Not quite done...

I was wrong about being almost done with holiday knitting a couple of posts back, and I continue to suffer this year with gauge and size issues.  For example, I was planning a last minute hat for son R that I knew I could do quickly.  I had used the same yarn and needles for B's hat and it was fine.  HOWEVER I did a more intensive stranded pattern with 3 colors in a row and unwittingly changed my gauge...this will fit a 5 year old...

I am almost done with it but will restart. (I'll keep this one to donate somewhere).  I also thought perhaps I would use slightly larger dpns to start the crown of the hat (it's a top down pattern) and went looking for some other dpns.  Here's the end of my search 

Note the very accidental placement (!!!) of my favorite Louisa May Alcott quote on the mug "housekeeping ain't no joke."  Now you know this is humor as the word "ain't" was not in Louisa's routine vocabulary! 

Now there must be another way...I have something on order...

Meanwhile here's another frustration outside the window

On a more positive note, there are also doll clothes for Linda's little neice to work on...this nice person on Ravelry does patterns for MyTwinn dolls (little niece is getting one for Christmas) and her Twinn needs something warm...here's the start

Linda brought the Twinn over and it does indeed fit, thank goodness!

Bad Planning and a finished Chullo

I have spent WAY too many hours in the last couple of months re knitting things.  Like, hours and hours and hours. For garments, I usually swatch, but even when I do sometimes things don't fit.

And even if something doesn't need a swatch I decide, despite 50 hours more or less of work on it, that it's the wrong size, or I'm doing the wrong item (scarf vs. wider dresser scarf...), I frog and reknit.

For example:  I have some handspun which I did several years ago. Early handspun effort.  I loved the colors by Gale in the initial roving, but once spun up the lavender tones were...well.. a little too dim and undecisive for me. (A nice way of saying that pale pinky lavender makes me nauseous, even when offset by yellow...).  In an effort to destash, I pulled it out, decided that the yarn would look great in  the Morning Surf scarf pattern.  I had seen it in a 2008 issue of SpinOff and apparently it's now available for FREE! In the initial spinning I added some beads. It looked like dresser scarf project when I started the clever pattern, then realized that the beads at one end destined it to be a neck scarf.  I've started this FOUR countem FOUR times in different widths.  Hopefully now I've got it right.

The pattern does REALLY WELL at bringing one's eye to the unplanned color variations. Despite the fact that this is an early spinning effort,  I will give this away.

SO with all the reknitting this summer and early autumn, it was with EXTREME PLEASURE that I FINISHED something.  Son B requested a chullo in Clemson colors.  Yes, Virginia, there IS a Clemson group on Ravelry!!

B has a large head, relatively speaking.  (I also had to start this project several times but as it's bulky weight, it finished quick once I figured  it out...).  I found, thanks to Bernat, a top down chullo pattern.  (All of the prior chullos in my life were bottom up...). The pattern is in this free ebook. Oh, thank you Bernat.  Thus, I could knit until the crown fit B's head.  He loves the photos I've sent...I'd better get it to him before football season's over!!

Does she look like me?

I gave Theodora-Lucia long hair because I don't have it...she and her klukka (Icelandic for "slip" or underdress) are done. She's finally smiling because she has hair, eyes, a smile, and a klukka...

More wardrobe to follow...

I finished a hat for R

No, R isn't pictured here, it's B...in the Utopia hat, done in Cascade 220 washable wool.

And in other news, it's warm here on the first of February in SC...

rosemary is starting to bloom

"native" SC gladioli are sprouting...actually, they are not native, they were brought to America some 300 years ago...called "african parrot"

 

cats want out to eat some grass

and the garden produces lettuce and broccoli

Who Knew??

Take the Quiz here!

Well, and apparently I am Anne Elliot, who exactly is Anne Elliot?  I  don't recall Anne Elliot??!!  Help?

OK, so, what did Jane Austen do with a spinning wheel?  While the well intentioned folks at Interweave are using Jane to sell stuff (I do love them, but really...) I have a suspicion.  Women of the upper reaches of society did not in that era knit or, god forbid, spin.  Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.  Poor women did both.  Jane aspired not to.  It's likely that she did some needlepoint or crewel, for decorative and not practical purposes.

In other news, finished a hat for son R, modelled here by son B

it's the Utopia hat by SmarieK, thanks! B is looking intense as he's watching the Patriots win...

I also finished Lucia Theodora, but not her clothes as yet.  She's hiding behind a pillow case, not a little upset about the lack of wardrobe...

Hat, accomplished

I finished a hat last week for son R. It's from Malabrigo, the yarn is called Rios. This is my first project in Malabrigo and I can report that it is soft and springy and a delight to knit; the ladies at Yarn Paradise in Asheville (purchased this summer) reported that it is machine washable (?).

 The pattern is highly adapted from Robin Russo's Earflap hat in Interweave Knit and Spin, 2011.

Do you know this recording about Malabrigo? I first heard it on Brenda's Cast-On and I'm passing it on from there..."taste the rainbow now..."  synesthesia, yeah

Hat thing

I am still working on hats for boys who are traveling to coldish places this summer.  Son R picked out the Utopia Cable Hat available here.  Thank you Smariek for a very nice free pattern. We ventured to Michael's.  He assured me that he would be warm enough without real wool, and besides liked the shine of the Red Heart Soft.  He picked two colors, gray and a mossy green.

I completed one in green but it was too short.  So, started again with the gray, and did 2" of ribbing before starting the cable pattern.  Much better.  He likes it!

I plan to pickup stitches on the green one and add ribbing, so he'll have two.

This same talented person baked this for my birthday

And here is a view of the sunset at Port Royal Sound taken from the "north end" of Hilton Head Island last night