March Madness

Although I'm right in the middle of the test knit and final review of my first pattern, my knitting and Internet time has been seriously affected by a very important event: March Madness. As a University of Kentucky fan I'm always crazy about basketball, but this year's tournament has been more intense. It's my first year out of school in which UK has been in the tournament (I still pretend that last year didn't happen), and I've actually entered a bracket into a pool with real money (instead of the homework coupons we used in elementary school), and I have to keep up on my basketball news so that I can defend my team against some of my coworkers.

In the small amount of knitting time I have found, I finished the pair of socks using the Stroll Sock Yarn that I received from the Knit Picks IDP. I'm really worried about how the pictures will turn out because the Sapphire Heather is such a deep blue. I've also come across quite a few issues during the test knit, which brings me to a (not so shocking) conclusion: designing is hard. I know that a lot of the issues are just beginner mistakes that I'll know to look out for next time, but I have swatched like crazy trying to figure out some of the issues brought up by my test knitters. Luckily, they are all sweet and wonderful and active and I haven't had anyone flake at all. 

My first pair of Archers was made using a slip 1, k2tog, psso centered double decrease on the arrowhead, which I really liked. When I was typing up the pattern, though, I used the double decrease on Knit Picks' standard list of abbreviations. I'm not really feeling the sharp line down the center of the arrowhead, so unfortunately I think I'll be ripping back to the end of the arrow shafts and fixing them. I'm aiming to rope my friend into modeling for pictures this weekend, so it looks like I'll be speed knitting some socks.

Mitten Progress!

I've been working on the sample pair of my Archer socks to send into Knit Picks with the pattern, and I even managed to set up my first test knitter thread a few days ago. It's a small accomplishment, but it's kind of blowing my mind that other people have voluntarily chosen to knit something that came out of my brain. Trippy. I'm trying to be monogamous and get through these socks, but I keep getting distracted by the LINDEN Mittens KAL!

I started the project after work n the 10th, so I didn't get a ton of work done. The mittens have a short ribbing section and a nice long stockinette cuff, which I got about 2/3 of the way through.

I love these daily progress pictures, but mittens and socks are about the only things they would be interesting for. I can't imagine taking daily shots of a sweater! On the second day of the KAL I finished up the cuff and started on the hand shaping. Jane's pattern has shaping on both the thumb gusset as well as the opposite side of the hand, which I hadn't seen before (you know, in my long and storied career of mitten knitting).

On Day 3 I buckled down and did some Serious Knitting. I finished the thumb gusset and the hand knitting, and once I started the mitten top shaping I thought, "Hmm, trying these on might be a good idea." Why do I always wait to try things on?? The mitten seemed a little big, which might just be a personal preference thing, but I don't think things through too much when it comes to knitting so I ripped it out. The entire mitten.

And then I restarted it! It's amazing to see how much more I knit on this day than on either of the other days. I decided to add a few more rows of ribbing so that the switch from ribbing to stockinette would line up with the first color change. I also started the thumb shaping a few rows earlier to line up with the green/white color change, and I eliminated the hand shaping on the opposite side. 

I did some Serious Knitting again on Day 4, when I finished up most of the 1st mitten. I want to piece together the leftovers to make the stripes on the thumb match the rest of the mitten, so I'm going to hold off on making the thumbs until I've knit the 2nd one.

The ball of leftover yarn was looking small to me before I cast on for the 2nd mitten, so I decided to be smart and weigh it before I got started. The first mitten came in at 19 grams without a thumb, and the ball of leftover yarn came in at 30 grams. I have NO CLUE how my mind manages to incorrectly estimate things to that level, but I'm glad it worked out favorably this time! There should be plenty of leftover yarn to make my thumb stripes match.

I'm loving these mittens so much. The self-striping yarn keeps the project interesting, and each color change feels like a mini accomplishment. I keep looking at the rest of my Felici stash and at other mitten patterns to pick out a new project to make, and then I remember that I live in San Diego. I'm not even sure why I'm making these mittens, other than the fact that I like them. Oh well. Gift basket?

So. Many. Mittens.

Yesterday was the cast on for the LINDEN Mitten KAL. Though it was so, so difficult for me to cast on another project (as I am usually such a monogamous knitter), I managed to suck it up and cast on so that I could squish some Felici for a little bit. I'm making some very Christmasy mittens in the Jingle colorway, which is a little darker than I would prefer for Christmas knits. Oh well. I imagine I'll probably survive this trauma.

I managed to finish up my Smitten Garland over the weekend as expected, so I only have one mitten project going at a time. I really don't like the color orange, so when my last 2 skein leftovers ended up being the 2 orange colors I decided to skip making a 4th striped mitten. I ended up with 11 mittens, which I plan to use as ornaments instead of a garland (because I love my boyfriend and he does not love knitted items hanging all over the apartment).

There was also a very exciting moment on Saturday when I opened my door and found a package including my first yarn support from Knit Picks! I requested 2 skeins of Knit Picks Stroll Sock Yarn in Sapphire Heather to make a sample version of my Archer socks, and it's the most beautiful deep blue color. This picture doesn't do it justice, but hopefully my final pictures will. The pattern is moving through tech editing (shockingly, there's a LOT of work to do on my first attempt at writing a pattern!), but hopefully it will be ready for test knitting soon.

WIPW: My First Pattern and Too Many WIPs

It's been quiet on the blog front since the Ravellenic Games, but for good reason!

Remember how I said that I totally had time to fit in a pair of socks before the Closing Ceremonies? I lied.

I DID, however, manage to knit a 2nd sock and draft my first pattern! I submitted a sock proposal to Knit Picks IDP and it was accepted, so I'm currently waiting on yarn support. The draft is with a technical editor, and once it's been test knitted (for which I already have volunteers, which BLOWS MY MIND) I will send the finished pattern back to Knit Picks for them to review and hopefully approve. I've set up a Ravelry shop, so the pattern will be available whether Knit Picks accepts it or not. I'm excited to finally get a pattern out, and expect that there will be many more to come.

I've also not been too great at the "not casting on 80 projects at once" thing. I don't count my Beekeeper's Quilt as a real WIP, but it's always looming there in the back of my head. I counted the other day and found out I'm almost halfway to my goal, so at least that's something.

I also started a Smitten Garland to use up DK scraps, except that then I found a little bag of Lion Brand Bonbons at Michael's and so I bought that specifically to make this garland. Whatever. Look how pretty!

Each bonbon was enough for about a mitten and a half, so I have 3 more striped mittens to go before I can sign off on this project. I've also made a few mittens out of leftover Wollmeise DK to use as gift tags (look at me being all proactive on the gift-giving!), but I don't count those as part of this project.

I have 3 skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer Lace in Silver that was originally purchased for a Featherweight Cardigan before I realized that laceweight garments are Serious Business. It's been languishing in my stash for about a year and half so I've decided to turn it into a Whisper Wrap. This is also Semi-Serious Business and involves miles and miles of stockinette. It might not be the most exciting thing to knit, but I know I'll love the finished wrap and use it all the time.

My final WIP is a pair of Kalajoki using the Wollmeise Twin left over from the gloves I knit during the Ravellenics. I've loved this pattern since I made a pair for B's mom and figured that the blue color was perfect for river-inspired socks. I thought that the 82 oz of yarn I had left would be plenty, but after finishing the first sock I (because I'm an idiot and didn't weight the yarn as I went along) found out that I used 42 oz for one sock. Hmm...unless I can somehow bend the physics of knitting to my will, I may have to shorten the foot of these socks and gift them, too. 

I have also been fighting the urge to knit with some of my beloved Felici stash, but then Jane Richmond went ahead and started a KAL for her new LINDEN Mittens pattern. Sooooo looks like I'll be starting that as well. I have a few days to finish up the smitten garland, though, so at least I'll only have 1 mitten WIP at a time.

Make sure to check out this week's WIP Wednesday posts over at Tami's Amis, Frontier Dreams, Made by ME, and Yarn Along to get some moral support that having 18 unfinished projects is totally normal!

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?

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.

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.