Sock it to Me!

I call these my sea monster socks.  The pattern, Scylla by Fiona Lucas, is based on offset slipped stitches and wraps to create a sort of box pattern with a lot of dimension.  The pattern fit well pretty much straight-away, although with my long feet, there wasn't much left for the leg portion.  You can s

I bought this yarn in Portland, Oregon during the AAPA meetings in April of 2011. The colors are gorgeous and the yarn was pretty springy, but I think for my second pair of socks, I'll use something with some synthetic stretch built in.  I may start wearing socks with sandals just to show them off.

Life is a (Half) Marathon

I've been seeing a lot more early mornings lately.  Why you ask?  Because I'm training to run the San Antonio Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon on November 11th!  13.1 miles is a long way, but it's for a good cause.  I'm running to raise money for Spina Bifida Texas, a local charity which works with children and families affected by neural tube defects which frequently results in leg paralysis and, for most affected individuals, life in a wheel chair.  

Spina Bifida Texas has many programs to support children with disabilities and two of my favorites are a nutritional and activity program to help children in wheel chairs manage their health and well-being.  The other is FashionAble which pairs high school students interested in fashion design with kids who need specially tailored clothes to accommodate medical devices when they attend a big event, like their prom.

With limited funds from philanthropic societies, these and other programs are at risk without private donations. That's why I'm running this race and why I'm asking for your support.  You can donate securely HERE just scroll to the bottom and click "Donate" under my pretty face.  For every $10 you donate, you'll earn one spot in a raffle for a custom-knit scarflet, hat, or fingerless gloves!  If you want to gift your knitted goodness, I'll even be sure to get it to you before the holidays.  Thank you so much for your support - financial and emotional - it keeps me running!

Christmas in July: Knit Gifts

Alternate Post Title: Shameful Gift Admissions.  Winter accessories are a popular Christmas gift, but hand knits are a bit more luxurious and a lot more full of love.  However, knitting generally does not fall into  the last minute gift category - a fact I repeatedly forget.  Take, for example, these gloves that I wanted to give to my Grandma the Christmas before last, but I didn't finish until nearly Halloween.  

Luckily, my Grandma is a very patient women.  This Ringwood pattern from Knitty is perfect for gifting because the stitch pattern is extremely stretchy.  I knit the smallest size for my grandma because she has small hands, but long fingers.  The stitch stretched so much that they fit my big ol' hands, too!  These were knit in some gorgeous alpaca yarn that I picked up from a farm in upstate New York the morning of the wedding of some dear friends.  I'd been waiting for a special project to use it and this was it!

You think 10 months is a long wait?  I finally gave this scarf to my brother 3 years after I started it (and made the mistake of telling him about it!).  This Binary scarf spells out his initials in case he looses it around other nerds.  The scarf is knit in the round, which means that there is no "wrong" side.  However, it also means that you are basically knitting two scarves - so start now!

Okay, have I scared you yet?  Don't worry, there are plenty of knit gifts you can knock out in just a few nights.  This R2D2 hat is a great gift for any Star Wars lover in your life.  I finished this in a few nights while watching TV.  Hat patterns are abundant and can be customized to any recipient., so they make great gifts.  The mushroom hat up above was my first-ever knit hat and Kevin still wears it (at least when I'm around).

And finally, a pattern for those times when you need a gift right now.  Just knit a rectangle of garter stitch and wrap around a sachet of lavender and cedar.  Add a felt head and legs to make a sheep to keep your wool safe from moths!  Happy knitting!

Previous editions of Christmas in July can be found here and here.

p.s. If you want more details about my knitting habits, let's be friends on Ravelry!

Vignette: My First Sweater

I've finished my first (adult) sweater!  I fell in love with this Vignette pattern by Amy Herzog as soon as I saw it in Knitty.  She describes it as "curvy and just a touch retro" and I totally agree.

I love the classic feel of the pattern, but that it also has the fun, but easy to remember, lace and rib pattern on the front as well as along the shoulder.

If you want more of the "knitting gritty" you can find it in my Ravelry project notes.  I'm so excited to have a new cardigan for work and to take a huge chunk out of my yarn stash!

Before I started this project, I made this super simple row counter bracelet to help keep track of repeats.  It's the best row counter I've ever tried.

As happy as I am to have this sweater finished, I'm itching to cast on something new!  I'm thinking about a featherweight shawl in fuzzy mohair.

Bundles of (Knit) Joy

My facebook news feed is back-to-back baby photos.  I suppose it should come as no surprise considering about three years ago it was back-to-back wedding photos.  My favorite thing about babies (other than that baby smell and being able to hand them back to their parents when they start crying) is knitting tiny things for them.  While I usually knit sweaters using my grandma/mom's sweater pattern (seen here and here), I've accumulated quite a few other baby patterns in my Ravelry queue and decided to tackle some of them for this recent spate of baby gifts.

 Baby hats are a great project for using up partial skeins and can be done completed in just a single night - or on a flight to California, as was the case for this blueberry hat.  (It was a gift for the couple we were staying with, so I finished it in the car on the way to their house - thus the weird photo.)  I cast on as we took off and finished as we landed about three hours later.  As we were getting off the plane, the couple across from me confessed that they had been surreptitiously watching the hat come into existence over the course of the trip and were amazed, "It was just yarn when we left San Antonio!").

If you have a bit more time, maybe a weekend, you can knit a coordinating hat and toy.  I've had my eye on this panda hat forever, but found myself without black yarn, yet with quite a bit of leftover superwash wool in a froggy green, so I adapted it to be a frog hat and I love it!  I can imagine it being a sweet little Halloween costume this October, but isn't so costume-y that you couldn't put it on your baby the rest of the winter.  How cute are these buttons that I found for the chin strap?

I've knit this frog stuffed animal before and I think it is the perfect size for a toddler (it fits easily in the palm of my hand).  And the long arms and legs make it easy for a little one to grab and drag around.  The round belly can either be stuffed with a tennis ball or regular poly-fil.

Knitting for Texas babies is a little bit tricky.  There is only a brief window where they need warm and cozies, but it's hard to guess just what size they will be for those two months.  This cabled baby vest, knit in washable cotton, is a great solution because it can be worn over short-sleeves or long-sleeves.  I love the cables, but what really makes this a great pattern is that the left shoulder buttons to make it easier to get on and off - genius!

This is the sort of pattern that I'm slightly hesitant to knit because it looks sort of commercial - like something you could easily find at a store.  To personalize the pattern, I skipped one of the cables and then duplicate stitched an "A," the recipient's first initial.  Once I found those cute duck buttons, I decided to include a washcloth puppet, rubber duckie, and bath-time book as part of the gift.

One of my favorite things about all of these patterns is that they use only a single skein of yarn (or less) and I was able to use a lot of orphaned skeins from my stash (yay for de-stashing!!!).  I had two skeins of Lion Brand Homespun that I had absolutely no idea what to do with or what I bought them for originally.  Then, I came across this pattern for a toddler-sized kimono!  The kimono shirt is brilliant because it closes with ties so it can grow with the child.  I knit two in two different colors for a friend who recently had twins.  The pattern is quick and straight-forward which lets the fun yarn come through.  Phew!  That's a lot of baby knitting.  Back to knitting for myself for a while.

Slippers Just in Time

Just in time for 80 degree weather!  Seriously, it's already getting up into the 80s on a regular basis around here.  Nevertheless, I wanted some nice, cushioned house shoes that were not as warm as my beloved alpaca socks.  I had some leftover feltable wool yarn in chocolate brown, avocado, and red so I adapted my slippers from these short-row shaped slippers I found on ravelry. I looked at a LOT of slipper patterns and this was my favorite.  The directions are a bit confusing at first, but as you work through the pattern, it will start to make sense.  If you are interested in the detailed alterations I did, they are here.

Felting projects always make me nervous because you really don't know exactly how they are going to end up.  Now this is partly because I refuse to make and felt swatches, but also because felting things that are supposed to fit is hard (it's totally not just me).  The original pattern was for slippers about 5 sizes too small for me, but I over-compensated and ended up with roomy slippers.  Luckily, I had an extra pair of insoles.  Now they fit and are extra cushiony - perfect for long afternoons in the kitchen.

Stash-Busting Market Bag

I suspect that those of you who knit have a few skeins that just aren't right.  You can't remember why you bought them but they are just too scratchy/too small/too weirdly colored to be made into anything.  Well I had a skein that was all of those things. Several years ago, I went overboard on an online yarn sale and decided to purchase a huge box of yarn for a variety of projects that I had saved in a file on my computer (this was pre-Ravelry).  I am confident that I never made any of the projects that I originally intended, but I have repurposed a good bit of the yarn over the years.  So despite most of the yarn going to good use eventually, I still wonder what possessed me to buy a single skein of worsted, variegated, primary colored acrylic.  The overly in-your-face color and deeply unpleasant texture directly contributed to me never buying yarn on the internet again.

But I digress.  The reason for this post is not to lament the past, but celebrate the future - a future of hands-free farmer's market shopping.  I had been thinking about making a market bag for a while and my friend Laurel suggested the Grrrlfriend Market Bag of the several patterns she had knit.  I whole-heartedly endorse it as well.    It's a quick knit and made a good sized bag.  I used the whole variegated skein for the body and the lace stretches A LOT when you put stuff into it.  For the strap, I used doubled, worsted weight black wool blend for the strap and knit just until it would fit across my body and fit under my armpit so that when it stretches, it's down around my waist.  Now I can shop with one hand and drink my coffee with the other.

Valentine's Day Wreath

I didn't get around to making a Christmas wreath this year (or putting up lights) so we were that sad, Grinchy-looking house.  So I'm making up for it with a fun Valentine's Day wreath - cheerful, handmade, and cheap!  I've never understood why wreaths are only associated with Christmas, anyway.

Using four colors of leftover acrylic yarn, I knit a heart every couple of days over the latter half of January while watching TV.  With a 40% off coupon and $5.50, I pickup up a grapevine wreath and an over-the-door hook at JoAnn's. Possibly the least money I have ever spent at a fabric store in my life.  I simply tied the hearts on with yarn so that I can snip them off and reuse the wreath for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and whatever else strikes my fancy!  If you'd like to knit up some hearts of your own, the instructions are below.

To Knit Hearts:
For all sizes, knit two heart.  Place right sides together and seam, leaving hole to turn.  Tun right sides out and sew up hole - easy!

Small Hearts
1. With size 7 needles and sport (or worsted) weight yarn, cast on three stitches.
2. Purl.
3. Kfb, knit to last stitch, Kfb.
4. Purl.
5. Repeat rows 3 and 4 until 11 stitches are on the needle.
6. Purl.
7. Knit 5, Kfb, Knit 5.
8. Purl.
9. K2tog, knit 4.  Turn but don't wrap.
10. P2tog, knit 1, P2tog.
11. K2tog, knit 1.
12. P2tog.  Break tail and pull through.
13. With remaining stitches on needle, knit 4, K2tog.
14. Repeat steps 10-12.

Medium Hearts
1. Work as for small heart through step 5, working until there are 17 stitches on the needle.

2. Purl.
3. Knit 8, Kfb, Knit 8.
4. Purl.
5. K2tog, knit 7.  Turn but don't wrap.
6. P2tog, knit 4, P2tog.
7. K2tog, knit 2, K2tog.
8. P2tog twice.
9. Cast off two stitches.
9. With remaining stitches on needle, knit 7, K2tog.
10. Repeat steps 6-9.

Large Hearts
Work as for medium hearts, but work on size 10.5 needles and hold yarn doubled throughout.

DNA to Cuddle

Yesterday we went to a first birthday party for my boss's daughter.  Since her mom is a geneticist, I thought it was high time she start learning about DNA.  Thankfully, I have had my eye on this knit DNA model for quite a while and was just waiting for the opportunity to make it. It took a couple hours each night over the course of several evenings, but was a pretty easy.

Knitting Nerd info: The coolest thing about this pattern is that you actually knit the tube into a spiral using a series of increases and decreases.  I used an M1 increase instead of the YO called for because it mean't that I didn't have to deal with the holes created by the increase.  To make sure that the nucleotides were evenly spaced, I shoved a DPN through each nucleotide and positioned it on the sugar-phosphate backbones.

The birthday girl thought it was neat and colorful, but it was really the biggest hit with the adults!  Now everyone wants one.

One Skein Summer Shrug

It is a common affliction among those who indulge in the yarn arts - the single skein.  I have no idea why I purchased this particular lonely skein of electric teal Paton's wool, but I suspect that my though process was something like "OOOOOOO, PRETTY!!!!".  It has been in my stash for at least two years, but I never knew what to do with it. Coincidentally, I have had a pattern for a "capelet" which I though would be a quick and cute little project to use up this small amount of yarn.

I tried to figure out how to adjust the pattern for the thinner yarn and to deal with the fact that there were no measurements in the original pattern.  In the end, I realized it would be easier to start from scratch.  I found this formula for a raglan sweater and calculated it to my measurements.  I also decided that I wanted to work the shrug in an open lace pattern so it would use less yarn and better for summer.  I leafed through my Vogue Guide to Knitting until I found a lace pattern I liked with a relative short repeat (this one is six stitches).  The short repeat length was important because nearly the entire shrug is raglan increases and I wanted to minimize the ugliness created by trying to increase in a lace pattern. All in all, I am quite happy with the resulting shrug. It is light enough for summer, even through it is wool, and it adds a nice pop of color to neutral dresses.  One skein down, lots more to go!

Welcome Finn!

Today I'm missing my cousin Elizabeth's baby shower.  I had hoped to go but the drive back just wouldn't work.  I hate missing family time!!!  But I sent along a little love in the form of a friendly dragon.

In addition to "That's not my dragon," a touchy-feely board book, part of the same series as the "That's not my monkey" book that went along with Clara's orangutan.

Look at that face!  I used the Norberta pattern from Knitty and it came together fairly quickly using up some Lion Brand Homespun yarn which has a nubby texture to it which made him look even more scaley.

I rounded it out with a onesie that I hand-painted.  I traced the pattern onto the onesie instead of using the freezer-paper stencils like I have in the past.  This way was faster, but there were a lot more opportunities to mess up!  I was very happy with the outcome, though.  The theme of the baby shower is robots so I made another onesie, customized with baby Finn's name.

I am so excited to meet Finn in a couple months!!!  Congratulations, Elizabeth!!

The Move that Ate Christmas

"And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

Moving was a logistical challenge (last minute delay to replace tires, 4 hours to get the cat into the car, movers stuck in traffic), but the hard part was really the emotional toll of leaving so many amazing friends and the only town Geoff and I had ever lived in together.  I just can't imagine my life without some of these people so I'm sure we will see them again.  Still, heading out into the unknown is scary, even with Geoff by my side.

Goodbye last remaining granary in Pennsylvania

Despite the move, and knowing that it would be taken down prior to Christmas I went ahead and put up our little Christmas tree.  Almost all of the decorations are tiny knit sweaters, hand-sewn felt shapes, and the annual painted wooden frame with a picture of Geoff and I that I make each year.  Best of all are the red crocheted snowflakes my mom made from the same pattern she used to make snowflakes for she and dad's first tree.

It made me smile amidst all the packed boxes.

During the move, a lot of junk we (okay, really, I) accumulated was donated or thrown out which was desperately needed.  Among all the cleaning, sorting, and packing, I convinced myself that I needed to get as much knitting done as possible - because then I wouldn't have to pack the yarn (my powers of justification are legendary).  I made quite a few of these little sheep sachets with bits of white, black, and gray yarn.

Get it?  They are sheep.  That protect wool.

But the best stash-busting project?  This guy:

Just look at that face.  I almost couldn't give him away.

I had some leftover orange and tan yarn and I had found a board book called "That's Not My Monkey!"  The book ends with an orangutan, so I knew this would be a perfect little stuff animal to knit for Miss C.

Unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to the pattern and "little" isn't how it ended up - I needed all of a second ball of yarn!  You'll see why in a minute but it was all worth it.  

Like all good toddlers, ripping off the wrapping paper was all part of the fun.

And once it was opened, C found an orangutan as big as she is!

The orang has velcro hands so it can give hugs!

Perhaps the most fun part of the gift?

We left State College on December 22rd and got to my parents on the 23rd, so Christmas sort of snuck up on us.  I had meant to send out cards or a letter, or even an e-mail - but I ran out of time.  So....

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM GEOFF AND ELLEN!!!

Thankfully, my parents were more than amply prepared for Christmas so we arrived to stockings hung by the chimney with care.

Stockings are strictly hung in descending age order in the Quillen/Harp household.

It would be a while before our truck arrived in San Antonio so we spent about 10 days in Lawrence and Geoff found a great open mic night to play at the Jazzhaus.

But eventually we had to get back on the road.  Hank had finally started to trust us again, when we strapped her back into her kitty harness and dragged her to the car.

30 hours of freaked out cat on my lap.

Next stop...Texas.

Knitting Up a Storm

I've done quite a bit of stash-busting knitting (plus and a few pieces with new yarn) over the last two months.  First up was a fish-shaped dishcloth I found on ravelry. I was hoping it would motivate me to do the dishes - it does not.  But it did use up the last of my lemon-lime kitchen cotton!

Then a sweet little baby sweater based on my Grandma Dot's pattern who taught it to my mom who taught it to me in turn. My mom loves making these so much that she sells them on etsy. I may put one or two up in her shop too. They are really a lot of fun to make. I'm really in love with yellow and gray as a color combo right now but yellow is not a good color on me - so I'm foisting it on babies instead!  My friend Sara loved it and cried at the fact that three generations of women in my family have knit this (Geoff points out that it is no great feat to make a pregnant woman cry).

Baby Quinn (in utero here) was born five weeks ago.

I knit up this sweet little summer weight scarf (pattern from Purl Bee) out of a free skein of yarn my mom got from Caron. It is soft, drapey (is that a word?) acrylic/wool blend that feels really luxurious - but it is a weird salmon color. I'm trying to figure out how to work it into my wardrobe, but I'm glad it is out of my stash.



Actually, it works with this outfit - so that's one.

 Next up were one year old sweaters for my cousin's baby Wyatt and my dear little friend Clara out of leftover cotton yarn.  I have a penchant for stripes so they came out in both sweaters:



For Miss Clara, the Confection Shrug





For Master Wyatt, the Candlestick Baby Sweater 

 And another baby sweater for the Christmas baby due to my friends Khytam and David.  This one had a sweet little monkey on it that matched the nursery patterns.  I love how the monkey turned out!

Khytam loved the sweater!

Close-up of the monkey.

And lastly, to keep my toes warm on our hardwood floors, some cuddly alpaca socks with turquoise toes and crochet trim.  I knit these on the way down and back to DC last week.



Our backyard is a blanket of golden leaves - so pretty!

 I was talking to my Khytam (who is a psychologist) and she asked me how I have time for knitting and I told her that I can't handle having my hands unoccupied while I watch TV or ride in the car.  She replied "You have a manic side I've never seen before, don't you?"  I suspect she may be right.