Category: Finished Projects

The banjos have stopped*

Wintergrass is wrapped for another year. It was a great festival, with a nice variety of music styles, and a diverse cast of performers. It’s tough to pick a favorite, so I won’t. This is the first time in two years we’ve been out doing much of anything other than with our close family and friend ”pods”. It was REALLY nice to be in a concert venue with live music. The festival is in Bellevue, which is in King County to the north of us, and they are still requiring masks and proof of vaccination for indoor spaces. They also sold only about the half the usual number of tickets (intentionally), so we felt pretty safe, especially since the Covid numbers have dropped pretty dramatically here.

I did get some knitting done. Here’s the sock in progress.

I started the long weekend with just the cuff of that second sock started, so got about half a sock knit. I also worked on a secret project that will be a gift, so I can’t show it to you. That sock yarn is from Three Irish Girls, it is their Adorn sock yarn, color name ”Tits Up!” (reference to a character in Mrs. Maisel).

I realized while uploading that photo that I completely missed posting a finished project.

Those are socks for John. The yarn is John Arbon Exmoor Sock yarn, colors Mackerel Sky and Mizzle. It’s the same ”pattern” I always use for socks.

I really am going to try to be a better blogger. Really.

*That could be the first line in a banjo haiku.

Done, done, and started

I’m apparently better at knitting and finishing things than I am about blogging about them. I have two finished pairs of socks to show.

I finished these about a month ago.

Those are for John. The yarn is Zen Yarn Garden Squooshy Sock, color Anna Grace. This is lovely yarn, though the color is one of those that is difficult to photograph accurately. It’s a summer sky blue, but looks more aqua in some of the photos.

I finished the second pair over the weekend. These are for me.

I love, love, love these. This is Opal sock yarn, the color is from their 25 years of Opal Jubilee Collection (#11047 if you are looking for it). Those colors will brighten up the gloomiest day.

Both pairs are my own basic pattern, top down, 72 stitches, heel flap and gusset, knit on 2.00 mm double point needles.

Here is the newly started pair.

The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature Sparkle sock yarn, color Vintage Tinsel. It’s much sparklier in real life.

Those will be quite festive for the Christmas season!

One finished, another started

New socks! I don’t even think I showed that I’d started these, but they’re done as of this morning.

I started these on July 28th, so just about a month to finish. The pattern is the same MacGyver’d pattern I always do: top down, German twisted cast on with 2 by 2 rib, flap heel and gusset. Knit on size 2 mm double points. The yarn is Urth Uneek Sock, color Tigress.

That makes room in the WIP list for a new pair of socks.

A boy that I know that likes blue has already claimed these. John says these are pretty close to Carolina blue. The color name is Anna Grace, but I think it looks like cumulocirrus clouds.

The yarn is from deep stash. I bought this years ago from Kris when she had a yarn shop named Sonny and Shear. The yarn is from Zen Yarn Garden, especially dyed for Kris and named after her daughter, Anna Grace.

There’s lots more going on in my knitting world, but I’ll save it for next time.

A two-fer

Here are more new things hot off the needles.

Socks! Same old jerry-rigged pattern, size 2.00mm double point needles. The yarn is deep stash Socka wool, I don’t think they even make this any longer. I think it looks like white cupcakes with sprinkles.

That one is a Hitchhiker, not the first I’ve made, and likely not the last. I used a skein of Wollmeise Pure, color Poison #5. The color in the third photo is close to what it really looks like.

I love both, though it is way too hot to wear anything with wool right now.

New things off the needles means one thing: new projects coming!

Stay tuned!

Dockside Cardigan

Finished!

Project Notes:

  • Pattern: Dockside Cardigan, by Amy Herzog. This is one of her CustomFit patterns.
  • Yarn: Warm Valley Orchard wool/alpaca blend. This is deep stash yarn, purchased on a vacation to their farm on Orcas Island in 2006. It’s about time it got made into something lovely. I used a bit under 1600 yards for this, I have a little under 700 yards left for a squishy shawl, or perhaps hat and mittens.
  • Needle: Size 6 circular
  • Started: February 22, 2021
  • Finished: July 27, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: *****for both pattern and the wool. If you haven’t used CustomFit, you pick your pattern, enter your own body measurements and your row and stitch gauge from your swatch. You get a pattern that is customized for your fit and the yarn you want to use. I’m sold on this. This is the best fitting sweater I’ve ever made.
  • What I learned: I need to knit more from deep stash. I have some very lovely yarns that I’ve collected over the years. The new and shiny will always catch my eye, but the “old and curated” once caught my eye for a very good reason. I also learned to trust the measurements. I tend to knit oversized sweaters in general, so I kept thinking that this was going to be on the small size. It fits perfectly.

Another couple of photos, since I don’t finish a sweater every day.

Forgotten but not unloved

I’m not sure how you can forget to post about such a pretty pair of socks. That color! That woolly wool!

This is my usual generic jerry-rigged sock pattern: 2×2 ribbing, heel flap and gusset, no frills. I modify the standard heel flap by adding a few more rows, it fits my high arch foot much better. I used 2.00 mm needles.

The wool is John Arbon Exmoor sock yarn. It is a lovely wool blend with a bit of nylon for durability. The colors I used are Mizzle, and Quickbeam (that orange). I’m really happy that I love this yarn, because I bought a bunch of other colors as well. You can get some of your very own at John Arbon in the UK, or at Woolly Thistle here in the US (though they are sold out at the moment-not my fault, I bought direct from the UK). I will warn you about checking out the John Arbon website, it will be difficult to resist some of their other offerings. You may see some of their yarn in future projects here at Chez Knitting Doctor.

Well this is embarrassing

I finished this shawl almost a month ago, and I’m just getting around to posting about it.

Project Details:

  • Pattern: Boneyard Shawl, by Stephen West
  • Yarn: Sincere Sheep Cormo Fingering, color 9 Mile Ranch
  • Needles: 3.75 mm
  • Started: January 29, 2021
  • Finished: May 11,2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: ***** for both pattern and yarn. This is a free pattern, available on Ravelry. It was originally written for a DK weight yarn, but can be made with any weight yarn, really. The pattern is dead simple, and can also be adapted to the yardage you have available. This is the second one of these I’ve made, and it won’t be the last. The yarn I used comes in a 500 yard skein, and makes a nice small shawl to wrap around my neck. This does work well with a gradient dyed yarn like this, since the background pattern is so simple. The color changes do all the work here.

In other news, I’m still on a sock-knitting binge. Here’s the latest.

The yarn is Exmoor Sock, from John Arbon. This is a lovely wool blend, with a bit of nylon for durability. It has a somewhat rustic hand, and is on the light-fingering end of the sock yarn spectrum. I might have a few more colors of this in the stash. The luster and colors of this yarn line are fabulous.

One more finished shawl photo for you:

Insomnia is good for something

New socks for John! I nearly finished these late last night.

In a rather uncharacteristic bit of wisdom, I decided to wait to do the toe grafting this morning. I woke up at 4:30, couldn’t go back to sleep, and finally got up and finished. At that I ended up screwing up the Kitchener and ripping out half of it to re-do.

It’s the same old pattern, 2.00 mm needles. The yarn is Regia Premium Merino Yak. It is insanely soft, we’ll see how well it holds up to sock wear. I ended up using 38 grams of the grey yarn and 66 grams of the teal for these.

A couple more photos:

Yes, that is considered fashionable footwear where we live.

I still owe you a finished project post for that sunshine-y shawl I finished recently. It will be sunny outside this weekend so I’ll get John to take some photos for me.

Hudson Memories

Hudson Bay socks done!

Project Details:

  • Yarn: Biscotte Bis-Sock, color Hudson Memories
  • Pattern: same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock, this time with a picot cuff
  • Needles: Lykke Driftwood double points, 2.00 mm
  • Started: April 26, 2021
  • Finished: May 15, 2021
  • For: Me
  • Rating: ***** on the yarn. This is the first time I’ve used this, it is soft, but feels sturdy at the same time.

I’m on a sock-knitting binge at the moment. I have a bunch of hand knit socks that are approaching the end of their life-span, so I need to replenish the stash. Many of my socks have lasted more than a decade of heavy wear, so I definitely get my money’s worth out of them. John needs more socks too. The next pair will be for him. I already started these for him yesterday.

Oh my. This is Regia Premium Merino Yak sock yarn. I may have lost my mind here in the stash-acquisition department. This yarn is heavenly to knit with, and the yak content gives it a muted heathery color. You should go buy some if there is any left anywhere. Simply Sock Yarn carries this in the US, and Knitting Loft in Canada, if you are in the mood to shop.

New Socks!

Finished just this morning!

The yarn is Retrosaria Mondim, which is a lovely Portuguese wool. It isn’t superwash, in case you are running off to buy some. The pattern is my same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock pattern. 72 stitches, 2.00 mm needles, flap heel and gusset construction. These are for me, though John looked at them and said “I’d wear a pair of those”.

Fortunately I have more colors of this in the stash. I have more colors of damned near everything in the stash.

Feather Duster

Project Notes:

  • Pattern: Feather Duster Shawl, by Susan Lawrence
  • Yarn: Biches et Bûches Le Petit Silk & Mohair, Very Light Blue
  • Needle: 3.5 mm
  • Started/Finished: 10/5/2019-3/17/2021
  • For: Me
  • Modifications: None, other than the occasional chart misreading
  • Project/Yarn rating: *****/***** This is a pretty easy pattern, though it is charted only, if that bothers you. I love this yarn, I have another batch of it in a pale pink.
  • What I learned: Lace doesn’t have to take forever once one decides to sit down and work on it. Retiring from my job also has helped in Finished Project output.

Socks for John

A finished pair!

The yarn is Regia 4 ply, the color is one of their Nation colors. This was from deep stash, I bought it for John since he is all about the blue. It’s the same old jerry-rigged vanilla sock pattern I always use. He has weird feet, so I modify the foot shaping to fit him better.

72 stitches, knit on 2.00 mm double pointed needles. I do the heel flap a little longer, and do the gusset decreases a little slower to make it wider around his instep.

That’s my sock cheat sheet.

I really like the Regia sock yarn. It is sturdy, and wears well. This was put up in two separate 50 gram skeins. Each one had one knot, so the stripe sequence was off. This would bug the shit out of me if I bothered to match stripes in socks, but I don’t, so it doesn’t.

These are a win!

Yippee!

I finally got photos taken for my Hudson Valley Cardi. It was pouring rain most of today, but the sun popped out a bit ago, so here you go!

Project Notes:

  • Project: Hudson Valley Cardi, pattern by Patty Lyons
  • Yarn: Rowan Cotton Cashmere, I used 11 skeins, or 1507 yards
  • Needles: 3.5 mm for the lace edging, 3.25 mm for the body
  • Started/Finished: 7/11/19-2/19/21
  • For: Me
  • Modifications: I added about 2 inches to the body length, since I’m tall.
  • Project/Yarn Rating: Definitely ***** for the pattern. Patty writes extremely clear, no-nonsense patterns. This is one of her video sweater class patterns, so has a ton of linked instructional videos included. The yarn is also *****. Being a cotton/cashmere blend, it doesn’t have a lot of spring, but knits up very nicely. It is a tiny bit splitty, and I ran into a few knots, but nothing I’d complain about. It’s a perfect weight for spring and summer. I had my doubts about the color, since it borders on “blah”, but I like it, and it will go with anything.
  • What I learned: Where to start? I learned to do cables without a cable needle. I learned how to do a sloped shoulder bind off to avoid that stair step look. The videos had a lot of great suggestions to improve seaming and sizing. This one really took my sweater knitting up a notch.

I predict that this one will get a lot of use!

And one more photo, since it isn’t every day you see a new sweater at Chez Knitting Doctor.

A boy and his hat

I started and finished a quick project this past week. After my spinning post recently, I rummaged around in the handspun yarn box and found this yarn:

I spun that ages ago. It is Targhee wool, the fiber was purchased from Spunky Eclectic. I think I spun it on my Schacht Matchless wheel. It’s a 2-ply, about Aran weight.

Someone decided he needed a hat. I found a pattern for a simple hat, but soon abandoned the pattern and just knit, trying it on the model as I did.

And the finished hat:

Yarn details are above.

I cast on 104 stitches, did 2 by 2 rib until it was “deep enough”, then knit plain stocking stitch until it was “tall enough”, then decreased around until I had 8 stitches left, pulled the yarn tail through, and it’s a hat. He wanted a “skull cap” kind of hat, and that’s what he got.

What I learned: Knitting hats doesn’t have to be complicated. And they are small enough that if you guess wrong on gauge or number of stitches, just rip it out and start over. Also, I don’t knit with my own handspun enough. This took about 300 yards of yarn, I have lots left.

There may be another hat on the way!

Vinum Mendacium

As promised, a finished project post. It came off the blocking board today.

Project Details:

  • Pattern: Larch, which is a free pattern available on Ravelry. I’ve renamed it Vinum Mendacium.
  • Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, color In Vinum Veritas
  • Needle: 3.25 mm
  • Started: February 27th 2020
  • Finished: January 5, 2021
  • For: ??
  • Modifications: None
  • Project/Yarn Rating: 5/5 (of 5). The pattern is very simple, I was initially annoyed by the non-paired decreases (instead of using SSK on one side and K2Tog on the other, it just uses K2Tog throughout), but it doesn’t look like it makes any difference in the finished shawl. The yarn is very soft and squishy. It is superwash, and not available any longer, except in my stash, where there lives several different colors of this.
  • What I Learned: I actually can finish things if I just sit down and do them instead of starting whatever catches my fancy. The dates would indicate that this took forever, but I started it, knit a few inches, then it hid in a bag until late December.

And another photo: