Thanks, Ann Budd & Yarn Harlot!

Hat #1 made from the Araucania Azapa is finished! (Well, except for weaving in the ends, but whatever. You can tuck them up in the hat to take pictures.) I ended up mashing up two patterns, the Basic Hat from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's No-Pattern Hat from Knitting Rules!. I used Budd for the basics of the ribbing and body, and used McPhee's "Type A" decrease strategy to create a wonderfully custom-fit hat for my colleague. Now that I have all the little details figured out, hat #2 should be a breeze to knit up.

I may also have a hard time taking this thing off my head and giving it to my pal.



Isn't it adorable! She's planning on wearing it with the ribbing down, so I had to frog back some of the body of the hat so it wouldn't be too big.

Pattern: Ann Budd's Basic Hat pattern for a 21" head circumference at a gauge of 4 st/inch, with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's No-Pattern Hat's "Type A" decreases
Yarn: Araucania Azapa in color #819 Malted Cocoa, less than one skein
Needles: Boye interchangeable set, size US 9 for the body; Takumi Clover DPN set, size 9
Timeline: 9.29.09-10.9.09
Modifications: Obviously, the mash-up of two patterns. I did not knit the body of the hat as long as Budd suggested since the recipient will wear it in a different fashion. I didn't like how Pearl-McPhee's method left me with 14 stitches to draw together, so I did an addition K2tog row, leaving me with 7 stitches to draw together. (Not symmetrical, but it eased my mind a bit!)

Opinion: The original hat pattern I chose was for worsted-weight, but since Azapa is heavier I decided just to go with a custom-fit hat, and I'm glad I did. It's super-cute, fits well, and looks good. I'm going to have fun making a second, and I want to make one for myself!

Random Thoughts: It reminds me somewhat of a fisherman's watchcap. I think it's the ribbing! Also, it's really hard to take a picture of the top of your head.

A Bloggish Milestone

Happy 1000 hits, blog! While I'm sure that 501 of those hits are from me, it still pleases me to know that 499 spambots visit the page occasionally. Thanks, spambots!

~*~

When I write in my personal blog, I tend to "dump": aka I write about everything that's on my brain. I don't compartmentalize or break it up at all. Since the blog is private and about my life, and since life happens just about every day, I figure I won't exactly run out of things to write about. But in a crafting blog, I have to resist the urge to dump. I am seriously like a five-year-old returned from kindergarten: "I want to tell you about this, and this, and then this happened and lookit me!" And that, I think, just isn't fun to read. I don't know about you, but I've started getting annoyed with long news articles -- just get to the point! If I have to scroll, forget about it! (You haven't had to scroll yet, have you? Thanks for sticking around.) Hence, I try to break things up so I have more to blog about in smaller portions. However, often this leads to me forgetting what I was going to post, since I also have the attention span of a five-year-old fresh from kindergarten. And then I don't blog, 'cause I don't have anything to blog about. It's a vicious cycle.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I finished my NSS #3 yesterday because I went to the yarn store and managed some social interaction and yet also managed to knit enough that I was able to finish when I got home. I went to the yarn store (are you seeing the logical break for new blog entry here?) because of one of my work colleagues. She's a lovely woman who has been nothing but incredibly nice and patient and helpful to me and, miracle of miracles, she thinks I'm a good knitter and wants me to make her a hat. (Blessed lady obviously doesn't knit.)

(You've had to scroll by now. You still with me? [And have I mentioned that I adore parentheses? And apparently brackets. What comes after brackets?])

ANYWAY, we went to the yarn store yesterday, and she petted, and, because she is a lady of supreme taste, she picked some Araucania Azapa in malted cocoa, and that stuff is not particularly inexpensive, and I'm kind of geeking out because this is really nice soft yarn and it's got merino and alpaca and silk and and and -- I'm five. Seriously.

I'd sent her some hat patterns and she chose a nice easy one but it was in worsted weight and Araucania is not exactly worsted, I have some fudging to do. I think it's going to involve math. Crap!

Did I mention she wants one for her daughter too?

(If I write it down, maybe I'll remember to blog about my Christmas list in the yarn store. I'll title that one "How I Managed To Stretch One Day Into Three Blog Posts".)

NSS #3

I do so love my Noro Striped Scarves.

Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf as popularized by Jared Flood of BrooklynTweed.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, 2 skeins each of color 149 & color 211.
Needles: Boye interchangeable set, size US 7.
Timeline: 7.10.09-9.24.09
Modifications: I used Noro Kureyon instead of Silk Garden. I also only alternated two colorways, not three. (Actually, I've done this in all my NSSs. [That's a lot of s-es.])


Opinion: Well, I've made three! I continue to love the pattern. The neutral colorways were a big shift for me, because I love bright colors, but I'm glad I chose them because they're very classy and the scarf could easily go on a number of people. I'm sure I'll make more.

Random thoughts: I have no idea who this scarf is for! I bought the yarn and started it without thinking "this is for me" or "this is for so-and-so". I just had to make it. I wove in the ends today after I finished it. I have a scarf that is months and months old that I haven't woven the ends in yet! All I need to do is wash and block a little, but this scarf is effectively done.



Maybe I will just keep it for myself. :)

(Oh, and I'm totally getting better at taking pictures of myself in my bathroom.)

Ravelry Dork

So here's a total dork moment for you: the picture of my earflap hat is being displayed on the pattern's Rav page!

For those of you not in the know, Ravelry has pages for designers, yarns, and patterns, often with user-submitted pictures for the latter two. It's a neat way to see a pattern right off the bat in a couple of different types and colors.

Granted, this isn't the first time one of my pics has been used on a project page. I made a Basic Diamonds (Ravelry link) dishcloth from Leisure Arts #3824 Kitchen Bright Dishcloths & that pic is still being featured. (And I'm quite proud of it!) But there's something about that hat -- it was tough, and I loved that yarn to pieces, and ... well, it's not a dishcloth.

Sure, it's not exactly a superstar pattern, but I'll take it while I can get it.

(Rav link to the Earflap Hat Pattern Generator from The Knitting Fiend.)

Lake Champlain's Quadricentennial

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Champlain's "discovery" of Lake Champlain, Green Mountain Fibers in Rutland, VT is hosting a "Four Hundred Years of Green Mountain Fibers" event this weekend. I was able to sneak in this weekend and it was lovely to see so many people turn out for the many activities going on. My main interest was the dying workshop, and as I was waiting for the yarn to prep, I was treated to a one-on-one spinning wheel demonstration! Fun, but definitely still frustrating. I haven't taken out my drop spindle in months. One of my options for Christmas is a wheel, and it was nice to get the opportunity to see if it would even be worth it for me. Not sure ... at least it still looked like yarn most of the time!

Once the sock yarn was ready, a couple of us commenced the "class", which mostly consisted of "go at it!" My "lab partner" was a lot more relaxed about it. I like to follow directions, but it was taking forever so I just started splashing dye on and hoping it wouldn't suck. We used dyes from the Ewe Dye It kit from My Favorite Thimble, which GMF is now carrying. It was a fun low-immersion method that wasn't complicated at all. Considering I have never dyed yarn before, I'm pretty happy with how it came out!



Actually, that doesn't really do it justice. This is my favorite shot of all the ones I took:



Isn't that fun? It's sock-weight. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Maybe I'll actually try socks!

Since I already had the camera out, I decided to take some shots of the Crapghan, which is much farther along than the last time I showed it.



See that greenish strip towards the top? That's the Bernat Glow in the Dark yarn. I think it's seasonal; I found it around Halloween at Michaels. It really does glow, too! Sorry, no night shots.

And, since I'm in a sharing mood, here's a sneak peek at my latest Noro Striped Scarf. So neutral ... so unlike that sock yarn I dyed!



It's been a fun fiber-filled weekend. Have a good one!

Twitter Knitter

Hubs has been continuing to work on the craft room. Today he is (hopefully!) going to paint the closet, which will make it all painted. We do need to rent a rug cleaner for the two spare bedrooms, but we've already moved some stuff into there anyway and I've spent the past few days organizing my big plastic containers. I bought them when I went to college and for the most part all they contain are old bank statements that I'd never opened! Now I'm going through them and shredding them. It's amazing how much space that clears up. I'll hopefully have pictures soon.

In the meantime, I went and got a knitting Twitter account. You can follow me there at norolinde, which is also my Ravelry name. I'm hoping it will encourage me to blog more often, and it's been fun updating it with content that's really too short for a whole post.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Well, no, it's actually not. Not at all. This is the first warm, sunny day we've had in a while. But the title seemed apt for this post.

Since April, I've been working on a surprise present for a pregnant co-worker. This thing got shoved under the bed and forgotten about after we moved in May, and I very recently realized that while the blanket was not even halfway done, the baby was more than halfway done! This has led to some frantic weeks of knitting, but, amazingly, I got the thing done before the baby got here.

Of course, in the moving process, you lose everything, especially if you haven't really unpacked any of it yet, and in my case, that means I couldn't find a single yarn needle to weave my ends in with. I also couldn't find my interchangeable needle set or my crochet hooks, both cases which I knew contained yarn needles. So I had to go out and buy some more, upping my yarn needle count to something like 20,000 or so.

Last night hubs and I went to the laundromat to wash the blanket. I was terrified. I've hand-washed knitted items before, but never machine-washed any. However, I knew the item needed to be cleaned, and if it was going to fall apart after all my hard work, it might as well happen to me. However, my knitting apparently doesn't suck and it came out just fine.



I took some not-awesome pics last night since I knew I had to wrap it up and give it today, otherwise I would have tried harder. But hey, it shows the blanket. It didn't suck. And the recipients didn't seem to hate it, either. :)

Pattern: Reversible Basketweave Blanket by Chrissy O'Malley of Yellow House Designs
Modifications: None. I followed this pattern pretty much to the letter, including number of basketweave repeats: 17.
Needles: Boye interchangeable set, size 5 (I knit loosely)
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, color stone, a little over 3 skeins. I joined new yarn at the edges of rows and ran out of my third skein with five finishing rows of seed stitch to go.

Opinion: This made a very nice blanket. I had some issues with the pattern, but that's because my brain was not at a problem-solving stage at that point, and I can rely blindly on a pattern even when it doesn't make sense to me. The yarn felt nice and washability was the biggest draw for me. I think it washed and dried very well. I would make this pattern again.