joyousknits

Socks for a boy

When Y requested socks, choosing a color was a no-brainer.  Of course, they'd have to be in his favorite blue.  These were knit on 60 sts in a 3 x 1 ribbing, which continued in the heel flap, using Regia's Kaffe Fassett Landscape Storm sock yarn.

   

I made these a little longer (8.5 inches) than his feet because we all know those feet, they grow like weeds.  (sigh.  I sure miss the days when his legs were just pudgy dough, and you could knead them whenever.)

  

I ironed on some Regia sock stoppers, only because I thought they're cute rather than as a safe necessity.  He'd much rather be able to skate freely around!

Second wind

 

What's your oldest ufo?  Mine is probably five years and counting...I'm not sure why Odd Job was put aside for four years.  Perhaps I was daunted by what felt like eternal rows of fairisle (the fronts and back are knit at the same time), and there were quicker, more attractive projects at the time.  After pulling it from the bottom of the pile yesterday, not only did I not have the heart to rip it, I started knitting it again, and did as many rows in one evening as I did in who knows how many days for the first half.

The gauge is whack, but it feels much more effortless to knit it the second time.  There's hope yet for all those unfinished knits! 

The need to knead

My older boys requested felted slippers after I made these for the little one back in 2006.  (It was only fair that everyone got to 'skate' around the house!)  I made six pairs of those house slippers that year, so I was looking forward to trying a different pattern.  (Don't you have a limit for the number of times you'll knit a pattern?)  This time, I used Fiber Trends' Felted Clogs pattern, 'narrow feet' 2006 edition.  The yarns used were 200g of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes (Stream, now discontinued) and 100 g of Cascade 220 (Dark plum).  The knitting was straight forward, but the felting bit nearly did me in.  My washing machine doesn't use hot water, so I had to felt by hand.  The Knitpicks yarn felted quickly enough, but the Cascade 220 took foreeever (over an hour) and it still wasn't totally felted. 

You can imagine I hesitated a bit before starting the second pair, for which I already bought the yarn, including 200 g of Cascade 220 (Italian plum) for the soles and trim.  The green yarn was some Peruvian wool purchased from the lys.  Just like the first pair, the green yarn became a cohesive fabric in less than half an hour, but the Cascade 220 was more resistant to felting.

Maybe it's easier to see in this picture. The purple Cascade 220s are not as shrunken as their counterparts, and the knit stitches are still slightly visible.

Brotherly clogs.  I made the women's large for H and women's medium for L.  The pattern states to make them on the tighter side because they stretch a bit with wear.  That's a good thing for boys with fast-growing feet!

Thank you for the comments on Brambling.  It feels to good to finally post all those finished projects.  I'm not done yet, and will continue after I come back from vacation.  I'll be bringing some Noro Silk Garden sock yarn with me for some simple knitting bliss.  :-)  See you soon!

Brambling

Remember this?  I started it about a year ago, and the knitting was quite straight forward but it was put in the time-out pile because the sleeve caps were too shallow for the armholes.  When my niece's ninth birthday came in March, I sucked it up, and re-knit the sleeve caps by trial and error to make them fit.

I knit the largest (10 yr old) size, so there'd be room to grow into, and used just over nine balls of Jaeger extrafine merino aran in Persian.  I shortened the sleeves by about two inches.  Actually, most of the patterns in Rowan's Story Book of Knits have reeaally long (around 17" for 10 yr size) sleeves for kid-sized clothes.

 

There're lots of details in this knit, such as pleats and buttons in the front and back, and a knot in the back.

A pocket on the sleeve, cuffs, and more buttons.  Eighteen buttons in all!  There was the one thing I couldn't tame though: the collar.  It kept flipping up, and I had to tack it down at the back.

This turned out to be quite big, even with the shortened sleeves, which means the niece can wear it for another year. Yay!

Tomten jacket

When knitting for kids, it's probably a good idea to strike while the iron is hot.  I had 9 balls of Noro Silk Garden (color #203) stashed a few years back to make something for H, the oldest.  Of course, he's grown at a fantastic rate, and there wasn't enough yarn for such a large garment, so I knit something for L, who is ten.  Right from the start there wasn't going to be enough for a hooded version of the Tomten jacket, but I still ran out of yarn! 

For a good two months, this little jacket had three quarter sleeves and was bandless before I purchased a couple more skeins (which amazingly were of the same dyelot!), so I could finish it for CNY.  I started with 168 sts on 4.5 mm needles (gauge of 4.75 sts per inch), and followed the ratios as in the pattern (Elizabeth Zimmermann's, found in The Opinionated Knitter or Knitting Without Tears). 

I bound off a few stitches at the shoulder seam so that the neck wouldn't be too wide, did a shaped neckline and knit a few rows around the neck before picking up stitches from one side of the hem to the other side to make the band.

I probably could have finished this with just one extra ball of yarn, but as you can see, I like to match the stripes as best as I can (a bit obsessive, maybe?).  Besides, there was enough yarn to make some little mitts.  No leftover yarn, so it's all good.  The jacket's already a little pilly from wear; not only does L wear this outdoors, but it serves as his bed jacket too. :-) 

This is probably my twentieth project with stripey Noro yarn, and just when I thought I have exhausted my love for these yarns, I see this , some of which is coming my way.  Can't wait to try it!

The Fair Isle Vest

I've always hesitated to use 4 ply yarn to knit an adult-sized garment that's not for me (it would be a bit of a heartbreaker if it was rejected, for all the time put in); that is, until now.

This is H.  He is 12, and will be taller than me in a blink of the eye.  I can just squeeze into the vest, so when all three boys outgrow this, it will be mine! :-) 

The pattern is from Martin Storey's Classic Knits for Men (UK version, it's the vest on the cover) or Knitting for Him (US version).  The yarns used were Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4 ply (7 balls Stainless, and 2 balls Explode), and Rowan Scottish Tweed 4 ply (a softer, more fragile cousin, 1 ball each of Lobster, Mallard, and Apple).  These are pretty much the same colors as the original, except with a brighter red and dark green (so bold of me to change colors like that, heh).  The only mods I made was to knit it slightly narrower, cast on with 10 fewer stitches in the back and 5 fewer stitches on each front than the smallest size, and lengthened the armhole a tad, because the pattern has a 7.5 inch armhole, which would be small, even for me.

One thing that irks me about this pattern is that there are no pictures that show the tiniest bit of the back, so it was a surprise upon reading the pattern, that there's no fairisling in the back, just all textured rib.  It turns out I quite like the contrast of the front and back.

There's very little seaming to do.  After three-needle binding off the shoulder seams, there was only the band at the back of the neck, and the side seams to do, thanks to the intarsia bands that are knit at the same time with the rest of the body.  There were some tangles along the way, but I still preferred that to seaming!

Not only is there less seaming, the decreases along the fronts and armholes look neater too.

The all important buttons...

These pictures were taken after a few wears.  (H may be too embarrassed to hold my hand in public, but he hasn't scorned the handknits yet, and he's worn this vest without any prodding.)  It's holding up remarkably well, probably in part due to the dense fabric created by a gauge of 10 rows per inch.

Another gratuitous innards picture (the colors look most accurate here).  Just bear with me; I like this knit a lot! ;-)

They felt great!

Sometimes, having a stash does come in handy, like these two skeins of Cascade 220 that've been sitting around for the ages.  Just perfect for trying out those house slippers in Knit 2 Together.

I used slightly smaller needles (7 and 8 mm) to account for the thinner yarn, knit the smallest size, and hoped they'd fit a seven year old by fudging the felting (such as stopping the felting before they got too small, and if they're still big after the felting, the recipient could always grow into them.)

I had to throw these into the dryer for about a half hour, as hand felting them wasn't doing too much. They ended up about US size 3-4 (the garter stitch soles can stretch a bit).  I almost got Y to try them on, until he saw:

Courtesy of puffy fabric paint.  It was difficult squeezing out an even line out of the paint pen, and drawing on the uneven surface at the same time, but it works to keep these non-slip. ETA: the paint comes off easily in the garter stitch ditches, which have less contact with the paint.

I was lucky to have found some Peruvian wool with the same yardage as Cascade 220 at the Kowloon City lys.  The stuff comes in 50g, for cheaps, but the colors are very limited.  So I bought a ball of white and dyed it with two packs of Berry blue Koolaid, used the leftover green for the soles, and voila, slippers for Y!

As you can see, the stuff from the lys felts to a much fuzzier fabric. (I like that!) Anyway, sorry for the hasty post. There's still a ton of stuff to do before going on vacation in a week's time.  The pink slippers are the must-do gift #2.  Just one more must-do to go!

A brand new toy for the birthday boy

I just had to make Otto, from Lucinda Guy's book, 'And so to bed'. It's those big googly eyes that had me wanting.  This was to be a frivolous knit, something with no purpose other than to satisfy the urge to make something cute.  I'm not even a stuffed toy kind of person.  But when Y saw me making Otto, he assumed it was his birthday present.  I was a bit surprised, and maybe secretly pleased that he would be happy to have a little stuffed owl.  I expected he would want something less soft, or more electronic, like a Gundam model, or a Gameboy. 

Of course, since it was to be Y's toy, he had his say about where the eyes go.

I knit this on 3.75mm needles for a tighter fabric, and used single, instead of double fabric for the wings.  The Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK is sooo soft, I would love to use it for a garment (for me, heh)  There were a couple of odd things about this yarn; the cream was noticeably thinner than the grey, and instead of knots, both the grey balls of yarn had cut off bits of yarn.  The finishing took forever, considering it's so small, but the result is definitely worth it! :-)

Happy B-day to Y! I can't believe my baby is seven years old already.  You know, there's a cute fox (heh) in the same book too. Do you think I could make that for Y next year? ;-)

It's sassy! It's got swing!

The fringe is in!

I wish! :-)

I haven't done any knitting for over ten days. At first, I could attribute that to exam preparations with the boys, or the flu (which was quite bad this time).  But the last exams ended yesterday, and I'm recovering from the flu, and yet, I can't seem to get started on weaving in those ends. Is it any wonder I don't do more colorwork? :-)

The neckband is puckering a bit, which I might re-do if blocking can't cure it. I did enjoy grafting the side, which turned out better than I'd hoped.

Now if I can get my head around weaving in those ends!

A case of the blues

Carrie, the Kim Kit I'd been wanting to knit for Project Spectrum's blue June, has been put on the to-do-later queue. After knitting two consecutive thin-yarn projects (Nicole and the Icarus Shawl), I need a quick knit!

I'd mentioned these blue Rowan DK Cottons last year, but let's quickly recap.  The yarn was purchased for Toby, a boy's intarsia zip-up cardi from Rowan 33. I was weak in the face of a million ends to weave in and when I got half way up the back piece, I ripped it.  I thought of using the yarn to make a vertical stripe vest instead. After mulling it over on and off for over a year, it's time to start! Hehe, I do get to things eventually. :-)

I found using knitter's graph paper really useful. While regular graph paper is fine, it's easier to visualize the final article when the proportions are correct.

This isn't a very clear picture, but you get the idea. On the left is my 20 st x 28 rows/4" graph paper, and regular square graph paper on the right. The vest is knit sideways, starting from the left side of the graph, and with a provisional cast on so that I could knit the vest in one piece and graft the one side.

I have this habit of finishing with a purl row before calling it a day, and then place the knit with the right side up on my table. Then a couple of days ago, I flipped it to the 'wrong' side.

Well, helloooo! The stripes look woven/ pinstripy as reverse st st. I kind of like this side better now. What do you think? Good thing I didn't weave in the ends as I knit. Did I mention this was quick? I started on Friday evening, and I'm at the middle front now. (We'll ignore the ends for now. :-) I did carry the navy up the sides to reduce some of the ends.)  Maybe I'll get my son to choose sides. ;-)