Shedir hat and mittens

hat_shedir_set
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

I really loved the Shedir hat pattern and the stash yarn I chose to make it with is so soft!

I wanted a stretchy edge so it wouldn't be tight around my head and after much searching, found that the Twisted German Cast On would do the trick.

When I was done I still had 2 balls left and thought it would be awesome to have some matching mittens. I looked around and didn't really find any Shedir inspired mittens so I decided to design them myself. 

I think they came out pretty good!

I'm putting the pattern together (and making a new, clean chart) so I hope to post it soon. 

Pattern Link:

• Shedir Hat (pdf)
  

Caston:

• Twisted German Cast On (google search - there are hundres of youtube videos and photo tutorials.)

Pirate Mittens

pirate mittens
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Yay! I finished them! I think they came out pretty snazzy and I used way less yarn than I thought I would so there's still a lot of this salmony/pinkish yarn left over.

I then decided that I had to start another project so I cast on a hat. I learned a new cast-on method because I wanted something that was stretchy. After searching around quite a bit, it seemed that the Twisted German Cast On seemed to be the one people most suggested for stretchyness. I cast on the recommended 128 stitches 'cause I hate swatching and that turned out to be too much, so after a couple of rows, I frogged it and started over with fewer stitches - 116.

I guess that my thumb does a lot more work for this cast on 'cause the next day the area around my left thumb was killing me! It would cramp up and I had to keep massaging it to stop the pain.

I'm loving the hat though and the edge is definitely stretchy.

Mittens

A while back I promised my friend I'd make her Pirate Mittens. I finally started them the other day. I'm done with one mitten and have started the second, although I haven't taken more pictures yet.

When I told my best friend, she thought the mittens were really cool - and then she asked me: "What about MY (her) gloves?" Oops! I'm almost done with them. Really! Well, I've been almost done with them since December... I just need to make the fingers on the second glove. So after these mittens are done, I'll be finishing up her gloves. Then I can continue with my mom's shawl...and maybe start something else.

Pattern Link:

• Pirate Mittens
  

Heartland - first section

Heartland Lace Shawl
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Here's the first photo!

I learned a new thing. Apparently, when you have a garter stitch edging, the best way to start out a shawl is by making a "tab".

In this case, I had to cast on 2 stitches, then knit 7 rows of garter stitch (that's knitting every row). Then, I turn the piece of knitting on it's side and pick up 3 stitches (one in each purl row) and then 2 in the 2 original stitches - making up a total of 7 stitches.

At first, when I read this explanation, I was a little confused and couldn't visualize it so I made one on some practice yarn and it was simple to understand once I followed the steps.

So far, I've only had to tink back 2 rows when I missed some YOs.

One thing that I realized almost immediately was that I cannot do this and talk or watch tv or whatever. I have to concentrate on the directions so no taking this to knit night or to work on while commuting.

Also, during my research, I noticed that many people talked about "life lines". This is a thin length of string (or someone even recommended dental floss) that you thread through the loops of one of the purl rows. You do this every few rows and can remove the prior one when adding a new one, if you prefer, always making sure to note which row you have lifelined. The purpose of it is to save yourself a ton of aggravation if you have to frog back some rows. Since the lace pattern will have many YOs and SSKs/K2TOG, it's really hard to keep track if you have to frog. With the lifeline, you simply rip back up to the lifeline and thread your needle back in and then start again from there without having to worry about dropped stitches.

I'll probably not work on this again until next week.

Heartland Shawl

I decided! I'm making the Heartland Lace Shawl. I cast it on last night and knit up the first section. I started out with 2 stitches and I'm up to 59.

I'm going to try to document my progress so photos will be coming soon.

My first shawl

Ok... this is it. I decided about 2 months ago that I wanted to make a shawl for my mom. I know I would most likely never wear one - well, maybe I would, with a dress... but I hardly wear dresses. I do know that my mom would wear a shawl. She has made a couple for herself (she crochets).

I wanted to start with something pretty, yet very simple for my first shawl. There are tons of finished shawls on Ravlery and that's where I was able to see the many different yarns, colors and sizes many different shawls. Anyway, after much browsing and researching, I narrowed down the choices to 2 simple shawls by the same designer. Since a lot of people use Flickr to post their images on Ravelry, I did a search on them and here are the Flickr results: Heartland Shawls and Swallowtail Shawls.

Fleece Artist Somoko Yarn
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Then, the other day when I went into my LYS because of a 40% off moving sale (they are relocating to about 1 block away and say that with the sale, they won't have to lug so much stuff to the new store) I found some beautiful yarn. There was only one skein and it was beautifully hand painted. Amid the other sale choices, I decided that this yarn was PERFECT. In fact, I loved it so much that I PAID FULL PRICE: $25 for the one skein. I was a little freaked out. I really hate buying anything for full price, let alone one measly skein of yarn.

Isn't it pretty?

Fleece Artist Somoko #2
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

I got home, excited about this yarn 'cause I knew that I would get a great pattern of colors only to find it's not enough yarn!!! Argh!!

I still can't make myself return it though, so I'll have to see what else I can make.

*sigh*

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Pattern Links:

• Swallowtail Lace Shawl
• Heartland Lace Shawl

Still knitting along...

I'm still knitting! I thought maybe I would stop, that it would be another fad. After all, I knit a whole bunch a long time ago and the stopped... But I think I have learned a whole lot more this time around: the fact that I knit "combined" which is why my decreases were not coming out the way they should have and various techniques like how to knit in the round, Magic Loop and some different cast-ons and bind-offs. I knit my first pair of socks. So I'm a lot more conscious of the various elements of knitting.

There are so many resources on the web, it's incredible!

Baby Kimono
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Lately, I seemed to be stuck on repeat. I knit 5 Jayne hats for our Can't Stop the Serenity screening here in Chicago and they were well received, which was gratifying. I also made about 9 miniature Jayne hats with pins on the back. Those all sold, albeit slowly, but by the end of the night they were all gone.

Saartje's Baby Booties - with Mary Jane strap mod

Originally uploaded by vampirefan

S

o, I have finally been able to get back to my regular stuff. I started a baby kimono back in January in anticipation of my new niece, who should be arriving in September. I just about finished it. Just need to add on the ties. I also knit some matching baby booties and those just need for me to sew on the buttons and button loop. I knit them in the round per a helpful mod pattern and knit with Mary Jane straps according to another pattern mod.

Pattern Links:
Saartje's Bootees (Look for the link on the right-hand side of her blog.)
Sachiko Kimono Sweater

Too much yarn!

I've been buying more and more yarn lately. Loopy Yarns had a great clearance sale recently. They said they were sick of looking at the 60% off yarn already and to please come take it away for $1 a skein! Needless to say, I went as soon as I could and made away with a nice amount of yarn. I was able to find 12 skeins in one color so I gave those to my Mom. I've just updated my Stash page at Ravelry and now I have 55 skiens and still need to enter a few more.

Some of the clearance yarn is made up of only 1 skien of the particular type and/or color and some were 3 or 4 skiens of the same yarn but all different colors. I figure I use the different colors to knit a striped item, or use them for color work.

I also picked up a slightly tangled skien of sock yarn and I plan on using it to practice various sock toe up methods as well as some heel methods. I'm still a bit confused about short row heels and toes. They seem to be a great way to make a toe-up instead of starting with, say, a figure 8, and having to increase. I always get these ugly bumps with doing the increases. There are so many short row methods out there and I have to say that I became more and more confused. It seems that all the instructions assume you know how to get to the these things called wraps, and maybe it's easy, but I couldn't quite get a handle on it. I'm still searching around and now that I have fast internet at home, I can watch the videos about it.

Meanwhile I have 4 works in progress and need to finish them before I start another one with the new yarn.

I also ordered some circular needles recently and I'm really happy with them. They are bamboo and 40" long and very flexible. I've learned to do the Magic Loop method so they are perfect and the set of 15 cost me about $30 which is not bad at all.

I'll probably be getting rid of my Boye interchangeable needles which have very stiff cables.

Yarn and projects

Jayne Hat

The yarn came in from yarn.com and all of it was lovely! I also hit Loopy Yarns (a LYS) and took advantage of their January 40% 0ff sale and got a bunch of great yarn, including some yarn to be used to make a couple of Jayne hats for the annual Can't Stop the Serenity Charity screening we have started to host. I've already made one so far and I used much less yarn than I thought I would so I think I can make at least 2 more.

My Boring Hat

I've also made a few other things yet still haven't finished T's gloves! I made my sister a blue My Boring Hat, which she loves and I made another Grrr washcloth in red and gave it to another friend. I named it Jubal Early.

Grrr - Jubal Early version

My SIL is knocked up, and coincidentally, I had picked up some cotton yarn in pastel colors, so I've started a simple baby kimono for the baby (pattern found on Ravlery). I have a lot of time to make it, but it's really the easiest to knit while on the train while on my to and from work.

I'm planning on making some pirate mittens for a friend and I have a couple of different yarns to make socks with (although they scare me a bit since the recipes call for size 2US and 3US needles!

I still have a bunch of yarn I really don't know what to do with - yet.

Diamond Gloves

I finally wrote up the pattern for some gloves I made. I actually finished these around Dec 12, 2007.

I wanted to make some gloves but didn't want anything too complicated, yet I wanted to make one that involved creating a thumb gusset so I could see how it worked. I loved the straightforward pattern for Hogwarts House Gloves. Its overall construction was similar to other glove patterns but seemed to be explained in a much simpler manner.

(One of the gloves in the picture is inside out to show how the inside looks.)

I started out and caught on quickly. Very soon, I made modifications to the pattern so that it would fit my hand better and deviated even more from the original directions. I decided I had to have something on the gloves to break up the plainness, but didn't want to do the finger color changes since I didn't have any matching yarn anyways. It wouldn't make any sense using other colors.

I have a sock book from the library and it has a few stitch patterns at the end and I liked the diamond pattern but it was multiples of 6 and wouldn't fit properly on my 44 stitches. So, I modified the pattern to become a 4 stitch repeat. I think it worked out pretty good!

The bad thing was that I had not done any real colorwork before - at least, nothing that met up in the round - so I had no idea that there was a simple trick to keeping the rows even. Since I didn't know yet, my rows ended up not meeting up.

It didn't look terrible, but still, it would look much nicer if the rows were even. Despite this, I completed both gloves and they look nice. After I was done with them I researched on the web and due to some great help at Knitting on LiveJournal.com, found out that I needed to "jog my stitches".

I then made a matching hat and the diamond pattern matches up in the round really nicely!

Because of the modifications I made, I've written up the new pattern.

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Diamond Gloves
Inspired by Hogwarts House Gloves

Size: Adult Medium

Supplies needed
- 1 skien of Worsted Yarn [ I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Solids in Wheat ]
- About 10 Yards of contrast color [ I used Red Heart Solids in Dark Brown ]
- US #5 dpns
- Stitch markers
- Stitch holders (3) [ or 2 holders and a length of waste yarn ]
- Yarn/tapestry needle

Gauge: 6 stitches = 1 inch

Abbreviations
ss = stockinette stitch
ssk = slip, slip, knit (right-leaning decrease) [see Note ]
k2tog = knit 2 together (left-leaning decrease) [see Note ]
m1l = make 1 left
m1r = make 1 right
mc = main color
cc = contrast color
pm = place marker

NOTE: I knit combined, so if you don't, you will need to work the opposite decrease. i.e.:
~ instead of ssk, work a k2tog or whatever will result in a right-leaning decrease.
~ instead of k2tog, work a ssk or whatever will result in a left-leaning decrease.
Visit KnittingHelp.com for a better explanation about what a right-leaning decrease is.

Directions

- Cable Cast On (or the cast on of your choice) 44 stitches in mc. Arrange stitches on dpns and join. IMPORTANT: Pm to mark the beginning of the row.
- Knit the wrist ribbing: k2,p2 all the way around until cuff is about 2” (or as long as you prefer).
- Knit one row in ss, increasing 1 stitch along the way. You should now have 45 stitches.
- Knit one row in ss.
[Suggestion: During the knitting of the Thumb Gusset, arrange the stitches on your dpns as follows:
3 dpn: n1=18, n2=8(increases will occur on this needle), n3=18
4 dpn: n1=10, n2=10, n3=6(increases will occurr on this needle), n4=19]

Thumb Gusset
- Knit 22 stitches, pm, m1l, k1, m1r, pm, knit 22 stitches. You should now have 47 stitches
- Increase Rows: Knit to marker, slip marker, mil, knit to marker, m1r, slip marker, knit to end. You will be increasing 2 stitches in each increase row.
- Knit 3 rows of ss.
- Continue repeating the last 2 instructions (1 increase row, 3 ss rows = 4 rows) ending when you have 13 stitches between the markers (In other words, do not knit 3 rows of ss after you have done the increase which brings you up to 13 stitches).
- Knit to 1st gusset marker. Place the stitches between the markers (13 stitches) on a stitch holder or on waste yarn. Remove the markers used to mark the gusset increases. Knit to end. You should now have 44 stitches on your needles.
- Knit 1 row in ss.

Diamond Pattern
- Attach cc and follow chart for Diamond stitch pattern. (7 rows.) White boxes = mc. Brown boxes = cc. [NOTE: If you work the pattern by slipping the first stitch of the new color on each row in order to make your color rows meet evenly, the beginning of your row will shift by 7 stitches by the time you are done with the pattern. Make sure to keep the original marker you placed on needles to keep track of the beginning of the row. This will ensure that when you start your Little Finger, it will be opposite the thumb.]

The rest of the glove will use your mc only.

- Continuing from where your shifted rows ended up, complete the row in ss.
- Knit 1 row in ss.
- The body of the glove should be about 3½”, not including the ribbing. At the very least, it should reach the knuckle of your little finger. If not, knit a couple of more rows until it does.

Little Finger (arrange stitches on your needles as evenly as possible)
- Starting with stitch after your original marker, begining-of-row marker, knit 5 stitches.
- Place 34 stitches on 2 stitch holders (divide evenly).
- Cast on 1 stitch by doing a Backwards Loop Cast on.
- Knit the last 5 stitches. You should have 11 stitches total.
- Knit in ss until the finger measures about 2” (or until the tip of the finger)
- K2tog all the way around, ending with either k3tog or just knitting the last stitch by itself. Cut yarn. Thread tail through remaining loops, pull tight and weave in.

Attach yarn at base of little finger. Knit 1 row in ss knitting all the stitches that are on stitch holders. You should have 34 stitches on your needles.

Ring Finger (arrange stitches on your needles as evenly as possible)
- Attach yarn at base of Little Finger.
- Knit the 1st 5 stitches.
- Place all but last 5 stitches on stitch holders. Put these last 5 stitches on a dpn.
- Cast on 1 stitch by doing a Backwards Loop Cast on.
- Knit the last 5 stitches
- Pick up one stitch at base of Little Finger (between the little finger and the ring finger).
- You should now have 12 stitches.
- Knit in ss until the finger measures about 2½” (or until the tip of the finger)
- K2tog all the way around. Cut yarn. Thread tail through remaining loops, pull tight and weave in.

Middle Finger (arrange stitches on your needles as evenly as possible)
- Attach yarn at base of Little Finger.
- Knit the 1st 6 stitches that are on the stitch holder.
- Leave all but the last 6 stitches on stitch holders. Put these last 6 stitches on a dpn.
- Cast on 1 stitch by doing a Backwards Loop Cast on.
- Knit the last 6 stitches
- Pick up one stitch at base of Ring Finger (between the ring finger and the middle finger).
- You should now have 14 stitches.
- Knit in ss until the finger measures about 2¾” (or until the tip of the finger)
- K2tog all the way around. Cut yarn. Thread tail through remaining loops, pull tight and weave in

Index Finger (arrange stitches on your needles as evenly as possible)
- Attach yarn at base of Middle Finger and pick up 1 stitch.
- Knit the remaining 12 stitches.
- Pick up 1 stitch at the end of the row at the base of Middle Finger (between the middle finger and the index finger).
- You should now have 14 stitches.
- Knit in ss until the finger measures about 2½” (or until the tip of the finger)
- K2tog all the way around. Cut yarn. Thread tail through remaining loops, pull tight and weave in.

Thumb (arrange stitches on your needles as evenly as possible)
- Place the 13 stitches from the thumb gusset on your dpns.
- Attach yarn and knit the 13 stitches, picking up 2 stitches at the end of the row from the top of the gusset hole.
- You should now have 15 stitches.
- Knit in ss until the thumb measures about 1¾” (or until the tip of the thumb)
- K2tog all the way around. Cut yarn. Thread tail through remaining loops, pull tight and weave in.

Knit another glove.
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I gave these gloves to my dad for christmas and he really liked them.

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This pattern is available as a FREE download in PDF format, from the pattern store at Ravelry. (You must be a registered member of Ravelry to access it)