Busy little bees

Ideally, I would have posted the last few months, at least monthly. I feel like I haven't really completed enough items but I've got tons of pieces that I've been working on. I guess I'll just share those with you here.

First of all, in my last post, I mentioned the beautiful socks I was knitting for my choir director. I did finish them in time for the end of February and they turned out great! I gave them to my friend and he was so appreciative. He gave me two hugs! (He's a very nice flamboyant man, so no worries.) I liked them so much, I went out and bought myself the same yarns.

March's socks were some that I was very much looking forward to knitting, as they were my Christmas gift (the yarn, anyway). I wanted to knit some fun socks for when I referee volleyball in the fall, and I have to wear boring old black socks. I thought it would be fun to do neon heels, toes, and cuffs, since no one would see them under my pant legs and with my shoes on, so I found a neat pattern and ordered some yarn. I got the black from Knit Picks (Stroll yarn) and the bright colors are not only neon, but black-light reactive! I found them on this amazing shop on Etsy. I want to buy a full skein of it, but it's coming from the U.K. and I need to justify the shipping. Alice, the shop owner, is very generous. She sent me a DK set of minis instead of fingering, and instead of paying shipping to return them, she let me keep them! This is not the last of this yarn! I also have enough for my blanket. The pattern is called Candyman and I think they turned out just perfect.

I'll just keep going with socks while I'm on a roll. April's socks were another pair I was looking forward to. I love the Coffee Talk socks from one of the Grocery Girls. I've been wanting to make a pair for a while. I bought this yarn around Christmas last year as well, from lolodidit, when I bought the yarn for my mom's birthday hat. I don't think I got a photo of the hat up here yet. I have one somewhere. The socks are sparkle, but they weren't that soft. I'm not in love with sparkle yarn, although I have more for July from lolodidit.

I am not a fan of cuff-down socks, and this just reminded me why. I have really big feet and after I knit the cuff and leg for ages, I didn’t have any of the hard stuff done, and I couldn’t try them on until they were about 80% done to make sure they were going to fit. I love the pattern, the striping and the reverse stockinette, but next time I will knit these toe-up. They are still waiting to be blocked, so I still don't have a great photo of them. 

 

I just had to share these photos. My little Blessing insisted on wearing these socks as soon as I had them off the needles. He would not take them off! So cute.

May socks were some quick and easy striped socks for my hubby, using Knit Picks Felici. I have heard great things about this yarn, and while I wanted to try it, I didn't have the budget to spend a lot. I bought this yarn on clearance and wasn't wild about it. The yarn itself is very soft, but the colors just aren't me. My hubby likes them, so they are for him. The stripes are a little flip-flopped, which is fine, and they happened to work out to be within a row of the color changes.

I worked on these during our looooong drive to the Grand Canyon, but the snow (yes, in late May!) was so beautiful, I didn't get a lot of knitting done on them. Toe-up, afterthought heel, taat. I used a pattern, but did not like the fiddly-ness of the cables after the third or fourth repeat. I asked my hubby if he minded that there were only a few cables and he honestly did not even notice.

June's socks are another pair I'm really looking forward to having. The pattern is by Joji Locatelli and it's beautiful. I have some yarn I've been holding on to for years and they are supposed to be fraternal twins, so I am flip-flopping the colors on the 2nd sock. It's been a long time since I've knit just one sock at a time, so I wanted to knit the 2nd one right away, so I don't procrastinate. I'm so close to finishing, and the first sock fits so great!

I guess that's all the socks I've made this year so far. I'm still going strong on the 12 pair goal, although I've fallen behind on my hats. I'm up to 14 now, but I should be at 20-something by this week. I've got to play catch-up this summer in between all my socks and other projects.

Another FO is my Grandma's sweater. I wanted it done before Mothers' Day, which it was. I finished the front and back in March, but I didn't sew it together and knit the sleeve ribbing until the weekend before. At least I got it done. It turned out cute and she loved it. It fit like a glove, and it's very stretchy, so it will fit if she loses weight or gains.

I love the look of the ribbing around the waist, which would be very flattering for boxy shapes. It was quick and easy, but I don't know if I would ever knit it again.

I fell in love with a shawl as soon as I saw it. The colors are what drew me, and it was an obsession for a short time. I bought the pattern and found yarn in my stash that I thought would make a good fade. I settled on these 5, which is going to make this thing massive!

I started with the light yellow and went to the left. It was a sparkle yarn and used all but about 5g. I'm on the third color, and it's like knitting 3 pairs of socks! It is on hold until I finish these current socks and get caught up on hats, and then I'm all over it. It is much larger than this photo by now, but this shows the detail well.

I also participated in the Mystery Knit-a-Long that I mentioned in the last post, and it turned out so beautiful. I *love* how it feels, but I haven't worn it yet. It still needs to be blocked. I had fun waiting each week to find out what each clue would look like.

I also had an order for a baby viking hat and baby beard from my Etsy shop. It used up some of my excess beard yarn and got me some more yarn funds.

I've been wanting to make a colorwork sweater for a while. I know I need to get some practice with making my floats loose enough, so I pulled out this cowl I've had yarn for for a while. I love the little sheep and alpacas! It turned out pretty well, but tons of ends to weave in, and it still is a little tight in parts. I have enough yarn leftover to make something else, whether it be little mitts for one of the boys or something else fun.

As I mentioned above, we went on a trip to the southwest U.S., so I knew we *should* have warm weather. I wanted to make a new swimsuit cover-up for my new swimsuit, and I had some Mandala yarn that I hadn't slated for anything else. I found a great easy pattern that would use up two skeins, which are all I had of that color, which is called Chimera.

The last big project I've started recently was another knit-a-long, for a sweater. I watched a podcast with the pattern author and was riveted. I need another sweater quantity like a hole in my head, but I just wanted to be able to knit the pattern for all the amazing tips. I am convinced that I need to do as many of Patty Lyons' classes as possible, as well as take her course on Bluprint, "Improve Your Knitting."

The current (well, was current) project is the Roselle Tee, which is a short-sleeve tee with a bit of lace on the torso and the sleeves. It is cute, and will be my first summery project. I started it, but made a few mistakes. I also wanted to watch her class and do a good job of knitting well. I am also in the process of losing weight, so I don't want to spend weeks knitting (and purling) a sweater that won't fit great by the time I get it done. I've bought the navy to start with, but I also bought a very pretty teal green.

I really hate ripping things out, especially since half of it is purling, but I already made mistakes, and I think I'll be able to knit a smaller size if I wait.

Well, that does it for all my projects. You're all caught up now. I hope to make several hats over the the summer to stay on track, keep going on all my socks, and finish a couple more shawls this summer, and then start on Christmas gift knitting. Homeschool will start within that time as well, so we'll see how that affects my knitting time. Until next time, keep on crafting!

Cranking out some projects!

While I don't feel like I've knit a whole lot of interesting things so far this year, I have made a lot of things. My goal was to make a couple of sweaters, 52 hats for charity, and 12 pairs of socks, and so far, I'm right on track for the hats, I'm ahead on the socks, and I'm already nearly done with the 2nd sweater! I've got to find some more projects...

I'll start with hats. As I mentioned in my last post, I'd like to knit or crochet 52 hats this year for my Grandma's church's charity. I have never made anything for something like this, and I felt that if I have the time and resources to make myself so many beautiful things, I can make some for others. I have quite a bit of random colors of worsted and DK weight yarn, leftovers from past projects and skeins Grandma let me pick out of her huge stash. Most of it is acrylic, and all of it is too much to just cannibalize for the Ugly Square. So I am going to use up what I can to make hats this year. Much of it is pinks and purples, or baby yarn, and at this time, with 3 little boys and a nephew, I just don't have much use for those things. And much of it is very old (30+ years on some of it!) and scratchy, and I don't think I would enjoy making things with it, let alone wearing it. Grandma uses whatever she wants with her projects, so I figured I could too.

It is the 3rd week of February, and I am up to 8 completed hats. I showed 3 last time. I have a couple more Chiefs colored ones, and the others are combinations of pretty variegated yarns I have had.

I have been using the same pattern for each one, now that I have it memorized, and it was from a Red Heart label. I haven't been religiously working on these every week, but I am keeping up and catching up when I need to. I am making the "adult size" on the pattern, but I think my gauge must be pretty tight, because I can't wear these hats. I could wear the first hat. I don't know what I've changed. They at least fit the boys. Grandma tells me that she made 150 hats last year, and nearly as many twiddle muffs. I will stick to my 52...

Part of the reason I haven't been making hats every week is because I am participating in the Grocery Girls Podcast sock bash. I have planned out my entire year in yarn and patterns so I can complete a pair of socks each month (WIP's don't count) that fits the theme. At the end of the year, I would like to enter for their grand prize, which might be something really cool, and there are decent odds of winning if you complete all 12. I have on my calendar (yes, I am like that) for the first 2 weeks every month to work on socks, so I can complete them early and get them posted in time. For February, the theme is cables:

The yarn is Opal, and when it was in the ball I wasn't too keen on knitting it. I bought it to add some different colors to my sock yarn scrap blanket, but it didn't look like anything I normally wear. Once I caked it up, though, I started to see how beautiful it is. My hubby even said if I wanted to knit him a pair out of that yarn he would love them! We'll see...

I knit the Felia socks, but I started them toe-up. I am self-conscious about knitting cuff-down socks with my big giant feet. I just don't want to run out of yarn right before the toe and have to find something else that matches. I messed up the chart a little by looking at it upside-down (you can see the bottom is different than the top in the upper photo), so I wish I had done a better job on that, but I think they turned out neat. I was in a rush to finish them, since February is a shorter month and I had other goals in mind, so when the cable pattern took too long for me, I did the chart once and finished it. I wore them yesterday, and I really like just the detail on the top of the foot. No one knows it's there but me, unless I am home with my shoes off.

I over-estimated how much yarn it would take for the KirbyWirby Afterthought Heel and the cuff, so the leg is a little short and I have a LOT left over for my blanket. I love the little cables in the ribbing, and these socks don't fall down like most of my others, so I may keep the length. Love the heel! It makes so much sense. I posted about it on my Ravelry projects here.


Once I finished the socks, I started on Grandma's sweater. I showed a photo of the hot pink sweater I'm making for my Grandma, out of yarn she was donated. I quickly finished the front that was pictured and started on another project, then the 1st rolled around and I wanted to work on my cabled socks. Once I finished those socks, I jumped right in on the back of the sweater, which is identical. I am about at the same place as the photo, so I won't include one this time. I plan to finish it this weekend and do all the finishing work next week, unless I don't have time to finish the other project I'm working on, in which case I'll save it for next month. I showed it to her today, and she loved it. She even liked the reverse side, so I told her she can wear it however she wants!

The last project I'm working on right now is another pair of socks. I don't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but I sing with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus under a fantastic and charismatic director. I take my knitting to nearly every rehearsal, and when I was working on the black and neon socks last month, he walked by and said that his 1 pair of hand-knitted socks were his favorite, then jokingly told me he's a size 8 1/2. I told him my feet were size 10 1/2, and he said that it's basically the same size in socks. So I thought, I'm knitting myself 12 pairs of socks (give or take 1 or 2--my hubby has some queued up too), and I hardly even wear socks. This man wears socks every day of his life (I've maybe seen him in sandals once in 6 years), so surely I can knit him a pair. I went out and bought a beautiful pair of balls of Patons Kroy yarn from Hobby Lobby the next day, and I'm working on toe-up Vanilla Latte socks for him. I am hoping to have them done by Thursday (6 more days) so I can enter them for February's sock bash. I *love* the yarn colors! They started with navy in the toe, then teal with navy flecks, then burgundy, and light blue with teal and purple flecks. I don't have a photo of them yet, but I'm getting ready to start the heel, so I will have them done for my next post. I can't wait to see his face when I give them to him! He even mentioned it to me again this week, as I was working on my Felia socks before rehearsal. I told him I already bought yarn, but I don't think he heard me as someone else started talking to him. They are flying off the needles, being mostly stockinette.

Next month, along with my socks, hats, and finishing up Grandma's sweater, I'm taking part in my very first mystery knit along! It is a sport weight cowl, and I immediately knew exactly what I wanted to use. I have some Road to China Light that I bought on destash last summer that didn't have a designated project, so it is my new cowl! I wound it up the other night, and now I can't stop touching it! I am going to enjoy the heck out of knitting and then wearing this puppy. They release a clue a week for 4 weeks, so hopefully between making socks, hats, and taking care of little people I might be able to keep up. I'm so excited! I've been wanting to do a MKAL for a few months, and it seems like spring is the time for them. I can't wait to see what it looks like.

Finally, I have a photo of a FO in the wild. I love this outfit today, and my favorite shawl is one of the best parts of it!

New Year, New Goals

It’s been a little while, and I still haven’t gotten around to making my post about all the projects I finished in the last year. I will have to do that in another post, so I can sort everything a little better.

So far for 2019, I have completed an entire sweater, a pair of socks, and 3 hats! I’m pretty impressed with myself, and pleased with how the projects are turning out. One of the podcasts I watch was running a “Knit your behind off” sweater KAL from January 1 through 31, so I gave myself the deadline of 2 weeks, and made it! I knit an entire worsted weight, size 2X sweater for myself in only 11 days! I had it washed and blocked and was wearing it before my deadline. I couldn’t believe how quickly it went.

I knit the Weekender by Andrea Mowry. I bought the yarn for this sweater back in August, after the same podcast ladies were talking about it in detail, so I thought it would be a good one to try for myself. I used cheap(er) wool from JoAnn’s, Paton’s Classic Wool Worsted in a gray color. It was really the only one they had 8 skeins of the same dye lot that day, or else I would probably have picked a different color. I started on the sweater and knit about 2/3 of one ball the first couple of days, and thought I might be cutting it close on the yardage, so I bought 1 more skein, from a different dye lot. I added a couple of inches to the body (I have a long torso and didn’t want my belly to show), and I worked the stitch count for the 3X sleeves, since my arms were larger than the 2X schematic.

The sweater turned out huge, and I didn’t even use a full 7 skeins! I don’t know how my gauge got so far off. I did actually swatch (I didn’t want to knit for hours on a sweater and not have it fit!), but somehow my gauge was a little bigger, and I didn’t use nearly as much yarn as I should have. The sweater is supposed to have quite a bit of positive ease, but mine has so much. It is very slouchy, and I don’t think I’ll be wearing it out as much as I would like. I do wear it all the time at home, though. It is incredibly warm! I went out in 20 degree weather the other night, and didn’t realize I wasn’t wearing my coat until we left the venue after the sun went down! It fits like a very oversized sweatshirt, which is nice, because none of mine really fit anymore. I’m just proud to have something that I made to wear. If I end up losing some weight, I might even steek it under the arms to make it a little less boxy, but I’m not worried about it right now. I don’t mind the scratchiness of the less expensive wool, and I’m planning another sweater in the same wool later. I even took back the 2 skeins and exchanged them for two of the other colors I would like. I posted more details about the sweater here.

So, I get to check “make a sweater for myself” off the list, finally! I’m so happy. I have yarn to make several more, of varying weights: 4 fingering weight, 1 sport, 3 DK weight, 3 more worsted. I would like to lose weight before I make something more fitted for myself, but for the first project, I’m okay with this boxy one. I wouldn’t even mind knitting another Weekender in the future. It was a very enjoyable knit. Maybe I’ll buy some softer, more colorful yarn next time.

The sweater was all I knit for the first 2 weeks of 2019. I have set a new goal for myself to knit 52 hats for charity this year. My Grandma has been doing this for years, along with several ladies from her church. I would love to start creating for other people as well, as I’ve never done anything like that. I did look into the NICU octopus project, but their guidelines are so stringent, I didn’t see myself being successful at that. So I am going to make at least 52 hats, one per week, to donate to Grandma’s church’s clothes closet. Since I only worked on the sweater the first 2 weeks, I had some catching up to do. I pulled out some Red Heart from my stash (this is also going to be a great stashbuster for me!), and on the label was a neat crochet pattern. I have been knitting so much lately, I was relieved to find something to crochet, for once. I crocheted that hat in 2 hours! One hat down, 51 to go!

I had some red and yellow in a bag from last Christmas (2017) from an abandoned project, so I planned to make a couple of Chiefs hats, since they were doing so well in the post-season. Then, I saw that one of the podcasts was having a colorwork KAL, so I found a nice pattern that I could knit and enter another hat. This one took a little longer, but turned out nice as well.

My third hat for the year is also colorwork, but it is crocheted instead of knitted. I have never done anything like this with crochet, and it was a little more work than I bargained for. The yarn kept getting so twisted up, it took a lot longer because I had to keep untwisting it. I thought it would make an adult size hat, but this one barely fits my 2-year-old. Someone will be able to wear it, though. More stashbusting!

My last finished project this year is a pair of socks!! I feel like a knitting machine. I have never completed a pair of socks so quickly, not even the size 6 short summer socks I made for my sister-in-law. The Grocery Girls podcast is running a monthly "sock bash" where each month has a different theme. They have posted all the themes for the year, so I carefully planned out every pair of socks I am making this year to hopefully match the themes, as well as take care of some of my own desires. I have been collecting sock yarn for over a year now, and I figured it was time to start doing something with it. I have enough yarn to make at least 16 pair, and I thought a pair a month would be good, plus all of my other dream projects.

January's theme was "local to me" and I just happened to have 1 skein of yarn from a dyer a few towns over. I purchased it when I was on my way home from a volleyball tournament in the same town this fall, and I didn't plan to do anything with it right away. I bought it because I didn't have anything like it in my stash, and I was collecting bright colors to add some variety to my sock yarn blanket.Since it was the only yarn I had that would fit the theme, I went ahead and added it to the queue (after my sweater, of course!). I was hoping that I could complete the sweater in 2 weeks, and then spend the other 2 weeks of the month on the socks, but the socks only took me 8 days to finish! I posted about them here.

I love these socks more than I probably should, and even my hubby is super impressed with how neat the colors play together. I used the Blueberry Waffles pattern, with Sockmatician's Toe-up Recipe. I made a similar pair last year, but I made these a little shorter in the foot and the leg, so maybe they'll wear a little more snugly. I wore the other pair today, though, and they are really nice, if not a little baggy!

I started 2 other projects that I will be working on over the next few months. Well, one is an ongoing project that will probably never be "finished"--a cozy memories sock yarn blanket that I have tons of fingering weight yarn to add to. I have been buying mini skeins and random bright colors with the intention of making it more diverse. I like blues and purples and teals, so that's what I pick out. So I have been purchasing bright neon yarns, oranges, yellows, reds, and bright greens to give my blanket some variety. I haven't taken a photo of it yet, but I only have 3 tiny squares done. I hope to add a square a day once I finish my next project. They are about 2-3" square, so I will need lots and lots of them to make it at all usable. And I need to weave in ends as I go. Like every other day! I hate weaving ends...

The last project I am currently working on is a sweater I mentioned, for my Grandma. Someone donated a lot of yarn to her knitting group for the charity hats and twiddle muffs, and there was an unopened package of this cotton yarn in the mix. It was enough for a small sweater, not my size, so I asked Grandma to pick out a pattern from a few I had researched. She chose this one, made with the same yarn, so I knew it would look good.

So far, it is coming right along. It is about half and half knit and purl, and I feel like I purl so slowly. I knit continental, and the way I hold my yarn (the same way Grandma taught me, and how I hold it to crochet) makes it difficult to purl the way I've seen some other continental knitters do. I am exploring ways to make it faster or easier, but this sweater is a size small, it is an interesting yet very memorizable pattern, and it's worsted weight, so it is going very quickly. I just started on the front sleeves this evening, and I just started it Wednesday.

I guess I also started on a shawl the other day as well. I couldn't work on my socks during the last Chiefs' game because I knew I would be so tense it would throw my tension off, so I started a new project. I got this yarn from Grandma last year, as it was a donation to her that she said she wouldn't use. It's a beautiful fingering weight merino/mohair/nylon blend, and I only have 1 extra-large skein of it, so I decided to make a Spindrift shawl. I wanted to learn a new way to purl, and since this is in stockinette (knit one side, purl the other), I decided to try to knit the whole piece with the yarn in my right hand and "flick" it. I made it about 8 stitches before I gave up. I need to have lots of time to practice, and to be able to go slow, and not be worried about my home team not going to the Super Bowl again. I might work on this some more once I finish Grandma's sweater.

The only other thing I need to do right away is make another hat. I still have lots of the red and yellow Red Heart, so I might make another ombre knit hat, or I might try a different colorwork pattern. Once the colorwork KAL is over, I will be exclusively crocheting hats unless I find a ridiculously easy and fast knit pattern. Crocheting them is so much faster...

I will try to catch up with last year's projects in the near future. There were far too many projects finished between my last post and the end of the year to include them all in this post, but I'll try to get a post up soon of them. And the boys' newly decorated rooms. Sheesh, it's a lot to keep up with. Wish me luck.

Happy crafting and happy New Year!