Work-in-progress Wednesday

from the tweets of Steve Martin:

Can't decide if the word "awesome" even needs an exclamation point. Answer: Yes! It becomes even more awesome!!!!!

@brad9778: I think you were looking for awesomer.


I can't exactly explain why I find this so hilarious, but reading through Steve Martin's collection of tweets and the back-and-forth with his twitter followers had me laughing so hard I cried. It's a short collection and it starts off slowly but there's comedic gold in there.

This work-in-progress Wednesday finds me at the gusset of my second New England sock. When I get to this point in a sock I always feel like it's just a short sprint to the finish. Today's schedule includes lots of transit time for knitting so maybe I can finish it up by end of day? That's my goal - one more February finish. Awesome(r)!!

Happy Leap Day one and all! Check out the links at Tami's Amis to see all the great work being done.

FO: Sirdar Snuggly 3149 Hat E

I've knit a second baby hat, this time following a pattern from Sirdar to compare to the Baby Koolhaas hat I knit last week. Now admittedly I chose the 6 months size rather than the newborn size, but this hat finishes a couple inches wider in circumference and almost an inch deeper than the Koolhaas hat. My suspicions that the Koolhaas hat turned out on the small size have been confirmed; going forward I think I'll move up a needle size to bring the finished size more in line with this Sirdar hat.

While tidying up over the weekend I came across three more balls of white acrylic baby yarn, so there will definitely be several more hats over the coming days. My plan is to knit up all this baby yarn as part of my Surmount the Stash 2012 challenge; it'd be nice to get a bundle of hats ready by spring.

The original Sirdar pattern instructions for this hat include a round of embroidered flowers just above the brim but I'm undecided about that. There's no doubt they're cute - you can see them in the photo in the link above - but I wonder whether adding flowers changes the hat from unisex to feminine. What do you think? Embroidered flowers? Or no flowers?

Year of Projects - New England 02

instead of an Easter Hat,
how about a pair of Easter Socks?

Knitting on the Road: Canada • Canal du Midi • Conwy • Dalarna • Denmark • Friday Harbor • Hiiumaa • Huron Mountain • New England • The Road to Oslo • Santa Fe • Spey Valley • Christmas in Tallinn • Traveler's Stockings • Uinta Cabin • Unst • Whitby

When, after three tries, I finally got the central diamond pattern established correctly, progress on these New England socks took off. The first sock is done and the second sock is on the needles. And barring anything unforeseen I expect that the pair will be done by the end of this week.

Usually when I photograph knitting I avoid direct sunlight because of the way it bleaches out the detail in the highlights and also because of the harsh shadows it creates. But after days and days of wet snow and rain, this sunshine is entirely welcome and I'm embracing it! With sunny skies and milder temps, this morning feels like a hint of spring. Bring it on!

This pair is number 11 out of 17 pairs, so by the numbers I've completed about 60% of my Year of Projects challenge. I'm confident I can complete the remaining six pairs in the four months remaining. So far the challenge has been a good experience for several reasons:

• The challenge has encouraged me to knit some patterns that didn't immediately appeal to me - those have mostly been pleasant surprises. 
• By committing to knit these patterns no matter what, I've been forced to problem solve and modify to work with my yarns and needles. Otherwise I probably would've given up and moved on; I think that's made me a better knitter.
• I've learned several new cast-on techniques, as well as other fancy stitches.
• Rather than purchasing whatever patterns caught my fancy, the challenge has restrained me to knitting patterns from a book I already have.

FO: Baby Koolhaas

This morning I looked around for something appropriate to model this baby hat - knit as written in Brooklyn Tweed's Koolhaus pattern but with baby yarn on 3.75 mm needles. My finished hat is 12 inches in circumference unstretched - it'll stretch comfortably to 15 inches - and 5-1/2 inches high from brim edge to center top. There's no newborn baby handy and I haven't come up with any other ideas to check the size and fit except to compare the measurements to this chart. Seems like the size is about right based on that.

The finished hat weighs 21 grams, leaving me with 57 grams of white acrylic baby yarn. I guess I can make a couple more. Maybe for the next one I knit I'll follow an actual baby hat pattern to see how the size compares. And then go back to the Koolhaas pattern if everything looks copacetic.

Before starting the pattern as a baby hat I reflected about whether the pattern was too "ridge-y", whether it would be uncomfortable against a newborn's skin or leave marks in a lattice pattern. The second picture shows the knitted fabric on the inside of the hat; as you can see the pattern is quite muted on the reverse and the fabric is fairly smooth. I think it'll be okay.

At least I have a definite plan about what to do with these hats. My sister-in-law is a labour and delivery nurse at one of our local hospitals. Mom used to donate hats through her, so I'll do the same with these. Maybe she can let me know how well they fit and work?

FO: Irish Rose Square for SIBOL

like a vintage teacup

On Wednesday afternoon I finished my Koolhaas hat but before casting on anything else I figured I'd better turn my attention to the blanket square I had promised a few weeks ago. SIBOL announced that they were collecting squares for an Irish Rose blanket and I decided that I had the perfect worsted scraps in my stash to make one. As it turns out, this square used every last inch of bordeaux red. Perfect!

It's a very interesting square to crochet because the finished project is so three dimensional. The rose petals sit atop the square in two layers. The leaves are crocheted above the square as well, but their tips are pinned down to the square to keep them organized - probably for the best since my leaves were curling up on themselves before that. The red hdc border is a modification of the original pattern for the SIBOL squares, and I think it's the perfect thing to add a bit more of the petal colour and to finish the square with a firm square edge. Presumably all the squares will be crocheted with white backgrounds and joined with white borders. I can't wait to see the entire blanket assembled.

I hesitated over the colours before deciding on these. After seeing the sample squares shown on SIBOL's website I wondered whether I should go with lighter, more pastel choices. But these colours really do put me in mind of vintage tea cups and fancy bone china sets that the ladies used to collect when I was a child; I just had to try them. Although I was prepared to make another if I was uncomfortable with how this square turned out, now that it's done I couldn't be happier. It'll be in the mail to SIBOL this weekend.

If you enjoyed this post and want to see more fun and fabulous finishes, please check the links at Tami's Amis!

FO: Koolhaas Hat

The crown decreases took no time at all, so I was able to finish my Koolhaas hat yesterday afternoon. I absolutely love this pattern, but it's finicky alright! Some Ravelers mentioned in their notes that they worked the crossed stitches without a cable needle but when I tried that the work seemed too tight and it was very hard to work the stitches properly and neatly without splitting the yarn. So instead I decided to just knit it as written using a cable needle. Other Ravelers mentioned that they found the hat knit up on the large size - based on those comments I knit the smaller size and it seems a good size to me.

The yarn is Bernat Satin - machine washable and dryable, 100% acrylic. It is very soft and smooth so I think it suits a chemo cap very well. And what about that gorgeous colour? I'm not sure the photos do it justice; it's actually quite a turquoise-y blue. For this first hat I've used most of one ball, leaving me plenty to do a second.

It won't be a blue hat that I cast on today though. As I knit this hat I was struck by the idea of trying it with baby yarn on smaller needles for a newborn hat. With 104 sts cast on I can't see why that wouldn't work. Wouldn't it be the coolest newborn hat ever? There's a bunch of white acrylic baby yarn in my stash; time to put some of that to work.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

With all those stitches crossing back and forth I thought this hat might take longer than it is. Jared Flood describes his Koolhaas hat pattern as an architectural beanie informed by the work of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. It's really interesting and dramatic, isn't it? Both the architecture AND the hat I mean. This pattern has been in my queue for ages; it's about time I got to knitting it.

The yarn I'm using is Bernat Satin - a very smooth and soft acrylic. The yarn was originally purchased for my Wool-Eater blanket but when I started a round with this colour I found it too much for the other colours. So it's destined to be hats now: chemo caps for Halos of Hope.

I'm excited to get started with the crown decreases. That's really the impressive part of this pattern, the way the crown decreases work while maintaining the integrity of the diamond lattice. If I finish this hat on my train ride into work today, maybe I'll cast on another. It's working up really nicely and I have plenty of yarn.

With this post I'm taking part in Work-in-Progress Wednesday hosted by Tami's Amis. Take a minute, have a look and prepare to be impressed with all that's going on in the craft world today!