A Modest Output

I hope everyone had a nice holiday season. I did! In the rush leading up to it, I never know if I'm going to make it, but somehow just enough of everything all comes together just in time. And again this year, though I never seem to come close to matching the impossible dream in my head, I managed to get the tree decorated, cards out, presents bought and wrapped, and even a little Christmas baking done. 

And in the midst of all of this, there was time for just a very modest amount of Christmas knitting. I didn't do a lot, but I did at least make a sweet little scarflet for my tall-elegant-mom, and a hat and neck-warmer set for Yarnstruck-nephew-the-eldest.  The first was because I always try to make at least a little something for my mom, and the second by semi-request.  (My trim-athletic-dad didn't fare quite as well; his as-yet unknit socks were bestowed on him in pristine form, as a completely untouched ball of yarn. :)

Time was rushing onward, and I knew I wanted to knit something for Mom, but I didn't know what.  In the past I've made her stoles, scarves, shawls, gloves, hat, a sweater, and socks -- lots of socks -- all of which she makes valiant efforts to wear regularly. This time, I had no plan, but I did have a lovely skein of Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 6-ply squirreled away, in the Oceana colorway.  I'd bought it on a vacation a few years ago in Seattle and never quite come up with the right little project for it.

I'd always thought these colors would be nice on Mom, but what to make? One skein of worsted weight, however precious, would be of necessity a small project. I hit upon the idea of a  little scarflet that could give just a hint of warmth and color at the neck, where cashmere's softness would be most appreciated.

I ended up choosing a style that's often called a bowknot scarf.  It has a built-in loop on each side, cleverly constructed by separating the stitches into two layers and then rejoining, so that either end can be tucked through the other, neatly and securely.  There are quite a few patterns along this general model, but the one I used is Marci Richardson's version, from Judith Durant's 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders book. Like the others, it's in humble garter stitch (which does make it springy as to length and not prone to rolling), but it also has some nice refinements, like a simple eyelet trim along the edges. 

I made some minor changes to make it suit my mom (I hope) a little better.  I lengthened the two ends of the scarf by an inch or two to give it a more substantial look. I narrowed the band around the neck slightly so it won't bunch up or fold over and will be a little better for full-time wear, rather than just for venturing out into the cold.  I hope she'll enjoy having a small soft accessory that's easy to wear casually. Cozy, but not so warm you'd hesitate to reach for it unless the wind is really howling.


As for the requested item, that one tickled me.  Once, I made a pile of thick hats in cheery school-spirit colors, and gave them out to the Yarnstruck nephews (among others).  Well, what do you know, they wore them, and it seems they quite liked having a warm thick hat to wear on really cold days.  Two years later, Yarnstruck-nephew-the-eldest had moved on to college and needed a warm thick hat in a new color scheme. Well, no knitter on earth could resist the call to replace an appreciated piece of hand-knitting with another when the need arises.  It was Auntie Yarnstruck to the rescue!

If the original hat fit Yarnstruck-nephew-the-eldest and he liked it, well, I wasn't going to mess with success. I was going to do my level best to replicate it, materials, fit, styling, and all.  Everything would be just the same but the color. I ran right out for the same yarn as last time, Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick, to knit with big US size 11 boat oars. 

The pattern was of my own concoction, but, no problem, I just needed to find the little scrap of paper where I had noted down the details. When I got a little time, I launched a search into the pile of little and bigger scraps and sheets where I've noted down lots of my original patterns but never written them up properly.  There sure were a lot of scraps and sheets.  This was taking longer to find than I thought.  In fact, I couldn't find it.  Uh-oh. I knew I'd written down the details on one of these scraps; I actually remembered transcribing them from an even smaller more tattered scrap of paper.  But I couldn't find it anywhere. I went through books, notebooks, drawers, and dug down to the deepest darkest bottom of my piles of yarn. I spent a couple of hours turning the place upside down.  I couldn't have searched more thoroughly if I'd brought a bloodhound with me. No scrap of paper. Oh, no.

Now mind you, my little hat pattern wasn't anything to set the world of hat patterns on fire, but I knew it had worked once, and I just wanted to knit it again.  I could have picked a pattern from one of the many (really! *many*) knitting books on my shelf, and adapted it for the yarn, and it probably would have been fine.  But it wouldn't have been identical to the original one, and identical is what I was going for. 

Hard times call for tough measures. At least I had taken a good picture of the original hat, a complete side view, smoothed out flat. I reverse-engineered my own hat design from the photo, stitch by stitch, and used it to knit the new hat.

There was plenty of yarn left over, so I made a ribbed cowl/neck-warmer to match.  I have to admit, this isn't quite how I pictured it being worn.  (It actually looked quite nice pushed down around Yarnstruck-nephew-the-eldest's handsome chin. :)  But, come to think of it, on a good freezing day, it's probably exactly the right way to wear it.

This time I wrote the whole thing down carefully.  And put it... somewhere. I'm sure it will turn up.

A Snowy Realm

Snow on top of snow. It's been quite a winter. Beautiful to look out upon, though a little challenging to keep cleared.

And when you're snowed in, there's lots and lots of time for indoor hobbies like knitting. I took a little blizzard break and knit myself a new handspun hat!

When there's a good deep snow on the ground, it's fun to bundle up in hats and boots and go out stomping around. When the novelty of shoveling wears off, there's plenty of entertainment to be had in watching the plows, taking pictures, or just playing.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed that, for an enthusiastic knitter, I have a distinct shortage of hand-knit hats. In fact, only one: a petite little beret with a coordinating ruffled scarf. But everywhere lately, I've been seeing oversized, slouchy berets. And though big hats are sometimes not a good look for me, I thought I might not look so much like a mushroom in one that droops down. I suddenly wanted one.

I decided on a heavily cabled slouchy hat that I'd been admiring in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of knit.1 magazine. It's called the Relm tam and was designed by Jared Flood. On top of liking its tweedy good looks , I thought it would make a good handspun project for one of the smaller quantities of spinning fiber I have on hand.

I settled on the fiber from Puff the Magic Rabbit that I bought last fall at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. When I visited Puff's site just now to make sure of the link, I got a surprise. While I thought -- and said in my last post -- that the fiber was her Electra Blue colorway in merino and mohair, from the photos on her site it's pretty unmistakably For Erika, instead. So what I have here is actually natural dark gray Border Leicester with a little silky mohair in pale blue and lavender!

It's beautiful stuff, either way. I spun it into a light worsted weight two-ply, trying for a decent amount of twist. It's not quite as twisty as I was aiming for, but I didn't do too badly. This was my first time attempting to spin exactly the yarn I wanted for a particular pattern. Up until now, I had just spun the fiber however it seemed to work best and then figured out what to knit it into.

The pattern calls for 100 grams of a yarn that adds up to about 300 yards. I thought I would be safe, since I had more than 150 grams of fiber. Well, I must have spun a much denser yarn than the one called for, because I ended up with only 230 yards of handspun. I crossed my fingers, hoping for the best, and pressed on. It was a big slouchy hat, after all, and if I ran short I could always regroup and make it into a smaller, less slouchy version.

The handspun yarn worked well in the pattern. The fiber's color variation gave it a heathery look that suited the cable pattern, and the mohair in the mix gave it some drape. The cable-work doesn't show up very clearly, because of the fuzzy bloom of the yarn, but it looks thick and furrowed and handsome nonetheless.

The pattern is elegantly designed, showing the signs of a perfectionist in the careful choice and placement of decreases as the cables narrow into the center. But it is big. As the knitting progressed, I did end up making it smaller. It wasn't for lack of yarn (though I actually do think I would have run out). No, it was because the way it was shaping up, it would have made a really giant hat. Enormous. Beyond slouchy. I think it would have been lounging on my shoulders.

I ended up leaving out two repeats of the cable pattern to shorten it up considerably. And it's slouchy, warm, and big without being overwhelming. I am all set now to venture back out, find a cafe, and park myself at a table with a book and a steaming double espresso.

Snow? What snow?

Heaping Helping of Hats

Maybe it's the suddenly cold weather. Or maybe it's a desire to tidy up some loose ends. Or maybe I just needed a break from knitting socks, socks, and more socks, after knitting three pairs in a row. Whatever it is, it caused me to dip deeply into the Yarnstruck strategic yarn stockpile and come up with the Wool-Ease Thick & Quick.

I bought this yarn a couple of years ago, in the Pumpkin and Claret colors, to make a school-spirit hat as a Christmas present for world's-most-patient-husband. It was kind of an impulse project. I hadn't really been looking for a super-bulky yarn, but that happened to be the one yarn at the local chain store that came in the requisite colors. Not sure how much I'd need and not wanting to run short, I bought four skeins, two in each color. I do like to have a safe margin. But once I'd knit the hat, it was clear I'd bought a ridiculous amount. Between the two colors, I had the equivalent of three full skeins remaining. Since then, it's just been lolling around, idly wondering whether it might want to grow up to be a matching scarf.

Finally, Friday, something clicked. I realized that there were a couple of close family members I'd never hand-crafted anything for. With the help of my new digital scale, I also figured out that the remaining yarn could easily make three more hats. I could make team hats for my brother-in-law and my two teen-aged nephews, football-mad fans all.

The brother-in-law version, like the husband-hat, was loosely adapted from Rebecca Rosen's Just Ribbing watchcap in the Just Hats book and re-worked for a different gauge (3 stitches per inch on US size 11 needles). I also added a graduated striped design. The 3x3 ribbing looked quite different in the super-bulky weight, and made for a lovable hat with a good personality. I hope my brother-in-law will like it; he has a kind heart and plenty of team spirit. (And trust me, it looks better on a person's actual head.)

For the teen-aged nephews, I needed a better idea of what might go over OK in the high-school crowd. I checked out a few ready-to-wear styles on-line. Based on that, I designed a fairly simple hat, and knit it up hoping for the best. It didn't look half bad, so I reversed the color scheme and made another one.

Here's the artsy top view. I've given the hat a name, too: Orange Effect.

The nephew hats looked pretty decent. But I still had yarn left. Yes, I wanted to do something nice for the guys, but I'd also been hoping to clear out that yarn. The scale told me it was enough for yet one more hat. I thought, why not? World's-most-patient-husband could use an updated one. So I grabbed the needles and had at it one more time.

In the end, those skeins I'd bought for one hat wound up stretching to five. Four of those, all but the original one, were knitted in the last three days in an on-again- off-again marathon of big yarn and hefty needles.

Here's the whole stack-o'-hats. (The original one sneaked in there too, on the bottom floor.) And, yes, the yarn, for the most part, is finally wiped out. Close enough, anyway. All in all, a pretty good weekend's work, I'd say.