WIPWednesday: Jaywalker Edition

So, Jaywalkers. This is my first pair and it may not be my last. Yarn is Knitpicks Felici in the Time Traveller colorway, purchased during the Cyber Monday sale of 2014.

Size: It's complicated. Thanks to a childhood spent on foot and bike, I have calve muscles. This means my leg is a sock size larger than my foot. This makes knitting socks complicated, but so totally worth it.

For this pair, I decided to knit the 84st size for the leg and the 72st size for the foot. I cast on 72 stitches for the ribbing and increased to 84 during a plain round after the ribbing. Worked in pattern until just shy of seven inches. It worked almost perfectly to use yarn from other end of skein for heel flap- the heel flaps don't quite match, but zero wasted yarn and uninterrupted stripe pattern across top of foot is worth it. Sock on left is finished with gusset decreases, sock on right will follow shortly. The depth of the heel flap is closer to three inches than two and ha half-so there are more stitches to pick up and decrease, plus this is where I get rid of the extra stitches-my foot being narrower than my leg. After continuing gusset decreases stitches down to what is called for on the 72st size, I still had extra stitches in the instep pattern. Solution: On first pattern row do not kfb on left side of instep needles (two sts decreased). On next pattern row do not work kfb on right side of instep needle (additional two sts decreased). Sock now has correct number of stitches to follow pattern for 72st size.

WIP Wednesday: Ravellenic Edition

It's well into the winter Olympic games and I haven't posted about my participation in the Ravelry organized Ravellenic games that run parallel to the Olympics.

I'm a member of team South Paws, and have been working hard on a pair of socks as my main project.
It's a DROPS pattern that my sister picked off Ravelry. The yarn is Glacier Bay from Pagewood Farms that I picked up at my lys. The socks are for her, but I love both yarn and pattern, so I may have to make this pattern again, and pick up another skein of yarn for a different sock pattern, or a shawl, I'm not picky...

I'm almost finished with my Ringwood gloves, I've been done with the knitting, but have yet to weave in ends, block, and sew on buttons (buttons ytbd). The goal is to have them done before closing ceremonies on Sunday, for another category in the Ravellenic games.

I've also finished a swatch for the Heliopath Vest from Interweave's special edition: Harry Potter Knits. I picked up enough Wool of the Andes at the Knit Picks big sale to make the vest.
Ta-da!

In baking related developments, I've tweaked my banana bread recipe in hopes of a ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair this summer. I did well last year- somewhere between 6th and 25th. The first batches were well received, and I'm positive about the changes.

WIP Wednesday: Special Edition

Tomorrow February 7th, the first Friday in February, is Go Red for Women day. The American Heart Association has organized every year for the past decade to bring awareness to the fact that heart disease kills more women than all types of cancer combined.

I spent several years working at Macy's, which is one of the biggest sponsors of the event. In addition to the sale of the AHA's red dress pins and the extra percentage off the sale that a pin or other red item of clothing earned customers, Macy's also educated its (mostly female) employees on the risks of heart disease in women. I get email from the Go Red website on a monthly basis, and find them useful and informative, check it out for yourself.

The first Friday in February is a day to wear red, and years ago I made a red blouse specifically for the occasion. I picked up the fire-engine red cotton at the local No-Ann fabrics and used a pattern in my library. It worked well for a few years, but the three-quarter length sleeves gave me trouble- they constricted and made movement difficult. I tossed the.troubled garment into my sewing pile unsure of what to do. I considered tearing apart for scrap use, but decided to alter it instead. I still had some of the fabric, and decided to add plackets to the sleeves-using a template found in a book on garment sewing. After removing the cuffs I realized I would need to replace those. Uh-oh, that could have been a problem, but I had just enough fabric to do that-as long as I only used .25inch seam allowances.

Here you can see the placket pieces, it is.my first attempt at adding plackets to a garment. I've done many simple cuff bands and the occasional continuous lap, bit never something as 'complicated' as a placket. Well it is rather simple and quite ingenious. I predict more blouses with plackets in my future.

This Is still a work in progress because I haven't don the finishing work on the cuff- stitching down the facing, top stitching around the edge and the dreaded buttonholes and buttons... I have yet to perfect a buttonhole, and I remind myself that practice makes perfect, but it's still something I dislike.

posted from Bloggeroid

Work in Progress Wednesday

I started a project yesterday: Ringwood Gloves , from Knitty. I admired the pattern immediately, and decided that this pattern would be my first pair of gloves.

I'm using Knitpicks City Tweed DK in brocade, to match a hat I made years ago. The yarn is mice and soft, though it seems a little on the thin side for a DK weight yarn. I ended up going down to size four needles and hope that the yarn fills a bit after a soak and a block. With a 7.5in knuckle circumference, I took a chance with the medium size (8in), and hoped that the thinner nature of the yarn and the small needle selection would bring down the size that half inch. Assuming the yarn doesn't grow, it worked.



I cast on yesterday morning. These work up surprisingly fast. Cast on stitches for the medium size, bit I'm working pattern repeats for the small size.

To help with finger sizing, I started the ring finger before decreasing on the pinky. You can see this in the photo, I have the pinky on a cable needle (no stitch holders in my bag o'supplies) and I've done about six rows of the ring finger when I tried the glove on for a final fit. The join between pinky and ring finger sat where I wanted it to and I had the length I needed for the pinky, so the ring finger stitches went on hold while I finished the pinky. I will do this for the remaining fingers as well.

WIP Wednesday

Today's WIP comes to you on behalf of Sweeterin's Blog Hop.

This WIP has been through many phases. It started ten years ago with the purchase of yarn. Caron Wintinuk-cheap acrylic that was on clearance at the time, but it was my first major yarn purchase and I was getting ready to be a poor college student... I got skeins in navy blue, variegated denim blue, cream and off-white.

Then came the design phase. I had enough to knit a blanket, so I figured find a stitch pattern that was simple, but enough to keep my attention for the span of blanket knitting. I chose a feather & fan pattern, and modified it. I call it garter feather and fan.

Row 1: Knit

Row 2: k1, (k2tog twice, yo k4 four times k2tog twice) to last stitch, k1

Rows 3-4: Knit

To make the most of the yarn I decided to do wide stripes. When I mean wide stripes- I meant I knit as much of the skein as possible.  The cream and off-white clashed when I knit them in large blocks, but didn't look bad when knit in two-row stripes. So color stripes went as thus:

Chunk1: (Two rows of cream

two rows of off-white) repeat four rows in feather pattern

Chunk 2: Variegated denim

Chunk 3: Navy

Chunk 4: Variegated denim

Chunk 5: (Two rows of creamtwo rows of off-white) repeat four rows in feather pattern

Repeat chunks two through five.

Ak! A blue striped ghost!

I had enough yarn to do four repeats of "chunk" pattern. However after the third repeat it, the blanket was almost six feet long. So I bound off and wove in the ends. My roommates were awed. That was fall of 2006.  

After years of use, the blanket has stretched wider, making it less long. Shrinkage plus excess yarn still in the stash were major factors in my attempt to lengthen the blanket and de-stash. So in the fall of  2011 I un-did the bind off (and scoffed at how poorly I wove in ends) and put the blanket back on the needles. After one skein (variegated), I got tired of the project and put it back in storage.

When the idea of a WIP themed blog hop came up on Ravelry, I jumped at the chance to take one of my projects out of deep storage. I had to rip back most of the most 'recently' knit skein because I inserted an extra knit row, but since then I have been plowing through it-despite the unseasonably warm temps.

The most recently knitted is on the right, after a washing and use, it will open up like the rest of the blanket (see the cream part).