Four Days Baby Sweater

Now it can be told. The men in my household are all taciturn. It's hard to get vital information out of them.
James came home from school in early February and mentioned that one of his favorite teachers, a mentor, had departed for paternity leave.
That was all the information I got. No gender, no name, nothing. I went to my "gift" stash and found a pair of baby legwarmers. Not right. I searched through my yarn stash for gender neutral yarns and settled on a navy blue acrylic. I four days, I completed a sweater/jacket in the 6 mos-1 year size. I actually looks good.
Present delivered and I think the recipient was both surprised an pleased. I'm determined to knit a small stock of these to have ready. My only problem is choosing colors. I get totally indecisive about color choices for babies. I want to choose something other than the traditional pink/blue/green/yellow. What works?

Metro Bauhaus

I'm STILL not sure what to make of this project. I love the colors. They are exactly what I like to wear. I love the look, which evokes the Bauhaus School of Design. The pattern I used was called Metro Cowl, which specified laceweight yarn on a size 8 needle. That does not work for me. I substituted a worsted weight yarn and got something different than the pattern. The main difference is the width of the stripe. Obviously, the laceweight yarn would produce finer stripes. Even so, on size 8 needless? For me, the laceweight yarn that I have purchased is quite fine, like a crochet cord. Putting that on size 8 needles produces a loose mess. Worsted weight yarn knits up nicely but changes the look and texture. The original cowl had a red zipper sewn in. Instead of a zipper, I added a red strip. I did this because my neck is short and a zipper, especially an open zipper, would be abrasive and uncomfortable near my skin.
I ended up knitting a full lining for the cowl, to make it warm and to prevent the fabric from rolling. It may work.

Knitting Under Any Circumstance

January was not a good month. On January 5th, I was in an auto accident. Luckily, no one was injured. Luckily, the accident happened in the parking lot at work and the weather was mild. Also, the accident was clearly not my fault. I am grateful for all of that. Really.

Still, it WAS an auto accident. My car is still not fixed, some five weeks later.....

How does this relate to knitting you ask? Well....
After the immediate flurry of accident-related duties involving insurance and phone calls and the other guy driving away, I was left waiting for the tow truck to collect the remains of my car. While I was waiting, I sat an knit on these fingerless gloves. I'm sure I was a sight to see, sitting in a crashed car, knitting away. Frankly, the knitting kept me sane. It also kept me from visibly freaking out while my body figured out just how stiff, sore and grumbly I was going to be the next day.

My car is old, but not quite worth totalling. I'm on my second rental contract. Ouch. At least my hands are warm. The pattern used is Jacoby, which I have knit before and will knit again. Easy and looks good in sock yarn.

Raven Needed a New Bag

I knit a bag to hold my knitting.....

In 2008 I knit a tote bag from Paton's SWS and have been using it ever since. My cat LOVES it. She sat on that bag at every opportunity. I have given up and given her that bag.

The photo at left shows my new, Windmill Bag, knit from my last stash of Slate SWS. It used exactly 3 skeins. This was a fabulous project on an advanced beginner level. The project was knit entirely in garter stitch. The bag is really just four short garter stitch strips. The strips could be sewn together, but I knit the bag in one piece, picking up stitches to start each new strip. The name, "Windmill" describes the layout of the finished knit, before seaming the sides.

I blocked this bag, but did not felt it. SWS felts very well, so I still have the option. Most likely, the bag will felt in use. This was a great, easy project.

French Press Cozy

This was a quick project. Finally I made a knit that my husband actually used. It only took me 25 years or so.

Over the Summer, we did a full kitchen renovation. The space was ripped out to the bare walls. In the preparatory packing, we discarded a lot of old kitchen appliances and so forth.

When we got access to the new kitchen, my husband went out and got an expensive new coffee maker. He hated it. Said the coffee tasted funny. We when through soakings and vinegar rinses. Eventually, Ian went out and bought a French Press, which he LOVES. It cost about 1/4 the price of the fancy coffee maker, which is sitting in the basement. The only drawback is that the coffee cools quickly.

Hence, the cozy. It was knit of aran weight wool blend yarn. It is a simple 6" x 10" rectangle with a seed stitch border that ties onto the press. It keeps the coffee warm long enough for my husband to drink the entire pot. He does not share.

Addendum: I gave Ian a steel, thermal French Press for Christmas. The old press lets us make enough coffee for more people or will be used for tea.

Barakh

Ok, I've REALLY been procrastinating. This is the finished sample pouch. The Hebrew lettering for Barckh/Baruch is on the bottom of the pouch. It took me forever to figure out the correct way to knit this. First, I had to find a source for the word Baruch in Hebrew. Since I have no working knowledge of the language, this was difficult. The next step was to find charted Hebrew letters. I was eventually able to find the charts in a site that specializes in needlepoint. I'll post links below once I find them again. I did most of the research during the early Autumn and probably finished the knitting before November. The pouch was knitted entirely in laceweight yarn on size zero double pointed needles.

I knit the pouch using Fair Isle techniques. I hated every minute of the stranding. It was so tedious. In retrospect, this pouch should have been knit in the stripes shown, with the lettering added in duplicate stitch. It would have been much easier. Final note: The pouch was a gauge/size prototype for a bookmark. Not what I wanted. It was too thick. The stranded yarn and circular construction made it too dense for a proper bookmark.

Finally Leaves I Like

Finally I have knit a leaf that I liked. I've been playing with leaves for several years and quite a few $$$$$$ in books and patterns and yarn. In fact, I remember an earlier blog post about it.
This leaf was knit using Knitpicks Chroma Yarn. I chose the part of the yarn to get the color change. This particular skein is a leftover from a woven project.
Precious leaves have been made in worsted weight yarns in a variety of color schemes. Variegated yarn looks like clown spew. I finally ended up throwing out a good deal of the horribleness.
The leaf that I like is two sided, circularly knit with a fingering weight yarn. The leaf lies flat and have two smooth sides. For me, that is needed.
I'm now working on a leaf bookmark in Knitpicks Shadow Forest Heather, a laceweight yarn. I'm very happy with that and will post a photo as soon as it is finished. The laceweight project is the sample for a very, very special bookmark project I want to start.
I'll be alternating knitting and beading for a bit longer.