Smitten

Lately I've been trying to find ways to put my scraps and odd balls to good use. My first step was to search the Ravelry pattern database. There are lots of good ideas there, but the one that really caught my eye is Smitten: an advent calendar in the form of little mittens strung on a garland.

The pattern is written for worsted weight scraps, so I dug out an odd ball of Bernat Satin in light blue to cast on my first little mitten. About an hour later - an hour which included one YouTube tutorial to learn a knitted cast-on - et voilà, a perfect little mitten.

Next I grabbed some light fingering yarn in a multi-tonal green, rewound it in three little balls and cast on a second little mitten. Yep, that works.

For my third mitten - the orange one - I decided to try it with baby yarn held double. Not a bad result but it's a little smaller than the others. Hence a fourth mitten in red baby yarn held double on needles one size larger. Fingers crossed this matches up better to the first two.

I'd really like to come up with 24 different mittens all from my scraps. I've probably got about six different colours of worsted, so that's not going to take me very far. There are lots more possibilities amongst the sock yarn scraps but I'm less keen about using these up. In my year of projects I've been putting fingering weight scraps to good use in stranded colourwork socks. So maybe instead I can make a dent in the shoebox of various odd balls of baby yarn? There's another half dozen colours there. And even more possibilities if I do stripes or patterns.

Meanwhile I'm thinking about all the little treats and treasures I could fill these mittens with. That's the fun part, isn't it?

Year of Projects: Unita Cabin 02

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

After a week of on-and-off attention, my first Uinta Cabin sock is finished and the second is at the heel flap. Usually I motor through colourwork patterns quickly because I can't wait to see one pattern develop, then the next, and so on. This one's no different. Add to that the fact that I'm knitting the leg on a larger needles than usual and it's full speed ahead!

Chances are the pair will be done in the next few days and with that I come to the end of my year of projects. Since July 2011 I've knit every pattern in the book Knitting on the Road with one exception - I skipped over Traveler's Stockings as I had already knit them in the summer of 2010. For next week's post I'm planning an end of year wrap up, and for the last Sunday in June I'll preview my next Year of Projects. Yes, after the great experience that was Year One, I'm definitely in for Year Two!

work-in-progress Wednesday

Sock knitters know how difficult it is to take a good photo of a sock-in-progress on one's own foot. Unless you're a contortionist. Which I'm not.

Typically I cajole Gavin into crouching down at foot level to take an undistorted photo, but considering he underwent hip replacement surgery ten days ago that wasn't an option. The surgeon was very clear: no bending more than 90° at the hip, no crossing the leg over the midline of his body and NO FALLING. Asking him to crawl around at my feet for a blog photo seemed an unnecessary risk, and maybe a bit insensitive.

So this was the best I could do. Not bad, huh? It only took me about a dozen photos to get one that actually showed the ruffled cuff, the colourwork on the leg, the slip stitch heel and the gusset. The pattern is Uinta Cabin from Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush. Based on the pattern photos I wasn't sure that I'd like the sock, but now in blue, greens and greys I've decided that it's quite a handsome sock. I wish I could tell you what that main colour yarn was. That ball band - or skein tag as it maybe - was lost some time ago. That's a shame because it's gorgeous, and I'd buy more if I knew what it was. It's a very light fingering though, and I wouldn't try it with anything larger than size 0 (2mm) needles.

That's it for me today; just one WIP on the needles! We're running off now to the hospital to get Gavin's staples removed - all 33 of them - and then I'd better dash to work to try to catch up. After taking last week off to fetch and carry for the invalid, it now seems like I'm several weeks behind. How does that work? If you have some time, check out the links at Tami's Amis - so much fiber-y goodness!

a stack of dishcloths

Our accountant, Linda, works with us one day a week - Tuesdays - and two weeks ago she asked if I could knit dishcloths. Absolutely, I agreed enthusiastically. After all it's a great stash bust, and let's not forget that Linda prepares the paycheques. So this morning I assembled my little stack of dishcloths to take to work. And then it occurred to me: I don't have a final photo for my Ravelry project page.

This happens a lot, doesn't it? Project pages showing half a sock, or a sweater without button bands, and so on. I guess as soon as something's done I'm in a big rush to deliver it. Excitement, maybe? Or in some cases procrastination because I'm down to the very last minute? Whatever the case these unfinished photos annoy me every time I scroll through my Ravelry projects. After all, it only takes a minute, right?

So there it is in all its glory. My finished stash-busting stripey dishcloth based on this pattern inspired by this blog post. As for the rest of my dishcloth cotton scraps, I'm considering some scrap ripple cloths. Hopefully they'll be enough to cure me of my urge to make an entire ripple blanket.

Year of Projects: Uinta Cabin 01

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

After finishing another pair of socks earlier this week, my sock needles were finally freed up to cast on this last pattern for my Year of Projects. For Uinta Cabin socks, Nancy Bush uses four different colours of sport weight yarn. To use fingering weight yarns from my stash I've altered the primary stitch count from 54 sts to 72 sts. For the stranded colourwork of the cuff and leg, I'm working on size 1 (2.5 mm) needles; when I reach the ankle I'll switch to size 0 (2.0mm) needles. Going up one needles size for colourwork has proven to be a very effective strategy, so I'm sticking with that.

Because I'm working from stash yarns I struggled to pick the four yarns for these socks. In fact, there were only three possibilities of sufficient yardage for the main colour - solid cream, solid khaki green and this dark variegated blue/green yarn. The latter won out, in no small part because it worked best with my remaining choices. The darkest contrast colour is dark grey. Although it doesn't provide a lot of contrast to the main colour, it is used for the heels and toes so this Wollemeise was the perfect candidate - I have enough and it wears like iron. For the medium shade contrast colour I chose this Fleece Artist yarn which reads primarily as a light lichen green with streaks of gold and sky blue. I just love the way it looks with the main colour. And finally, my choice for the lightest contrast colour is this leftover robin's egg blue from Viola Yarns. I wasn't sure about this choice - it seemed disconcertingly bright compared to the others - but I like it now that I see it knitted up.

As you can see from the second picture, I've ended up with the two very similar dark colours and two somewhat similar light colours. As a result the colour changes within the colourwork are somewhat muted. And I'm very happy about that. To be honest I left this sock until last because I thought the colourwork was a bit loud and garish as shown in the book. I like my result a lot better!

To this point, other than altering the stitch count, I've knit the sock as written. But I'm contemplating a couple of modifications for the rest of the leg. First, I think I'll knit the remaining charted elements which should be the lightest colour as the second lightest yarn - mostly to avoid running short of the robin's egg blue yarn. And secondly, I think I'll knit a few extra rounds of main colour above the ankle to make the leg a bit longer; as written the leg goes immediately from the colourwork to the heel. Other than that, I like this sock pattern a lot more than I ever thought I would. HEY! Wait a minute! That's not the first time I've felt this way about a Nancy Bush pattern, is it?

Canada Day Swap

What to include? A small crocheted, knitted or woven felted item that is Canadian themed and your favourite recipe that you make for Canada Day or says Canadian pride in a delicious way.


Bonus Extra (NOT required): A small local treat or postcard; something that says Canada or is local to where you live.

Now that my parcel has been delivered to my swap partner I can reveal the contents. Around here fresh strawberries are in season around Canada Day (July 1st) so I went with a strawberry themed package. Assembled within a pint container are a knitted dishcloth, a recipe card for my favourite Strawberry Fields salad, a porcelain strawberry themed jelly spoon, a small jar of locally made strawberry jam and three crocheted strawberries.

The dishcloth is Maple Leaf illusion - viewed straight on it looks like simple red and white stripes but when viewed from an angle the maple leaf motif becomes visible. It's my first experience with illusion knitting and it's quite effective and interesting. I actually knit two. My first attempt turned out more rectangular than square, so I knit a second (not shown) with four extra rows above and below the maple leaf motif. That took care of the Canadian themed aspect of the swap package.

The strawberry jam is made at our local pick-your-own farm. We used to love going to pick our own when we were younger, although I never really did get the hang of getting my home made jams to set properly. An episode of back spasms after too many hours cleaning and chopping fruit at a kitchen counter that's a couple inches too short for a person my stature spelled the end of my home canning aspirations. Much easier to let someone else make the jam for me, or even better, enjoy the strawberries cleaned and prepared at Strawberry Socials organized by local churches.

I'm never sure that I've done the right thing with these kinds of swaps, although I suppose everyone feels that way. Hopefully my partner wasn't expecting an elaborate recipe - I don't do much cooking, and, as Gavin can attest, when I do it's with mixed results. Simple and fresh is better as far as I'm concerned in the kitchen. All in all, it's a package I wouldn't mind receiving, so fingers crossed my swap partner feels the same.

Work-in-Progress Wednesday

a couple of stripes = a bunch of ends to weave in

After several days of dishcloth knitting last week, I would have sworn that I was dishcloth-ed out. But when I saw this I realized that there was still another dishcloth or two in me. The pattern is Alex's cloth, and it's really cute, isn't it?

I especially like the way Dee's cloth striped up, but without any self-striping yarn left in my stash I've decided to switch from white to red for rows 11-14. To avoid contrasting loops across the changeover rows I've modified the pattern slightly, working rows 11 and 15 as straight knit rows. In so doing, the texture of the cloth is muted a bit but it's still attractive.

A word of warning: adding stripes to use up small amounts of contrasting colours may be an effective stash-busting strategy but it does create a LOT of ends to weave in. I don't mind but many others would, so consider yourself warned.

It looks like there's enough dishcloth cotton left to knit one more after this. I haven't entirely decided on a pattern for that one. If I like how this one turns out, the next one may be an identical twin. We'll see, won't we? And don't forget, it's Wednesday so there's lots to see in the links at Tami's Amis.