WIP - Kouki Cardigan for Her!

A quick glimpse at the Kouki Cardigan - in girl colors!

Never confidant with my color choices but I think this is pretty swell.

This is one of those projects that I am itching to knit, all the time. And it's crushing me that I can't just sit and finish the whole thing....crushing. Me.

I mean come on...look at that fair isle!

It's fun and quick this second time around (I'm doing a few sizes down - 12 months instead of 24 months). Only downer is doing fair isle flat. It's challenging enough to do it in the round (especially with four colors!) and doing it flat is serious thumbs down.

Hoping to have this done by Easter for Baby Q to wear while she hunts those eggs like Lara Croft. 

Yarn Geek

If you're familiar with our family, you'll know that my husband is obsessed with Batman. Which (fortunately?) has previously had no place in my knitting world...

Until now?

Check out this amazing crochet Bane mask (a la Christopher Nolan incarnation):

You can read more here and perhaps even buy one for yourself.
(Meanwhile, I will be deleting my browser history so Reed has no chance of seeing this.)

(And no, he doesn't read my blog....too boring for him!)

Knitspiration: MESMERIZED

I haven't been able to stop looking at this blanket:

So gorgeous.
Is it squares put together?
Did they plan the color ahead of time?
Is there a discernable pattern?
Sigh.

Yarn in Santiago, Chile

A really cool picture sent by a friend in Santiago, Chile.

Lucky for me, this friend also sent some yarn!

The colors are endless and pretty

Thanks, Corbet!!

New Yarns!

Thanks to WEBS year-end sale and my unbearable weakness for endangered yarns, I have a new batch of yarn to drool over!

And here is what I'm planning for at least a portion of it:
Purl Bee Chevron Baby Blanket

But back into the bin for now. Too many other things on queue.

November Sweater: An Epilogue

SO! When we last left our heroic effort at NaKniSweMo, I had seriously botched the collar.

Sad collar scrunches cardigan sadly

It took a few more tries, but I finally got the right number of stitches to accomodate the size.

Proud collar stands proudly!

Although I can't remember the actual number of stitches I ended up adding, it was WAY more than the pattern called for. I think I was generous with the length when knitting the body, which would account for some of the extra real estate - but even if I did the pattern again exactly as written, I think I would end up adding extra stitches to the collar anyway.

And I still got to do my cool cast off! Which went really well with the buttons.

All in all I am SUPER happy with this, and luckily so was the recipient! (At least so she says.) ;) Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this being worn - but I tried it on before sending it off and it was pretty cozy. Hopefully I'll get some soon though! *winkwink*

Yarn Storage

Always ever looking for a better way, I had an epiphany the other day.

Under-bed shoe storage?

(I got mine here)

Or PERFECT tool to organize and store yarn?


You tell me.

Knitspiration - Knitception

I really had to stare at this gorgeous photo when it came across my tumblr feed:

There is so much to love

I love looking at pictures without context because it always makes me contemplate how it was made, which I think is a good mental exercise. And fun. It's fun. 

Imagine my surprise when it turns out that rather than being knit and knit again (inception style, WE MUST GO DEEPER!) it's actually a super thick crazy yarn offered by Berroco!? 

You can find both the yarn and the pattern with a quick Google search. 

Color me surprised... Well played, Berroco, well played. 

New yarns!

I love getting packages in the mail!

Just nabbed some Classic Elite Yarns Kumara to make a Boneyard Shawl for Val, and some discontinued colors of Berroco Weekend that I couldn't pass up. Surely a baby knit...it is so soft!

Winding for fun and productivity!

Finally got a ball winder!

I was hoping to get one as a Christmas gift, but considering all the knitting projects I needed to get underway it really made more sense to get it beforehand. My husband told me to 'JUST ORDER IT ALREADY!' so I got the Lacis ball winder and am really happy with it.

I didn't get a swift, however.

I figured that could come as a gift later, and as they are more expensive I really wanted to take time to find the *right* one. In the meantime, I cajoled my son and husband to help me with some winding, and it was really quite fun!

Heck, he didn't even need yarn to have fun!

We improvised the role of the swift with strong arms and quick rotating. It was a neat challenge to get it right, and even my husband got a kick out of seeing the balls get shaped.

Seven wound in the amount of time it takes me to do one by hand!

New Purchases

Always love getting new materials!!

Here's some yarn I picked up to make more thank you market bags for my doula, midwife, and nurses who attended my labor:

doncha wish you could touch it!

Even more exciting - I went to Joann's to pick up some fabric with my husband. I got my husband to go to a fabric store with me!?!? WHAT!

Well it was actually for him anyway... I recently picked up an amazing floor mat for the kitchen sink area. (Memory foam! Padding for the feet while you wash the dishes - it feels divine.) Unfortunately, the fabric on top of the mat is disgusting - pills, doesn't feel good against bare skin, and is a dog-hair magnet. So Reed insisted politely asked that I make a cover "or something" for it, to which I snapped politely requested that he help pick out a fabric for said project. So to Joann's we went!

Since we were on a time limit (trying to run errands while the newborn sleeps is a fun game) I wasn't able to wander around the store much, but luckily we were able to find what we needed and an extra fun item in the remnants shelf:

It's a little hard to see the striping on the broadcloth but I promise it's pretty and matches our kitchen. The pink was a total score - because that is the exact material our current, store-bought changing pad cover is made from!!

Carters. Dig it. 

Ours is also green. BUT now that we know new baby is a girl...PINK IS ON THE TABLE!

I am also incredibly excited that I got these yard-long pieces of fabric for about $5 each. Remnants! Discounts!! Gotta love 'em.

Better Yarn, Better Work

The more I look at patterns and create finished pieces, the more I have seen evidenced that it's really much more about the yarn and the color choices than it is about the pattern. The right hue combination can really make something beautiful in a perfectly subtle way. There are definitely good patterns and there are bad patterns, but without the right yarn it's harder to tell the difference between the two. Likewise, a mediocre pattern can become beyond dreamy with a little ingenious use of color.

I know it probably goes without saying and this is the whole theory behind yarn lust and such, but I think perhaps I am getting more serious about it personally - what with the just-opened world of baby girl knit ideas. :)

A few examples of things made amazing by yarn choices:

rililie's Versio by ANKESTRICK

Taylasmum's Milo by Georgie Hallam

If you just look at the pattern you'll see there really aren't any tricks...and a standard, true-to-pattern knit up will yield a nice normal FO. But...! Add a little thought like the knitters did here and... you have a whole new level of intrigue and professionalism.

I also love this berry hat. 

Baby Berry Hat by Michele Sabatier

There is hope yet, variagated yarn!

To go with my ridiculous choice of yarn I decided to choose an equally ridiculous pattern. Why is it ridiculous? There are so many reasons. But why bother with details.

Take a look:

to DIE for

Obviously, I'm not going to be duplicating this disgustingly gorgeous, gorgeous photo. But doesn't mean I can't have fun.

Bonus perk is it calls for a silk and a kid mohair to be worked together - so perhaps this is my chance to bring calm to the impending color nausea? Or it could make it worse. That's the gamble :) and the fun. Will definitely be buying a neutral companion yarn...can you imagine? Two different color schemes battling it out? YUCK.

This is the yarn I'm starting off with - Schaefer Yarn Andrea in Catherine the Great:

not my picture but EXACTLY what my wound skein looks like

Perks:
The pattern is free and extremely easy to memorize. Low-impact where-ever possible! That's how you set yourself up for success.

PS - just learned that this colorway exists in the same yarn. Love! Must! Stop! Myself!

also called catherine the great? confuzzled.

Variagated Yarn - the evil Siren

For some reason I keep falling in love with variegated yarns - then once they've been wound or knit, I want to vomit from the color chaos. Why can't I seem to remember this, especially when throwing down over $50 for an especially sexy skein??

Any one else have this problem? I keep thinking maybe I'm just picking the wrong kind. I LOVE things like this amazing cardi featured on my effing favorite blog ever, Knitted Bliss:

adore. EVERYTHING. about this.

Or this delightfully tasteful Noro piece:

But for some reason I keep ending with something like this:

Guaranteed not to stripe?!?! That's something people were going for?!?!

I love gorgeous color combinations but can't handle when they are mashed together to look like a snow screen on an old TV. Pure nausea.

So basically today I'm depressed to know that this:

gorgeous

...will at it's best, become this:

color stew

Of course, this is just me - I can grip that some people love this. And the woman who worked this shawl above is DIVINE and I envy her steady hand. I'm sorry if anyone loves this and thinks I am nutso. I also happen to hate it when my food touches other food on a plate. So...clearly I'm nutso. I am also too depressed to find a pattern for this yarn I bought yesterday. Sigh.

Yarn Planning

The key to large online yarn orders is getting home before the husband realizes there is a package at the door, and then hiding it in the closet.

Latest arrivals are already spoken for! 

For the Uxbridge Cardigan I have been dying to make as soon as I lay eyes on it in the 2011 Winter Knitscene, this nice yellow DK:

ok, so I have like 4x this amount. I love the yellow!

For the accent work on my latest yoke jacket, some white:

This will make my 4th color and 5th order of Valley Yarn's Greenfield...

And for my upcoming ninja turtle and R2D2 beanie action, the requisite colors:

So much yarn, so little time!

Boobie Update!

My awesome cousin has already knocked out a knocker!! Inspired by last week's post she found a pattern online and made magic. Check out her handiwork below... I am especially fond of the yarn she used.

looks so soft, I just wanna touch it!

She found a website with a FREE crochet pattern to use and to share - check out the pattern here. The Oxford Family is a really cool crochet and craft blog which is now added to my blogroll (did you see these yarn bowls?! Brilliant!!). I love how easy going the writer is, I feel like I could talk story with her for ages.

Also I don't know if I am biased, but for some reason Kim's beanie reminds me of a kooky Japanese novelty gift. I mean, she's Japanese, I'm half-Japanese, there's not a lot of room for Japanese finger pointing; but I instantly thought of these: 

Japanese boob pudding cups

I think it may also be because she is the person who first showed me boob pudding. (More info here.) 

Thanks for sharing, Kim!! Awesome work!