Across the Knitterverse

I’ve been really bad about posting updates of my knitting progress.

Part of that was because I had some surprise gift-knitting in progress. I knit a pair of Fiber Trends Felted Clogs for my mom, my dad, and my mother-in-law. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get how Brian’s new camera works and the pictures I thought I took didn’t actually make it onto the camera. So the only photo I have is a pre-felting photo of my mom’s slippers.

As you can see, they are pretty huge in their pre-felted state. My dad’s were even larger, knit in the largest men’s size. The yarn used for all three pairs was Patons Classic Merino, which I think is a great yarn for felting. For my mom’s slippers I used two balls of Taupe (for the bottoms and the cuffs) and one ball of Rosewood, which is a variegated mix of brown, tan, cranberry, and pink (for the foot). For my dad’s slippers I used two balls of Taupe (bottoms and cuffs) and two balls of Wedgewood, a mix of blues, tan, and brown (for the foot). For my MIL’s slippers I used two balls of Bottle Green (bottoms and cuffs) and one ball of Sage Green (for the foot). The yarn is held doubled throughout, which creates a very sturdy fabric once the slippers are felted.

I really enjoyed working with this pattern. The slippers knit up relatively quickly, and I was easily able to finish a pair within a week. I found the use of stitch-markers and a post-it note very helpful in keeping track of my place in the pattern, which can be a bit hard to follow, with so many sizes included in a single set of instructions.

A while ago I started knitting the Tiffany Mittens for my sister. I had some issues with gauge and sizing, and once I had the first mitten finished I had some doubts about how well it would fit. I decided to hold off on knitting the second mitten until I could have my sister try the first one on to check the fit. It turns out that the fit is fine, so while I was in Ohio I started the second mitten. I wanted to finish the pair by the new year, but I ran out of the darker purple, and didn’t get a chance to buy more until yesterday (thank you Woolworks!) If I concentrate on this for the rest of the week, I should have it done and ready to mail out this weekend. I’m a bit ashamed to have a Christmas gift I started in October creep into January before being finished. But I am very pleased with how they look so far.

I’m also knitting a gift for Brian. This project isn’t a secret, since it would be hard for me to make progress on it without him seeing it. Plus he is picky about colors and the look of knit items in general, so I got his approval of the yarn and the pattern before even starting on it. I’m knitting the Not Quite Straight Scarf using Patons Soy Wool Stripes in the Natural Earth colorway.

I started on it a week or two before Christmas and took it along with us to Ohio as my “mindless knitting” project. While the pattern is definitely simple enough for a beginner and good for car knitting, I discovered it requires a bit more attention than I was giving it. It was knitting up very quickly and I was almost out of yarn, when I realized that I only had 24 stitches on the needle, when I should have had 33. Umm…oops! I ripped it back to the approximate halfway point and started again, gradually increasing the stitch count along the way. So in the end Brian will get a scarf that is wider on the ends and more narrow in the middle — my way of trying to turn a mistake into a design feature. I need to pick up one more ball of SWS to finish it and then give it a good blocking. If you click the link to the designer’s blog, you can see how different her blocked version looks from my photo above — the stockinette/reverse stockinette horizontal ribbing scrunches up on it self quite a bit. Once I get the last ball of yarn, I should have no problem finishing this in time for his birthday in mid-January.

Even with the gift knitting in progress, I’ve also worked on a few things for myself. I started the Turtleneck Shrug from Scarf Style quite a while ago. For me, this project is something I want to knit so that I have the finished object — but the process of knitting it makes me feel like the project is sucking away my soul a little bit each time I work on it. There is something about knitting a long tube in 3×3 ribbing that just sucks the love of knitting out of me, despite the fact that I’m making this out of yummy, squishy Malabrigo. This project came to Ohio as a second mindless project and I managed to finish the first sleeve, but couldn’t bring myself to start the second just yet.

If I had it to do over again (which I won’t!) I would add a cable along each arm (along with some extra stitches to accommodate the pull of the cable) to add some more interest to the knitting process.

Ariann has been coming along nicely.

I had stopped working on it for a while, but when I ran out of yarn for the Tiffany Mitten and Brian’s scarf and then finished the first sleeve of the turtleneck shrug, I picked up Ariann for some peaceful, trouble-free knitting. I’m about halfway through the increases, and slowly closing in on the point where I’ll start the arms. I think I might knit both sleeves at the same time on one long circular needle, to ensure that the shaping and length match for each sleeve.

So, once I finish the Tiffany Mittens and Brian’s scarf, I’ll have room in my queue of active projects to bring a few out of hibernation — the Lace Chuppah and the Peaks n Valleys socks — before I start anything new for 2008.