Knitting, what knitting?

Hi! I'm still around, all evidently all I do these days is fondle yarn and dream of knitting it, instead of actually making anything. Such is life.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip to the New Haven Farmer's Market. It was such a beautiful day for the market!



I saw lots of beautiful things.



Including yarn!



This booth was selling goat and sheep cheese, as well as handspun yarn (presumably from the very same sheep). Just think, you could be wearing AND eating products of the same animal! Farming is cool.


Also pricey. The 200-yard skeins (I'd estimate DK-weight or so) were $15. And this sweater, although you can't see the price tag, is $150. Of course, this is absolutely worth it, and really probably a pretty good deal given the amount of labor going into a handspun, handknit sweater. I realize that, but I hope enough other people do and buy these beautiful sweaters!



Mmmm, yarn. One of these days I will have pictures of actual knitting progress to show, including a brief attempt at a patriotic scarf. This was typical Rita--I started it Tuesday afternoon, thinking I would knit it as I watched the election results came in, and then have it forever as a memento of the most important election of my lifetime. Of course, what I actually did was knit seven inches spend the rest of the time drinking champagne and shouting gleefully at the TV. Now I'm remembering that I hate scarves and wondering if there's such a thing as a patriotically-colored potholder in mistake rib.

Anyway. Yarn!

Lori the Llama, or why procrastination is bad

Hi internet! I'm still alive, just at school and really busy (classes, activities, worrying about what to do with my life, etc) so not knitting so much.

Although I did make a sweater.

OK, it was for a llama.

What happened was this. The first home football game of the fall, a big event for the marching band, would take place this year on Sept. 20. Also occurring on Sept. 20 was the birthday of my dear friend Rosa, who is the drum major of the band, and as such wears a sweater kind of like this for games. Rosa is also obsessed with llamas. (Do you see where this is going now?)

Anyway, so I hatched my clever clever plan in about June, congratulated myself on my cleverness, and then spent the rest of the summer knitting other things and doing nothing to actually accomplish said plan.

All of a sudden, it was Sept. 19 and I had the following:

One stuffed llama
One front for a llama sweater
One "pattern" (some scribbles in the back of a notebook)

My Big Plan was to finish the sweater, put it on the llama, wrap it up, and leave it in the band room for Rosa that evening, nice and relaxed and in plenty of time for rehearsal at 7.

What actually happened was this:

4:30 Having finished the front and back of the sweater, I reach for my yarn needles to sew it up and embroider the front. Cannot find needles. Realize that I've lent them to my friend Sasha. No worries, I have plenty of time. I'll find them.

4:45 Actually, maybe I'll just call Sasha. In the meantime, I block the pieces I have. Now all I have to do is pick up stitches to knit ribbing for the legs, sew up one side of the sweater, embroider the YALE on the front, put it on the llama and finish sewing. Oh, and weave in the ends. Huh.

5:00 Maybe I'll just call Sasha again. Still nothing. Begin to feel the first little fingers of creeping panic.

5:05 Call all the other knitters I know. No one has a yarn needle.

5:10 Ah-hah! I'll just go buy one!

5:15 Yarn store closed at five. HELP.

5:19 Keep making phone calls. Finally locate a needle, but she can't bring it until 6:30. OK, fine, I'll just sew fast.

5:30 Pick up stitches to knit ribbing for legs. Knit faster, knit faster. Call Sasha again just for kicks. Nothing.

5:45 My friend Sarah comes in.
Me: SARAH HAVE YOU SEEN SASHA?!
Sarah: Um, no...actually, I just came in to see if you wanted to--um...why are you sewing a sweater for a horse?
Me: GET OUT OF MY ROOM.

6:15 Legs finished. Where are my needles?!

6:30 In the band room, hiding from Rosa in a back room and embroidering the letters.

6:45 Finish the embroidery. Sew seams faster than I have ever sewed in my life.

7:15 Finish sweater, wrap it very sophisticatedly in white copy paper and Scotch tape. Make a birthday card with a sharpie. It looks like a six-year-old made it. I don't care. Stash the oddly-shaped package (it looks kind of a sarcophagus) for Rosa to find.

7:20 Take my seat in rehearsal. Heart pounding oddly fast. Why do I always do this to myself?!

So, lessons learned:
1) Do. Not. Put off the execution of your brilliant ideas until the last minute.
2) Make sure Sasha has her own needles next time
3) If I put as much effort into my schoolwork as I do into silly presents, I would be...well, probably still unemployable, actually, so never mind.

But the result?



So cute! I think it actually looks like a drum major sweater, and it fits the llama pretty well. And it all ended well: Rosa was happy, the game the next day went great, and I learned my lesson.

Maybe.

Still alive!

Still alive, just a delinquent blogger as always. Oh well. I'm back at my second home now, and somehow in all the moving and unpacking and catching up with friends, the knitblogging appears to have slipped. Let's see what I can remember...

Once upon a time, I did finish a baby set!



I love those little silver buttons!





Patterns: February Baby Sweater, by Elizabeth Zimmerman, from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, and Saartje's Booties.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in "Denim," leftovers from my Gathered Pullover. Overdyed with purple and pink McCormick food coloring by yours truly. About 1.5 skeins, I think, for booties and sweater.
Needles: Clover bamboo size 4 circular for the sweater, Susan Bates size 3 straights for the booties.
Modifications: I didn't get gauge for the booties, so I knit the size small and got a larger bootie. Whatever, booties are stretchy and babies grow.
Also, I wasn't happy with the button holes I made, so I sewed those closed when I was sewing on the buttons and then made crocheted loops. I think it worked quite well.
Verdict: I was so happy with this project! I really love the color of the yarn, and the sweater and booties are supercute. No, I am not exactly cool, but there's a reason these patterns are so popular. The sweater was easy except for where I screwed up the lace, but I managed to fudge the numbers a little and it came out all right, and I don't think anyone but me would notice. The booties took like two hours to make, total. I would absolutely make these two again, for whatever unsuspecting friend or relative reproduces next.

And I just can't get over the color of the yarn--I wonder if I'd be able to do that again?



Anyway. Back at school now, so the knitting (and blogging) might be a little more sporadic.

I miss summer already. Especially summer food.






Sigh.

Fridays are for purple

February baby sweater: Finished!



(Almost...still awaiting blocking and buttons)



Oh man, do I love this color! I can say that completely unabashedly because, while I did dye it myself, I had no clue whatsoever what I was doing.

Oh, and I chose buttons:

I still need to sew them on and then crochet some button loops. I did make buttonholes while I was knitting, but they're too small and too far in and they just look goofy--so I'm going to sew the buttons onto the side that had the holes, and in doing so close up and camoflage the old holes, see? And then crochet little loops to go over them. It's not perfect, but it'll work.

A better solution might have been to make the buttonholes right the first time around, but what can you do.

One bootie, kind of finished but awaiting buttons, blocking, and sewing up:



Super cute, and super easy and super fast--maybe an hour and a half for this bootie last night? And so CUTE! I can't get over how little it is. I did modify the pattern a little, unsurprisingly--details later.

And big-girl booties (not really): flats for me.

Purple purple purple.

Mmmm, purple.

Knit faster, knit faster

It is one million (numbers are approximate) degrees outside today, so naturally I am knitting a wool sweater.

Naturally.

Although, truth be told, I am actually somewhat concerned because the baby shower is in oh let's see eight days, and so far the sweater looks like this:



Yeah, um, CONCERN. I'm not really in big trouble just yet, but I might be if I don't get cracking. What do you think my friends will say to this: "Sorry guys, I can't go to the movies/bar/park/hiking--I have to stay home and knit." I mean, they already knew I was a huge loser but that is pushing it even for me.



Oh well. In the meantime I will knit normally, taking time out to hike/bike/swim/lie in the shade waiting for my impending death from heatstroke due to the preceding three activities and the fact that it is, at 5:37 p.m., 97 DEGREES OUT.

I'm not in trouble.

Yet.



(I do like how my hand-dyed yarn is knitting up, though!)

One-woman sweatshop

Cranking out the baby clothes around here.

My high school band director had a baby last week, so I took a break from knitting my still-embryonic (heh) February Baby Sweater to make her a little hat:



Pattern: Umbilical Cord Hat, by Jennifer L. Jones. Kinda. I didn't really read the pattern, just made a little baby hat and then added a little i-cord knot on the top. I think it makes the hat look a little Dr. Seuss, but I like it.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, only a bit of a skein of each. What perfect baby yarn! I don't know if it's still being made; I bought this yarn a few years ago and haven't seen any in stores for awhile. But oh, so soft!

Reggie is not moved, softness or no.

Curl Up and Dye

Hands down my favorite salon name EVER.

Anyway. Yarn. I had quite a bit leftover from my Gathered Pullover--more than enough for a little baby sweater. But the baby in question is a girl--not that baby girls can't wear blue! I would have been happy to make her a little blue sweater, actually, and take THAT, gender-normativity, but after knitting an entire adult sweater out of this yarn I could not stare at that ocean of blue (heh) any longer.

So bust out the food coloring and vinegar, and MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA, YOU KILLED MY FATHER, PREPARE TO DYE! (hahahaha)(shut up.)

Ahem. Before:

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in "Denim," 2 + a little bit skeins.

Two teeny samples, microwaved:



On the left: purple McCormick food coloring over blue; on the right, pink. I like the purple much better.

Drying in the sun after "kettle-dying" (which sounds quite fancy and artisan-dyer esque, but really means I stirred up some food coloring, vinegar, and water, heated it up, and added the yarn. Somewhere along the line I managed to dye my foot pink. You know.)

Aaaand finished product!

I love it! It's much more variegated than I had intended--some spots stayed pretty blue, and then I tried to overdye those and only got some of them and so now some spots are pretty red, but I think it'll look nice knit up. So a success!

Except, except...oh, I don't want to talk about it. It's too painful.

It's...I...I can't even talk about it. There was a funny smell, and then there was yarn on fire, and then there was burned wool, and breaking, and...aaaaugh.

And really it's not too bad, actually; it only burned through about ten strands, all close together, so most of the skein is intact. I saved these little bits and I'll use them for seaming or edges or something. It's just...augh.

But I did make pretty yarn!

Oh, and what am I making? Oh, only the third-most popular baby pattern on Ravelry.

I told you I'm not cool.