Granny Squares

As promised, I've finally made my foray into crochet. A few weeks ago, I ordered some crochet hooks online, but they're coming from the other side of the world, and it's still going to be a bit. In the meantime, I'm supposed to crochet the edging for my sister's boyfriend's Packers Hat (which I still haven't done) and I need crochet hooks.

Luckily, I was able to borrow some from a friend of mine, and a little while ago, while I meant to be looking up videos on how to crochet an edging onto a hat, I wound of thinking of all the leftover yarn I had. I know I'm already doing a scrap blanket, but before most anything gets to the scrap blanket, it's been having a date with my crochet hooks.

I've just been making a couple of sizes in (what I'm guessing) is the basic granny square. I'm using VerPink Knits pattern. (All they use are single crochet, chain, slip stitch, and double crochet) They are super easy and super gratifying because they do work up so fast, so it's easy to sit down and make a granny square or two. I'm pretty much brand new to crochet, and it wasn't too long before I had crocheted myself a whole pile of these things.

I'm also crocheting these to be a blanket, and at first I made the medium sized purple and orange squares. I thought I'd make all the squares for the blanket that size, and then just seam them together. Then I got into my leftovers from the mittens I made. I worked the blue variegated yarn up to be the same size as the purple and orange squares and still had a fair bit leftover. I thought about finishing it off as the same size and just making up another one, but I wasn't sure if it would make it, and that's when I had the idea to make up a couple of different sizes to give the blanket some more variety. All of the squares will be the same pattern, but they'll be in different colors and a choice of four sizes.

Basically the way I figured the sizes is the (medium) purple, orange, and white squares are the basic square that everything is based off of. I did five rounds from the center on those which means they're a total of 11 across. For the smallest size which right now is only represented by the little purple square, I only knitted two rounds from the center which makes them five across or half the width of the basic square.For the large square, I knitted eight rounds from the center so they're seventeen across or half again the length of the basic square. For the giant square, I knitted eleven rounds from the center so it's 23 across or twice the length of the basic square. I know you may be scratching your head at that math right now, but when I counted across I counted the center hole so there's always an extra square, if you will. At first that had me stumped, but then I realized I didn't have to just seam the squares together, I could crochet them together! That extra length there will give me the space to use some kind of crochet edging. I'm thinking double crochet for a unity of theme with the squares, but I'm not sure yet mostly because I don't know if that's even possible or what the best stitch is because I don't know that much about crochet.

The order the squares are set up in now is by no means the final pattern. They do have space between them to leave room for the connective crochet. So far, I'm loving the granny squares because they are so easy and quick, but I feel a little guilty that this is the only crochet I've attempted, and I've had my friend's crochet hooks held hostage for a while. Still, it's not as if I'm not making anything with them.

Happy crocheting!

Progress on the Scrap Blanket

I've had some ends of yarn sitting around for a while now just waiting to be put into the scrap blanket, and Saturday night I finally started on it. I put the white in today which was the last of the bits I had, so it's going to be a while before I have anything else to add.

Despite all odds, I really do think the blanket it looking good. As you may remember, I had started the blanket with a stripe pattern and no edging, but I didn't really like that so I ripped it all out. I restarted the blanket with 180 stitches. The bottom is (and the top will be) 6 rows of garter stitch, and there are 5 stitches of garter stitch on each side. Now instead of stripes of knit and purl, I've switched to squares; what I think is called the basket weave pattern.

A row of finished squares and another row of partially finished squares.

I still can't get over how completely not horrible the blanket looks. I'm surprised to find myself loving it, which is a great relief. When I started it, I figured having another blanket around wouldn't hurt, but I wasn't expecting to really want to drag it out for company unless it was really needed. I thought I'd use it myself when I was sitting around the house in pajamas all day, but that was about it. So here I am excited to work on it and have more of it finished, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Happy knitting!

Finished Blue Leaf Headband

Sorry I've been so MIA recently. I just started working, and yesterday was my first day off in a week. Fortunately, I'm going to be off until next Thursday, so that gives me some time to catch up on my knitting!

I did finish the blue leaf headband for boyfriend's mom a little while ago, I just haven't had time to post about it.

I'm really satisfied with how it turned out. It still rolls a little bit because of the border, but with a little wear, I think it'll sort itself out. It was my first time using a selvage edge, and I don't really notice a difference between that and a normal edge. Everything I've read tells me that it stabilizes the edge and helps to keep it from curling, and I guess the knit stitches that have the edge aren't curling, but that isn't stopping the purl row right next to them from doing so anyway. I mean, I guess it doesn't hurt to have it.

I used the option in the pattern which allowed for a button hole, and the thing that kept the headband from being really and truly finished was me slacking and just not sewing on the button because it's kind of a pain. I finally did it, and I think the colors are nice together.

That's another Christmas present in the complete pile! I really hope she likes it.

Happy knitting!

Progress/ Problems on Dad's Scarf

I've made a good bit of progress on my dad's scarf. It's about a third of the way done, maybe just over, and it's a ribbed stitch scarf.

I was kind of expecting the scarf to want to roll, so the edges are garter stitch to try and prevent that. But I guess that's not enough, because as you can see above, it is still really convinced that it wants to roll. I'm thinking of picking up stitches across the bottom and knitting a garter stitch border there, too, but I'm a little afraid that will make it look goofy, and that it just won't help that much.

But since the bottom is doing that anyway, it probably won't hurt.

I also chose the rib stitch because I kind of thought that it would want to roll less that a plain old stockinette. Maybe it's that the ribs are so big (4x4 on US 10 needles) that's really allowing it to roll, or maybe it's just the ribbing, but it is rolling, and I'm pretty disappointed.

It's a little hard to tell here, but these are three of the ribs obscuring the other two with the garter stitch borders.

Since it is acrylic, blocking is going to be a bit of a trial, although I just may try steaming it, and hope I don't destroy it.

Any suggestions on how to unroll this scarf would be much appreciated!

Happy knitting!

Grandma's and Sister's Finished Mittens

I've never made mittens before, but this year I made 3 pairs which just seemed like a million, especially as I started in on the fourth fifth and sixth mittens. But I finally finished all of them, and I could not be more glad because it means I can be done with mittens for a while.

I finished my grandma's mittens a few days ago, and they've been sitting around waiting for me to post about them. I think they turned out great. They're the same size, and it's a good snug, but not tight, fit. 

They're such a pretty green, I know my grandma will love them. Green is her favorite color. And it will be the third knitted project I give to her that I made with her needles that she gave to me.

Then there are my sister's mittens. When I asked her what she wanted after it became apparent that the scarf was not going to work out, I was hoping she'd want gloves or fingerless mittens or a headband or a cowl or something else that I hadn't made. No. She wanted mittens.

Well, they're finally finished, and while the yarn looks great and the fit it great, there is one little problem: because I foolishly counted rounds and didn't measure or even compare sizes while I was making the mittens, the second mitten is a little longer than the first.

Maybe you can't really tell, and my sister did want it to be a little longer when I had her try on the first mitten, but I'll always know that they aren't quite right.

Still, all told, I think my mitten knitting was an overall success with my grandma's being the best. The others are fine, but both other pairs do contain some live and learn experiences.

 Happy knitting!

Irish Socks

I finally decided to try and tackle a pair of socks. I've always just been so intimidated; they seem so complicated. But I still had some of the yarn from boyfriend's series of Irish garments, and I couldn't think of anything else to make him with the amount I had left, so socks.

Now I know worsted yarn isn't exactly ideal for yarn, but it's really just a practice pair, and it's what I had on hand. I wanted to do magic loop socks, but the smallest circular needle I have is US 6 and 29 in. While I didn't really feel comfortable doing two at once, I was determined to do toe-up magic loop socks. So I hit Ravelry where I found a toe-up magic loop sock pattern!

I had to learn a new cast-on for the socks. The pattern said to use the Turkish cast-on, but for whatever reason when I searched it, I ended up with Judy's magic cast on. I'm not sure if they're the samw thing or not because I never did look up a Turkish cast-on video after I watched Judy's magic cast-on. Now, that doesn't mean I understood the cast-on right away. I didn't. I think I re-started the first sock, oh, twenty times. Sometimes I messed up the cast on, or messed up the increases or got confused or just wasn't satisfied with the way it was looking. Even so (and maybe because), I still somehow ended up one stitch short on one of my needles, and I didn't notice until I was starting the heel, so that's just that. I added an extra stitch while I was doing the heel increases, and thought I had it fixed, only to somehow decrease back down to one stitch too few again on the same needle. So I don't know. Then boyfriend said he wanted the cuff to be rib stitch, so I did a few rows of that, and gave it to him to try on one last time.

It may sound like I have a finished sock. Well, that's not exactly true. You see, when I gave him this sock to try on, we realized a couple of things, the first being that I don't understand socks. The socks was actually too big. Boyfriend was very kind and said he would just use them as boot socks, but I take pride in my work, and I wanted it to be what he wanted and not something he settled for. And of course I messed up the heel. As I said, the sock was too big, so when I was doing the increases for the heel gusset, I didn't increase as much as I should have for the size of the sock because it would have been just one more part of the sock that was much too big. I didn't think anything of it (again, no understanding of socks) but as many of you can probably imagine, it was a big problem. The heel was crazy uneven and weird looking, and then I had made a mess of the ribbing I was doing for the cuff. All told, it was not a successful first attempt at socks.

However, I pushed the hours of work and what seemed like millions of attempt at restarting already to the back of my mind and frogged the whole sock. And made the whole socks again.

This time, I cast on 10 stitches per needle because boyfriend has wider feet, and only increased to 44 instead of 48. As I knitted the body of the sock, boyfriend said the fit was much better, and I could see it was, and i had increased to the appropriate amount on each needle. For the Fleegle heel, I actually followed the instruction and increased to the correct amount and decreased to 40 to really make the cuff fit. The cuff on this one is still a little loose on boyfriend, but the rest of the sock fits so well that it doesn't matter.

I've even started on the second sock!

I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to have the heel also be white, but I really just couldn't figure a way to do it, so I left it be and now I'm over half way to having knitted my first pair of socks!

Happy knitting!

Cabled Stocking Cap

I don't know if it's just that I live with boyfriend or what, but he has gotten more completed knitting projects out of me than anyone else before ever. And he has three in the works yet! One, of course, is the grey belt, one hasn't been revealed yet because I'm having struggles with it and may give up on it yet, and one is this cabled stocking cap.

It's another thing for boyfriend's larp. His unit is called the Navy, so I've been making him naval things. The other week just before Halloween I sewed him up a pretty nice blue vest with gold buttons, a watch chain, shoulder epaulets, the whole deal. And now he wants a hat. Think of the hat Mr. Smee wears in the animated Peter Pan. he's got it in his mind that his whole unit is going to wear these uniforms, and I'm going to make him. Which mean he gets the sample pieces.

The biggest problem with him wanting a cabled hat is that I'm not very good at cables. A few years ago I tried to make myself a cabled scarf, and I ended up ripping it apart over and over again because the cables always had big weird holes in the middle and looked just terrible. And I know, I know, practice makes perfect, but i have avoided them like the plague ever since. And now they're what he requested specifically. Not with the correct words, mind you, but they are what he requested. But I went on to Ravelry and looked around with him until we found a cabled hat pattern that he likes.

So I haven't started the cables yet. I finished the brim, a one by one rib which was none to fun, but actually kind of better than the two by two ribs I've been working for the millions of mittens I'm making and have made. And there are a couple of real-ish reasons why I haven't started the hate body yet: 1) the pattern is only written out with a chart, and I've never worked off of a chart before. I mean, I know how, I just haven't. 2) My printer's out of ink, so I have to go to the print lab on campus (I live in a college town) to print out the chart because I don't really want to copy it down by hand the way I have been doing with patterns lately and I don't really just want to sit in front of the computer and knit it. 3) I have to make some alterations to the pattern because the pattern is for a normal sized hat and not a stocking hat, and I'm not totally sure how it's going to work out. 4) I'm still totally freaked out by cables. And I didn't pay close enough attention to the pattern already because I thought the whole brim was just one by one rib, but no. Some of the cables were supposed to start in it. Oh well. He's just going to have to live without that.

I will say those bamboo circular needles I got a few weeks ago are certainly getting some mileage pretty quickly. This is the third hat I've started on them. I (really really) need to get some US 9 double pointed needles so I can stop doing the magic loop on these needles that really aren't long enough for it, but that is not a financial priority right now. And who knows. Maybe today I'll be brave enough to start the cables.

Happy knitting!

Another Finished Packer's Hat

After I finished knitting the other Packers hat and cut all of the yarn to make the braids and edging (which I have yet to deal with) I still had a ton of the Team Spirit yarn left over. I wasn't sure what to do with it because I don't even like the Packers (I like the Lions) so I didn't want to buy more and knit more Packers things, but there wasn't enough for a scarf left, I was not going to make another pair of mittens, and I didn't really want to make a headband. That pretty much just left making another hat.

Well, I sat down a few days ago and cast on the hat that I decided would go to boyfriend's dad who also likes the Packers and started on it. I wanted to get through the first green band because I was doing a rib stitch for that to keep in more secure. (The pattern I improvised was to cast on 90 sts on those US 9 circular needles and rib until the first progression of green finished. Then I knitted for five inches which worked out to be just over five stripes. Then it was round 1- K8, k2tog, round 2 and all even rounds- k even, round 3- k7, k2tog, etc. Eventaully I switched to the magic loop again, which sucked less this time on the 16 inch needles, until the last round where you k2tog all the way around and then thread the tail through the remaining sts, weave in the ends and done.)

I was just sitting on the couch knitting and watching tv and all of a sudden I was at the decreasing rounds. Once I get to the decreases, I don't like to stop lest I get confused and muss it up, so I just finished it. Because I now have these circular needles, I didn't have to seam up the back at all, so all that was left was o weave in the ends, and I'd produced a hat in an afternoon. I made this 10 sts bigger than my gut told me to because boyfriend assured me that his dad has a big melon head and would need the space. (Melon head is my family's word for many of the guys because they all have huge bald heads like melons) I'm pleased with this hat, and I hope boyfriend's parents like the things I'm making for them!

Happy knitting!

Blue Leaf Headband

'Tis the season, and I've been trying to figure out what to knit everyone for Christmas. Some of them I have covered like the box-stitch scarf for my mom, and some I have projects that are in the works like my sister's mittens. However, every time I dare to think, "Okay, I at least know what I'm going to make for everyone," I realize I've forgotten someone. This time I remembered boyfriend's mom.

It's not that I never thought about her. A few months ago I had boyfriend ask her if she'd prefer a hat or headband, and she said headband. But the other day I was looking at my yarn stash, thinking of what I'm using/ going to use for what, and I was looking at this almost cerulean yarn and thinking how nice it would look for boyfriend's mom's headband. Boyfriend's mom's headband! I'd forgotten. 

I hit Ravelry looking for something I wanted to make. I found this Blue Leaf Headband by Adrienne Krey. I love it. The pattern is so cute, and not at all difficult. It gave me some good practice increasing (although this pattern had slight differences from the normal make 1) as well as more experience with knit 2 together (k2tog), slip slip knit (ssk), and yarn over or yarn forward (yo or yf).

The more I knit up the pattern, the more I like it. It is easy to work and remember, so I'm not staring at my pattern constantly the way I've had to with other lace patterns. The one thing I don't really understand about the pattern, is that in it there was a note that recommended slipping the first stitch of each row (slip 1) to create a selvage edge. I don't really understand selvage edges and why I would use one, for example, in this pattern. 

All told, this headband is coming along beautifully and as quickly as Krey promised!

Happy knitting!

Changes to the Scrap Blanket

I finally pulled apart my blanket so I could use the green for boyfriend's last Irish project: socks. Then I couldn't decide if I maybe ought to try to find something else for the purple yarn before I put it in there, so I just started with the leftover black from my slippers.

I only cast on 180 stitches this time because it seemed excessively long when I pulled it off  the needles. This time I also decided to do a garter stitch boarder so it wouldn't roll. After the black I put in the rest of the self-striping since I haven't finished the hat I'm making with it yet, but I do have all the yarn I need for them. That got me up to four rows or the garter stitch boarder.

I was originally going to have 4 rows at the top and 3 stitches on each side, but then I thought that maybe I'll do five on each side and instead of doing ribs, I'll do boxes. I think that could be nice, However, I don't have anymore yarn to add to the blanket just yet, so I can wait on that decision until later.

Happy knitting!

Finished Slippers

I finally finished my slippers. For a while now all I've had to do is sew up the seem on the second one and they'd be done, and I just haven't wanted to, so they sat doing nothing for a while.

I finally did finish them, though, and put them back on again. They're bigger than I remember in a good way, but the toes are also pointier than I remember. 

I still can't get over the seem in the bottom, though. Maybe it's because of the way I sew things up that it aggravates me so, but I just can't handle it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them since I made them for myself to use up the black yarn and then I didn't like them, but when I took off my slippers to take the pictures in these slippers and boyfriend put on my slippers. After the pictures I got him back out of my slippers again by offering him these.

He put them on and hasn't taken them off again. He says he likes them, so they're his. On him they look a little like ankle socks stretched a little too tight, but that's fine. He's a little worried about how they'll hold up, but if the seems come apart, I can fix that, and that's all I'm really worried about.

These slippers worked out pretty well for my first attempt, even though I personally don't really want to wear them. From now on I think I'll be making any slippers on circular or double pointed needles.

Happy knitting!

Finished October Knit-Along

I finally went and got some buttons and attached them to finish my Cctober Knit-Along! You can find the pattern here.

I have never attached buttons to my knitting before, so that was a new experience, but after watching a few videos, I felt pretty confident to do it, and I think it turned out well.

 They aren't spaced perfectly evenly, and I thought about moving the center one down a little bit, but I really don't want to.

The fit is good, although the middle button is a little tighter than I would really like. Maybe if it makes me uncomfortable while I'm wearing it, I'll move it, but for now it's fine.

Someone else said that lighter yarn lends itself to this pattern better, and I do see that, but I'm already finished with it, and I'm still perfectly pleased with the results.

And that concludes my first knit-along project. I loved having something that was different than the normal things I knit as well as having a date to have it finished by. All those years of school really have me (and lots of people I know) conditioned to work on deadlines. I can't wait to start November's knit-along!

Happy knitting!

Green Bay Packers Hat

I've been trying to start knitting Christmas presents for everyone, and I do have something for most everyone. There are a few people left I'm still worrying about, but it just occurred to me the other day that I ought to get my sister's boyfriend something. She always wants to get my boyfriend presents, so I figured it was only fair.

Last week I was at Joann's looking for circular needles to knit hats for boyfriend and his friends for Dag anyway, and so I popped over to the Red Heart Team Spirit self-striping yarn. Then I realized that I don't know what teams he likes, so I texted my sister and asked her. I was a little appalled to learn that he likes the Packers and the Cubs, but I grabbed some green and yellow yarn and some Clover Takumi US 9 16 in. circular needles and was on my way. I was a little annoyed with Joann's when I got to the knitting needles section and found they only had two brands of knitting needles and a rather poor selection within those. I wanted some metal needles because that's what I'm used to and they're cheaper than bamboo. Unfortunately, they only had 29 in. and up lengths in the metal needles. I wanted (I was guessing) a 16 in. needle because I wanted to be able to knit hats on it without any fuss. I found what I was looking for in the bamboo  needles, and they were on sale, so I guess it was okay.

Next was for me to ask my sister if her boyfriend would wear a hat or if I would have to make him something else. She reported that he would, but he wanted it to be a sports team hat (check) with a pom pom on it (doable).

Yesterday I actually sat down and started his hat. At first I wasn't sure what kind of hat I wanted to make, and then I really looked at the hat pattern on the yarn, and decided that was the way to go. The pattern said to cast on 90 stitches on US 7 needles, and since I had US 9, I decided to cut it down to 80 stitches. I did check my gauge, but for whatever reason, each test swatch I did came out claiming I had the same gauge as the US 7 needles. I mean, I knit pretty tight, but not that tight. So 80 it was. However, I misread the directions some a little. It said to start the hat on straight needles-no big, I would just start on my new circular needles-and then purl one wrong sided row before switching to double pointed needles. This instruction for whatever reason didn't make sense to me at the time, and I got it into my head that what that meant was for the first row to be purled so the hat wouldn't roll because of the stockinette stitch. I later realized how incorrect I had been, but by then it was too far to go back, and it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.

Yesterday afternoon I sat and knitted the first 5 inches of the hat, and then did the first couple decreasing rounds. While I was knitting those first couple rounds, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to finish the hat the way it was, but I don't have double pointed needles large enough to swap out, so I thought I'd learn the magic loop. I knew it was meant to be done on much (much much) longer needles than 16 in., but it was kind of late, and I couldn't think how I could get it onto my longer circular needles. So I pushed right on through and finished the hat using the magic loop on 16 in. needles. It was a pain, and then next time I make a hat on these needles, I am going to do something else, but I managed it, and the hat looks pretty good if i do say so myself.

Last night I also knitted the ear flaps onto the hat. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, but I was really glad I used the thumb cast-on (the first thing she shows in the video-I know she says there are problems with it, but it's the way my grandma taught me to cast-on, and I really like it for hats and things that need a lot of stretch) because those stitches were so easy to see and pick up. They were so easy, and they looks so cute.

So after that, I was finished with the hat for the night.

Not because I actually hat finished it, but because I didn't feel like making the pom pom, and I don't have a big enough crochet needle to do the edging the pattern calls for. I've never done edging on a hat before, so I was on the fence about doing it at all, but I'm hoping it will make the hat stop rolling, so I'm going to set this hat aside until I can pick up the right size crochet needle. Okay, I might make the pom pom, and I did cut the lengths of yarn to make the braids which I can't attach until the edging it done.

Happy knitting!

Boyfriend's Finished Irish Mittens

I finished my first pair of mittens! They went to smoothly, too, aside from I missed a part of the pattern and didn't leave any space between the cuff and thumb gusset. Here's the pattern.

Boyfriend doesn't seem to mind though. They fit him great and look great on him.

Now he has a hat, scarf, and mittens all in the Irish flag colors!

However, it turns out that I still have a ton of orange yarn left. A decent amount of white, too. Unfortunately, I've already put the green into my scrap blanket. So I'm going to pull what I have of the blanket apart, re-ball the green, and make one more Irish project. I think I'm going to try socks, although I've looked at a couple of patterns and they look really confusing. I'm going to keep browsing for a good pattern. I want a magic loop toe up patterns because I want to be able to size it on boyfriend as I go, and I want to learn the magic loop.

Happy knitting!

Sister's Scarf into Sister's Mittens

After deciding that I wasn't going to make my sister a scarf to match her headband, I couldn't decide on what I did want to make her, so I just asked her what she wanted from choices including a cowl, an infinity scarf, and fingerless gloves, possibly with the mitten topper, in other words, things I haven't made before. Much to my chagrin, she wanted mittens. Not even gloves. Mittens. Which makes her mittens the third pair I've started this year and ever. Not that they're hard or anything; it's just that I'm getting a little sick of knitting mittens.

I thought about looking for another pattern so at least there's some variation, but then I decided against it. I want to colors of the yarn to be visible, so I'm not going to work with multiple colors, and I don't want to make patterns all over the hands because I want to mittens to be comfortable and it just seems like a cable or something up the back of the hand would be annoying.

I made a fair bit of progress yesterday. This is the same pattern I've used for all of my other mittens. This is the women's size. The cuff is 25 rounds and the hand up to where the thumb gusset will start is 20 rounds. That's how far this mitten is along: up to where the thumb gusset will start. I think this is a good size so far, and I do like using the bigger needles better than the smaller needles I'm using in my grandmother's mittens.

Happy knitting!

PS. I am going to try to start taking pictures using boyfriend's smart phone because i can't take much more of this webcam.

Dad's Scarf, Restarted

I finally got around to restarting my dad's scarf, and at first I really wanted to do the brioche stitch. It looks gorgeous, it's warm, and it looks masculine enough that I could give it to my dad. However, I don't know if the brown variegated yarn I'm using is just the wrong type of yarn, the needles I used were too big, I was messing it up, or the pattern just looks like that when it starts, but the first couple of inches of the scarf in the brioche pattern looked so bad that I ripped the whole thing apart and tried it twice more before I just gave up on the brioche stitch for now and went hunting for another pattern.

A lot of the other patterns I have in mind are either not great for scarves because they are one sided or they're kind of girly. While I wanted to do something that would be new for me, I also wanted to make something that my dad will actually wear, so I finally decided on a ribbed scarf with garter edges. It's 28 stitches across on US 10 needles and the pattern goes like this:
row 1: k4, p4,* repeat from * to last 4 stitches, k4
row 2: k4, *k4, p4* repeat between * until the last 8 stitches, k4, k4
So far, so good.

The way the ribs roll in as ribs do, I think it'll make a really warm scarf, and hopefully my dad will like it, especially after I've been working on the thing for years. I used a long-tail cast-on for the scarf, and I'm not wondering if that was really the right choice. I mean, it's not as if it can't stretch to the appropriate shape, but it is scrunched together as the end. I guess that'll just  be a problem for blocking to resolve.

Happy knitting!

New Colors in the Scrap Blanket

I've been excitedly working on my scrap blanket as projects have come off my needles leaving me with not quite enough yarn to really make anything else. I have since finished boyfriend's green and white Irish mitten and the black from the slippers, and so I've put those two colors into the blanket.

However, as I started boyfriend's orange and white Irish mitten, I realized that I'm going to have more orange left than I anticipated; way more than I can conscionably put in the scrap blanket. This has left me with a choice: either find something else for the orange or rip apart the whole blanket for the green and make one last Irish themed project. I think I have enough yarn for socks, but up to this point I've been avoiding socks because I'm scared of them. I guess now is as good a time as any to start on some.

And I guess if I rip apart the blanket, I can do a different pattern. I am less than pleased with how this one is turning out. I didn't think about it, and now my edges are curling in. There are also a couple of places where I messed up, and I would like to go back and fix them. Then again, they're places in the green, so I guess it won't be an issue with the green gone.

But then pulling the green out leaves me wondering if maybe I put the purple into this scrap blanket before it was really finished. I'm not sure what I could make with it, but I could probably make something. Should I pull that apart and set it aside, too?

I've got some decisions to make about this blanket, and I'm leaning towards pulling it apart and using the remaining green, orange, and white to make socks, but we'll see if I can bring myself to do it.

Happy knitting!

Progress on My Shawl

I'm still so pleased with how my shawl is turning out. It's almost two feet long now, but that means that what I've been afraid of is going to be true: I'm going to need at least two more skeins of yarn to finish it. That's alright, I guess, but I don't have a lot of fun money to spend on yarn right now.

The inevitable has finally happened as well: I messed up a row somehow, though I'm not sure what I did exactly, so in the next row, I was one stitch short. Luckily, I noticed the stitch was missing in the repetition it was missing in, so the pattern across the rest of the row wasn't off. I looked down at the row below to see if I could find the stitch that I dropped because then I could just pull it back up and be on my way, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. So rather than rip back to where I dropped the stitch and probably mess my shawl up more, I just left out the knit 2 together (k2tog) in that row and carried on. For as far as I am in this shawl, I'm surprised that's the only real mistake I've made. Well, once I think I kept using slip slip knit (ssk) after I was supposed to have switched back to k2tog, but when I looked back I couldn't tell, and I couldn't remember, so I just let it be.

I'm so excited about this shawl, and I'm definitely getting faster at the pattern which is nice. I am honestly a pretty slow knitter. Not because I can't go faster, but because I'm not trying to. However, all of this knitting I've been doing as of late has really been helping me to knit faster without really trying.

Happy knitting!

Progress on Grandma's Mittens

I'm pleased to say I've made lots of progress on my Grandma's mittens. The double pointed needles I was waiting for were in the pair of Irish flag mittens when I wrote the last blog, but I finally got them out and got into this mitten in a big way. I also learned in these mittens, as compared to boyfriend's mittens, that the plastic needles in the hand and as a stitch holder for the thumb are significantly superior in that they can bend a little so the rounds above the stitches on the stitch holder can be knitted closer together rather than having this weird slight gap like boyfriend's do.

This is the same pattern I used for boyfriend's mittens, except first of all I made the women's size, and second I decided to use US 3 and 4 needles rather than US 4 and 5 like the pattern says, so I added four stitches to it to compensate. Since I added four stitches to the pattern, I was a little nervous at how the mitten would work out, especially once I got the the hand and decreasing. I added two stitches to each side of the thumb, and it seems to have worked out perfectly. The mitten is a little snug, but in a good, cozy way.

I was a little nervous to do the thumb, but it came together perfectly. It's a good size and fit and looks good. Altering the decrease wasn't really bad. It took me a little bit to figure out what to do, but I managed it, and I don't think you can tell that it's a little weird.

All in all I'm very pleased with how my grandmother's first mitten turned out. There is one more difference between this mitten and boyfriend's mitten that you may notice. When I made boyfriend's mitten, I missed the part of the pattern that said knit until the piece measures x inches long, and then put the stitches for the thumb on the thumb holder, so imagine my surprise when I went back to the pattern to reference for my grandma's mittens and i saw that and realized I hand't done it on his mittens! So I did it here and they fit great and look great, but I don't think boyfriend's mittens fit poorly in any way. They just look a little silly. And of course I caught it before I finished his first mitten, but not by much, and it fit okay, so I decided not to rip out the whole thing. But now I know.

The variegated yarn looks great, the mittens fit great, and I'm getting better at mittens. This year's knitting is going very well!

Happy knitting!

My First Attempt at Slippers

I've been wanting to try a pair of slippers for a while now. I have this black yarn that's kind of beaten up because it's been around for a while, so I figured I could make a trial pair of slippers with this yarn for myself. If there are mistakes, no big deal. I have also been dying to try the magic loop method. I poked around Ravelry, and much to my surprise, all of the types of slippers that I want to make aren't knitted in the round but on two needles. This was a little off-putting, but I don't want to dive into a pair of socks yet, and I did still want to use of that black yarn, so I picked a pattern that looked reasonable in the pattern as well as in the picture and set off.

I decided to practice my long tail cast-on for this project because I've only even tried it once before and then it was for a project that I frogged and haven't restarted yet. It took me three tries to cast on because the first time I didn't use enough yarn for the tail, the second time I felt like I had too much, and the third time I finally got it.

As I was knitting the first 14 rows of the pattern which are all worked in garter stitch, I started looking down at my ball of black yarn and started getting paranoid that I wouldn't have enough. At that point I decided I'd also work in some of the white yarn I have. I know there's going to be more of it than I need after I finish boyfriend's mittens, but I've never made this pattern before, and I wasn't sure how much of the white yarn the slippers would take if I knit the stockinette stitch body of them with the white. I finally decided that I could also start pulling from the center of the skein I'm using for boyfriend's belt since he wouldn't miss just a little bit.

Then I had to figure out when I was going to switch colors. I decided to do all of the garter stitch in the black, and then for the body have 2 rows of black in the middle, 4 rows of white on either side of it so it would really pop, and 4 rows of grey beyond the white on each side. Also by keeping each color in even numbers of rows, I kept the funny multi-colored purl side all on the inside of the slipper, although I don't think it really looks to bad. I almost wish it were the outside of the slipper.

I knitted the slipper with US 6 needles, and when I was binding off, the pattern suggested that I use a size 8 or 9 needle. I took a minute and decided on the 8, and now I wish I'd used the 9 because the cuff is a little tight, but not really uncomfortably so, so I guess it's alright.

I knitted one entire slipper yesterday. Partially because once I start decreasing I don't like to stop in case I get confused, although in this instance I don't think that would have been really possible, but partially because I still have a ton of time on my hands while I continue to look for a job. But I get lots of knitting and baking done.

Finally, I tried the slipper on after I made it and was pretty disappointed with my afternoon of work. The toe is weirdly pointy and there's a seam right up the middle of the sole which drives me crazy. I had boyfriend try it on, and he said it wasn't as bad as I seem to think. Still, I think I am going to give them as a Christmas gift after all. I think they look nice, they're reasonably comfortable, and they don't take long to make. Plus the color changes keep my interest.

There are a few things I'm going to do differently when I knit up the other slipper, but I haven't totally decided what yet because obviously I want them to look the same even if it means sacrificing a better way of making them.

Happy knitting!

October Knit Along: Mostly Finished Cuff

Goodmorning, knitters. Sorry it's been a few days; I've been on the job hunt like crazy which has been taking up a lot of time. But a few days back I took an afternoon and finished my cuff!

The cuff before binding off or doing the I-cords.

One day I was trying to knit my goal progress for the week on the cuff, and then the next weeks, and then I had the whole thing finished remarkably quickly and easily, and all I had left to do was bind of and knit the I-cords.

I was more worried about the end of the pattern than I had been for any of the rest of the pattern. I had never knitted I-cords before and I was a little skeptical on how they would work and look. I also, if you remember, modified the pattern so it was 15 instead of 25 stitches which was fine until the end when that mattered. So I had to take what seemed like hours trying to figure out how many stitches to bind of before starting the I-cord and then what to slip and where to begin again and then how many to bind off. It seemed so complicated. But then I started knitting and, surprised as I was, the end of the cuff came together quite nicely.

The I-cords that will be the buttonloops and the bound off edge of the cuff.

Now all I need to do is find some buttons to put on the cuff, and I'll be finished! Well, almost since I've also been too lazy to weave in my ends. Okay, and I clearly haven't blocked it. Mostly finished, after all. But, since it's only mid-October, I bet I have enough time to make another cuff. I think I'm going to try the framed cuff.

Happy knitting!

More Progress on Boyfriend's Belt

I'm pleased to say I've made quite a bit of progress on the grey garter stitch belt. I've been trying to work on it some each day because while it doesn't necessarily go quickly, it is easy, and it is helping to improve my knitting speed.

For whatever reason, the camera decided that this grey looks kind of purple today, but it is grey.

That being said, it's now about 6 feet long! I know in my last post I said I thought that would be about as long as boyfriend wanted it, but I've talked with him more about what he wants, and it turns out I was misunderstanding him some. When he said sash, he didn't mean shoulder to hip sash, he meant, well, he meant a type of belt. What he wants to be able to do it loop it twice around his waist and have it dangle some so that when he's all dressed up for Dagorhir (his LARP thing) he'll have places to tuck things into the belt. I'm not sure if it's going to work, but that's what he wants. He also wants it to be twelve feet long, so I'm only half way, but it is going faster than I thought. Then again, on a Friday night after a few adult beverages, it is the project I still feel confidant picking up and not messing up, so it does have time available to it that other projects don't.

This project has size US 3 needles.

All in all, I'm very pleased with how it's coming together. I'm not sure it will totally work for what boyfriend wants, but so far so good, and I think it should work for a while at least.

Happy knitting!