craf·te·ra·ti

It seems like its been forever since I last posted here. It’s not like I haven’t been crafting either. Oh well. I have a few projects underway, but I wanted to complete something so I made the honeycomb hat. It’s made from Malabrigo Chunky I bought at Down Cellar. That stuff is soft and gushy! It cried out to be made into a hat.

This is a pretty simple cabling pattern. Since you did about 16 cables in a row every 4 rows I just cabled without a cable needle and it made it much faster. I made this in 2 days. Shaping the crown took a little creativity since I didn’t want to just go straight stockinette until I had to.

I will have to give this hat to someone with a small head. I can fit it on mine but everything gets stretched out. I cast on 64 stitches on 10.5 circulars so if I make one for me I’ll do at least 72. And I’ll write up a pattern.

All the honeycomb cables should make this a very warm hat.

I’m participating in Mystery Stole #3. It’s a knit-a-long where you don’t know exactly what you’re knitting. Every week a clue (aka bit of the pattern) is released. There is plenty of discussion as to what the theme is.

Anyway this is my first shot at real lace knitting; I’ve done little bits of lace before but not a whole project. I’m using Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 in lilac that I bought from Sarah’s Yarns for much less ($6.75/2oz) than anywhere else. Other places 2oz was over $11! They are in Brooklyn so I got the cheap first class shipping and had my yarn in no time.

I am still on clue number one as I have had to unknit a few times when my stitches didn’t add up. Damn yarn-overs! I’m going to be traveling next week so I should be able to get plenty done in the airport.

There’s also a week off from clues for the Harry Potter book release. I don’t read Harry Potter so I’ll be free to catch up on my knitting.

I’m 50% done with my Jaywalker socks. Yay! Yes, that means I have one sock completed. My FIRST sock ever.

I did it toe up with short row heel and toe. I read somewhere about adding extra non-patterned rows on the heel to make it look like a heel flap. So I added 3 rows since I needed to increase up to 38 stitches anyway. Result? A nice hole. Oh well. On the next one I will instead pick up stitches.

I blocked this sucker on a wire hanger bent into a sock shape. It looks much more like a real sock after blocking.

I’ll have to get on knitting the sister sock so this one doesn’t end up an orphan. I also plan to use this wave pattern for a hat.

I just finished knitting Rusted Root. Yay! I started it in early may and then didn’t touch it for a month but I was determined to complete it today.

The well..almost is because I need to sew in the ends. And, I think I might want to make it longer which will mean frogging the bottom ribbing and doing another inch or so of the main pattern before I do the ribbing again. I also am not sure I like how the sleeve are. I think the bottom is too loose, but a little elastic might help. I’ll have to show my mom and see what she thinks. Either way I’m excited to have it done.  I have a ton of things I want to knit but I wanted to finish this sweater first.

I started knitting Zephyr Style’s Rusted Root. I’m doing a bit of traveling soon – to Portland this weekend and the driving cross country – and I need something to keep me busy on my downtime. Anyway I’m using some sort of olivey green Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep Co.

I finally finished that Twisty Turns wrap I started a month ago. Why? Because I needed to wear it on saturday. Thus I spent about 8+ hours knitting on Friday. I put myself in front of my brother’s 42″ flatscreen and watched tv and knit and knit and knit. I saw Janice Dickinson’s Modeling Agency for the the first time. Seriously, other than the men modeling underwear it doesn’t have much going for it.

Anyway I knit until 12:30am, the point at which my hands were about to fall off. Then I put a note on the kitchen table for my mom asking her if she had a tapestry needle, since I didn’t bring one with me. Then I went to bed. My mom rocks, because as I had hoped, she wove all the ends in for me before I even got up. So all I needed do was sew it together.

I’m really happy with how it came out and I got a lot of compliments on it at the wedding. I love KnitPicks Andean Silk! It’s very soft and has a lovely sheen. I think I’ll wear this even for non dress occasions. It would work with a tank and jeans on a cool night.

I bought Wrap Style a long time ago, basically because I liked the Twisty Turns Wrap. Now I’m actually knitting it. How exciting! On a side note, when I went to amazon to get that link it informed me that I purchased Wrap Style on December 5, 2005)

I’m using Knit Picks Andean Silk in Pitch on size 7 needles. So far I’ve used 3.5 balls and I’m almost halfway done. Flying cross country is awesome for progressing on knitting projects. I only started this last friday. I am going to be snowboarding in Tahoe next week, so I may be able to finish it by the end of the month. That’s good since I need it to be done by mid April.
I updated my progress meteres on the right. I frogged those DyeoRama socks so I took it down. I came across the Knitty Sweater at home. I need to finish that up…maybe when I’m back for week in April.

Have you ever been knitting something and realized there was something you didn’t quite know how to accomplish? Yes, the knitting challenge and subsequent knitting experiment.

You see, I was working on knitting a hat for a friend of mine. She wanted a visor beanie. So knitting up the main part of the hat was quite easy, although I completely fudged my way through the decreases on the top. I guess as much as doing moss stitch makes it a pain, it also camouflages quite well.

So I had gotten the main hat done when I started thinking about how to do the visor. I have a visor beanie and it was done in k1p1 rib and stretched across. I liked the way that looked much more than the sort of mitered visor they did in Stitch N Bitch Nation newsboy cap. So I picked up stitches and knit some and then tried binding off. This wasn’t going to work. I knew it.

There had to be a better way. I was wracking my brain when it finally came to me…Short rows! This would be the solution to all of my problems. I’d never done short rows in rib but I imagined it should be fine and it was. The brim came out quite perfectly. I was so happy. Knitting experiment…SUCCESS!

I really like the way it looks with the picked up stitches and even from the inside the sewn in side looks nice as well. I may have to write this up as a pattern, but perhaps minus the moss stitch!

I had a good sized cardboard box, a bunch of white tissue paper, and these instructions. So I made a lightbox. This is good because I have a huge sliding door in my apartment which lets in a ton of light…sometimes too much light.

The light box really helps diffuse the light so that I don’t get big shadows. I can also still shoot on my table. Most of my photos are taken on that table so I like consistency. It’s also nice to know i can also use a long sheet of paper to make a seamless background for photos as well.
So once I made the light box I had to take some photos…of hats. Yes, more hats!

So I love this first hat. When I was buying the Berocco Peruvia to make Vanessa’s hat I also picked up some brown, orange, and green to make one for myself. At the time I had no idea Peruvia was a new yarn. The colors are heathered, but not as heathered as they look in some photos. It’s very soft and at $8 for 100g it’s a reasonable price. I should also point out that what looked like yellow in Vanessa’s hat was really my orange. I love color theory!

So anyway this is knit on size 9 needles starts out with a 2″ band of k2p2. I might even make it a little longer next time since I really like the way the band looks. Then I just did 3 rows of each color. I tried the jogless jog technique for changing colors and it really works. You can see my color changes along the left side. They don’t look so great but that was more my spastic end weaving then the technique. I do know that next time I need to wrap or pull the ends tighter since there were slight gaps that I was trying to sew closed. I still have tons of yarn left so I might make another similar hat with a green band, since the brown kind of blends in with my dark brown hair.

Lastly is the waffle hat. I can’t remember what this yarn is but when I first started knitting it pooled horrible and then I somehow manged to cast on the magic number of stitches where it doesn’t pool. It’s 3 rows of k3p3 and 3 rows of k. I wear it inside out sincen I really like how the variagated yarn looks in reverse stockinette.

Hmm..does it seem like I make a lot of hats?

Yes!!

So almost a year ago I spun Army Girl. It sat around for a long time, because although I loved the colors it was very scratchy. It was destined to be a hat, and a it hat it would be. I ordered some super soft KP Merino Style in Petal Pink for a lining and stripes. This is how it turned out. It’s now in the possession of my sister.