hats, socks, a scarf and a sweater

December has been productive. I have lots of FOs to share! I'm feeling too sluggish today to blog all details... they are on Ravelry anyway! Most of these FOs are gifts, so hopefully I can have some modeled shots soon...

A baby picot baby hat using a basic hat pattern and Elsebeth Lavold's hempathy for a baby due in January.



Turn A Square by Jared Flood for my Pappy -- I'll see him next week to gift it. It's a little big for me, but I think that means it will fit him well. I used Cascade 220.

Socks for me!!! I love this yarn (Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Alexandra"). It feels silky to knit with and the colorway is fantastic. The pattern is call Charade. It adds enough interest to the socks without taking away from the colorway. The sad story that goes with this project is that I learned what a "yarn barf" is. It took me 3 hours to unravel it. Yeesh!

These booties were a last minute Christmas gift for our friends who's baby is due in April. The pattern called for fingering weight yarn, but I used a sport/dk weight. I can't remember the name of the yarn for the life of me... I lost the ball band! In any case, they are little bigger than the results I probably would have gotten with a fingering weight yarn. The baby should fit into these next Christmas. :)

This scarf is for my grandma Jari who I will see next week. This picture was taken pre-blocking. The seafoam pattern shows up much more vividly post blocking.

I used Valley Yarn's Sheffield for both the seafoam scarf and the February Lady Sweater. This yarn GROWS like crazy when it gets wet. Thank goodness for swatching. The FLS is a gift for my mom. I'm hoping to have modeled shots (with buttons!) taken next week.

Supta Baddha Konasana

What a great way to spend an afternoon: last Saturday a bunch of knitting yogis, who met virtually on Ravelry, met in person to eat Ethiopian food and yummy snacks, knit, talk, and practice yoga. It was wonderful! Lolly put the wheels in motion for this meet-up and I'm hoping to join in more in 2009.

Our yoga practice, lead by Rossana, was restorative. Here's a picture of me preparing for Supta Baddha Konasana. I knew the picture would be taken, hence the laughing! I missed final Savasana and the group picture because I had to leave early. Next time!

This little elf is busy!

I was a busy little elf today making Christmas gift baskets. Here are the goodies I bought at Common Market.

The first package is on its way to the Czech Republic for my aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandparents. I like to send them some tasty treats each Christmas (especially since a few of these items are hard to come by in their local markets):

- figs

- chocolate covered cherries

- chocolate covered ginger

- dried mangoes

- dark fair trade chocolate

- raspberry green tea

- rooibos tea

I made little tags (see the green Santa stamps with the colored in red hats?) to identify the goodies.

The second gift basket is for my other set of grandparents. Some of the goodies featured in this basket were raw, local honey, mix nuts, pistachios, vanilla almond tea, and local apple butter from McCutcheon's.

The third gift basket is for my in-laws. This basket includes some of the goodies mentioned above plus fig jam, two types of dried figs, wild berry herb tea, and dried salami.

I worked on the baskets in between making soup for lunches this week. I was inspired by the blue potatoes from Hagerstown that I found at the market today. To compliment the potatoes, I added califlower, onion, garic, rosemary, and black beans.

The blue potatoes are just beautiful!

Here's the final product. The picture isn't great, but the smell was lovely. I think mushrooms would have made a great addition to this soup. Since there are plenty more weeks of cold weather ahead, I'll be able to try this one again with mushrooms.

trimming and baking

The Christmas tree has been sitting nude in the living room since Sunday. Shameful! To maintain a little modesty in its bay window perch, we kept the shades drawn. But tonight, we opened the shades for the world to see!

My favorite ornaments are the chimney sweep and the crochet snowflakes from my grandmother. The chimney sweep goes up near the top of the tree and always gets a little light in his hands. The snowflakes are all unique, just like real snow flakes. Amazing works of art!









Keeping with the holiday theme, I baked tonight.

Two dozen big, soft ginger snaps. A favorite in our house!



And, vegan chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes. Some of the key ingredients in the recipe were oat flour (organic!), cocoa (fair trade!), applesauce (local, organic!), and chocolate chips (organic!). I'm planning to take these to the DC Namaste yoga/knitting meet-up on Saturday. Since this is my first go at this recipe, I made a baker's dozen and let the mister try one. He approves! I hope my fellow yogis/knitters enjoy them too! They were pretty quick to make, and I'm thinking these might be a great addition to our Christmas dinner spread. (Oh, and I used my lovely monogrammed apron , a souvenir from Firenze, to control the mess. I am such a messy cook!)

stash for this and that

A few new items of stash to share. All acquired pre the KDAL (12/1/2008), so they don't count as "yards in." Whew! With any luck, these will be my last yarn purchases until MD S&W next year. (Well, there are two exceptions: sock yarn I ordered from WEBS in November that was back ordered and December's stash club yarn.

Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine for a pair of leg warmers. I am hoping the wool/alpaca/nylon structure will provide just the right mix of warmth and structure.

Malabrigo sock yarn in Boticelli Red. Delicious!

Northcott Wilson Artisans LLC Handspun Recycled Silk Yarn (November's stash).

Mission Buttons: completed.

I found buttons for both of my baby knits! I wanted yellow ducks for the BSJ, but, alas, one type of duck button was all sold out and the other type was too small. I settled on these sort of triangle shaped buttons with green polka dots. Very matchy matchy, Not the look I originally had in mind, but it might be for the best with this soft, subtle knit.





These hippos go really well with the February Baby Sweater. So cute! They make the rustic sweater a little more fun and playful for a toddler.



Close up of the hippos.



I also bought buttons for the FLS, but I will reveal those when the FLS is finished.

I need buttons

I have finished 2 EZ baby sweaters. Lesson learned: Make sure you have enough yarn! No matter, though, I was able to stash bust and used leftovers from other projects to finish up these baby sweaters.

I have some pregnant friends, so I was hoping one of these sweaters could be gifts, but unfortunately, both sweaters turned out more toddler size than baby size. Sigh.

Sorry the pictures are terrible! I need to take better ones when I have some natural light!

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Sheep Shop Yarn Company Sheep 3 Yarn
Yardage: 1 skein = 325 yards
Needles: Size 5

No modifications. I did this one "by the book" since it was my first try at this pattern. The FO is knit up pretty loosely. The yarn is soft, light and squishy. The wool/silk combination is fantastic. I'm very excited to work with this yarn again! I ran out of yarn right before the button band, so I found this creamy colored leftover bamboo yarn in my stash and kept on knitting. I'm actually pleased with the results!

Pattern: February Baby Sweater by Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Araucania Magallanes (242 yards), Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted (47.5 yards in light brown), Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted (47.5 yards in dark brown)
Needles: Size 2

I did not knit the gull pattern for this sweater because I didn't think it would go well with the thick and thin Araucania Magallanes yarn. I knit this sweater on very small needles to create a "less holey" fabric (again, the thick and thin yarn). The result is a pretty dense fabric, more of a baby coat than sweater.





I'm intrigued at how different these two sweaters are! Both use a simple garter stitch, but the results are worlds apart. Many factors play into this: the way the yarn is spun (multi-ply for the BSJ; single twist for FBS), the fiber content (wool/silk for BSJ; wool for the FBS), the colors (green/pastel for the BSJ, earthy/saturated for the FBS) and the needle size used compared to the yarn weight (5/sport weight for the BSJ; 2/worsted for the FBS). Amazing!

Oh yeah, and now I need buttons! Got a G. Street coupon in my email this morning... hmmmm...

Lined Celtic Tote!

Two weekends ago, I tried my hand at sewing. I have been meaning to line my Celtic tote for months now, but the right fabric (scraps from my mom's business) finally got me to do it. The hand sewing isn't great, but not bad considering this is my first attempt at hand sewing. I'm already using the bag more often, especially for knitting, because project needles don't poke through the sides of the bag anymore!

luxurious baby blanket

I started my first baby blanket last week! I bought this gorgeous yarn to make a "baby sack with hood," but quickly realized that a better (i.e., more likely to be used more often), item to make with such a luxurious yarn (Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk) would be a blanket. I briefly considered making a sweater with this yarn, but decided against it because I was worried about the yarn stretching and growing.

Before starting, I knitted a very small swatch using 10 yards of the yarn. After crunching some numbers based on this swatch, I decided how many stitches to cast on. I'm aiming for the final result to be an approximately 30 inch x 30 inch blanket. In reality, as long as I can use up all 13 balls of this yarn and the length and width are within 10 inches of one another, I'll be happy!

Cast on 130 stitches. Work 5 rows in garter stitch. While maintaining 5 edge stitches on each side in garter stitch, start basketweave stitch (k5, p5) on 6th row. Work in this pattern for 5 rows before switching (k on the ps, p on the ks).

Babička's mitts #2

Late on Thanksgiving Day, less than 48 hours until my grandparents were to head back to the Czech Republic, my babička said she would love another pair of fingerless mitts in a lighter color. She has been wearing the black cable twist handwarmers that I made for her back in October a lot and thought another pair in a lighter color would go better with some of her clothes. I hope I am that fashion conscious in my 70s!

No worries, I thought. I would add this to my list of holiday knits (pretty short right now - February Lady Sweater for mom, hat for Pappy, and scarf for Jari) and just put it higher in the queue so I could ship it overseas in time for a pre-Christmas arrival. Well... then I got ambitious. While I was at work on Friday, I remembered the Queensland Collection Kathmandu DK yarn that I bought at Stitches. Perfect color based on my babička's description of what she wanted: neutrals, tan or brown, perhaps with some tweed for interest. And DK weight yarn knits up faster than fingering weight yarn. But then I thought, what pattern would I use? Hmmmm... And, more importantly, could I pull it off before they left for the airport? Maybe...

Much to my surprise, I did it!!! I didn't cast on until almost 8 PM on Friday night, but I stayed up until 1AM knitting away. At that point, I had 1.5 mitts done. I woke up at 8AM to finish up. By 10:30, I was getting dressed to deliver the mitts. Given that I took some breaks, I'm estimating that this was a 7 hour project.

Pattern: Improvised. Details below.
Yarn: Queensland Collection Kathmandu DK
Yardage: 1 skein = 147 yards
Needles: Size 5
Gauge: 20 stitches for 4 inches

I looked at some of the fingerless mitt patterns on Ravelry that use DK weight yarn. None of them were exactly what I wanted, so I improvised. Here's a quick and dirty version of my "pattern":
Left mitt:
- Cast on 43 stitches. Join for working in the round.
- *k2, p2* 7 times, k4, p1, k4, p2, k2, p2
- Con't in pattern for 3 rounds total.
- Forth round: con't in pattern, but instead of the k4, cable right over the first k4 stitches, and cable left over the second k4 stitches.
- Repeat the cables every 6th row after the initial cable cross.
- At approx. 6 inches, begin thumb gusset. (In my case on the 8th cable row.) K in pattern to the 21st stitch. Place marker. M1. Place marker. One stitch increased. 44 stitches. 1 thumb gusset stitch.
- Next round, con't in pattern. When you reach the first marker, sm, m1l, knit the stitch you made in the previous row, m1r, sm. Two stitches increased. 46 stitches. 3 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, con't in pattern, no increases.
- Next round, con't in pattern. When you reach the first marker, sm, m1l, knit the stitch you made in the previous row, m1r, sm. 48 stitches. 5 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, con't in pattern, no increases.
- Repeat these last 2 rounds until you have 13 thumb gusset stitches.
- Next round, knit to marker. Remove 1st marker. Place 13 thumb gusset stitches on scrap yarn. Remove second marker. Con't in pattern. 43 stitches on needles.
- Knit until mitts measure approximately 8.5-9 inches or your desired length. Bind off loosely in purl.
- Place the 13 thumb gusset stitches on two needles. Pick up 3 stitches for the back of the thumb. 16 stitches. Knit 3-6 rounds, depending on the length you desire. Bind off loosely in purl.
- Weave in ends.

I reversed the pattern for the right mitt so that the cable would be on the top of the hand. What I mean is that after casting on, I started my first round as follows: p2, k2, p2, k4, p1, k4, *p2, K2* 7 times. The thumb gusset stitches will be between created between the 22nd and 23rd stitches on the right mitt.









In other news this week, I did some holiday cooking and baking on Tuesday. Pumpkin pie from the CSA pumpkin that I boiled and froze in October, apple crumble (a modification of Jamie Oliver's recipe), and mashed turnips (my friend Jen and I had to use up all those CSA turnips that have been collecting in our fridges!). I don't have pictures of the pie or the crumble, but both turn out fabulously, even though I was a little stressed that the pies would be too runny after seeing the consistency of the batter.

But I do have pictures of the turnips. Jen, oh so clever Jen, suggested that we use the apple peeler/corer/slicer contraption to peel the turnips rather than peeling them by hand. We tried to take the "corer" part off the contraption, but neither of us were strong enough to turn the wing nut that held the corer part in place. The result: cored turnips! No matter, though. We mashed 'em in the end anyway!

Coring turnips!


Here are some of the turnips right before we boiled them with bay leaves and salt. Don't they look silly as curly qs with cores??


All this, not to mention work and Thanksgiving day with the family, and I managed to squeeze in 21.6 miles of running and 2 yoga sessions this week. A productive week overall. One more reason to be thankful!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we're off to get the Christmas tree!

Three FOs in one day!

It’s true! On November 2, I finished 3 projects in one day and I’m pleased as punch with myself. It really was the last ends of each of the projects, but nonetheless, it felt great to get them all done. I really wanted to finish these projects before Stitches East (on November 7) and I did it! I have completely slacked on blogging about them, but here they are, almost one month later.

Pattern: 103-1 Jacket in Eskimo
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed
Yardage: 6.75 skeins = 735.8yards
Needles: Size 11

After the hours of CPH seaming, I wasn't looking forward to the seaming this jacket. But, like knitting with bulky yarn, seaming with bulky yarn is pretty quick, relatively speaking. Since my row gauge is rarely the same as row gauge in the pattern, I appreciated the fact that the decreases (i.e., shaping) for this jacket were spaced by inches/centimeters rather than in rows. The instructions for the collar (stitch increases) were a little confusing in my opinion, but looking at close ups of FOs on Ravelry in conjunction with the pattern, I was able to figure out what to do.







Pattern: Reversible baby hat by Debbie Bliss (from the Essential Baby book)
Yarn: Kollage Yarns Hope
Yardage: .75 skeins = 120 yards
Needles: Size 2

This is leftover yarn from my Aleita Shell and I thought it would be perfect for a small baby knit. I liked the simplicity of the reversible baby hat pattern. I only made one of the two hats (the 3 x 1 rib, not the 1 x 1 rib). I also modified the pattern slightly to work in the round rather than back and forth and seaming. Who wants to seam a hat??





Pattern: basic garter stitch
Yarn: Shoalwater Bay Natural Dyed
Yardage: .75 skeins = 258.8 yards
Needles: Size 7

This was the souvenir yarn from Seattle (Bainbridge Island's Churchmouse Yarns and Teas shop). The woman that dyes the yarn is located in Washington state and only distributes in that area. I had a hard time taking pictures do the yarn texture or color any justice. Perhaps I will try again. This yarn is not warm, but will be a great early fall accessory.