Eyelet Swirl Hat

Hey all! Just a heads up, blogging is going to be a little haphazard for a while. Work is crazy right now and Christmas is looming over my shoulder quickly. I do have a bunch of finished objects lined up to post, but time is going to be tight for a while.

So today, you get my post on the Eyelet Swirl Hat!



Pattern: Eyelet Swirl Hat

Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns Liberty Wool Light (6623)

Needles: US 4 - 3.5 mm


This was actually a kit that I won in a raffle! All of the yarn shops during the Western CT Yarn Crawl had their own raffles in each of the stores, and my name was drawn at New England Yarn & Spindle! I swung by the shop the week after the crawl and picked up my kit.

This yarn is pretty amazing. It's very soft and the colors are absolutely lovely. I just kept returning to the bag to touch the yarn, so I had to cast on right away.



I have to say that I need to get better at my prep work for knitting hats. I tend to not make up swatches because I'm impatient. This isn't a problem for scarves, generally, and I'm pretty good at recognizing if socks or fingerless mitts are the right gauge for me within a few rows. But I'm terrible at recognizing the right gauge for hats. This hat ended up being a really lovely hat, but it was just loose enough that I didn't feel comfortable wearing it. It sort of sat around for a while I debated frogging it or making due.

Ultimately, I ended up just looping some thin elastic into the brim. The hat only really needed to be brought in by about an inch, so just the little bit of draw by some elastic made this hat really work for me. I wear it around all the time now.




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Loki Socks

Pattern: Wyvern Socks by Marnie MacLean Designs

Needles: US 2 - 2.75 mm

Yarn: Loki from Gnome Acres, which is a brilliant indie dyer who specializes in nerdy yarn colorways. Loki was actually the first yarn I ever purchased from them, but you've seen me knit socks in Robot Patina and Mustache Manifesto before.




I finally got around to my Loki socks! I've had these planned for a couple of years now, which is terrible, isn't it? There are too many things to make, I swear.

Anyway, I saw some interesting patterns online for socks with a sort of scalloped scale looking pattern on them, which reminded me of Loki's armor. I ended up choosing Wyvern Socks for its scalloped shapes. This is a toe-up sock pattern. I'm not terribly used to those yet, as the majority of my socks have been top-downs, but I'm already noticing a pattern in my toe-up socks. I have a terrible time gauging how long the foot needs to be before starting the heel. I see to do pretty well judging the leg length of a sock before starting the heel going top down, but my toe-up socks have all come out too long in the foot. Not long enough to really be considered a problem that needs ripping and redo-ing, of course; just long enough to be noticeable and a little annoying.

I also think the stitch pattern gets lost in the colors of the yarn. That was also my mistake. I didn't anticipate how often the colors changed and how much of a contrast there was when knit up. Because I don't swatch. I know, I know, but I still like them! I'll just have to try out this pattern with a solid color or a more muted variation.




Overall, this is a great pattern. It was easy to follow and the pattern repeats were really easy to get down in my brain. I found it easy and comfortable to knit multiple rows without consulting the chart for the pattern. I definitely look forward to trying this pattern again.

And even though the colors drowned out the pattern, I can't help by love this colorway. The colors all look great knit up and I'm really happy that I have my pair of Loki socks now.




(Photo shoot note: I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome a blast from the past to my photos - a pair of legs from an old unitard! I was in dance classes all through school until college, so I have a lot of weird costume pieces you wouldn't expect a guy like me to have floating around his closet. I mean, I'm pretty much a ratty jeans and T-shirt guy most of the time.

This unitard was from a dance costume in middle school that I quickly outgrew, but I cut the legs off and saved them. This came in handy in high school when I did my first Captain Jack Sparrow costume and didn't yet earn enough cash for pirate boots. I wore these legging with black work boots and sewed black flappy boot tops to pin around my legs, so it looked like I had fancy pirate boots until you got close.

So I found these while pulling out props for knitting photo shoots and they looked perfect next to my socks. Movie!Loki does wear some tight black pants and kid!Loki from the comics has some black legging type pants and yellow against my skin isn't a great combo, so I wore them for the shoot.

It was actually really nice not to have to worry about how my skin was going to show up on camera, so I might break them out again for other sock shoots.)



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Amy Pond Cowl

So, I'm really trying to cut into my yarn stash. A problem that I really had a hard time with was buying a couple of skeins of yarn that would work for my Etsy shop projects. I had this red sock yarn that was my go to for Amy Pond scarves and whenever I had a 50% off coupon or it was marked down on sale, I picked up a couple of skeins.

And then the yarn was discontinued. Dun dun DUN. Yeah. So I knew I didn't have enough yarn for a full scarf, but I figured I probably had enough for a cowl. And I was right!




I used the same needles and pattern that I do for the Amy Pond scarves and then joined the ends to make a cowl loop. It was quick and I already had the pattern memorized. It also gave me the opportunity to try a 3 stitch garter border on the scarf instead of picking up stitches and crocheting a border. I think I like the garter stitch border better. It's easier to keep the same tension while I'm knitting the scarf, as opposed to trying to keep the tension the same while crocheting.




Overall, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. This cowl will be up for sale in my Etsy shop with my November shop update. So if you're interested, keep an eye on my shop after Halloween!



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Varsity Stripe Socks and Other Stuff

1. Varsity Stripe Socks


Pattern: Varisty from the book 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes

Needles: US 3 - 3.25 mm

Yarn: Grab bag yarn from the Holiday Yarns booth at Stitches East 2013. As much yarn as I could fit in my hand for $20. Yep.


This was my first time doing socks on a really long circular needle and socks done 2-at-a-time. It was interesting. I purposefully staggered the stripe progressing so that I was working with two different colored yarns at a time to keep straight which sock was which. I like how the socks turned out, but I'm not entirely thrilled with the stretch to the stitches while the socks were on the needles. I don't know if my needles just weren't pliable enough yet, but the cord kind of stretched out the socks around the halfway loop. If you know what that means. Yikes.

(Sometimes I forget how ridiculous talking about knitting can be until I write it down.)

Anyway, it was slow going because I was still learning and I still favour DPNs for my socks, but I wouldn't be averse to using this method again and I have some other patterns from that book marked for future projects.



Also, thanks to @clamhoppers for the photos of my actual feet! I was trying to take these photos with the 10 second timer, but the surface in the photo is actually a trailer that I had to climb onto, so without help all I was getting were photos of picking the grass out of my socks:




2. Other Stuff

Speaking of @clamhoppers...

(Who is my youngest brother Pickleface, if you didn't know)

He's off to college! He's completed one whole week so far!

And that's partially why the blog hasn't been updated. There's been too much going on. There was some drama at work going down that led to a lot of anxiety on my part. Both brothers were moving to college for the fall semester (Stovetop for his senior year and Pickleface for his freshman), which meant a lot of house and car wrangling for a while. The Gabbers' boyfriend has been up in our neck of the woods for work training, so she's been coming up pretty often to hang out at the house to kill time or keep herself from murdering her landlord or make tomato sauce. My mom's van tried to die, so there's been a lot of vehicle wrangling at home as well.

With everyone out of the house but myself and my parents, there's been this a drive to get stuff sorted while no one else needs the space. There was some furniture gymnastics involving a very large chaise and some stairs and there has been a lot of organizing neglected spaces.

And I've got more craft things started now than I did last time I posted! I'm trying to get things together for a fall/holiday shop update with new Christmas things AND a few scarves which are time consuming. I started a large-ish Halloween cross stitch pattern. I've started a new quilt.

And I'm fretting about my Halloween costume which will be very easy and not so costly with the exception of one thing and I have to get that one thing right. If I get it right, it will be bad ass. If I get it wrong, I'll be very sad about it.

But things are improving. I'm trying to get to work earlier so that I don't have to make up so much time at night/will only be working overtime at night. I'm working on balancing out all the craft stuff into manageable chunks. I'm looking forward to the madness of my upcoming yarn event schedule:

• September 9th - Coventry Farmer's Market Fiber Fest
  
• September 26th & 28th - Western Connecticut Yarn Crawl (Mom's working on the 27th so we're skipping that day)
  
• October 10th - Stitches East (actually 9th - 12th, but we need to limit ourselves here)
  
• November 1st or 2nd - New England Fiber Festival (which I might be going to alone, depending on Mom's work schedule)
  

So excited about it. And worried. But it's the natural progression into the crisp goal-oriented worry of the end-of-year months, which can be mitigated by copious lists, tea, and spontaneous baking.

Now if only summer would just leave and let fall settle in.



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Circle Mitts

Pattern: Circle Mitts by Sybil R

Needles: US 1 - 2.25 mm DPNs

Yarn: An assortment of colors of sock-ish weight yarn pulled out of a discount bin at the Holiday Yarns booth at Stitches East '13. I have no idea what the colorways are or even the specific blend of wool or whatever, but it was $20 for as much yarn as I could hold in one hand, so I'm not complaining.


I really like how this pattern turned out, but I don't think I'll be trying it again any time soon unless I get some longer DPNs in the right size or figure this out on circular needles. I have wide hands, which meant that the needles got really full at the widest point of the circle. I kept losing stitches off the ends because there was no room to move on the needles.

Part of the difficulty I had might have been with switching yarns every four rows, which made for some awkward gauge and ends to weave in during the circle increases. It might have been less finicky if I had used just one self striping or patterned yarn instead of switching yarns for each stripe.

Anyway, I really enjoy the end product and once I got into the rhythm of the construction of these, it made them a really quick knit.

Vancouver Fog - Tan Alpaca/Silk

Pattern: Vancouver Fog by orangellous blog

Yarn: Kollage Yarns Solace (hand-dyed with black tea)

Needles: US 3 - 3.25 mm


This yarn, pattern, and needles have been sitting in a bag for over a year. I completely forgot about them until a few months ago when I was digging through the stash for something else. Figured I'd pull this out and knit these up last month. It was nice to do a short project with a pattern that I'm already familiar with.

Doctor Who Cowl v.1

I've been in a cowl-ish mood this year and I thought I'd try my hand at adjusting my Doctor Who pattern for a cowl. This is the first attempt. It's shorter than I had originally anticipated, but I ran out of one of the colors and I've had to stock up on another brand of yarn for the color. But I do intend to try out another one that's a bit longer.

But if anyone likes this one, it will be up for sale at my Etsy shop soon!

Graham Hat - Kudo

Pattern: Graham by Jennifer Adams

Needles: US 5 - 3.75 mm, US 7 - 4.5 mm

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Kudo






It's been a while since I made a hat. Which, of course, I realized in the middle of this year's winter. I had always meant to make myself a hat, but never managed to get around to it, which I regretted when digging my car out of lots of snow and ice. I love winter, but I was miffed that I hadn't made myself a hat.

So I made one. And the temperature started warming up, of course, but that's the way it always goes.

I was actually surprised by this yarn. I grabbed it for color and didn't even think to check what it was made of until I was actually knitting with it. It's a wool/cotton blend, which makes it feel more like cotton than wool. That really affected the behaviour of the yarn in this pattern. The rib isn't really tight at all and it ended up larger than I expected. It actually works well as a lazy-ass, warmer day hat for me, but the yarn's not really for winter.

I did really like the pattern, though. Easy to remember and it looks great. I'm working on a second Graham hat in some handspun wool now because I like the pattern so much.


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Thermal Textured Socks

Pattern: Thermal Textured Socks by Kelly Patla

Needle: US 4 - 3.5 mm

Yarn: Patons Stretch Socks Yarn - Olive






These socks took me forever. Ultimately, I'm pleased with them and I'm glad I pushed myself through, but I don't think I liked using this yarn. It's a stretchy yarn, which made keeping tension even-ish difficult. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photos, but one of the socks is a size smaller than the other and didn't really even out to something closer until I washed them both a couple of times. Also, I think the elastic muted the colors and they didn't turn out quite the way I expected them to once they were all knit up.

I really like this pattern, though. It's a pretty simple repeat, but it looks a lot more complicated. I want to try it again in a yarn with less color variation so that the texture really pops out.


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Shop Update, Behind the Scenes, Purl Ridge Cowl, and WIP

1. Shop Update!

If you missed my post yesterday, there is a shop update over at my Etsy shop at 7 pm EST! The moleskines and stitch markers will be restocked and new handspun will be listed! Check it out!


2. Behind the Scenes: Product Photos

It seems like every crafter I know has different ways of setting up their space for blog photos and product photos. My normal blog photos are pretty casual. I try to worry about lighting, which will be much easier in the coming months as spring sets in, but I generally don't fuss over the work in progress photos. I'm sure you've noticed that they're usually taken on tables or on the rainbow blanket at the foot of my bed.

But product photos and photos of finished objects tend to be more of a production. I'm not a professional by any means. I've picked up a few things from The Gabbers, who went to school for photography, and from other bloggers, but my stuff has mostly been trial and error. Since I broke out the set up yesterday for the handspun photos from yesterday's blog spot, I thought I'd share my set up.



First, I set up my staging area: a folding tray table and a W.B. Mason's paper box. The box itself is covered with some white fabric I picked up a Jo-Ann's on clearance because the yellow of the box tends to shine through the other stuff. I don't have it pictured here, but there was also a flattened box from Amazon on top of that tray table to widen out the service, since the tray table is narrower than the W.B. Mason's box.



Then I drape the whole thing in a white sheet that I picked up from a thrift shop. You can see that's it's a wrinkly old thing. Washing it has never helped with the wrinkling and ironing has proved to be futile. It's pretty terrible.



So then I cover that whole thing with this double seed stitch blanket that I made a while back. It provides a nice, clean background with enough (intentional) texture to keep the photo interesting.

I like product photos with a plain, flat white background, but I've very rarely managed it. I've used paper, fabric, one of those light box things, natural light, spotlights, lamps... I can't consistently get that pure white background and keep the colors of the object I'm photographing. I knit a "swatch" about the size of a place-mat in the double seed stitch and tested photographing items on that in natural light and I was able to get much more consistently good photos. I think my camera likes the shadows in the knitting to balance out all the white, so it's not distorting the color nearly as much.

Speaking of...


This is my camera. I bought it back in college when I was still doing YouTube videos with frequency. It's served me well enough. With my iPod and phone working well as "on-the-go" cameras, this one generally just stays home and takes photos of yarn and animals that wander into the yard.


3. Purl Ridge Cowl

Pattern: Purl Ridge Scarf
Needles: US 7 - 4.5 mm
Yarn: Debbie Macomber Blossom Street Collection - Wild Meadow



I finished this almost two months ago. I figured I'd better post it. XD



4. WIP


I cast this onto the needles Saturday night after finishing a project that lagged on forever. This will be a hat. I'm using the pattern Graham by Jennifer Adams.

Cat Hoodies and Scoundrels

1. Cat Hoodie

You know, I never thought I would be one of those people forcing his pets into clothes. I blame Audrey. Because, frankly, she's adorable in costumes and sweaters and loves trotting around in them, so The Gabbers will dress her up whenever. Who doesn't love a corgi wearing a Batman cape?

So my poor cat is an old man. He's about... 17? Ish? He was a stray that we took in when my brother was in preschool and that brother turned 21 this past fall, so he's been around for a long time. And he's had some thyroid issues over the past couple years, when ended up costing him more than half of his body weight. He was eating regularly again and putting on some pudge, but he's been sick again, so he lost that. So he gets cold very easily and not just the normal cat need to be on top of anything warm. I mean, sometimes he shivers when he's cuddling up to Mom because she doesn't give off as much body heat as Dad or I do.

Mom told me to make him a sweater to see if he would wear it. So I did.


He doesn't stay in it for very long if he's walking around and he hates the process of putting it on, but he's pretty content to wear it when he's taking a nap on someone's lap. He definitely recognizes it as something his. He gets annoyed when we pick it up off the floor and if someone leaves it on the couch, he will curl up on top of it.

Pattern: Cat Hoodies
Needle: US 7 - 4.5 mm
Yarn: Merry Little Lamb Handspun in Sage/Iron; Palmer Family Farm grey


2. Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn

I've missed finishing books and writing about them, but I don't think I'm going back to the video reviews. Those ended up feeling too much like work and I wasn't really having fun anymore. One of these days I will make a video on that channel to explain, but I mean... I haven't done a book review in about a year.

So I'm going to write about them hear, instead.

Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn is a Star Wars book set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It looks into some of the shenanigans that Han Solo gets into in the time between those two movies.

This book is a lot of fun, actually. It's basically a heist starring our favourite smuggler and copilot. Han and Chewie are approached to steal some coded credit chips, so they put together a team of thieves, hackers, pilots, and con men to break into a vault owned by a high profile official with ties to Black Sun. It's a pretty straightforward book, which I think is precisely what my brain needed after Christmas, but the plans put into place and the adjustments made due to unforeseen complications keep it interesting. Like any heist story, there's plenty of clever gadgets and secret identities and witty banter among the team. I really enjoyed it.

If anyone's interested in picking it up, familiarizing yourself with Black Sun and where it operates in the Star Wars universe might be helpful, but it's been ages since I read anything which involved Black Sun in great detail and I wasn't confused by any of the political talk.


My next book is The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, so stay tuned if you'd like to hear about that one.

Messenger Bag and WIPs

1. Wool Messenger Bag

























Pattern: "DJ Bag" by Stephanie Gourley in Son of Stitch 'n Bitch: 45 Projects to Knit and Crochet for Men
Needles: US 11 - 8.0 mm
Yarn: Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool Nature's Brown


2. Current WIPs