3 a.m. Cable Hat

I just finished the 3 a.m. Cable Hat, the dk weight version.

And I bought a head to show it off. May I present Jayne:



OK, so Jayne has a smallish head, and the hat's a little big. Which is good. At least Jayne can wear my Kittyville Hat and I can wear the cable hat.

See:



Sorry for the poor lighting and bad angle. That is indeed the same hat, NH was just too lazy to stand up when asked to take a picture.

The yarn was Alpaca with a Twist "Highlander" in color 0299, a deep gray with flecks of white and tan. It's warm, soft, and yummy-liscious, and it makes me want to move to a climate where I can wear alpaca on a regular basis. Speaking of which, I finished this hat at knitting group the day after our only coldsnap broke, when we went from a hard freeze to t-shirt weather in less than 48 hours, and it's stayed unseasonably warm.

During that cold snap, on the coldest day of the year, my husband turned to me and said "You know what would be good right now? Some hand knit socks." My husband, who only recently received a hand knit sweater from me. The one who watched me work feverishly to make hand knit socks for his parents' Christmas gifts. The one who I asked a had asked a week before the cold weather broke if he wanted socks and didn't seem too enthused about the idea. I love him, but seriously...

So he's getting a pair of Arrgyle socks to match the pair I'm making myself. The Yarn Harlot's post on her argyles has a lot of information and I'm just going to go for it.

As to whose socks are getting made first, I still haven't decided.

Yarn Store Review: Knit and Stitch, Cocoa FL

While visiting family for the holidays, I was lucky enough to get away from everything and meet up with a friend who lives in the area that was able to get away from everything too.

She suggested we meet at this wonderful shop, called Knit and Stitch in Cocoa Village.

This shop was great. It's biggest allure is that they are very customer-oriented. It may seem strange that a small business wouldn't focus on making customers feel welcome, but trust me, I've been there and it isn't pretty. But that was not the case at Knit and Stitch.

The setup of the store is very nice. There's a big table in the middle of the shop, with comfortable full backed desk chairs around it. There were other people sitting at the table when I arrived, and before I even sat down, one of the ladies offered me refreshments. It seems that the regulars help by welcoming newcomers, which is very nice.

Everyone was very helpful and friendly. Advice was offered in a positive way, as was encouragement and praise.

One product that stood out were afghan kits from Art Yarns. Sample afghans were hung from the display as well as on the chairs.

This store is crochet friendly, but I didn't see crochet specific products. There was also a good amount of cross stitch, but I avoided that side of the store because I don't have the time to get sucked into anything else.

I'm sure I'll go back when I get the chance, it was a really great experience.

Thanks for coming out and knitting with me Hannah, and for showing me this awesome store!

Full Disclosure

So, it's the new year and I'm starting a new tradition. As I generally have New Year's Day off, and I'm recovering from (read: trying to finish) frantic holiday knitting, January First will be my annual "evaluate the stash" day, where I'll empty out every single project bag or box with yarn in it, organize it all, and evaluate.

And take pictures.



There it is, every bit of yarn that isn't in a FO. It's embarrassingly small, but I almost always buy yarn for specific projects, then cast them on right away. Since I've been finishing up things, the yarn's been cleared out.

I've learned that I have way too much sock yarn, and found some partial balls to donate to someone in my Knitting group.

I also finally let go and ripped out a crocheted shrug that was looking absolutely ghastly, so that I can move on to cuter ones, namely MimiCat's Purple Shrug.

Podcast Update

We recorded a promo and a short intro segment at knitting group this Saturday. Squee.

Dishcloth Set for Grandma

So after expressing some optimism that I might actually get all of my holiday knitting done on time in the last post, I totally dropped the ball and ended up only getting 2 of the 4 gifts done on time. In fact, I haven't finished anything since that post.

Here's something that did go out on time, a set of dishcloths for my grandma.



The term set may be a little pretentious for two dishcloths, but they're coordinated. In fact, the patterns for both came from the same book, Mason Dixon Knitting.

First is the Mason Dixon Dishcloth, which has already been posted about. It's yellow Peaches n' Cream.

Next is the ball band dishcloth.



This is the same yellow Sugar n' Cream, along with Peaches n' Cream Baby Ombre. The color pooled in the most awesome way, with diagonal strips of pink, blue and white. It looks great.

Look at the texture (ignore the slightly uneven stitches, this is before washing):



This was well received, and grandma is probably going to use them as decoration. I'm ok with that.

Probably my favorite (and most unexpected gift) this year was this:



Sock yarn from my knitting group. There's a ball of Lana Grossa and some Socks That Rock. STR socks are what's in the cue as soon as I get my MIL's Jaywalkers done.

And for a last little bit of Christmas spirit:



Santa or Hagrid? You decide.

I think I can, I think I can...

It's December 21st, we have all of our Christmas shopping done, and I think I'll get all of my Christmas gifts out this year, on time even. This is only because we aren't seeing the in-laws until a week after Christmas, and I've been knitting feverishly. It also doesn't hurt that we're leaving tomorrow to see the parents

In addition to the Coriolis socks in this post there are a pair of Jaywalkers for my mother in law, two dishcloths for my Grandma, and a pair of gloves for my dad.

For a while there I was a 24-hour a day knitting machine. The Jaywalkers bag had a permanent home in my purse or hanging from my belt loop. I knit at the movies, at stoplights while I was driving, and even found out that I could knit the simple chevron pattern while in the car in the dark, as long as I counted.

This must be proof that I love them. The people, not the patterns, although I choose patterns that I want to do, or that present a challenge, because otherwise I'd let the projects stagnate and not work on them for months at a time. Case in point, Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater.

Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater

So, it's finally done. It may have taken six months or so, but Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater is completed. Mostly. I have to tighten up the armpit vents created by my provisional cast ons, but more on that later.

As far as pictures go, I have a few close ups, but none of the whole sweater that are worth looking at yet, as during the photoshoot the camera was set on close-up focus and Nerdy Husband was wearing superman pajama pants.

But here is the super cool thumb hole that I added at NH's request:



Pretty cool, huh. It's 2x2 ribbing, I worked back and forth on double points like I was making a muli-row buttonhole. The dpns were used as opposed to magic loop because that was the best way to keep the 40 or so stitches that I had in a somewhat natural position and not stretched out at the top and bottom of the buttonhole. This way, he won't have to tear a hole in the sleeve like he's done with almost all of his other sweaters.

Here's one of the provisional cast on's in the neck.



It's a top down raglan knit in one piece, so provisional cast on's were used at the back of the neck, and the front, and in the armholes. I couldv'e used a standard cast on and picked up or grafted the stitches, but I'm a fan of the provisional cast on. The only problem is that in the armpit, at the beginning and end of the provisional cast on, there are some really loose stitches. I'm going to tighten them up by basically duplicate stitching them.

The pattern comes from SweaterPro, but I lost the pattern during the four month break that I took from this project. I got distracted by something new and fun and not miles and miles of stockinette, big surprise. But getting it done has been part of my effort to buckle down and finish things, and since it should be getting cold here soon I have no excuse to put it off. NH was teasing me about not doing it; we'd go shopping and he'd say "Wow, those knit sweaters look awfully warm. I wish I had a sweater...". I tell him that it's not winter when the highs are still in the 80's.

The yarn is Moda Dea Washable Wool. I don't actually think the sweater is ugly, and there's enough yarn left over that I may actually make myself something. But if I do, hubby and I are going to have to coordinate, because we accidentally dress in matching clothes way too often, and usually don't notice till we leave the house.

Baby Kimono

This is what I really did over Thanksgiving.



I really like this pattern. The whole concept is pretty cool. It's worked in one piece, starting at the bottom of the back, increase for the sleeves, bind off for the neck, work the left front and then the right front separately.

The yarn is Peaches n' Cream Baby Ombre. I was using size 4 needles, but I still couldn't get gauge, and I didn't want to go any smaller, so I had to adjust the pattern. I also compensated for shrinking in the wash. That's right, not only did I swatch, I washed my swatch and even used the measured gauge. **Big pat on the back**. I think this was inspired by the class with Lily Chin, as well as the knowledge that cotton can be unpredictable.



I used a seed stitch border around the edges, and two pieces of icord for closure. The idea for the icord was to make a little bow, but I didn't make it nearly long enough, and the cord was too thick to make it the right size for such a small garment. If I could do this again I'd either use a button or some ribbon as the closure, perhaps a row of eyelets kind of like a belt.



The baby is a little girl, and I gave her daddy the sweater this week. It was such a great feeling. This is the first baby gift I've ever made. I love giving gifts, especially when they're well received, which it was in this case.


With that done, I've started the Jaywalkers for my MIL's Christmas gift. Twice now. The first time I completely messed up the short row toe (I"m doing them toe-up), and it took me until I had the whole foot done to realize that they were huge. So, I'm trying a different hold, still continental but wrapping the yarn a few more times around the finger. It seems to be working.


In the non-knitting world, the other day and I went to the Cummer, the Fine Art and Garden museum here in town. After walking through the exhibits inside, we took a stroll in the gardens outside. It was a gorgeous day (there were people painting), and they're gorgeous gardens.





The rest of the photos can be found on my flickr page, with the tag "Museum".