moonfrog

It was my turn to sponsor the chemo group for Caps for a Cure for February and March. It was amazing to watch as packages filled with lovingly handmade hats landed on my porch in their drab postal wrappings. The hats inside were amazing! The variety of patterns, colors and fibers was a delight to see. This is what 127 hats look like on my kitchen table.

Each one has a tag that gives instructions for laundering. Even the tags are creative and reflect the makers’ styles. There are a few more tags to attach and a couple more packages on their way in the mail. Then they are off to a local chemotherapy treatment center in my small town.
Here’s a close up of two hats that incorporate a design in the knitting. One is the Owl hat, a cable design by Ruthie Nussbaum, made by Carol in Hawaii. The other hat uses an angel lace design (like this Angel Lace Baby Cap by Lorraine Majors) which is an adult-size hat made by Judy in North Carolina. I wish I could show more details, but that would take pages!
The hats came from about fifteen different states and even a couple from England from Louise, who has been a member since the group began. One thing I love about this group is it brings together people from across the nation and focuses on the local community of one of the members. It seems so global, yet so personal. It’s awesome to be part of such a caring group of people.

We also have fun contests and knitalongs (rather unstructured ones!) and encourage each other as we knit and crochet and loom hats for those who need a bit of sunshine — and maybe a warm hat. I’m afraid this post is starting to sound like an advertisement, but it’s not meant that way. It’s just my way of saying “Thank You” to all the wonderful knitters who have touched my life in a very special way.

Even with the mistakes I made in the first few rows (ahem…and maybe a few later in the knitting) I still love this Stained Glass Hat. It was fun to make. It looks good when worn, too, not just on a spaghetti squash. In the photo, it is kicking back in my favorite spot in our yard, where the bluebells are in full bloom and the baby tears are growing thick.

I used Rowan Handknit Cotton (color = Turkish Plum) for the background and Red Heart Soft Yarn (Sweetpea Print) for the color. The cotton felt a bit stiff in the skein but knit into a nice fabric that holds it shape. It seems thicker than a DK weight, so I switched from the DK variegated I was using to the worsted weight Soft Yarn. The pattern is top-down, making the beginning rather awkward, but check out the little I-cord topper. I am so pleased to be able to make that now. Simple pleasures!
The pattern calls for three rows of garter stitch at the cuff, just like between the top and the fair isle. That did not look good, so I ripped it and 2X2 ribbed it. Much better. It was so much fun to make, I hated to see it end, just like a really good book, so I cast right on for another fair isle hat.

I tried a “two needle cast on” from a Patons book called Where Did You Get That Hat! It looked cool in the book. Not so much on my hat. Looks too much like a candy cane. I used a heart motif from the book — not so thrilled with that, either. The cottontots (white) and Cotton-Ease (red) yarns and my tight guage did not show the heart design well. The only part I really like about this hat is the top. I just ad-libbed that part. I enjoyed knitting it, but it is not a favorite. I won’t make it again, but I hope someone out there will find it useful as a chemo cap. I suppose after making a pattern I really love, there has to be a coming-down-to-Earth phase.

As I knit, I thought that the color scheme was not really doing it for me. That reminded me of a color scheme tool I used when I designed my own webpage. Check out this Color Schemes Generator 2. I love playing with this tool. When I select dark purple on the wheel, set it on dark pastels and select tetrad, it gives colors that match my Manos del Uruguay wildflowers yarn, minus the orange. Ha! That amuses me no end. I need to remember to use this when I start playing around again, especially when I dye yarn.

Now that my hats for Caps for a Cure (link in sidebar) are done for this round, I’m going to start my vest — and let Shedir and DH’s socks languish in the UFO pile a while longer.

What happens when you are knitting away from home and forgot some essential supplies? Why, you make do. Those bits of paper… yea, they’re marking the decrease stitches on the top of that hat. All I could think of was all the beautiful stitch markers sitting at home. But it worked and I didn’t have to put my knitting away and sit there bored.

This is a simple watch cap pattern made in Esprit yarn, the one with elastic. I think it will make a very functional chemo cap.

But my next hat is more than functional. It’s beautiful. I love this hat! Even though it seems that I may have lost count on the first few rows and repeated a couple rows, I still love the way it looks. Actually, what I really love is that I can do it. And it’s fun!

The Stained Glass Hat pattern is easy to follow.  The rhythm of using both hands to knit feels very natural since I switched from English to Continental style and can do both easily.

I think this project may have broken down my nervousness about Fair Isle knitting. I feel ready to tackle the We Call Them Pirates hat that is waiting patiently in the stash. First, I feel the need to make a list of the things I want to knit and prioritize them. That’s going to be a very long list!

How do you organize your knitting time? Do you knit what you feel like doing at the time or do you plan ahead?

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day . . . . My elbow hurt and I couldn’t sleep. The scale said I was fatter than yesterday. The phone rang at 7 a.m. with a substitute job in P.E. I had said no thank you to this very position twice before but they were desperate. I hate P.E.! Just half a day — puhleeze! So I went. It did not go well. When I went home, the children were fighting. The children are too old to fight. The children are grown men. I ignored them. Then they were not happy with me, too. Bad news came in the mail. Things that needed to be done did not get that way. I was tired and hungry and fat. It was a terrible, horrible no good, very bad day.

Then my Dear Sweetie came home. He brought a box. It was wrapped in blue paper. Inside was pink polkadot tissue paper. What man remembers the tissue paper? There was a card full of hugs and kisses and mushy stuff. And there was yarn. Two skeins of Manos del Uruguay yarn. The color of wildflowers. He didn’t even know it had been a bad day. And I felt better.

Why did he get me yarn? Why the store had all green yarn marked down 17% for St. Patrick’s Day. See the teeny tiny bit of green in this yarn? He did good.

I decided a vest was what this yarn would become. I bought two more skeins. I’ve been searching for just the right pattern all week. Manos wool isn’t worsted weight. It isn’t bulky weight. It’s heavy worsted weight. Being a newish knitter right off a wrong-size knit, I’m really worried about resizing or modifying or generally getting it all mucked up. So I’ve been swatching and searching.

I also have some lavender and dark pink Manos, one skein each. The pink looks great with this yarn. The lavender does not. I swatched them both. I could use the pink as a knitted border. Crochet did not look good.

I tried the Boogie vest from Knitty.com but didn’t like how my cables looked. I tried several needle sizes to check the guage for several other patterns.
So far, I know that I want a V-neck or scoop neck vest with a simple pattern. It think this yarn is too busy to add much detail to the stitch pattern. I think I want finished neck and arm edges. Maybe in the pink. I thought about using the Michelle vest pattern, but I don’t want any curling edges or crochet edges on this one.

I found this Quick & Easy Shell. I’m going to swatch the edging tonight. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Swatching. And I suppose procrastinating a bit. So I bought this book about procrastinating. I envision a time in my near future when I conquer my procrastination by chanting “Eat That Frog!” If nothing else, it will make me smile. Right now I’m going to go Eat that Swatch!

Is it still called frogging when it’s crochet? Well, the actual ripping out has not begun on the Matinee Swing Jacket. I’m not looking forward to taking out the seams. The only part left to crochet was the collar. No need for that since this is too big for me. The dress form is my size or even a little bigger. I knew the jacket would be rather shapeless, but decided that would be all right. Well, I guess not. I wouldn’t wear it. So I’ll reclaim this yarn — probably when I want to use it.

The upside is that I enjoyed making this. I don’t regret it at all. Cotton Ease is nice to work with, and I love to crochet. (Of course, now I am paying the price with a major bout of tendonitis — more the pinched nerve thing in the elbow, but I don’t ever remember the name for that.) I even finished this a couple days before Stitches, so I met my goal, which felt good, too.

Another frogging hit last night. I was not so happy when it finally became undeniable that my Shedir cap was too big and the pattern was not quite right. (No fault of the pattern, let me assure you!) I have so many other hats I want to make, especially as the end of this round of Caps for a Cure comes closer, but I made myself cast on for Shedir one more time. This time I have the size 3 needle required. I was using a 4, and it was just a bit too big for its purpose, although fine for someone with lots of hair. I don’t want to be defeated by this pattern, so it’s one more try before I cry uncle. It might take me another six months (that’s how long it has been since I cast on!) but I’m going to give one last whole-hearted try. Wish me luck!
Before I get too down-hearted, I’m off to my LYS to pick up one more skein (mmm…maybe two) of the yarn DH bought me. I didn’t tell you about that? Well, next time. There’s some yarn calling my name right now.

Knitting time has been mainly devoted to working on my unfinished projects lately. I only have three, but I want to finish two of them before starting something else. So I do a few rows on DH’s socks, then a row on Shedir. I also have a chemo hat that I take with me to work for my lunch-hour knitting. There is one new project that I pushed to finish quickly, though.This is my project for the book Brideshead Revisited. You can read about the significance of the design and how it relates to the book on the Knit the Classics blog in my post on March 3rd if you want.

Making this was another opportunity to use the things I learnded at Stitches West. The middle design is an intarsia chart from a pattern called the Brainwash Bag. It used to be available on a blog called Beatknits that’s no longer online. The pdf chart, however, is still in the files section of the Felted Bag KAL. I’ve been wanting to make this pattern for a couple years and my intarsia class gave me the confidence to tackle it.

The outer border is double crochet with the two colors of yarn held together. The yarn is Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick, a super bulky weight. You can imagine how fast it was to knit! The center back square is plain green, so it is double thick all over. This is our new shower rug and it is soft and cushy on the feet. DH and I both like its funky, homemade look.

As for Brideshead Revisited, the story was interesting and kept me reading. I liked the cultural background of the English aristocracy; although, I was annoyed in the end when I found the author was manipultating me to bring me back to his personal religious message. That is his right, of course, but it was unexpected because of the way he told the story — it just didn’t fit with the tone he established throughout.

Happily, I have a new bathroom rug to remind me of the story. In a couple days, I’ll post the fate of the Matinee Swing Jacket that I crocheted and show off some new yarn. Have a great weekend!

Finishing techniques was the topic of my second class at Stitches West. Nancie Wiseman taught us some of the great techniques from her book.

The class lasted all day (with a generous lunch break that included time to shop) and was just what I needed. It made me want to start a sweater — just so I could use all the new tips.

We started off with some seaming. Easy, right? But I really want to make my seams look better. It’s one of those things I just do the best I can without really knowing the “right” way. (Come to think of it, that’s a major part of my special style.)

Well, check out these seams. The red arrow points to the seam. It is sewn together with that blue yarn. Really. The blue doesn’t show at all. Cool, huh? The other seam on the left is a little crooked, but it’s a heck of a lot better than my previous seams. The key is knowing where to put the needle through. I was so thrilled with what I learned that I took my pictures right in class. I got a couple sideways looks like I was a bit strange.

Next we learned how to do short row shaping in order to join a shoulder seam together with a three-needle bind off. The blue yarn just helps show the shaping. This takes some planning and veering from the pattern of a sweater, so is a little advanced for me.

Now look up there in the right corner. See that little tube? I-cord! Okay, I feel kinda lame admitting this, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to make I-cord from a book. I tried and I gave up quickly. A crocheted chain worked just as well for what I was doing. But while we waited for the next step in class, the sweet ladies who sat next to me showed me how to make my first successful I-cord. Everyone said it was easy — and it was — I just needed to see it done to understand it.

Then we came to the picking-up-of-stitches. I had done it a few times before, but it was another of those techniques that I just wasn’t sure whether I was doing it right. I think the most important detail was also where to pull up the stitches. I’m very happy with how this looks, too.

The same day, my friend, C, took Nancy Bush’s Baltic Braids and Bobbles class. She made a sampler cuff with awesome decorative stitches. (I wish I’d taken a picture!) The class included some pretty extensive cultural and historical information that made it a very rich experience. The range of classes at the conference guaranteed that even advanced knitters learned new things.

My last class was Russian Style Continental Style Knitting. I learned a new purl stitch that requires knitting the right side (knit row) in the back of the stitch. I suspect it might be similar to Annie Modesitt’s combination knitting, but I’ll have to check that out later. It helps keep the tension more consistent, which is what I was looking for in this class. I’ve actually started a project using the new method as well as using a good deal of intarsia. It’s great to be able to practice what I learned right away.

To wrap up my Stitches West experience . . . my purchases from The Market. I used super restraint and bought something I’d been planning to buy and one impulse item. That’s five skeins of Malabrigo — three in one color and two in a mix. I hope to make a vest with this yarn. And I bought a pattern that has a stitch pattern I want to learn. It also has a cute hat using that stitch on the band.

Now that I’ve finally seen some Malabrigo in person I’m sure that the swap yarn I used to make my So Called Scarf and Hat is an older colorway of Malabrigo. I am so happy to find more of this soft yarn.

That’s it for the highlights of Stitches West. It gave my knitting a real boost, but the best part was sharing it all with some special friends.