Paloma est complété

Just finished Paloma last night. I couldn't help myself: I skipped blocking and wore it today. Kinda love it. This image was a rush shot taken before I left for work this morning. I'll take some more this weekend and will post about Paloma again...

The arts and crafts house

Pictured: A corner of our living room, featuring a table that traveled down the Erie Canal with Drew's ancestors (early to mid 19th c.) and flowers from our garden.

We are all moved in, and have been for just over a month, which if you've read my other blog, is not exactly news to you. I have only been working on one knitting project since moving, and that would be Paloma from French Girl Knits (shown above). After working on this project on and off for almost a year, I am now nearly finished and am looking forward to wearing it. But Paloma isn't really what's on my mind at the moment. It is a lovely pattern and a fun knit, but it exists now as a project within a project...the house itself is the real work-in-progress. Since closing on March 18th we have torn up most of the carpets, put cork down in three rooms, replaced a broken fridge, built a raised bed and planted seeds and starts, torn out baseboard heaters, dealt with electrics, replaced two-prong with three-prong outlets, painted rooms (the living room got painted three times until we decided it was the right color), etc. We are gearing up to replace the last two non-energy efficient windows and Drew is working on making new 8 inch high baseboards. Meanwhile, 18 yards of linen arrived recently, and when my mom arrives next week, we will work on sewing drapes for the 7 enormous windows in our living and dining rooms.

All of this, along with the job and the boy, throw on top of that the unpacking and making the house homey, and you can see why my attention has strayed from the knitting a bit. But I'm not complaining. Looking into the architectural design and age of our house (craftsman/1916), Drew and I decided that we wanted to renovate and decorate with the Arts and Crafts Movement in mind. While we aren't purists, we have been looking into the sort of colors, elements, shapes, etc. used during this movement. Our future plans include Drew doing some stenciling, and me picking up another fiber-related skill --embroidery, in order to add some Arts and Crafts motifs to our home, such as this one:
I will still be knitting and crocheting of course (I've got a crocheted afghan planned for our couch), but expect more house-related and potentially non-knitting posts in the future as we restore our Arts and Crafts home...

Hubbie Hoodie in action

I have yet to do a proper photo shoot of Drew wearing his hoodie. With all of the craziness of our upcoming move, I'm not sure when said photo shoot will take place. But the important thing is that he is wearing it. In fact, he's worn it quite a bit. I think he knows that if he doesn't wear this sweater, there will be no more hand knit sweaters for him ever, just as there certainly will be no more hats (made two, he never wears them). It does appear, however, that he genuinely like this sweater, which makes me breath a big sigh of relief. I believe I see a cardigan in his future...

My two boys, saying "cheers" over glasses of vitamin water. A not-so-great shot, but I couldn't resist a candid picture in which they both happen to be wearing the sweaters I knit for them.

Blocking

Silas thought all the hoodie needed to be complete was a bit of paint (pretend paint, thankfully).

Finally, we are at the last stage of the Hubbie Hoodie (aka the Hacky Sack Hoodie). Blocking is absolutely essential to the fit of this garment, as the gauge given in the pattern is post blocking, and quite in contrast to the pre-blocking gauge achieved when knitting. This stark difference in gauge is one of the only thing I don't like about this pattern, which is otherwise pretty cool.

I am still nervous to try it on Drew. But, it turns out that that moment will have to wait a bit longer. I forgot to cover it and the cat used if for a nap after coming in from the muddy wilds. Damn it. It will need to be cleaned and possibly re-blocked.

Pictures of the finished product, hopefully by this weekend.

Nothing much to share, except...

...pictures of our new house! We close on March 22nd and so far, everything with the sale has gone smoothly. But it's still a hectic time, and my knitting is suffering as a result. I should have finished Drew's hoodie a while ago, but after completing the sleeves, he said he would like them to be an inch and a half longer. This was a reasonable request and easy enough to execute. I could have fixed them both that very same day. But did I? Nope. Instead, I put the sweater down and didn't knit for a week, which may be the longest I've gone without knitting, well, since I taught myself how to knit in 2002. I am going to attribute this behavior of mine to new house/first-time home buyer jitters and not judge myself too harshly. Today I ripped out the ribbing on one of the sleeves and began to add on that inch and a half. So, all is not lost, and his hoodie will be completed before we change addresses at the end of next month.

But you don't really care about that stinking hoodie do you? You want to see more pictures of the new digs right? Here's the blog post from my family blog relating more info about it. And here's the direct link to the flickr photo stream. Enjoy :)

The new year is old news...

...and I'm finally posting to this blog for the first time this decade. I'm in a wee bit of a knitting lull. Drew's Hubbie Hoodie (Hackie sack hoodie from Son of a Stitch n' Bitch) really could have been done by now. It's easy-peasy, mindless knitting. But even after the holiday knitting came and went along with my excuse for not hurrying the hell up on this project, I still haven't been giving it the time it deserves. Today, Sunday, I didn't knit at all. Not on the ferry to Seattle, not at Drew's poetry reading, not in the car on the way back. Not even while watching Julie & Julia this evening. What's wrong with me? This is the perfect project for me right now too because it uses next to no brain cells and is therefore an anxiety-buster, rather than the headache-inducer a more complex project might be.

That's not to say that I haven't made any progress. I'm almost to the front pocket, and mind you, this is a top-down project so the hood is already completed. There is really no reason not to finish this project post-haste. I will let you know when that occurs, hopefully before another decade draws to a close.

As you can see, a certain toddler is my biggest (and best!) excuse for my knitting lull, though he does occasionally indulge me by letting me get a few rows in during cuddle time :)

Happy Christmas to you all!

Above: the tree on Christmas eve.

Quick icord Candycane:
Reindeer ornament, with gold snowflake in the background:
Happy holidays to you all!

Rivulet Scarf

The Rivulet Scarf (Interweave Knits, Fall 2009).
My mil asked me to make this for my sil Amy to match the Cranberry Cap I made her this summer.

My first consideration when choosing a pattern was that it be reversible. My second is that it would have cables or some sort of pattern to hold my interest. The Rivulet Scarf was a perfect choice! The entire scarf is in k1 pi rib, including the cables, and that means that there is really no wrong side to the resulting fabric.
This was a hard one to part with, but part with it I did indeed! It should be in Wisconsin by now, or nearly there, with several days to spare... :)

Little Rabbit's Hat and Mitts

One of my favorite picture books is "Shall I knit you a hat: a Christmas yarn" by Kate Klise.
To summarize:
When Mother Rabbit knits a warm winter hat for Little Rabbit, he likes it so much that he suggests they make hats for all of their friends as Christmas gifts.
At the end of the book, there's a pattern for making Little Rabbit's hat. I couldn't resist the temptation! You can read more about that book HERE.
I thought Little Rabbit's paws might get a wee bit cold too, so I whipped up a pair of the Angelina Cable Mitts in the same yarn (Cascade 220 Quatro), and stuck them in his boot for St. Nick's Day. We have been getting a lot of use out of them this past week and they stay on his hands way better than the mittens I made for him last year.
The result: One cute and toasty warm Little Rabbit :)

Look who's sportin' his Auntie's handknits!

This is the Zip up the back Hoodie I made for my youngest nephew prior to his arrival on planet Earth. I can't believe it fits him already!

Christmas Forest

All 24 trees...lined up for picture taking time. This project was a lot of fun and a great way to stash burn, though I'm about plum out of green feltable yarn now.
The numbers are painted on buttons, which are actually velcroed to the trees so that they can be taken off, shifted around or what not. During the course of creating these trees, Silas would often run off with them and occasionally, they'd end up as trees on his farmland. It will be nice to have the option of taking the numbers off of the trees in case he wants to use them in this way throughout the year.
I'm looking forward to using this for years to come, and that tradition starts...TODAY! Silas uncovered his first puzzle piece this morning. By Christmas Eve, he'll have all 24 puzzle pieces, and we can put his puzzle together. Won't Santa be impressed :)
The little yellow car, by the way, is not the prize, but is simply being used to navigate through the forest.
While I'm not sure that Silas fully gets what's going on here, I have a feeling it will only take a few days for him to catch on. His puzzle piece this morning showed a starfish and his response was "maybe tomorrow, I'll get an octopus one!"

"They're for Christmas"

I will post pictures of the finished Christmas Forest soon.

Backlogged

Not only am I behind on posting to this blog, but I've also been negligent in keeping Ravelry updated, something I'm usually pretty up on. So, consider this blog my first intent to get back into the swing of things. First up, I've been working on my advent tree project for over a month now and thought I'd post a few pictures of it as a wip. The trees are all felted, but I thought I'd throw in a few pre-felted pictures and then a shot of them pretty much as they will look when all is said and done. I'm actually putting the finishing touches on them this weekend. The trees themselves are done, but I also had to paint numbers on buttons and then figure out how to attach them to the trees. I thought it would be nice if I could take the number buttons off of the trees. Silas likes to play with them and pretend they're trees on his farm so it would be nice if the numbers weren't perminantly attached. The obvious choice was velcro. Ive got about 18 more buttons that need to have velcro glued to them and then this wip will officially cross over into fo-land. Just in time for December 1st.

Other than my advent forest, over the past several weeks, I've made Silas a pair of slippers and knit him a hat. I feel like I'm forgetting to mention a project, but, those were the big ones at least. I will try to keep the blog posts coming.

In costume

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For those of you who don't read my other, more frequently updated blog, here are a few pictures of Silas in his Halloween costume, featuring the digger sweater I knit and the bulldozer his dad made. Both the sweater and the bulldozer will get plenty of post-Halloween use :)

Other than the whole Halloween thing, I've been knitting and felting little trees like mad. I need to have 24 completed by December 1st and I'm well on my way. I'll try to include a post with pictures of that project soon.

Big Digger for a Little Boy

With just over a month to spare, I've finished the knitted portion of Silas' Halloween costume. He really could not wait for this to be finished. I completed it last Wednesday night after he'd gone to sleep, then slipped it into my bag so that I could show it to my friends at work the next day. In the morning, Silas got up, found my bag, took it out and said, "I want to wear it!" And so, he wore it that day and also on Saturday and Sunday, when dh and I took him out and about for a couple of photoshoots. We went to the farmers market and then down to the waterfront to see the boats. I also could not resist taking pictures of him wearing a front-end loader while he sat on a front-end loader (he's got permission from the owner to "drive" it whenever he wants).

This was a very rewarding project. I used Knit Picks Cotlin yarn and liked it very much. It makes the perfect sweater for our cool but certainly not cold fall days. Lucinda Guy did a wonderful job on the digger motif. What machine-obsessed little boy wouldn't want this sweater? Can't you feel the joy?: