's Rainbow Hitchhiker was knit out of hand dyed Palette yarn.  

I shouldn't have been too worried, the size of this scarf ended up being comparable with the other two hitchhikers I knit in 2012.  Best of all?  My mom LOVED it!

I am a little bummed that 3 of my 12 in 2012 shawls are hitchhikers… but I swear that this isn’t my fault! The first one that I made was so popular that people kept requesting that I make it for them, too!  I wouldn't be too surprised if I end up making another hitchhiker in 2013...  

Technically I made 4, if you count Indy's bandanna!

A Search for Crochet Rug Patterns

My Mom is a crocheter, but she has not used her hooks in a long time.  She has been talking about creating a crochet rag rug over the past few years, but hasn't come across the right pattern.  In honor of her birthday today, I wanted to do a search for free crochet rug patterns to help her out.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

As of December 2012, there are over 410 crochet rug patterns on Ravelry* (137 of them available for free).   I am sticking this search to the ones that are more of a rag rug variety and less lacy.
*You will need to create a free Ravelry.com account to view this link properly

• Rag Rug Tutorial - An oval rag rug created out of old Tshirts.  Ther e are also instructions on how to cut the shirts up into strips.
• Circular Crochet Rag Rug - A circular rag rug created out of rags. 
• Semi-Circular Kitchen rug - Perfect for fitting up against a kitchen counter.  Created with bulky weight cotton yarn (or "double worsted" as described in the pattern.)
• Quiet Moments Rug - A hexagonal rug that has some embellishments on it (which would be easy to leave out.)  Made out of yarn.  
• Big Stitch Crocheted Alpaca Rugs - A circular rug created with very bulky yarn.  
• How to Craft a Rug out of T-shirts - a circular rug made out of rags (tshirts)
• Simple Tunisian Bath Mat - "This pattern assumes you have basic knowledge of Tunisian crochet."  I do not know what Tunisian crochet is, but to me it looks like this rectangle rug is created by going back and forth from one side to the other, rather than the inside out approach from many of the other rugs above.  You may need to create a free Ravelry.com account to download this pattern. 
• Calico Rag Rug - It appears very circular towards the center, but has a slight octagonal shape to it.  Created out of DIY Fabric Yarn. 
• Millennium Loop Rug - an oval rug created with yarn. 
• Oval Rug - An oval shaped (as the title would suggest) rug created out of yarn.
•  Pretty Little Rug - This is the first rug pattern that has a little more lace detail (eyelets.. If it were knit I would call them YO's, but I don't read crochet well yet.) 
• Nine Side Kitchen Mat - Created with worsted weight yarn. 
• Floor Decor: Striped Rug - Not crochet in the round, this striped rug is rectangular and "crocheted flat" (is that a term in crochet?  Would you say go back and forth?) 
• Sock Yarn Rug - Crocheting a rug out of Sock yarn (fingering weight) would create a thinner finished product than many of the other rugs on this list.  This is a 10 sided rug.  You may need to create a free Ravelry.com account to download this pattern. 
• Oval Rug - This oval rug isn't a round oval, but a polygon (an irregular octagon?) 
• South Riding Kitchen Rug - A striped, rectangular rug.  The designer recommends adding area rug gripper to keep it from slipping, a recommendation that should be followed for all rugs on this list! You may need to create a free Ravelry.com account to download this pattern.  
• Snow Bobbles Crocheted Bathmat - A rectangular bathmat created out of worsted cotton yarn that has a slightly different stitch pattern for the rest, popcorn-like.  You may need to create a free Ravelry.com account to download this pattern. 
• Amazing Technicolor T-Shirt Yarn Rug - a circular shaped rug with an interesting spiked border. (For knitting I would say it is picot-like.)  Created out of t-shirts. 
• Crochet Checkerboard Rug - a rectangular crochet checkerboard rug, crochet flat out of yarn. 
• Bachelor's Button Rug - created out of multiple circular motifs. 
• Quadra - a rectangular rug created in the round out of yarn. 
• Round or Oval Rug - Using up scraps of yarn of multiple different weights. 
• Diagonal Rug -  A rectangular rug with diagonal running stripes.  Crocheted out of yarn. 
• Blue and White T-yarn Rug - a rectangular rug crocheted in the round out of tshirt yarn. 
• Plastic Trash Yarn - an oval shaped rug created out of plastic yarn or "plarn" formed from plastic shopping bags. 
• Shaker-Insired Rug - This round rug is created out of a spiral of a narrow striped piece.  You first crochet the long thin strip and then sew it together.  You will need to create a free Lion Brand Account to view this pattern. 
• Checkers - This is a stunning pattern created out of black and white plastic bags.  You get a three color effect by creating narrower strips of black and white and holding them together.  This gives the rectangular mat an almost woven appearance.  
•  Chevron Rug - crochet out of yarn with a wavy, chevron pattern. You may need to create a free Ravelry.com account to download this pattern. 

In most of these rugs, the material used to create them is really what gives them the character.  If you like the look of the rug in the pattern you select, I suggest you compare the stitch pattern to others with a similar overall shape to determine whether the texture you love is due to the stitch pattern or the yarn.  Happy crocheting!  

12 Shawls in 2012

I did it!  I successfully completed 12 knitted shawls in 2012.

I have not yet published posts on 2 of the 12 shawls.  I wanted to wait until the new year to share these posts because I did not want the recipients to come across the shawl project late in the year and realize it was a gift for them. (I had figured that presents I finished in March wouldn't be too suspicious!)  

What were the 12 shawls?  Here is a summary:

1. Rough Sea Shawl - Palette Fingering Yarn, 395 yards, Size 7 needles
2. Elly (Dressed Up) - Palette Fingering Yarn, 365 yards, Size 7 needles
3. Diantha (Mystery KAL Shawl) - Shadow Lace Yarn, 325 yards, Size 7 needles
4. Ginkgo Shawl - Palette Fingering Yarn, 452 Yards, Size 7 needles
5. Annis - Alpaca Cloud Lace Yarn, 282 Yards, Size 7 needles
6. Hitchhiker - Stroll Tonal Fingering Yarn, 471 yards, size 4 needles
7. Venemous Tentacula - Malabrigo Fingering Yarn, 400 yards, Size 7 needles
8. Color Affection* -  Palette Fingering Yarn,  822 Yards, Size 6 needles
9. Hitchhiker #2 - Palette Fingering Yarn (Handdyed by me!), 443 yards, Size 4 needles
10. Daybreak - Palette Fingering Yarn, 378 yards, Size 4 Needles Post will be published in February.  
11. Rock Island* - Grinning Gargoyle Shimmer Lace, 551 Yards, Size 6 needles
12. Hitchhiker #3 - Lost City Knits PathWays Fingering Yarn, 412 Yards, Size 6 needles Post will be published in a few days
    * 2 Large shawls of > 546 yards.   

Here are some fun statistics.  Of the 12 shawls:

• 9 were knit in fingering weight, 3 in lace weight
• 9 required blocking (the Hitchhikers were not blocked)
• 7 were knit from stash yarn (purchased prior 2012 began and without the intention of the project it was ultimately used for.) 
• 6 were knit with Palette (including the one dyed by me)
• 4 patterns were received as Random Acts of Kindness gifts
• 3 patterns are available for free online
• 2 used dye purchased from independent dyers at festivals
• 1 yarn was dyed by me (not counted as stash)
• 1 non counting shawl (I technically cast on for Polaris in Dec 2011, although I did 99% of the knitting in 2012.)

I know that I won't be able to have >50% of the shawls in 2013 kind out of stash yarn.  This is mainly because there is yarn I purchased for specific shawls this year that I didn't end up knitting.  I have already received two patterns as RAKs that I already had yarn picked out for.  Here are some goals for 2013:

• 1 shawl of my own design
• 1 shawl out of my hand spun yarn
• 2 shawls out of my hand dyed yarn
• 1 crochet shawl
• Don't let every shawl be purple

I hope you have had as much fun following my shawl progress as I did knitting them. It felt GREAT to have an idea of the gifts for the women in my family when the year had just started.