Saturday, February 15, 2014

FO: Team KPL Isabella Bonnet

I finally finished a project for the Ravellenic Games! This one took me a little longer than expected, since I couldn't work on it as often during the week, so I may have to revise my statement on the extra pair of socks.

This is my second time making an Isabella Bonnet, and I think it's such a cute pattern. I knit both inside out so that I could knit the body instead of purling. I usually think the wrong side of my ribbing looks a little neater anyway, so it works out well.


The original pattern just calls for knitting a rectangle for the bow, then bunching it up with a smaller rectangle. I thought that added a lot of bulk in the middle, so I added shaping to my bows as follows: 


Cast on 10 stitches
Row 1: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 2: S1pwyb, knit across
Row 3: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 4: S1pwyb, m1r, knit to 1 stitch before end, m1l, knit 1
Rows 5-20: Repeat last 4 rows (end with 20 stitches)

Row 21: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 22: S1pwyb, knit across
Row 23: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 24: S1pwyb, ssk, knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, knit 1
Rows 25-40: Repeat last 4 rows (end with 10 stitches)

Row 41: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 42: S1pwyb, knit across
Row 43: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 44: S1pwyb, m1r, knit to 1 stitch before end, m1l, knit 1
Rows 45-60: Repeat last 4 rows (end with 20 stitches)

Row 61: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 62: S1pwyb, knit across
Row 63: S1pwyf, purl across
Row 64: S1pwyb, ssk, knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, knit 1
Rows 65-80: Repeat last 4 rows (end with 10 stitches). Bind off 10 stitches.

It's amazing how stretchy this hat is. It's listed as being for a 1-2 year old, but I can actually get it on to my huge head. It doesn't look good there, but it does physically fit. This one is going into the gifting basket, and I'm moving on to my 2nd Knotty Glove (henceforth known as the Frozen glove now that I've watched and fallen in love with the movie!)


In other exciting news, I got my shipment of Felici in the mail today--my last ever. I hate that Knit Picks has discontinued this yarn because it's so soft and awesome. I love the self striping colors, but if it had ever come in solids I would have made a ton of sweaters out of it.

It also turns out that I only ordered 12 skeins, which I think is somehow a much more reasonable number than 14. I'm planning to make a pair of Skews out of 2 skeins of the Jellybean and the Jingle will most likely be used for some LINDEN Mittens. I;m breaking one of my stashdown goals by no longer having a plan for everything in my stash (let's ignore the fact that my purchase of this yarn broke my #1 stash rule), but sock yarn doesn't really count...right?

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Ravellenic Games 2014 Update

I've been plugging away on my Ravellenics project and have a revision to my last post: I'll totally be able to fit in a pair of socks by the Closing Ceremony. Seriously.

Since I'm in the Pacific time zone, the Opening Ceremony wasn't shown until around 8 PM, which was 12 hours after it actually happened. We don't have cable (which I'm okay with like 75% of the time), so my Knotty Gloves were cast on while watching NBC clips of the event. Still counts.


I finished the first glove on Monday night, which is waaaay faster than I expected. The only other pair of gloves I've made was in DK and very bad, so I figured fingering weight gloves with cables would take me much longer. Maybe I was just excited for an excuse to knit All. The. Time, but I managed to get this pointy-fingered beauty cranked out in 4 days:


Although I think I prefer Wollmeise DK (I love how sproingy it is after washing, so I'm waiting to make a decision until I've washed these gloves), it's hard not to love the stitch definition on these. The pattern is well-written, although I found the chart a little difficult to read. I could have blown it up, but I'm lazy.

I wanted to take a break from fingering weight yarn and also I'm using the Ravellenics as an excuse to break my sort-of-trying-to-stop-starting-four-projects-at-once resolution-esque-decision, so I cast on for my Isabella Bonnet on Monday night. I realized after knitting a couple rows of ribbing that 1) I'm not sure how great a cotton blend hat will be, and 2) the sweater that I made with this yarn stretches after wearing it for a while, so this hat will too. Since it's a stashbusting project that is meant to be adorable and not protect anyone in the Polar Vortex, I'd say these are issues that I can accept.


I should be getting my *cough* 14 skeins of Felici in the mail this week, so I'll probably use 2 skeins of that to make myself some socks--after I pile all of the lovely soft skeins onto my lap and pout about how I'll never be able to order it again.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Ravellenic Games 2014

Things have been quiet on the blog front, but that doesn't mean I haven't been knitting. I've been working on my first pattern and finally, finally got a finished product that I'm happy with. I just need to unscramble my pages of notes, take some awesome pictures, and figure out how to produce and publish a pattern, and then it will be ready to go! I'm really excited to finally get something out there.




I've also been planning my projects for the 2014 Ravellenic Games and have finally landed on a good combo. For Team TARDIS I'll be making a pair of Knotty Gloves out of Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin in Nazar Boncugu WD, which I caked up last night. This was actually the first skein of Wollmeise I ever purchased. I've knit 2 DK sweaters but have yet to break into my fingering weight yarn, so I'm excited to try it out.




For Team Knit Picks Lovers I'll be using the Knit Picks Shine Sport left over from my Sperry sweater to make an Isabella Bonnet. I made one of these for my friend's daughter and love that it's such a quick and easy knit. Plus, hi, bows. It's mostly an excuse to use up most of this leftover yarn and will be added to my handy dandy Gifting Basket.







I fell off the cold sheep wagon pretty hard when I found out that Knit Picks was discontinuing Felici. I wish I was joking when I said I'm having trouble coming to grips with this decision, but unfortunately I really am being that dramatic. I have 12 skeins that should be arriving at my house next week and may try to fit in a pair of Felici socks if I have time. I know that I won't have time, since I can only knit so fast, but for some reason that doesn't matter. I guess it's like how we always pack an absurd amount of knitting whenever we go on a trip so that we don't have to deal with the hell that is being stuck somewhere without knitting. Except that I'm not going anywhere and will be right next to my stash whenever I need it. And also that being stuck somewhere without knitting is not fatal, as much as I think it is.