Finished Projects – Page 5 – The Knitting Doctor

Blockhead

It only took me a month and a half to getting around to blocking the Ruffles shawl. In my defense, it’s been 90 degrees here, and I can’t wear it anyway.

At any rate, I got it washed and pinned out this morning.

I just did a “down and dirty” blocking. This yarn and the garter stitch makes for a really squishy comfy fabric, and I didn’t want to change that too much.

This is the first time I’ve used those blocking pins. They are from Knitter’s Pride, and it really makes getting a straight edge easy. I would need a ton more of them to do a bigger lace shawl, but I might just fork over the money for another set. They aren’t cheap, and I have a huge set of blocking wires that work just fine, they’re just fidgety. I went to a local welding shop several years ago and bought a big pack of thin wires. They work just like the expensive fancy blocking wires and were dirt cheap. I’ll probably think about it for a bit, it’s around $25 for one set of those**, and I’d probably need a couple more for a huge shawl. I think I might rather spend that on yarn. Not that I need that either.

I’ll show a modeled photo once it’s dry. And maybe once the temperature here drops into a reasonable range for woolies.

**Update. Amazon has them for 20 bucks, with free Prime shipping, so they’re on their way.

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Ruffles!

Project Details

Pattern: This started out as a Wool Peddler shawl, by Cheryl Oberle. I got a dozen rows into the lace section and hated how it looked in this yarn. I ripped it back and just knitted many more rows of garter stitch.

The border is a ruffle, when the shawl was “big enough”, I increased every third stitch (knit 2, increase one) across the row. then I knit more garter stitch, and then did a bind off.

It’s not blocked yet since I’m not home, but I think this will be a nice snuggly shawl. Sweetpea certainly likes it.

Yarn: Sirdar Balmoral, color Corgi. Yes, that’s why I bought it.

Needles: 4.00 mm Holz & Stein ebony circulars

For: Me

Started/Finished: Started 10/11/16 Finished 6/25/17.

Modifications: See above

What I Learned: Don’t keep knitting if it isn’t working. And don’t dump yarn that isn’t working. I bought enough of this for a sweater, but it has enough alpaca in it that a sweater would be much too warm for me where I live. Also, despite the color name, it really isn’t my favorite color. A whole sweater of this would be a bit blah. I had it in the box to go to charity, and pulled it back out to do this, since it really is very nice yarn. I have enough leftover for another medium project, perhaps it would make nice hats to put in the charity box at church.

So now I need another mindless-but-not-a-sock project. I’m thinking of starting another Hitchhiker-like shawl, since I’ve got tons of sock yarn that would work. The other three shawls in Martina Behm’s Hitchhiker series have been on my to-do list forever, so perhaps one of those.

Here is my Winter Solstice shawl.

I have been in Minnesota for a big family reunion since late last week. Great big fun was had by all. We stayed at a lake resort in Minnesota, and had a pretty big bunch that showed up. My generation had 25 cousins, with all but 6 of us still living. About half of the cousins made it, plus spouses/partners, children, and grandchildren. Here’s a group shot:

And me with Fritz. He was the youngest family member present.

And one with my sisters and Dave, Fritz’s dad:

New Socks!

And they’re done.

Project Details

Pattern: My same old vanilla sock

Yarn: Lang Jawoll Superwash Solids, Black Watch. I think the real color “name” is actually a number.

Needles: 2.25mm sterling double points

For: John

Started/Finished: Started 1/23/17 Finished 5/28/17.

Modifications: None

What I Learned: I keep tinkering with my sock formula to fit John’s feet better. He has very high arches and a genetic foot thing called Charcot Marie Tooth syndrome. With these, I did the gusset decreases at a slower rate to provide a little more width around his ankle. These are a bit snug but are better than just the standard gusset shape.

Yes, he has weird feet.

Now I get to pick my next sock yarn!

Souvenirs

After a long travel day Friday, we’re back home from our cruise. Getting through Seattle traffic back home was the worst part of the trip. We got off the ship around 9:30, and didn’t get home until around 5PM (usually about a 4 hour drive). We stopped in Bellingham for lunch, which accounts for part of that, and also picked up Lewey, which was a bit of a detour, but the whole trip back was just painful. Traffic around here is painful at best, and on Friday afternoon turns into horrifying.

I did stop at one yarn shop in Bellingham, but I swear I didn’t buy anything. I wasn’t really even tempted. Next week I’ll hit 150 days with no yarn buying, and the six month mark is coming up.

We didn’t do any significant shopping on the trip. I bought a few books in a shop in San Francisco. How can you NOT buy books in a nice bricks and mortar book shop with real people running it? Of course, I don’t need those any more than I need more yarn. It’s those little personal recommendation cards written by the book shop staff that get me every time. And yes, I have a Kindle, and use it, but there is something about “real” books that I adore.

Here are the other things I bought. We did a tour of the Queen Mary in LA, which was a bit cheesy, but fun.

A Queen Mary tea mug, and Queen coasters!

And what is that little blue thing peeking out in that photo? Could it be a finished Hitchhiker?

Why, yes!

Project Details

Pattern: Hitchhiker, by Martina Behm

Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, color Bluebell

Needles: 3.25 mm Knit Picks Harmony

For: Me

Started/Finished: Started 2/16/16 Finished 4/20/17. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. It was in time out for months.

Modifications: None

What I Learned: I am likely the last person ever to have made one of these. As of right now, there are 26,921 projects listed on Ravelry. I can see why. This is a great pattern for fingering weight sock yarns, and it’s very easy.

I also learned that my drug dealers scale doesn’t work on a rocking and rolling cruise ship. I was trying to use as much of the yarn as I could, but my scale wouldn’t give me a readout so I just guessed at how much yarn I needed for the bind off. I thought it might be dying on me, but when I got it home and tested on a solid surface, it works just fine. As it turned out, I could have knit a few more repeats, but it’s long enough.

Pattern Rating: ***** This is a well written pattern, no errors, and very easy to follow. I will definitely make more of these, since it’s not like I don’t have any sock yarn hanging about here.

You aren’t getting an action photo with me wearing this for now. The other fun souvenir that I brought home was a wicked upper respiratory infection. I’ve been sick for the past 4-5 days, and I look (and feel) like something that a grizzly bear dragged around the back yard a few times. I’m just hoping this is better tomorrow, since I’m supposed to be back at work. I’m one of those people that tries to drag myself to work even if I don’t feel good, but if it’s something infectious like this, not so much. All my little old people patients really don’t need to catch this. It sort of figures that I’d make it through our horrendous cold and flu winter season and then get this in April on a cruise.

Sigh. I’m off to make a cup of tea for that pretty mug up there.

Twin Sweaters!

Finished! I still need to wash and block them, but they are done done done. Fritz and Sweetpea were happy to model, since I don’t have real babies in my house.

Project Details

Pattern: Buttoned Up Cardi

Yarn: Cotton Ease

Needles: 5.00 mm

For: Our neighbors have new twin granddaughters

Started/Finished: February 17, Finished today.

Modifications: the pattern calls for picking up stitches along the sides and knitting the sleeves down to the cuff. I knit them separately and sewed them in, since I think it looks neater. I also forgot to put in buttonholes on the first one, so I used snaps and just sewed the buttons on top. I made the second one the same.

What I Learned: Baby sweaters take longer than you think. It also helps if you don’t wait to start knitting until after the babies are born.

Pattern Rating: 5 Stars. It’s a very simple pattern, with only one minor error. After you pick up the stitches for the hood, you increase for a bit in the back center, then knit straight and do a three needle bind off. There is one extra stitch if you do the increases as directed. It was easy to fix.

NOW, I get to go cast on that pretty shawl I showed in the last post. I’ve been looking forward to that all week!

Rainbow Bright Socks!

New socks done!

Project Details:

Pattern: My own jerry-rigged sock pattern. 72 stitches, flap heel and gusset construction.

Yarn: Abi Grasso Self striping sock yarn

Needles: 2.00 mm

Started: 5/30/16

Finished: 1/22/17

For: Me

Modifications: none

What I Learned: Sometimes matching socks just happen.

We’re in Guayabitos, Mexico again this year for a week. This is the same lovely place that we’ve stayed for the past 3 years. Here are a few photos.

And one last sock photo:

Douglas Fir

Or,

A Hap* For Lorette

Project Details:

Pattern: A Hap For Harriet, by Kate Davies

Yarn: Elemental Effects Shetland Rustic Lace, 1100 yards

Needles: 2.75 mm

Started: 4/11/15

Finished: 12/7/16

For: Me

Modifications: none, except for miscalculating the amount of yarn I would need for the second half, and having to decrease that end at a faster rate.

What I Learned: Despite all my careful weighing and calculating, I can still screw up and run out of yarn.

This is a well written pattern, knit end to end so the miles of garter stitch aren't so boring. You get to do a bit of simple lace every other row.

*For you non-knitters, a hap is a shawl or wrap to keep you warm. It is a Shetland Islands term, and usually refers to a square shawl with a lace border, but they come in all shapes and sizes.

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Blockhead

We had our big Solstice dinner last night. I had 10 people around my dining room table for a 5 course dinner, capped off with a huge roast prime rib and trifle for dessert.

We were about to take the extra leaves out of the table while cleaning up this morning. Instead, I had the bright idea to soak my Douglas Fir shawl and use the table to block it. I've always blocked stuff on mats on the floor in the past, and the pets mostly left things alone.*

Zany Zoe the lunatic cat is a different story. I suspect the shawl would be shredded if I tried that. So I put the mats on the table and blocked it there. It's a lot easier that way as well, much less bending and contorting to get things pinned down.

And a close up of the lace:

Lace is just magic. It looks like a pile of crap** while you are knitting it. Then you soak it and pin it out, and it turns into something lovely.

More photos when it's dry!

*Except for that time when Curtis, the visiting dumb-as-a-post yellow lab was staying here. I had blocked a lace shawl upstairs on the floor. I went up some time later to find that he had taken a big dump on the shawl. I guess he didn't think much of my knitting.

**It looks like I need to straighten that lace point up there.

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Fritz’s Baby Blanket

As promised, I’m finally getting around to posting a “Finished Project” update. I finished this right before we left on vacation in September, and then just forgot about posting.

Project Details:

Pattern: Quill, by Jared Flood

Yarn: Frolicking Feet sock yarn, Sapphire Blue

Needles: 3.75mm

Started: 4/29/16

Finished: 9/6/16

For: my grandnephew Fritz

Modifications: none

What I Learned: Babies sometimes get born early. Starting knitting now.

This was a well done pattern, instructions clear and straightforward. This would be pretty in a lace weight yarn as well.

And more photos.

In other news, for some reason I’ve started to get blog comments emailed to me, at least sometimes. We’ll see.

How Can You Forget A Whole Finished Project?

That’s me, right there, someone who forgets a whole knitting project. You’d think that with as few things as I finish, I’d remember to put them up here.

This is the Hawk Affection Shawl.

Sorry about the no-makeup-photo-in-the-mirror thing. It’s all I’ve got today.

Project Details:

Pattern: Color Affection, my second one.

Yarn: Hazel Knits Divine, this is 75% merino, 15% cashmere, and 10% silk. It really is divinely soft and squishy. The colors are Nekkid, Hawkeye, and Collegiate, chosen to represent my favorite football team.

Needles: 3.5 mm

Started: September 3, 2015

Finished: February 10, 2016

For: Me

Modifications: None, really. I once again knit the three color stripe section until I had used all the stitches up with the short row section.

What I Learned: I love simple knits. And I am really starting to love simple knit things that wind around my neck for a touch of color and warmth. And I learned that I probably should take a moment to put on makeup and do something with that mess of hair before I do a photo shoot. I got off the bike, took a shower, and my hair just did that thing up there. Oh well.

Finished Stuff, Forgot To Post

It figures. I actually finish a couple of knitting projects and then forget all about blogging it.

First up is John’s Crazy Hat of Many Colors:

Project Details:

Pattern: Toboggan Hat, modified for the current Peace Fleece worsted weight

Yarn: Peace Fleece mini skeins

Needles: US 6/4.0 mm

Started: October 16, 2015

Finished: Noivember 21, 2015

For: John

Modifications: The pattern is written for wider two-color stripes. I went all out and did four row stripes in many colors (33!). I bought all the mini skeins that Peace Fleece sells, and didn’t repeat any of the colors. I also did ribbing instead of a rolled cuff at the beginning.

What I Learned:: Hats go quick in heavy worsted weight yarn. I also learned a new trick to do a color join right where I want the color to change at the beginning of the round. It was fidgety, but not as fidgety as weaving in all those ends would have been.

Next up is socks. Tiptoe Through the Tulips Socks

Project Details:

Pattern: Same old same old. Plain vanilla pattern, let the yarn do the talking. 72 stitches around. Picot tops.

Yarn: Zitron Trekking XXL

Needles: US 1/2.25 mm

Started: April 19, 2015

Finished: January 22, 2016

For: Me

Modifications: None

What I Learned:: Socks shouldn’t take this long. And I’m still not tired of white bread socks.

Zoe is settling in just fine. She came home for good on Monday. There is a bit of hissing and caterwauling going on, mostly by Will, but things are getting calmer.

I have discovered that it is NOT ok to leave anything knitting related laying around with her here. Yesterday she knocked my knitting gadget bag on the floor, then tried to get in my big knitting bag. And I was merrily knitting away on a shawl and looked down to find her chewing her way through the working yarn. The adventures of having a kitten!

Baby Helen, and Baby Zoe

It’s a real finished project! One of my coworkers had her baby very early a couple of weeks ago, at 25 weeks. (Baby Helen and mama are both doing OK.) I didn’t have anything hand knit ready for her, but fortunately preemie baby sweaters don’t take long to knit.

Project Details:

Pattern: Design D Cardigan; that’s a really catchy name

Yarn:Dale Baby Ull in hot pink

Needles: 3.25 mm (2.75 for the edging)

Started: 12/23/15

Finished: 12/27/15

For: Baby Helen

Modifications: The neckband as written in the pattern is just plain fidgety. It calls for casting on a few extra stitches along the front bands, knitting a long strip to reach the center back, repeat on the other side, then sew it down and graft together. For a freaking baby sweater that might get worn a handful of times before she grows out of it, that seems like major overkill. I just finished the neck decreases, changed to the smaller needles, did a few rows of garter stitch to match the bottom edge, then did a yarn over /knit 2 together eyelet row, knit another row, then bound off.

What I Learned:: Baby sweaters don’t take long, especially in preemie sizes. This pattern was a mess. It worked, but the instructions for the raglan decreases were written out in a fashion that made them nearly incomprehensible.

I just realized while doing this that I never did a finished project post for John’s Toboggan hat. I will remedy that soon.

In other news, I finally splurged and bought myself a late Christmas present of a really nice wooden swift and ball winder. The rickety plastic ones that I have are just not a lot of fun to use, especially for finer yarns. I’ve had to rewind more balls of yarn by hand to fix total screwups than I can count. Here they are.

I bought them both on Amazon. The winder is the Heavy Duty Ball Winder by Nancy’s Knitknacks, the swift is a large size Swedish Glimakra. They are lovely. And it inspired me to clear off this wooden shelf to make room for them.

Last but certainly not least, we are 99.9% certain of bringing home a new family member. Those of you who follow me on Facebook have already heard this story. Last Saturday evening we had a knock on our door. Our neighbors had a black kitty show up at their door, they thought it was Willie and brought him down to our house. It wasn’t Will, but a little lost girl kitty. Nobody in our neighborhood has a black cat (except us), so we kept her over the weekend. Monday we took her in to our vet clinic where they checked her over and found she was microchipped. They contacted the owners, who apparently live a few miles from here. They didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but promised to pick her up and take her home on Monday.

Of course by this time we’d fallen totally in love with her. She is adorable, very silky fur, about 8 months old, and as sweet as she can be.

Five days later, today, and three phone calls from our vet to the so-called owners, and they still haven’t come to get her, and are not answering calls. The vet has to keep her and give them ten days to claim her, though it’s almost certain at this point that they have no interest. We strongly suspect that she was dumped in our driveway. It was a very cold night, and she hadn’t been outside for very long when she came to us. I just wish they would step up and say they don’t want her so we can bring her home. Though everybody at our vet clinic has fallen in love with her as well, she is getting a lot of love there too.

Here are a few more photos from today, we went to the vet to see her.

Her new name is Zoe! In 5 more days we will be her people!

Evenstar

Project Details:

Pattern: Evenstar, by Susan Pandorf

Yarn: Colourmart Cashmere/Silk 2/28 NM lace weight, 1500 yards

Needles: 2.75 mm

Started: February 12, 2010

Finished: September 18, 2015

For: Me!

Modifications: None

What I Learned: Oh boy. I learned that slow and steady gets you there eventually. This is easily the most complex thing I’ve ever knitted. The pattern itself isn’t that difficult. The yarn I chose is just a hair heavier than thread, and has absolutely no memory, and it’s a bit on the slippery side. So this wasn’t mindless knitting by any means. And the border is endless. You knit the whole thing in big concentric rings, then knit the edging on perpendicularly to the shawl. The edging is a mindless 20 row repeat, but in thread and with beads so it took forever. There were a couple of complex stitches in there but mostly it’s just following a series of charts.

The pattern is well written, this is the first of hers that I’ve done, but it was clear and mostly without errors (there is a link to errata on the Ravelry page). The lace is charted and written, though why anybody would want to knit lace from written text is beyond me. I started this before I was using Knit Companion, but used it for the last couple sections after I pulled this out of the UFO pile to finish.

Lora asked in the comments on a previous post about the blocking process. I soaked the shawl in slightly soapy water (Kookaburra wool wash), then rinsed in cool water. Silk and cashmere aren’t as durable as wool when wet, so you really need to support the wet lace when pulling it out of the bath. Then I blotted most of the water out with a bath towel, and pinned it out on my blocking mats, which are foam play mats that you can get in carpet shops or places like Costco. I have a ton of them so I can block almost anything.

Before I tossed it in the water, I ran a cotton thread through all the points, then pinned the thread and not the actual shawl. I forgot to take a photo before I had all the pins out this morning, but here’s a mini-recreation to illustrate.

Lora, I start by stretching it out gently by hand into as close to a circle as I can get it, then start pinning the running thread between the points to stretch. It takes a few times around, pulling a little more each time, and smoothing out from the center to get it as even as possible. I probably could have blocked this a bit larger, but I wanted to retain just a bit of the texture of some of those stitch patterns. I use a yard stick to measure in places to see if I have it even, but mostly I just eyeball it.

I love this one! It’s by no means a practical warm shawl, but I can see wearing it for special occasions. In fact, we have symphony tickets tonight, so I’ll wear it there. I’ll probably leave the tiara at home though.

Edited with one more photo. John wanted me to add a photo of just the edging. Here you go.

Omg Omg OMG!

It is DONE DONE DONE. I can't wait for blocking to show you a photo. I won't be able to finish this officially until I get home and have a few hours to block it properly, but I know you are all waiting on the edge of your seats to see it.

Sweetpea for scale. And one without the bear.

This is easily the most complicated thing I've ever made. Project Details will follow when the blocking is done.

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Coreopsis!

It’s finally off the blocking board, after a little mayhem. I tried to expedite things and just pinned the bottom edges instead of running blocking wires through it, which resulted in a nice scalloped border. I looked at it for a day before I did the right thing and put in the blocking wires, then steam blocked the edge to straighten it out.

Project Details

Pattern: Boneyard Shawl, by Stephen West

Yarn: My own handspan, spun from Bluefaced Leicester wool on my Watson Wheel. I then dyed the yarn using Coreopsis flowers from our deck plants. I blogged about the dyeing here. The fiber came from Paradise Fibers, the brand is Ashland Bay. It was nicely prepared and very easy to spin. It also takes dye beautifully, which is a good thing, since I bought 4 pounds of it originally. This was 366 grams worth of yarn, about 790 yards.

Needles: 4.5 mm

Started: July 16, 2015

Finished: September 3, 2015

For: Me

Modifications: None

What I Learned: Oh my. It is really a lot of fun to see a project through from fiber to a finished wearable item. This is one of those patterns that could be adapted to a wide variety of yarn types, or even color stripes. He has a second version here that uses extra increases to make it wider and shallower. A nice bonus is that it’s a free pattern. I predict that this will get a lot of wear. It’s just the right size for a little warmth around the shoulders, and nice and squishy soft.

I’m calling this one a success!