Bella Knitting

Happy New Year!

Sarah

Happy New Year, everyone!

Let me tell you how inept I am at life before I have my morning coffee: I was knitting socks in bed when I decided to get up (needed coffee). I was holding Measure and trying to get out of bed without waking him, so I tossed the sock out of bed, eased my way out, and stepped directly on the sock in progress, snapping the needle with a sad little crunch. I've emailed Lantern Moon asking if I can buy a single replacement needle, since buying a whole new set would be kind of 'spensive.

The socks are a belated Christmas present for my brother, who won't mind too much if they're late. I'm just glad I finished the gansey for my dad before the end of the year! Here he is, modeling it. In the photo, the sleeves look short, which is weird because they're not, really. The hat is one I made him pre-blog, out of a skein of Noro Iro. I really like that colorway, whatever it is.

I don't usually make very specific New Year's resolutions -- mine tend to be more general intents to enjoy myself in the coming year -- but this year I do have a bit of a list, and I'll share it with you:

- I resolve to make a habit of submitting designs to my favorite knitting publications on a regular basis

- I resolve to work on my holiday gift knitting throughout the year (there's a KAL here and a Ravelry group called "Christmas Knitters" if you're trying to do the same)

- I resolve to organize my yarn stash (again) and to use stash yarn more often, so that in 2009 I can make a resolution to buy more yarn!

Recipe for a Scarflet

Sarah

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, scarflets appeal to my limited attention span and the common knitterly desire to have at least one easily portable project on the needles at all times. I made a few this winter, and gave a couple away as gifts. This one is probably my favorite -- a little Malabrigo scarflet for my friend CC, who lives in Seattle. A little linen stitch broke up any pooling (this is the Azalea colorway in the worsted weight, if you're wondering), and garter-stitch edges provided a nice finish.

A scarflet is nice because it just covers the bit of your neck that needs covering, without a lot of extra fabric flying around or forming an unsightly lump under your coat. Plus, it's a good way to show off a few pretty buttons. Want to make one? Click to continue through to the rest of the post for my linen-stitch scarflet "recipe" and a photo of this one in action.

Happy Feet

Sarah

Once in a very great while, it occurs to me that planning ahead for the holidays is a good idea. Such was the case with these socks, which were a joint gift to my mom from my sister and I (the link is to her new animal-training blog). I spun the yarn -- if you want to take a trip in the way-back machine, you can see that I blogged about it in July -- and Emily knit the socks. She chose a great stitch pattern, adding textural interest to the self-striping yarn.

The gansey I'm knitting for my dad was not as much of an unqualified success, however -- I had all but three-quarters of a sleeve finished by Christmas morning, but I had him try it on and the first sleeve just didn't fit right. So, I've finished knitting the second sleeve (correctly) and now I just have to rip and reknit the other one. How did everyone else's holiday knitting go? I've heard rumors that someone is going to be starting a project-a-month holiday gift knitalong -- I think I may need to join so that I can be better prepared next year!

Stay.

Sarah

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm tired, but I just haven't been that excited about the holidays this year. Normally I am thrilled to have a chance to make several batches of homemade caramels, gingerbread cookies, and the like so I can give everyone I know a good sugar rush, but I haven't really had a chance to do that yet, and since I'm having a hard time gift shopping this year, it's all just wearing me down a bit. What makes it extra difficult is the fact that the family dog, Annie (who lives with my parents -- we got her when I was entering high school) is not doing so well. My dad called last night to say that he hopes that she'll still be around so that we can see her one last time when we're down for Christmas, but she seems to be fading fast. I love this dog. I don't want to see her go. I remember when we first set eyes on her, she was a lonely-looking little blond puppy with big soulful brown eyes and cute little white freckles speckling her nose, sitting and staring at us from her little enclosure at the pound. She wasn't available yet when we first saw her, so the first day she was up for adoption we rushed over to be sure no one else would snatch her up.

As recently as Thanksgiving, she seemed to be okay -- slow, with less-than-great eyesight and hearing -- but she managed to pull down from the kitchen table a pan filled with two-thirds of a cranberry cake and scarf it up while we were all out to dinner on the Friday after Turkey Day. Now, apparently she isn't even getting up to greet my dad when he gets home from work. Annie usually loves Christmas, so I hope that when she sees presents going under the tree she'll perk up: she always gets her own stocking, and she spends lots of time nosing around the gifts, looking for the ones containing treats for her. Last year she had even more fun, because she got to enjoy bossing Syrus around and sneaking time with his chew-toys when he wasn't looking. I know Syrus will be disappointed if we gets to my parent's house and his friend isn't there.

I don't want Annie to hang on if she's in pain, but I'd like to see her one more time, just so I can give her a big hug and pet her and tell her what a good girl she is. So Annie, if you can, please: Stay.

Scarflets

Sarah

While I think I'd be bored to tears if I had to knit a bunch of scarves for holiday gifts, I have happily cranked out a couple of scarflets over the past couple of days.

This one is a little keyhole scarflet, and it's probably just about a yard long. I don't have a definite giftee in mind, but I may give this or something like it to the teacher I've been observing, as I've really learned a lot by sitting in on her class, and she's been really generous with her time.

If you're curious, I used a version of brioche stitch called "patent knitting" which Laura described here. To make the keyhole, I knit the center stitches in garter stitch for a couple of rows, bound a few off then cast on the same number in the following row, knit a few more rows with those center stitches in garter stitch, then resumed normal programming over the whole thing. The only reason I changed the center stitches to garter was to keep the area around the keyhole more tidy -- if you're doing a keyhole scarf in a different stitch, this may not be necessary.

A Walk in the Rain

Sarah

After getting some work put in on both homework and other projects, I suggested to Jason that we take Measure and Syrus for a walk to the local park. It was raining lightly, so the whole time we were out I could feel the dance of little drops on my face.

Since it was just cold enough for a sweater, I suggested Jason wear the one I knit for him a year or two ago. I'm really happy with this sweater, which I designed just for him out of Noro Kureyon, and Jason seems to like it -- he wears it when it's cold, without my asking him to. This is the first time I managed to get some good pictures of him wearing it, which I wanted to get for my Ravelry page.

Taking a walk this time of year is always nice, as it's a chance to see the world in transition. The trees haven't completely changed their colors, but are tinged with rust. It's cool, but not too cold. As we walked along, Measure was quiet in his stroller, his wide eyes taking in the gray sky and the bright leaves.

Syrus, of course, was thrilled as always to go out for a W-A-L-K, especially when he noticed a cat lounging under a truck in someone's driveway. Lunging and barking his head off at that poor kitty was really the icing on the cake for him (the cake, of course, being the opportunity to carefully sniff, then widdle on, every lawn and bush along the way.)

I hope you get a chance to take a pleasant stroll this weekend, wherever you are. More photos from the walk are here, on my Flickr page. ETA: Thanks, everyone, for your response to the sweater! I think I'm all set for test-knitters now. You guys are great!

It's Ease-y

Sarah

As you may have gathered, I was not terribly happy with the accuracy of the swatch I knit for my dad's gansey. I cast on enough stitches -- I thought -- to get a chest measurement of about 42 inches, I ended up with a sweater that was a shade under 40. I was worried. Luckily, my parents came up to visit this weekend, so I was able to have my dad try on the sweater body. You know what? It fit pretty well. I was going for zero ease, but the sweater looked fine with a slight amount of negative ease.

It was unfortunate that I had to ruin the surprise and show my dad the sweater in progress, but at least I know that he likes the color, and I was able to confer with him about the exact length he wanted. I'm still unhappy that my swatch lied, but at least I didn't have to start over or repurpose the sweater. Over the weekend, I was even able to get the patterned front half (knit flat) done, and I'm about a third of the way through the back. Next, I'll be joining the shoulders and picking up for the sleeves -- I'm interested to see how the underarm gusset thingies work out, since I've never knit a sweater with those before.

Gansey

Sarah

I've had a lot of un-bloggable knitting going on lately, so of course I had to cast on for something new. I know I could probably crank out the last bit of my Minimalist Cardigan (one sleeve and I'm done) in a couple of days, but that's something I'm knitting for myself -- I figured I should probably spend my limited knitting time working on more Christmas gifts.

This is a special gift -- a sweater for my dad. I've knit him a couple before, but the first one was my first-ever sweater, and...well, it looks like a first sweater (worse yet, I kind of made up the pattern as I went along). The second just wasn't as good as it should be -- I think my dad deserves a really perfect sweater. Since he and my mom are planning a trip to Ireland, I think it would be nice for him to have a soft, tweedy gansey to bring along. The yarn is Rowan Soft Tweed, which is one of those Rowan yarns which debuts at an exorbitant price, then a year later is deeply discounted or on clearance everywhere. (Luckily, I picked this up on the discount side of things.) I like how it feels knitted up, especially at the slightly tighter-than-recommended gauge I'm knitting it at, but I don't really love knitting with it. It's not bad, but it's not one of those yarns your fingers will instantly fall in love with.

I'll be knitting the body of the sweater in stockinette, with a single column of purl stitches on each side mimicking a seam. The chest will have some sort of patterning, though I haven't decided what -- I've been looking through Alice Starmore's Fisherman's Sweaters book, and my Barbara Walker treasuries, for inspiration. Since this is such a chunky yarn, I want to keep things simple, and classic. I also want to actually finish this one in time to give it to my dad on Christmas morning. I think the last sweater I knit for my dad was supposed to be a birthday present...which I think it ended up being, the following year!