And Done!

August Focus

So glad it is not a sweltering summer where I live.  Getting stuff DONE as a result.  Witness:  two quick baby sweaters for a double family baby shower.  

I finished them the day before the shower.  This hardly ever happens.

Must dash, though.  Two graduation / off to college quilts to finish.  Eep!

What's the Deal, February?

Yeah, so I was busy.  Blogging dwindles in knitting land.  Knitting grew sluggish in jpknitsland.

It's okay.  Holidays were lovely.  2013 went away.  January was FULL.  There was a one week roadtrip with mama driving the minibus.  We've had too much winter, all of us.  I had a three week cold, and I slept a lot for a change and tried to take care of myself.  I had a great class and we played hard.  Lots of smiles and laughs.

And.  Yet.

There was a little knitting.  Random Gift Knitting Just Because.

I did slip, of course, despite a very good start. Started in November, this was the ONLY holiday knitting I was really going to do.  Stash yarn, check.  Existing pattern info (Lace Rib Scarf stitch pattern from Mason Dixon blog), check.  Knitting done on December 24.  Found buttons to use from deep stash.  (I worked in a fabric store way back.)

Whoops.  Went from having three cards of buttons to two, which meant four buttons and not six.
Whoops.  Shopping for buttons, eventually.  Four deep stash buttons go back to the button boxes.
Whoops. Not done in December.  Button sewing today.

Gave, Giftee-smiling, Gone.

But how DID it get to be the end of the first week of February?!?

Friday Rituals on a Textile Blog?

 I was just here last week.  This is fairly shocking.

 

Friday:  Featuring One of those Famous Finished Objects

Yep.  Table runner.  Covering the full seating deck of a love-seat.  Decidedly big for table runner traditions, but who cares.

 

Funny how the blues and yellows in those greens are hightened by digital photog on a grey day.

Quarter circles were stitched by hand.  Squares were stitched by machine.  Judicious machine quilting shadows some of the curved paths.

Bound in time for the wedding.  Whee!

Steamy Summer O' Stash

Happy to have a good reason to make and take a quick baby quilt along for a visit to one of my knit camp friends.

Curiously non-babe colors in the juvenile print fabric my sister passed from her stash to mine.  The maroon print in the center sported some of the same colors as the animal filled backing.  Found some neglected 5x5 squares, the right amount of batting, and voila!  Two days, though rightly could have been a one day project.

Lunch with visiting and knitting leads to completion of October birthday gift.  

Am elbow deep in a couple quilt tops, 14 placemats, and a table runner.   Very steamy day, though.  May have to take some of the latter and go find a table in an air conditioned location for some basting time.

What was that about summer of stash?  I'm determined to finish that table runner and the holiday placemats.  Stash, UFO, call them what you will, they shall be finished.  And leave.

Quilt one - some stash, along with a little new acquisition because all two of next year's grads listed turquoise in lists of favorite colors.  That was the picture from the prior post.  Did I mention that there are four high school grads next spring?  I am on a mission.

Quilt two surprised me today.  Those neglected 5x5 squares I hauled out of storage?  The remainder are now 4-patches.  Culling out some unwanted stash as I move along to put in large alternating shadow blocks.  It will go to church for the young people's quilt making project for charity.  Last summer I  stitched up several from the coordinator's prepped fabric bundles for volunteers.  This summer I am determined to donate some stash as well as sewing to the effort.  The kids start out the year tying some quilts. Later they move into the rest of the process and do some start to finish.  It seems to work well for them to get a start with some prepared tops.

It feels like Progress, though today seems slow moving.  I think I will take another shower and move on to some air conditioned productivity.  

Seriously.

I had the flu, actual flu, earlier this spring.  I had only enough sense to knit a square.  

I had sense enough to want to tackle a baby gift for a baby due shortly.  

I had sense enough to eyeball two skeins of indifferent baby acrylic that had been in the stash since certain other preschoolers were expected.  

It became a mission to get this done, and  that energy wasn't lost even when I set myself other spring-deadline hats.

The baby is here, enough weeks in that I can have a visit with the mom without overwhelming.  The blanket is drying from its quick wash.

But.  Seriously.

I bought a third skein, only to have 3/5 of it remaining.  I decided it seems big enough.  

I was too sick at the beginning to catch on to the fact that I would have gauge issues shifting from the garter center to the stockinette surround.

I thought an I-cord bind off would curb the curl, and it is not so.

I washed it, and days later the acrylic is still not dry.

This sucker is not square. I will try not to care.

In other serious news, I tossed the stash.  I entered long ignored items into ravelry.  I have one more box to go through.  

I am appalled.  I must knit more.  Seriously.  SABLE indeed.

Seriously not entering the kitchen cotton.

Excuse me.  I need to go work on a gift scarf that's been lingering in the basket.

Dead Fish Hats, Unite!

Voila.

Mostly used a skein of Malabrigo for each.  Tried to up other yarn on hand for details.    

Look! Spring!

The hat has to be completely dry so I can mail it.

But look! Done!

PS. Thanks, Fujiyamamama, for the encouragement. I fixed that dropped stitch in the hat. Seems I only dropped half of it.... but it surely was the active half!

Did I Mention?

Done.

Hat Truths. Silly Me.

I have had a thing about hats most of my life.

I love hats....on other people.

My mother has a thing about hats. She doesn't like them to be too fussy, too tight, too high maintenance, and so on. If she didn't worry about the practical needs in cold weather, she wouldn't wear hats.

Last year I made a hat for my mother. a month later she gave it back to me as it really didn't suit her hat needs. No drama.

I found a much better match for the hat and passed it on to a good friend.

This year, on a month of winter travel, I packed yarn because I was tired of my hats.

I started knitting the hat finally on the last leg of travel.

I was not done with the hat in time to wear it for unusually snowy Storm in the UK.

I was not done with the hat until my last day in Dublin.

It turned out to be a great hat.

I was a little worried that when wet the yarn bloomed just a touch, making it a teensy bit looser in fit.

My mother took it home with her after her recent visit.

It turned out to be the perfect hat, good color, good coverage, not tight, happy mother, happy knitter.

I am still tired of my hats. Thankfully there is plenty of yarn at hand.

I think I know the root of my hat issues. I learned them from my momma.

The yarn and knitting issues are all mine.

Posting Cleanup, Post Fête

In the spirit of cleaning things up ritualistically for the New Year, I will post the photos I took and didn't yet share.

The blocking was done easily enough and in time for me to pack it for travel. Very light, very warm, and to non-knitters it's somewhat unusual. That's fine by me.

Pattern - Color Affection
Yarn - Madelinetosh Tosh Light in Graphite, Tart, and Wicked

(PS. Started this while it was still Eve, 2012. Lost half of it and felt compelled to regroup and clean it up before calling it a night.)(It is of course 2013 and really very early morning.)

(PPS. Dinner parties start late in France. On this New Year's at the fabulous dinner party I was privileged to attend, the welcoming of the New Year fell between courses, just past the fourth of seven stunning courses.)

(PPPS. More on that story in the morning.)

Bonne Anneé!

Just My Colors, Color Affection

Finished! Blocking tomorrow and some better pictures next week, or at least I hope to do so....

Red, grey, brown.

Knitting just for me, this time.

I Am Rocking the Lists

Finished these late Tuesday night, complete with all two dozen ends woven in and a quick wet blocking.  The drying has not been quick, as these things go.  It's been unseasonably warm here, so it was still cool in my apartment, what with the heating system having had a little vacation.

Knitting details: 
Yarn:  2-ply wool from the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.  Bought that back when I worked in Maine.  This yarn has been in the stash for at LEAST 15 years.
Needles:  size 5 dpns
Pattern: Men's Fingerless Gloves, by. J. Campbell, via Ravelry link. 
Pattern mods: Gauge, natch.  I pared down the cast-on count by four and factored that in along the way.  Also I am learning to ignore the minimal suggestions like the half inch from the top of the thum gusset to the start of the fingers.  That's just WAY too short for the palm of a hand.  I also added the stripe because at one point I worried I would run out of wool.  When I reknit and sized them down, I was still worried.... forgetting that sizing that down would perhaps use less wool.  You know I have leftover.


Need a box.  In fact, I think I'm going to take a walk to the post office RIGHT NOW and see about a couple of boxes.  That task has been on my list at home for a few days, and it needs to get done.

Check!

F Leapin O

Thirty+ years ago, this was an intended pillow. I think it was a gift for my mother. Saw it last Christmas, carefully stowed in a drawer, two knit rectangles, neatly folded once.

Took it home to finish it up. Months more it sat.

Took it back to my mother's for a brief summer visit, along with supplies.

Happily, it will be staying. Her decor can still carry a curiously gold, Lydia's Rug Yarn pillow, made by her daughter. What a hoot.

Pardon the photo. ElizabethSable would despair of the photo aesthetic.

It took about two hours, with distractions, to sew and stuff a pillow form, stitch in a zipper by hand, and stitch ip the remaining seams.

Take note, UFO's. I'm rocking some finishing, kicking it old school.

Basics

Basic math:

Too much work + too little time = Busy.

(Breakfast at home + two packed meals)x 7 days = Really want to eat dinner at home some day.

9 stitches X 11 rows = a reasonable square.

Wonky squares - blocking = Mystery.

I'm basically very busy right now and have no right to pretend this blog is active or that it is a link to friends.

But basically, I am an optimist.

(Oh, and I did finish this scarf.)

Surprises

How'd I go this long without trying entrelac?

Same thing goes for spaghetti squash, which I tackled for the first time this fall. The second half of the one i baked this week made a fine squash & tomato gratin this evening. (Leftovers from that, one more lunch tomorrow.). Yum.

Similarly yummy, this hat. As I followed a recipe and not a pattern, I will have to write down the details right now. I tried on the hat and I love it.

The hat is a Christmas present I will be proud to give. I will have to make another one soon, though. I have made two caps for myself recently that are nice looking, but they are not so spectacular on me. This entrelac hat? A very nice surprise.

Plata, Plato, Playdough.

I keep wanting to call this colorway Plato. I had a parakeet named Plato. I thought the name was playdough, because I knew more about that lovely colored substance than I did the philosopher.

The yarn here is Malabrigo Gruesa in the colorway Plata - for the metal, not the philosopher.

A 65 yard quick hat, this one was. Only three inches remained!

Knitting Photo Finish; Or, Tricking a Smart Phone

Smart Phone photography isn't entirely Smart.

I've been playing games at tricking it into capturing better color. Well, different color.

Sunny day indoor location and truer color:



Same location, same time and day - totally faded out:



Fluorescent light, early evening - not great color:


Moments later, having figured out I can fake out the light meter by pointing it at the light and taking the picture quickly - better color:



Taken earlier before said experiment - crazily disappointing color:



Much better color. Also, THIS COSTUME PIECE is DONE. Done for a different show than the one for which it was started, but hey, done is good.

So International

The pattern designer is from Germany.



She gave the pattern an Italian name.

Frangiflutti. (Pattern on Ravelry.)


I picked up the yarn on a trip - Happy, by Wendy - at John Lewis in London.



So this is a British Breakfront. (Frangiflutti, translated, as I understand it.)



The yarn is bamboo - a little nylon for stability.
Really, you know, I think it looks kind of wabi-sabi.

======
Knitting details - used US 7 needles. Used up all but 2-3 yards.

It's now in a gift bag, ready to move on.

Enfin quoi?
(Oh this internet and it's fancy dictionaries....)

Not a Keeper - and I'm okay with that

Finished the scarf.

Enjoyed the knitting. Both pattern, Stephen West's Pogona, and yarn, Tosh Light Merino, were pleasant to handle.

Love the color - richer than this photo, but I just want to post today and move along.

And I gave it away. It was the PERFECT prezzie for one of my costume grads. Even when I was knitting it, I kept thinking the color would REALLY suit her. And she's a good match for the spiky drama of a capelet sized Pagona.