Summer Knitting

Here is the thing about Georgia in the summertime: it is hellfire hot here. Molten lava from the sun hot. 90 degrees Fahrenheit at midnight hot (you think I jest). And it's humid. Can't breathe because the air is so thick humid. I can see the haze on the city humid. It may be hotter in Arizona but they have a dry heat (I don't understand dry heat but I hear it is a magical thing, like unicorns and fairies) so it actually feels hotter here. The northeast is experiencing a little taste of what we in the South affectionately call "Every Summer of Our Freaking Lives." I'm sorry if I have no sympathy. The only place hotter than Georgia is New Orleans, Louisiana. I spent several weeks there one summer and lost half my body weight in water every minute I was awake. This, if you couldn't guess, is my least favorite time of year. The heat literally makes me ill and the only cure I have found is ice cream. So, until October rolls around I will trying to consume as much of this tasty treat as possible. I feel it is the only way I will make it.

One would assume then that any knitting I have been doing is small, light, and made of cotton. This is actually what I have been working on:

A large wool blanket made with bulky yarn. Ah! Perfect summer knitting. Ok, in reality this thing is huge, heavy, and hot. Sometimes I sweat a little while I work on it.

The blanket is for a collection of blankets that the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project is doing. 154 blankets for 154 orphans. By November. Tell your friends. I need more full sized blankets and 8" or 10" blanket squares. Seriously, tell your friends. Teach your children to knit. Teach your significant other to knit. Learn to knit with your feet and hands simultaneously. Send me blankets! (or squares)

The blanket isn't the only thing I've been working on. In fact that's just a few weeks old. While I was in Asheville for the Friends and Fiberworks Summer Retreat (vending) (2 weeks ago) I finished up my Red Dragon socks (finally).
Hotel room photo shoot.

Close up of "scales."

And on the sock blockers.

So glad to have these finished. I always want to jump right into another pair of socks but I'm wisely waiting. They take so much out of me. Oh, details on these...um, I think I used a US size 2 needle. I know I cast on more stitches than the pattern called for (68 methinks). I ended up adding 3 reverse stockinette stitches to either side of the pattern on the foot and 6 on the leg (since the pattern is doubled). Used Lotus Yarns in the Hairdresser on Fire colorway.

Instead of starting socks next I started a little hat.

Worked from the top down (probably until I run out of yarn) in Vivid Creation Fiber's Hawaiian Hibiscus colorway. I was going for newborn but I think this is going to be a bit bigger (I'm such a precise knitter). Haven't really worked on it much since Asheville. Will probably be used for a sample in my booth.

Going back even a little further to the beginning of July (what sort of order am I blogging in exactly?) I made this little hat while I was in Romania.

I like making little international knits. This will be going to Project Hope for care kits for new mothers in Eastern Europe. I'll make some little magic slippers to go with it. I love how this was finished in Eastern Europe and it will eventually end up back in Eastern Europe.

In closing I leave you with a sheep picture, just because I can.

I'm going to go eat some ice cream.

Flurries Don't Count

Flurries don't count as real snowfall unless they stick. 11 days ago we were having tornadoes and now we have the first snow-type activity of the year. But it's not sticking. It's just making everything wet. And now it's even colder than it was when I woke up this morning. Maybe we'll have a white Christmas! It makes me want to start vacation today. Only one more week of work though! 40 hours....5 days...3 tests...1 winter party....1 pajama day....and a partridge in a pear tree. Then I'm free for two weeks! And my grad school classes will finish for the quarter this Friday as well and won't start for another few weeks either so I will truly have a break. Then I can catch up on all the things that need doing. Hopefully I will get the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project webpage updated. I've tried 3 times now without success. No idea what's going wrong but I will conquer it yet! One of our group members just took over 250 items of clothing to Romania to hand out to orphans and Gypsies. She should be arriving back in the U.S. shortly and, hopefully, she will have pictures to share (which I would love to post on the website if it will cooperate). What a wonderful out pouring of generosity from our group members to help make this possible! I did finally send out the last of the prizes for the EEROP/Project Hope Christmas clothing drive that we held over the summer. I custom dyed some yarn for the "winner" of the contest who knit a ridiculous amount of stuff (42 items) for the drive (for which we are all extremely thankful). This is a picture of her custom yarn:

Also been working on Christmas knitting but I can't show you that. I did finish one project that I'm incredibly stoked about and really want to show you but can't. I feel so clever having finished it. It's down to crunch time though so knitting has become an Olympic sport around here with a motto of "Go all the way or get tendonitis trying."

Breather

I thought I might take a little break from knitting for awhile. Nothing more than just a few days. See, I've been working really hard lately. Doing what? Getting all this ready to ship:

Those are all items for the Project Hope Christmas drive. Some of the items I've had lying around for awhile waiting for an opportunity to come up to be shipped off. Lots of the items though, were knit with this campaign in mind. You'll notice I even managed to finish this guy off in time:

There are still some tweeks I could have made to the collar but after making this sweater I feel like I have a better grasp of raglan construction. Especially from the bottom up. I don't know that I will be trying my hand at design again any time too soon though. Well, especially not on something so complex as fair isle. But I was able to make the sweater wearable and it will go to a little boy who was going to miss out on getting anything because his designated knitter got carpal tunnel :( I guess there was a reason I made this too small after all.

So, like I said, I was going to take a little break from knitting. Work on the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages website and get ready for some up coming campaigns. Maybe organize all the donated yarn I've been getting.

I was going to do all that...

But my hands just needed something to do.

Knit On

It's finally finished and I'm ready to talk about it now. The sweater that is. That's going to Project Hope for a little Romanian boy. And let me tell you, I'm super proud of this sweater.

When I started it almost exactly a month ago, I knew this was the sweater I should have been making all along. When I first looked at the pattern I had thought, this is the perfect sweater to make for Project Hope. But time got away from me and I thought the pattern would take too long to make. And I wasn't sure I had the right type of yarn for the project. But the pattern didn't take too long to knit up and the yarn I used was just perfect.

This is my sweater for Daniel, created from the Intrepid Pullover pattern with yarn I picked up while I was in Peru last summer. It's super warm and turned out really cute. I couldn't be more pleased. I knit through a lot of difficult stuff with this sweater and I was afraid there would be bad vibes in it but actually I think there are nothing but good vibes. I knit a lot of hope for the future into this sweater and positive thoughts that things would turn out ok. Out with the old and create with the new.

I kept the good vibes rolling by immediately starting (and just a few days later, finishing) some socks for the same little boy.

I did these two at a time using the magic loop method (of which I have become a total convert) and, again, they turned out better than I could have hoped for.

There is still one project that I'm starting tonight that will need to be finished up quickly but I hope that my knitting mojo is back. It's funny that it took some set backs for me to find it again. But then I guess that's what this picture is all about.

Looking Up

Since my last post about how crappy my day had been, things have been looking better on the job front :::knock on wood:::. Thank you for the kind words in the comments. I hate to throw my little pity party but it was so nice to hear people encouraging me to just hang in there. I have to keep reminding myself that no job is perfect and I'm very lucky to even have a job. And, of course, knitting helps. Today, I actually came home feeling pretty energetic instead of falling over from exhaustion. Could it be that I have (finally) caught up on my sleep? Or maybe it's just that I've been walking out of work each night as soon as I'm off the clock (instead of sticking around for another hour or so) and leaving it all behind me. Probably a combination of both. Anyways, I was feeling revved up so I did some chores and then dyed a little yarn.

Pink spaghetti! The color is actually a bit darker in real life. It's still a shade of pastel though. I'm thinking of calling it Bubble Gum. Hoping to post this yarn and another shade I dyed a few weeks ago in the store soon.

Still knitting along on a stealth project for Project Hope (stealth because it appears to be working out and I don't want to jinx anything by talking about it). Also planning on making a hat out of the rest of this yarn:

I think I can get another out of what I have left. That would make 3 hats from this yarn! Oh wait, I never told you about the second hat, did I? Hmmm...well, I was reading Knitting Rules! by the Yarn Harlot and in there it talks about teaching people to knit by having them knit a rectangle and sewing one of the sides together. It's the same principle as knitting a scarf, just on a smaller scale. For some reason it made me really want to try that technique. So I did. And, of course, I made it a little too long (remember I've been on a tear of sub-par hat making).

I've been pouting a little about this hat since I had such high hopes for it. And it's a beginners technique for goodness sake! This is supposed to be fail proof!

I guess I should know I can mutilate any pattern no matter how simple at this point. But today, as I was trying on the hat for a little photo shoot, I decided to try turning up the brim a bit. I'd tried it before but for some reason I couldn't get the length of the brim just right. Today, however, the stars must have aligned just so because I think I got it...

Looks pretty good now! Hopefully I've broken my streak of bad hats because I kind of agreed to make one more... We had someone in our EEROP group develop carpal tunnel and wasn't able to finish several projects she had hoped to contribute. It's truly unfortunate but now I have a purpose for the mittens I made and the fair isle sweater with the too small neck (I still have to fix it but now I have a reason to).

Abandoned

1.
Name: Child's Fair Isle Sweater of my own designing
Last Seen: June 25, 2010
Reason for Abandonment: Neck opening too small, possible overall design flaw resulting in incredibly too small sweater.

2.
Name: The Steppe Ahead Sweater
Last Seen: Just last week
Reason for Abandonment: Unappreciated yarn pooling, possible knitter error involving math resulting in (possibly) too large sweater.

Please note that both these sweaters were originally destined for the EEROP/Project Hope winter clothing drive. Specifically for a 6 year old little boy. This little boy will get his sweater (and gloves and socks), it's just a matter of time. I've started something else but I'm not talking about it lest it goes the way of the previously mentioned projects.

Settling In

The move last Saturday went really well (according to all the people who had moved substantial households) and now I'm in the sloooooow process of unpacking boxes and finding homes for my stuff. Some days I get really motivated and will tackle whole sections of a room. Other days I just feel plain lazy and maybe get one box done before I have to take a nap. The best part of the new apartment is that it has 2 bedrooms. The second bedroom is the office/music room/yarn storage area. I'm super excited to have a designated space for my yarn. Somehow those boxes managed to get unpacked fairly quickly.

The brown box is some gifted acrylic yarn from my aunt. In the clear totes are acrylics, miscellaneous odds and ends and started (and forgotten) projects. The major part of the stash is on the shelves. To the far left (not pictured) are actually 3 totes that I use for yarn and fiber that goes in the store. My swift and ball winder are set up against another wall and the skeiner is currently residing on my desk. I'm hoping to get a large folding table to take to shows. I can set it up in the office as well and use it for the swift, ball winder, and skeiner.

The office is also home to my music collection, desk, computer, and other craft related items. The closet is all for storage of lesser used items like the pilates ball and luggage. The only downside to this room is that it has no overhead lighting. I'm thinking of putting in a ceiling fan though to remedy this.

Once the yarn is unpacked the only logical thing, of course, is to get it out and use it. I finished the hat and mitten set from the Wool-Aid KAL.

I went down from a size 9 needle on the hat to size 6 needles for the gloves because I saw they were turning out much too large (had to rip back the first one I started). I also striped the thumbs of the mittens as I'm anal retentive about things like that. Please note that I'm still working on the fine art of pom pom making and, while results are getting better, this one is still a little on the sad side (I'm thinking I need to invest in a pom pom maker). None the less the pom pom kind of makes this hat so it's staying.

My hat count for this summer is now at 3 (which sounds rather pitiful considering it's been 2 months since I starting working on hats). I need 2 more for the EEROP/Project Hope drive plus a pair of socks (kid sized thankfully) and a little boy's sweater. Oh and some kid's mittens as well. All by mid-September. Where did my mad knitting mojo go? At least I was able to start on hat number 4 last night (and got fairly far).

It's three skeins of Berroco Cuzco. I'm using Grumperina's jog-less stripes technique to knit this. The only thing I wish I'd done was to cast on all in one color (instead of equal portions of all three). This will be a plain hat so I don't anticipate this taking me too long to finish. Let's just hope I don't eat those words later.

My 3 Hats They Have No Corners

I've been in a hat knitting frenzy lately. I'd forgotten how quick and easy they are to make! And I picked up a set of 16" circulars which makes it go even faster (Note to self: purchase more 16" circulars). Up first is the Lumpy Bumpy hat:

Farmhouse Yarns Lumpy Bumpy in Grapes on the Vine. US size 9 circulars. 2x2 rib. Women's sized.

Next is a mohair hat:

Farmhouse Yarns Roxanne's Mohair in Arizona. Us size 9 circulars. 4x2 rib. Women's sized.
 I was a little worried about how this hat would turn out. The mohair isn't especially soft and there was a ton of vegetable matter stuck in it. I've tried it on though and it turns out that it is not nearly as scratchy as imagined. In fact, after a good washing this should be nice and cozy.

I've also started a third hat. This is part of the Wool-Aid Mystery Knit-Along.

This is turning out to be a very nice hat pattern and there are a set of matching mittens that we'll be making to go along with the hat. I have another ball of each of these colors so I'm thinking about knitting another hat and mittens set in the reverse color combo.

All these hats (and any accompanying mittens) will be going to EEROP's summer knitting campaign for Project Hope. As I've mentioned before, Project Hope provides support to mothers in Romania who would otherwise have to give their children up for adoption. They have a center in Cluj-Napoca for the mothers and children. In the surrounding area are also large Gypsy populations. Project Hope is now venturing to provide knitted items to the members of these communities as well. Again, without help from organizations like Project Hope these families would have to abandon their children to state run orphanages. Adding the Gypsy communities to the Christmas drive has been a challenge: trying to contact these communities and earn their trust, trying to get names and ages of children, coordinating with multiple people in several states and countries... We have had amazing success in getting the mothers and children taken care of for the Christmas drive so now it's time to start thinking about the Gypsy people. To keep interest high I've started some contests through the EEROP Ravelry group. One contest is for prayer shawls. The person who knits the most prayer shawls between June and September 18th will win a wonderful yarny prize! The other contest is for children's items. Same concept, the person who knit the most kid's items before the deadline will win a prize. There are a few more guidelines for knitting for the kids (to make the contest fair) so be sure to check out the threads for more information. And tell a friend (or 2 or 3)! The more people involved the more fun this will be!

Of Socks and Sweaters

I'm back from vacation and, while I should be well rested, for some reason this morning I'm completely wiped out. I have stuff that needs doing (doesn't that always seem the case) but I may need a nap before I can think about tackling any of it. Is it wrong to need a nap just 2 hours after you get up? Anyways...before I could allow myself to do anything truly productive this morning I had to finish this sock:

The first Rivulet's sock is finished!

I started this sock in May of 2009, over a year ago. I like the yarn, I like the pattern, I do not like the needles (US size 0). When I started these socks I had not knit many socks using true sock yarn so I just went with the needles the pattern told me to use without a second thought to try and substitute. Just looking at this yarn now I would say they need a size 2 or 3 needle to get a comfortable gauge. Bugga (the sock yarn used in this project) is a little on the thick side and using size 0s did not a comfortable knitting experience make. That's why I've been so reluctant to finish these. I had told myself I needed to finish this pair before I could make any more socks but I'm thinking that in order to maintain my sanity for sock #2 I might need to try a Skew sock (or two) first.

Lucky for me I have another project this is coming along quite nicely that I've been using to distract myself from uncomfortable sock knitting.

This is the fair isle sweater I've designed. This is for EEROP's summer knitting focus, Project Hope. I love how it's turning out! And kid's stuff is (to me anyways) a quick knit because of the miniature size. All I need is to finish the second sleeve and find my Fall and Winter issues of Vogue Knitting where Jared Flood talks about making any pattern into a seamless yoked sweater. Then it's just joining and finishing the top!