Pom pom makers! (and stuff)

Amy inquired about the pompom makers, and I have to say, they rock! I don't seem to make pompoms full enough or secure enough  when I do the cardboard-circle method. The makers might be gadgety, but I am a convert.

I made more hats...

The ballerina liked her brother's Jayne hat, and wanted one for herself, but in purple.  I've discovered that it's not easy finding really grape-koolaid-purple yarn, but finally found a nice bulky at a local store. The hat is huge and slouchy with a big old pompom. The yarn is Willa by Jupiter Moon Farm in the colourway Concord.

I've been trying to get a modeled photo, but I never can ask at the right time. And it's Nutcracker season, so the girl is hardly ever home! (and if she's home, she's asleep. Like now.)

Her hat was admired by the ballet-carpool buddy, so I made a second. The yarn is also Jupiter Moon Farm, but this time in Chadwick. I had to adjust the stitch count, because the yarn is worsted, but otherwise the hat is identical.  The gal really wanted white, which wouldn't have been my choice, ("It's going to get so grubby!") but I love how it looks.

Those hats took the biggest maker I have:




(I saw an even bigger one at the yarn store. I didn't buy it, but it would be fun.)

I also got the teeny-tiny pompom maker, because I must be an addict.



That was perfect for baby booties for a nephew's infant:

Compare to another pair of booties made a year ago with a cardboard pompom maker:

Well, I can see a difference.

The booties had a matching hat, which I made with the pattern Tricable from an ebooklet published by Wooly Wormheads.

The yarn is a worsted handdyed superwash merino I got from No Two Snowflakes.

It's so hard to know if baby things will fit, and if they'll fit at the same time! We got a lovely thank you note from the mama, and hope they managed to keep the little boy warm a few times.

Man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything

A week ago when I posted that I'd purchased acrylic yarn, I honestly believed I'd be posting the final product that night. The knitting did indeed go quickly, but I cast on 5 times before I got the size right. Yesterday the hat all came together and it's done.

The hat is fashioned after a hat worn by the character  Jayne in the show Firefly. I mostly followed directions here, based on careful scrutiny of the show. I held the yarn doubled and used a size 11 needle.



I'll go back to wool, now, thanks!

Oh, and I bought a little Pom Pom Maker because my pompoms always look like crap.  Such fun!!

ACRYLIC YARN

Hello there, Vanna!

Yes, yes, I bought acrylic yarn. With good reason, too. I need a bulky yarn for a project, but I need it to be wearable indoors, without the wearer's head going up in flames from the heat. Supposedly acrylic fits the bill better than wool.  We'll see!

There are people out there in the internet land that will know exactly what I'm making just from looking at the colours. I don't know that they read my blog, though.

Knitting Cryptology

In graduate school, I had a technology-related class that had us write a paper with a fairly open topic. The instructor wanted us to use topics of relevance and interest to us, but to examine them in a way that related to our studies. I wound up writing a paper examining the cryptology of knitting, discussing constant and context-based signs and codes that communicate patterns and methods to knitters.

If I were still writing that paper, I'd have a new experience to discuss. I found an adorable hat pattern that I wanted to knit, but the pattern was in Finnish. Google Translate provided me a rather whimsical interpretation of a knitting pattern, translating "knit" into "correctly" and "purl" into "inside out", with reference to manipulating wires and electrodes. With the assistance of an online guide to translating knitting terms, as well as careful study of the photographs, I was able to come up with a fairly good translation of the pattern, and a pretty cute hat.

And more pokehats!

The teen's need for new pokemon hats continues. This time, we captured drifloon in hat form.

This is one of his fan graphics, showing the pokemon itself.

It turns out that it's not easy to find a vibrant grapey purple worsted yarn. I custom ordered it from Coulrophobia, and the yarn she sent was perfect. I didn't want to run short, of course, so I ordered 2 skeins. One skein was more than enough so I have an extra skein of purple yarn!

Pattern details may follow.

What I Did For My Winter Holiday

The teen in my life said, "Mom, I want you to make me some hats." I said, "I love making hats!" Turns out, he wants complicated hats. The skitty hat took me days, working one step per day. The ears tried my patience in a huge way--there may have been cussing--but they turned out adorable. I even had to bust out my rusty embroidery skills for the eyes.

A cunning tree

The teen in my life has a wee Christmas tree that he carries to school with him. Adorned with USB Christmas lights, it twinkles festively, powered by his laptop.

Last week I decided it needed a Jayne hat.

Yeah, it took me less than an hour.

Hats!

(details here)

Play at Life Hats

Yarns! Hats!

A week ago, I got two new yarns from Play at Life Fibre Arts. One is from reclaimed yarn, recycled and dyed by the artist. That's the purple gradient yarn. The other is new fibres, aran weight in the colour "twinkle lights."

Since then, I've been knitting hats. First, a slouchy hat for the tween girl. The pattern is Arrow, but I knit the arrowhead pattern nearly twice, instead of once as directed.

Then, a long pointy hat for me, which used up the entire skein.

Modeled photos to come, as always.

A story

Once upon a time, long long ago, I was young. At the time of this story, I had a very nice boyfriend. Very fine indeed.

One day, my boyfriend said to me, "Would you like to come to my grandma's 80th birthday?"

I thought, "Wow, he's taking me to meet his family!"

He thought, "This long trip will be a lot more fun if she comes along."

Although he was clueless to the implications of taking a girlfriend to a major family gathering, no one else failed to catch on. Even his four-year-old nephew knew that this was an interesting development. He beamed at us cherubically and inquired sweetly, "Are you guys gonna get married?" We weren't quite ready to deal with that kind of question, and I'm sure our answer was an awkward splutter.

But within the year, we were indeed married.

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of attending that cherubic nephew's wedding. Now both he and his older brother are expecting babies in the new year.

Of course, I've always been the weird aunt. And I'm supposing that hand-knitted gifts from the weird aunt might not be among the favourite gifts. But you see, I'm one of those knitters who, when hearing that a baby is coming, casts on. It's just what happens.

The yarn is Dream in Color Classy, and I bought it specifically to have for baby knitting. I was very pleased, while agonizing over what to knit, to remember this yarn. I still have to locate the perfect buttons for the booties.

Miller's hat, more pictures

Did I mention how very toasty this hat is? I love it!

an embarrassment of yarnz

I seem to have a lot of incoming yarn this fall. I found a new dyer of delicious stripeys, Rosy Retro, and decided I needed to bring home one of her skeins. The skein is called "Garbo", which reminds me of my mother's paper dolls that I used to play with, and I can't wait to see how those blues and greens knit up.

I traded my Old Blue Jeans WM for an Amethyst WM. The colour is rich and deep and very lovely.

Lastly, I needed some trim for my Miller's Hat. I went to a local yarn store and spent a great deal of time wandering through, looking at all their worsted weight yarn in brown, grey, rust, black, and even olive.  I found some Malabrigo that looked promising, but it was a chunky weight, and I needed worsted. I eventually settled on some heathered Cascade 220. I hadn't intended to choose Cascade 220, but of all the colours I examined, this one had the warmth and richness needed to compliment the lovely Ember colourway.

Finishing the Miller's Hat didn't take long. I don't have any good photos of it worn; beware, those are yet to come. But I'm quite pleased with the outcome, even if the decreases will forever be steep and a little too short.

How I fixed the hat

After my previous post outlining how I ran out of yarn for the decreases for my miller's hat, I settled down to see what I could do.

I did go ahead and use the leftover Skinny Bugga by holding it double stranded. I alternated rows between the gothling and the Bugga, and I only knit the decrease rows. This made the decreases rather steep, as there's supposed to be a row between each decrease row. Impressively, the Skinny Bugga doesn't show at all.

Next up, I need to find a contrasting colour for the lower band.

Miller's Hat, Stuck.

So, the pattern requirements are 220 yards of worsted yarn. The skein supposedly has 260 yards of worsted yarn. But it's not enough. On the 2nd row of decreases, I have 7 grams of yarn left, and no hope of finishing this hat.

When staging this picture, I also tossed in the little ball of fingering Bugga that was left over from making the herbivore. There's 4 grams of that. If I held it double, it might pass for worsted, but while it's the same colour, it's far more luminous than the worsted yarn.

Not. Happy.

Pernicious Gauge

Not too long ago, I started knitting up my worsted gothlings in Ember, using the Miller's Hat pattern. The pattern suggests a size 6 needle, with a recommended gauge of 20 stitches to 4 inches in herringbone stitch.  I just started up the hat as a swatch, which allowed me the luxury of already having progress made, if the gauge was correct, or I would have to start over anyway, if the gauge was wrong.  Well, the gauge was way off.  In a size 6 needle, I was getting 20 stitches to only 3.25 inches.  I went up 2 needle sizes and started over.  My gauge is still small, more like 20 stitches measuring 3.5 inches, or sometimes 3.75.  I'm not willing to go up any more sizes.  The cable part of the hat is to be knit on one needle size larger, and I'm not willing to knit this yarn on a 9/10 combination, which would be too loose for this weight of yarn.

The herringbone stitch is tricky, because it involves floats, which tighten up the gauge, but I pay careful attention to those floats to make sure they aren't too tight. That's what makes the knitting so tedious.  I have 8 more rows of this stitch, and I am quite looking forward to being done, so I can move onto the fun part.

The picture shows the size 6 version above, and the size 8 version below. I do think it'll be very pretty when done!

An unoriginal "Unoriginal Hat"

Bulky hats are such a quick knit! I took a little knitting time to knit up some of the new hat yarn that I picked up at yarn4socks' Boxing Day sale.

 

Yarn: Araucania Azapa in colourway 819. I can't find a word to describe this colour.
Needles: size 11 16" circular. I tried with a size 13, but the fabric was a little too airy.
Pattern: Unoriginal Hat
Notes: One hat took 44 grams of yarn. I made 2 identical hats from one skein, with a little leftover.

 

This yarn, a blend of silk, alpaca, and merino, is very very soft! It's also very 'sticky', and I thought it might felt into itself in the skein. Oh, and I freeskeined the entire project.

Destashing and freeskeining

Late last night, I had to turn my attention away from the boy doll, so I pulled out a lovely skein of Malabrigo that had been patiently waiting to become a hat. This was my first ever skein of Malabrigo, bought this summer, a really lovely shade of green in their thick-n-thin Aquarelle. The skein told me it wanted to be an Unoriginal Hat, but from looking at Ravelry, I could see that one skein wasn't enough for this particular hat. I decided to remove two rows from each repeat, and give it a try.

As the hat was taking shape, I was able to look at how much yarn was left, see how much was used up by each row, and realise that I did not have enough yarn to finish. I stopped there, and started over from the other end, knitting the rest of the skein and then right off the unfinished hat.

This time I started half way through the chart, and did the second repeat with the same two rows missing. I managed to make it with a yard of yarn to spare.

So very toasty warm!