Tag Archive: gift

The Probable Destiny of All Future Sock Yarn Scraps

February 8, 2012

Do I need to say more or is the photo enough?

This little cutie is one of the booties I made with the famous Saartje freebie pattern. I think I may be the last knitter on the web to join the love fest for these, but believe it or not, this was my first time making them. What took me so long?

I used my scale and some math to determine that these took only about 50 yards of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn.  This means you could squeeze about 7 pairs out of a skein. That makes them a very inexpensive gift.

These booties were made to go with the hat I made for the same newborn and blogged about earlier this year.

I spent about 90 minutes making the booties from the time I cast on the first shoe to the time I wrapped them up to deliver to their recipient’s parents. Finding and attaching the buttons took longer than the knitting. I was grateful to Ysolda for writing up such a great tutorial on sewn button loops, which made those a piece of cake.

Can you handle one last photo or is the cuteness already killing you? More? Ok, here you go.

Project notes on Ravelry

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Don’t Call It a Comeback

February 6, 2012

Raise your hand if you were beginning to think I’d disappeared!

Nope, I’ve been here all along, just insanely busy and suffering from a minor loss of blogging mojo.

I’ve missed you, friends, and I have some good news and some bad news. The good: I am in my final semester of graduate coursework [she pauses to dance around the room].

The bad: my workload has now turned a corner from merely intense to totally insane. Nonetheless, in order to prevent myself from turning into a Complete Grouch, I’m committed to carving out 20-30 minutes of yarny time each day. This isn’t much, people. I must warn you that the pace at which I develop knitterly things to tell you about is going to temporarily drop off.  My goal is going to be to pop in here at least once a week with an update (but more if I can swing it) until later this spring.

Enough of that drama. Let’s talk about knitting.

I’ve been making tons of gifts for kids! Today I have photos of two to share. These are hats I made for the adorable children of a friend.

Both are made from free patterns I downloaded on Ravelry out of basic wool-blend yarn I bought at Michaels. The red one used the High Line Hat pattern and Caron Naturally Country yarn. This easy, unisex pattern is sized from baby through large adult, so I doubt this will be my only time using it.

The pink hat used the Nottingham kids hat pattern and yarn from Martha Stewart’s new line of yarn in a shade of pink chosen to accommodate the fashion-sensibility of the 3-year-old recipient (read: not my first choice of color…).

This yarn worked okay for this project, but I was disappointed that the cables didn’t stand out more. It also has a very dense, non-wooly feel to it. I probably won’t use it again.

Kids hats seem to be a great way to quickly try new patterns. They are done before you know it. The only downside is that I have no sense of what size they should be. I’ll be eager to hear from the recipients if these fit.

Ravelry project notes for Red Hat

Ravelry project notes for Pink Hat

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Baby Boom

January 5, 2012

Something was apparently going on with my friends in 2011 because I know at least 4 friends and colleagues having babies in the January-February time frame. That’s a lot of baby gifts, people! Not yet a mother myself, I’ve been investigating some classic baby knitting patterns, and one thing has become abundantly clear to me this week: I have no idea about the size of babies!

Here is a case in point. On Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting Baby Keegan, who was born last week. She weighs something less than 10 pounds (read: she’s a tiny little bug!). Remembering a post where the Yarn Harlot raved about this magic baby bonnet pattern, I fished out some Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock—the softest and most durable superwash yarn in my stash—and went to town.

Soon I had this:

After a little bit of sewing, it turned into this:

But, friends, this thing looks so much bigger than little Keegan’s newborn baby head!

Check out the dimensions:

Am I wrong, or is this thing not going to fit her for weeks? Should I save this for later and make something else?

Even if it is more than newborn sized, it sure is cute. Next up, booties with remaining yarn. Baby knitting is great for instant gratification!

My project notes on Ravelry

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Lavalette Shawl: All Wrapped Up

May 18, 2011

In late April I cast on two cheery pink knit gifts.  One was the socks for Mother’s Day and the other was a soft and airy shawlette in Malabrigo lace.  I finished the shawlette and delivered it over the weekend.

Sometimes I finish gift knits in plenty of time, but more often it comes down to a last minute knit binge where I do nothing but work on the last rows of the project until very late at night and then rush to get the thing blocked. The pink Lavalette shawl was definitely in the last minute category, leaving me very little time to get good pictures of it for you. Here are a couple of iphone shots of me modeling it on a cloudy morning:

Fortunately, even with the less-than-awesome photo quality,  I think you can still see that this project turned out pretty great!

This pattern, Lavalette by Kirsten Kapur, was just what I was seeking for this project, which went to live with a young family member who has been in the hospital since March and still has a bit to go before she can (thankfully!) go home. It also seemed appropriate that Kirsten uses the pattern to encourage donations to Alzheimer’s Research in honor of one of her family members who suffered from it.

I followed Kirsten’s pattern as written, but after I had worked the last written repeat, I still had 19g of yarn left and decided to make it a little bigger. I worked a full extra openwork chart and half a stockinette chart before adding the edging.  I neglected to measure the shawl before handing it off to the recipient, but you can gauge the size a bit from the photos.

This was my first time using Malabrigo Lace, and, yes, it is everything wonderful that everyone says it is. It’s soft, lofty, a little smooth and shiny, and the color was amazing. All that and it isn’t even that expensive: Full price this yarn is about $9-10 a skein (and I made this shawl from just one).

The shawl was a big hit at the hospital and that made it easy to give away (but now that I look at the photos again, I kinda want to make one for myself…).

Ravelry project notes

 

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Day 4: Where are they now? (2KCBWDAY4)

March 31, 2011

Day 4: Whatever happened to your __________?

Whenever I look back over my finished knitted objects, I usually arrive at the same simple conclusion: I am more excited about process than product.

Regular readers will have heard me go on about this before, but here is some of the evidence I have for being a lot more devoted to the process of making things than to the things themselves.

First, and perhaps most persuasive, for every one thing I knit to keep, I usually knit two things to give away to friends, family, and new babies of friends and family. Some recent examples:

Second, I usually knit wool things. And I knit them all year long, even though I live in North Carolina, where it is pretty warm most of the time.

Third, I love test knitting patterns for designers, even if I’m not sure I’ll ever have a use for the item. I’ve lucked out with my test knits so far and been really happy with all of them.

Last, although I enjoy making sweaters, I almost never wear them. Even the plain and infinitely versatile ones.

This may shock you a bit, but something about wearing my handknit sweaters makes me feel a little bit like I’m walking around in a costume. This does not happen with accessories such as hats, scarves, and mittens. Does anyone else feel like this or am I just weird?

Of the many handknit sweaters I never wear, here are the two that have gotten the most use:

#1: Georgia, a Kim Hargreaves lace sweater from an ancient Rowan magazine (#28 perhaps?) in DK Soft, a sadly discontinued Rowan yarn.

#2: What I call the “No Frills” Lion Neck Cardi, from Custom Knits. I worked it as written with the ruffle collar and it looked ridiculous on me. Talk about a costume! Frogging that collar moved this into the more wearable category. Too bad it is such a heavy gauge it is only really suitable for blizzard weather (which is pretty rare in Durham, NC!).

Earlier this year I thought that my reluctance to wear my own sweaters might be because I am drawn to knitting technically interesting sweaters but prefer to wear plain stuff.  This caused me to shift a bit toward knitting plain sweaters. So far this hasn’t helped. But I’m not giving up on the sweaters just yet.

This post is part of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. To read posts on this topic from other bloggers, search 2KCBWDAY4 in your favorite search engine.

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