FO: man's ribbed hat

Yarn: Cascade 220
Needles: US 7, 16" circular
Gauge: 4 1/2 sts/inch in st st.
Pattern: My own, more or less. I cast on 100 stitches, worked in a K2P2 rib for 9 inches, then did one decrease round (K2tog, P2tog), worked a K1P1 rib for 3 rows, did another decrease round (K2tog), knit for 2 more rows, decreased (K2tog), pulled yarn through all stitches and was done. The finished circumference is about 18 inches, but of course it stretches quite a bit.

This is modeled by my sister Sara, rather than the intended recipient, who actually rejected the hat on the grounds that it is "too loose" and "not that warm". So if you want a green wool hat, let me know; it's up for grabs.

an evil day in knittingland

February lady is done but, alas, when I tried blocking her she grew to enormous proportions. I could kick myself for not blocking a swatch. Here she is, drying, but I am feeling quite hopeless about the prospects that I can wear this. And I don't really have any friends who are bigger than I am. Has anyone ever tried shrinking superwash wool/bamboo in the dryer?

In my rage, I was unable to do any work yesterday, but I did decide to channel my frustration into frogging my previous failure, the circular shrug. Here's the recovered yarn in its kinky, not-so-appealing state.

Goodbye, shrug.

I hate the way this came out. Not only my messy grafting job, but the fit. Obviously, I didn't seam up the shrug or weave in the ends, and I'm glad I didn't, because it's getting frogged asap. I think this yarn will instead become the two-tone shrug from fitted knits. I love the yarn too much to keep it in the form of something I will never wear.

The agony of grafting

I finished this painstaking process several weeks ago (it took me at least 6 hours, I would bet) but I just haven't had a moment to post since then, nor have I sewed up the shrug now that the hard part is over. But I'm on break all week, so hopefully I will get to lots of crafty things (in between writing a lot of papers.)

I had to add a couple of inches of ribbing onto the cast-on edge of this shrug, and after much searching online, I finally found the following instructions on this website: http://www.purlwise.com/grafting/index.html. It was a total lifesaver. It didn't work perfectly for me, because unfortunately I didn't use a provisional cast-on; the results are quite obviously far from perfect. But it's good enough for me...it beats ripping out and starting the whole thing over from scratch.

And now...please ignore the messiness of my room in the following photo and just appreciate the cuteness of clementine...

kindred spirits

A feline after my own heart, this one is. Whenever I come home, she's here, lounging in my own favorite spot with some yarn close by...

My weekend involved very little homework, but it included lots of cleaning, the hanging of a new picture (my own birthday present to myself): and the baking of cinnamon bread, and yes, the casting on of a new project!This is my first foray into colorwork. It's the holiday lights tam from last winter's IK, and I'm excited for it. I had to dye some yarn today to obtain the lime-green color that I need. I can go no further until it's dried and wound and ready to go, but here's what I've got so far:
And, here's some recently purchased yarn that I'm just dying to start work with. Fortunately, my shrug will be done any day now and I've finshed the body of the february lady...I'm giving myself a week to do the sleeves. So hopefully, I can cast on for a new sweater in a week. I think Liesl will be next.
:

Felted bag with crocheted flowers

This is an old FO. I've been producing them so slowly, I have to turn to old projects to have anything interesting to show on my blog. I love how it turned out, but quite honestly, I don't use it much....not to carry my knitting around in public, anyway. It's always full of some WIP or other, but usually it's hanging on the back of my bedroom door.


No sooner had I opened my laptop to do some work when someone came and made herself quite comfortable on top of the keyboard. So then I pulled out my knitting, and not a minute later, she had abandoned the laptop to begin chewing on my yarn. Now I have a drool-soaked couple of inches coming from my knitting and the rest of that skein of yarn is in some other location. Good thing she's cute, that Clementine.

More WIPs...

Here's my February lady, which is still coming along slowly. About an inch more of lace, then I can knit the bottom edge and then finally get some sleeves on that baby.
Quite the endless knit, this one. After finishing the piece and pinning it together and trying it on, I realized the ribbing section was not big enough. The thought of ripping it all back to the first section of ribbing and adding some more made me ill! My friend Jenny suggested that I just knit a couple extra inches of ribbing to graft onto the cast-on edge, so I knit a couple more inches on the other end and tried it on again. Turns out, the mock-rib section in the middle was really too long. So I ripped back all the ribbing on the end and about 2 inches of the mock-rib section, too. (About 2 1/4 balls of yarn frogged!) Now I'm re-knitting the ribbing on the cast-off edge, and when I'm done with that, I will try the grafting thing. I'm definitely scared of it, though.

I was supposed to do about 8 hours of homework today. I fell very far short of that goal, but I did get a new haircut and color. Since that's the most productive thing I did all day, here's a photo: