first harvest

Today was a beautiful mild, sunny spring Sunday. While I was out puttering in the garden, I cut some lettuce because the patch was getting very crowded, and realized that this bunch represents the first harvest of the 2009 season! Hooray!

I am really looking forward to a season full of fresh veggies from the garden and the CSA, especially now that it really, really feels like spring. It's been pouring rain for the last week, so dark and dreary. But you know what they say about spring showers... everything is so lush and bright outside now.

This was HWWLLB's birthday weekend (he is 40!), and I think he got Spring for his birthday. The sun peeked out for part of the day on Saturday, but today was just gorgeous and sunny, and we both spent a lot of time wandering through the yard marveling at how everything seemed to have exploded overnight.

The birthday weekend was great. Lots of good food and friends, lots of decadent treats, some board games, a walk at the botanical garden, and a wonderful afternoon half-working, half-lounging in the garden.

I got some weeding done, but the weeding was really just an excuse to poke around and see what was coming up. I just love the feeling when you pull away a big pile of chickweed, and underneath you find something great coming up, like the Spotted Joe Pye Weed that was hiding under mounds of chickweed today. The promise of warm summer days to come.

HWWLLB got another half-finished knitting project for his birthday, but he seemed happy with it despite my slowness (or maybe he's so used to getting unfinished knitted gifts that it doesn't faze him anymore).

His most favorite animal of all time is the sloth, and so I'm making him a life-sized, felted two-toed sloth. The body is just about done, and then I'll start on the legs (including giant claws!). It's been a lot of fun to knit so far, so I hope it will finish up relatively quickly. It's also been fun for me to learn about sloths in the process - and of course I'll be sharing some of what I learned with y'all in an upcoming post, because I do love to share when I learn about some adorable Endangered Ugly Thing. Nature is just so cool.

winter turns into spring

Since the last time I wrote, which was a snow day, winter has careened headlong into spring and back again a couple of times. But I'm finally starting to believe that spring is really here. The birds are making nests all over, and our greenhouse is loaded with little plants almost ready to go into the garden.

I've mostly been doing indoor things, like knitting and re-arranging & re-organizing the house. We moved my work/craft space from one side of the house to the other. I used to have a room all to myself, which I loved very very much. My new workspace is in the back room of the house, which is large, open and sunny, with lots of windows.

It's great, except that the big back room also contains our dining area, and my workspace is visible from lots of other places, so I feel compelled to organize it well and keep it neat, which does not come very naturally to me.

My dad helped by building some shelves, and cleaning out a ton of craft supplies and old papers helped a lot too. A paper and craft purge feels really good once in a while. And we found the funniest things. I had a decrepit cardboard box stuffed with paper and photos from high school. There were hundreds of little notes that other kids and I had passed back and forth to each other in class (why did I keep these things??). At first my sister and I found them uproariously funny, but after the third or fourth note, high school drama gets a bit monotonous.

I am going to DIE DIE DIE! Some one can't keep their mouth shut and now everyone knows who I like including Dave M, Tracey, Tom S and C.S.!!!!! And HE knows! All I did was tell one person who I thought I could trust and now everyone including my crush knows everything! My life is ending!!!!!!

...etc.

We wound up throwing out the whole box, just rescuing a few photos first. I also found all my journals since college or so (hopefully I burned all the high school journals in a previous purge), and I put them in storage boxes in the attic, along with photo albums going back to elementary school.

I think this is what they call spring cleaning. So far it hasn't involved much soap and water, but egad, so much dust! Getting rid of dusty piles of things has got to be one of the most therapeutic activities there is.

By the way, thanks to all of you who suggested knitting up some soakers with my yarn leftovers - what a great idea! I do have a lot of Cascade 220 around, so I've made a couple of wrap-style soakers and one of the Butt Knits variety, which is coming along splendidly. They are a fun quick project to work in between other knits, and they do use up the Cascade leftovers quite brilliantly. But I am on to a rather ambitious knitted toy today... it's a birthday present which I can't imagine I'll get done in time, but I'll post updates once the recipient gets his prize (finished or not). It fits into the Endangered Ugly Things category, so this toy is either going to be really cute or really weird.

another snow day! toys!

I can't believe it. A snow day in March!

Most winters we are lucky to get even one little dusting of snow - this is our third snowstorm of the year! And in March, no less!

Truthfully, I am itching to get the garden going and to spend breezy warm spring days outside, but I can't complain about snow. It's so magical and wonderful.

Yesterday it rained all day, and we spent the day tearing our house apart, de-cluttering, re-arranging, and trying to make room for another human being in our stuffed-full little house. My workspace is moving across the house, and I had occasion to look through my yarn stash with fresh eyes.

I tend to keep my yarn stash to a minimum - I am pretty good about using what I buy and not buying stuff I don't plan to use anytime soon (except for the sock yarn - let's not talk about that. It's an illness). So I was pretty pleased to see that my most recent de-stashing effort had been pretty well maintained.

But goodness, do I have a lot of single and partial skeins! As we cleaned and organized and re-arranged yesterday, I was mulling over what to do with them all, and I'm thinking that perhaps this spring will become a festival of knitted toys at my house. I have more than enough remnants for a whole ecosystem of little critters, populated by stuffies, woodins and owls, tended by a little rainbow fleet of Korknisser.

Any favorite toy ideas to suggest? I'm definitely hoping to design a few new ones, too. Send your requests!

cardi revision

Just a quick note to say that if you're knitting the scrappy cardi, I posted a minor revision this morning.

Ever since I posted the pattern on Friday, something about the sizing had been bothering me. I had finished writing and editing the pattern on Wednesday and set it up to publish automatically on Friday morning, while I was away at a conference. The conference kept me distracted enough that I wasn't able to put my finger on what was bothering me until this week. But I realized eventually that it needed just a little more ease.

I hate when I do that. I know that they're free patterns and everything, but after a couple of years of this amateur designing, I am finally coming to realize that I should "finish" the pattern and let it sit for a week or two and marinate in my mind before I hit publish - just to let any kinks unravel themselves in the mean time.

Anyhow, in the shower I realized that the solution to the ease was very simple - all it needed was one extra increase round before dividing for the sleeves, and it would be just fine. Whew! That was a relief. Bad enough to have jumped the gun on publishing something, but at least it didn't need a major overhaul.

At any rate, in case anyone has already cast on for this project, you don't need to do anything differently, until you get to the final increase round before dividing for the sleeves. Just print the revised version of the pattern that went up this morning, and you're all set.

My apologies - and thanks to all of you for coming along on this bumpy ride learning to design cute things that other people can actually knit. I am always amazed that anyone else wants to knit the same things I do. Thanks for letting me experiment in such a supportive test lab!

free pattern friday: scrappy socky stripey cardi

This baby jacket is a great way to use up leftover sock yarn and make a fun little sweater at the same time. This pattern uses three different leftover yarns – one is a solid, one is variegated, and one is self-striping. You can mix yours up however you like. I also varied the width of my stripes as I knitted – make yours as varied or as regular as you like (you don’t have to follow the charts provided below). You can hardly go wrong! Just make sure that your sock yarns are all the same weight and fiber content (more or less). Using superwash yarn is a good idea to keep this little garment easy-care.

[Revised 2.25.09 to add one increase row to body]

materials

leftover sock yarn in 3 colors
color A (solid) – up to 200 yd (shown: Tess Super Sock & Baby)
color B (self-striping) – up to 50 yd (shown: Regia Kaffe Fassett Landscape in color “Caribbean”)
color C (variegated) – up to 50 yd (shown: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in color “Gold Hill”)
size 2 /3.0mm needles (circular and DPN)
size 1 /2.5mm needles (circular)
size 1 crochet hook (2.35 mm)
2 buttons (3/4 inch)
sewing needle & thread
tapestry needle

gauge: 7 stitches and 9 rows / inch

size: 0-6 (6-12, 12-18, 24) months

finished measurements:
chest circumference: 18.5 (19, 20.5, 21.5) inches
back waist length: 10 (11, 11.5, 12) inches
sleeve: 6.5 (7.5, 8, 8.5) inches

stripe patterns
(as shown in photos – make yours however you like!)

color key:


yoke stripes:


body stripes:


sleeve stripes:


knitting instructions

Using larger needles and color A, CO 2 (3, 3, 4), PM, CO 16 (17, 17, 18), PM, CO 24 (28, 30, 32), PM, CO 16 (17, 17, 18), PM, CO 2 (3, 3, 4).
You will have cast on a total of 60 (68, 70, 76) st.

Row 1: Kfb of first stitch, * K to 1 st before marker, Kfb, slip marker, Kfb. Repeat from * to final stitch. Kfb of final stitch. (10 st inc.)
Row 2: Knit across.

Repeat these last 2 rows until you have 34 (38, 40, 44) st between the back markers.

Next row: *K to 1 st before marker, Kfb, slip marker, Kfb. Repeat from * to final stitch. CO 1 (2, 3, 1) stitches to tip of needle.
Next row: Knit across. CO 1 (2, 3, 1) stitches to tip of needle. You will have 120 (130, 134, 146) st total.

Next row: Work as for previous increase row, without adding the cast on to the end. (8 stitches inc.)
Next row: Knit across.

Repeat these last 2 rows until you have 60 (62, 66, 70) st between the back markers.

divide for sleeves

K to first marker, remove marker, place shoulder st on a length of scrap yarn.
CO 6 (7, 7, 7) st to tip of needle, remove next marker, join to back stitches.
K to next marker, remove marker, place shoulder st on a length of scrap yarn.
CO 6 (7, 7, 7) st to tip of needle, remove next marker, join to remaining front stitches.
K to end.

Complete your color repeat in garter stitch.

Change to color A and stockinette stitch, knitting the body in varying stripes of colors A and C until the body measures 9.75 (10.75, 11.25, 11.75) inches. Change to color C and knit 4 rows in garter stitch. BO.

sleeves

Place the held stitches onto your DPN’s. Using the correct color to maintain your color repeat from the body stitches, pick up and knit the 6 (7, 7, 7) armpit stitches you cast on when dividing for sleeves. Place marker.

You will complete your color repeat in garter stitch, just as you did for the body. This time, when you change to stockinette stitch, you’ll be knitting in alternating rows of colors A and B, starting with color A.

At the same time:
K 3 rows.
Decrease row: K1, SSK, K to last 3 stitches, K2tog, K1. (2 st dec).
Next three rows: Knit.

Continue in this manner, decreasing 2 stitches on every fourth round until 40 (42, 44, 48) stitches remain. Do not decrease any further.

Knit until sleeve measures 6.25 (7.25, 7.75, 8.25) inches.
Change to color C, K 4 rows in garter stitch. BO loosely.



button bands

Using smaller needles and color C, pick up 3 out of every 4 stitches along the right front selvedge (about 70, 78, 82, 86 stitches).
Knit 3 more rows in garter stitch. BO.
Repeat for left side.

collar

Starting at the right front, using color C and smaller needles, pick up and knit the collar stitches.

Pick up and knit 14 (16, 17, 18) stitches from the right front, 16 (17, 17, 18) stitches from the right shoulder, 24 (28, 30, 32) stitches across the back, 16 (17, 17, 18) stitches from the left shoulder, and 14 (16, 17, 18) stitches from the left front.

Turn work, K 3 more rows in garter stitch.
Final row: K2tog, bind off all stitches until 2 st rem, SSK, BO.

buttons

Sew first button onto right side of button band, 1/2 inch down from neck line. Sew second button 2 inches below first button (measuring from centers of buttons).

button loops

Using crochet hook and color C, attach the yarn to the left button band on the wrong side of the sweater, being sure to place the loop where it will line up with the first button.
Make a chain of 11 ch with your crochet hook (or the proper length to fit your button). Attach chain to back side of button band, secure and weave in ends.
Repeat for the second loop, lining up with the second button.



finishing

Weave in loose ends. Block sweater into shape.


important notice: This is a free pattern and you are welcome to use it for all the non-commercial purposes you like. However, you may not reproduce this pattern to sell, and you may not sell what you make with it. You may donate what you make with it to charity, and you may use it for charity fundraisers only if 100% of the proceeds are donated to the charity (and by charity I don't mean your kid's college fund). Thanks for understanding!

sorry, knitters!

totally autumn in progress

Oh my gosh, I have been so out of it lately. I had what seemed like a million emails piled up in my in-box from knitters in need of answers, and finally got some time to answer them today after letting them go way too long.

I feel so guilty when people write in with questions about my free patterns, and I take forever to answer them. Some questions are quick to answer, but some are brain-teasers and require some quiet time and perhaps even a calculator to answer... and that can take me a while to find. Next thing you know - a whole bunch of unanswered emails.

Sometimes I wish that knitting were my job, so that I could be justified in spending my days with hands full of yarn, dreaming up new designs and casting on sections of existing designs to be able to answer people's questions in a clear fashion and a reasonable time-frame... alas, my job is something totally different. And actually, I am very glad for that. I don't think I would enjoy knitting and designing nearly as much if I were trying to make a living at it. I think that's why I've always avoided publishing anywhere but here on my own blog.

I have to offer my thanks to Gloria and Wendy, who alerted me to a serious typo in the Super-Natural Stripes pattern, which I fixed today. My apologies to all of you Daily Knitters who knocked your heads against the wall trying to make the largest size.

Fooling around on the Free Pattern Fridays page made me realize how long it's been since I posted a pattern - not since last June! Oh, for shame! I must fix this state of affairs toute suite. I see lots of baby patterns in this blog's future...

Most of my knitting time lately has been taken up with my green version of Totally Autumn, which went into hibernation last autumn when I didn't even come close to finishing it in time to be a first anniversary gift to HWWLLB. I pulled it out again recently thinking I could finish it up in time for Valentine's Day. Ha ha! Not quite. But I cant see the light at the end of the tunnel now... I am working on the last long lace repeat, and I bet I can get it done in time to use it for at least a few cold nights of couch-based snuggling before spring gets here.

my goofy valentine

I must admit to liking Valentine's Day.

It's not the romance or the compulsory gift-buying - those are lame. I just like the love part. I really like sending goofy Valentines to my friends, my grandmother, co-workers... It's nice to have an excuse to say "I love you" (or at least "I like you a lot") to people who might appreciate hearing it.

As for the romance part... it's also nice to say "I love you" to the person/people who really need to hear it from you, but hopefully they're getting that in regular doses. For me, Valentine's Day is an annual excuse to be corny, and deep in my soul I am really a very corny person.

This year I made some valentines, and I also bought a box of those ridiculous children's valentines that I think are intended to be given out to classmates. That's what I like to give out at the office. It tickles me to no end to have my co-workers come in and find a puppy valentine on their desk that says something like "It would be RUFF if you weren't my Valentine!". Last year I gave them Hello Kitty valentines, and one office-mate still has hers tacked to the corkboard.

In other warm fuzzy news... I am drooling for the pretty new Blue Sky Alpacas colors over at kpixie. I could knit with Blue Sky Alpacas yarn all day long and never get bored of it. I want to knit myself a big red alpaca-silk valentine. In fact, I can hardly imagine a better way to spend this Saturday.