Microwaved day old coffee

Hello lovelies.  I've been re-energized with knitting power in the last few weeks, and I have visions of many new projects dancing around in my head.  Let's kick things off with a re-cap:

 I made a sweet little turtle shell cape for a baby-to-be that belongs to a gal who works for my mom.  She showed my sister a picture of this baby photo prop last year and asked if she could make her one.  My sister's knitting and crochet skills are there, but she doesn't really knit much anymore, so I took it on myself to create this little beauty.  I bought the pattern on Ravelry for $6 and I made it in one afternoon.  The pattern called for Vanna's Choice acrylic yarn, which made my heart sad, but I used the same yarn anyway for the sake of new mamma being able to easily wash it.  I hear babies dribble all sorts of gross liquids in their first few months.  Gross.

 I've been teaching some knitting workshops at my museum this season, and I dragged out my project planning book to show my newbie knitters.  The page for paulie is one of the more intense entries I did for a project because I was so determined to make something right so it would actually be wearable.  I followed the guidelines from Little Red in the City for taking my measurements, and then I made two generous sized swatches to check my gauge.  I got stitch and row gauge for once in my life, and I'm a happy little camper.

 This is paulie's progress report as of this morning.  That's me, modeling in my pj's (it's my day off and I have no intentions of getting dressed, deal with it).

The body is completely finished, and I'm 3/4 of the way finished sleeve #1.  I'm constantly checking for sleeve length, which involves whipping off whatever sweater I have on so I can freeze ever so slightly for a few minutes since it's bare arm town on the other side right now.  I'll be glad when my house will be consistently above 18 degrees soon.  Come on spring!

Paulie's body, before sleeves.  Look how pretty!

I also owe you a stash update, readers.  The following yarns have been added to my collection as of September, and I only just got around to taking pictures and officially adding them to my Ravelry stash.

Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20, my draw prize for being a volunteer with the KW Knitters' Fair this year.  It's got 20% cashmere, so I'm thinking really hard about what to make with it that is worthy of the luxury.

My Christmas 2012 gift from dearest Catherine, and also my very first 'tosh, believe it or not.  The handsome rusty orange will be a fine pair of socks for either me or Fuzzyhead.

Birthday sock yarn from Catherine!  This is Miss Babs "Yummy" hand-painted sock and baby yarn, 2 ply superwash.  She ordered 2 different skeins online and let me choose the one I wanted.  I'm a sucker for greens and any natural-ish colours, so this one was a clear winner.  

I taught my first lace knitting workshop yesterday to one attendee (who knew quite a bit about lace already, despite being a brand new knitter as of December 2012), and I've been jonesing to pick up a lace project.  Here are the next two on my list:

Say hello, this is Annis.  I love her.  She will be made out of this:

My single lace from indigodragonfly that I bought at World Wide Knit in Public Day in June 2012. 

The other lovely on my list is this elegant lady:

This is Triangular Summer Shawl by Nancy Bush with a beautiful lily of the valley pattern.  I'm leaning towards this as the yarn:

I'm hesitant about the long colour change and if that will blur the pretty pattern.  I've been madly looking through the Ravelry projects for this pattern to see if anyone else used a striping yarn, and I saw one, but it wasn't the ombre style that I have with this yarn.  I'm still thinking on it some more.

That's full time for me this morning, happy Monday to you!

Onward,

vrock

Thinking jug

 Hello readers!  It's been too long, but I haven't just been sitting around, oh no!  I've been knitting my way through many of my Rhinebeck purchases, which was exactly what I wanted to do when I dropped a couple hundred dollars on yarn in one weekend in October.  The last thing I wanted was for that delicious yarn to sit around and collect dust while I lusted for new and exciting yarn.  Here's what I've been working on:

This one was a quick and simple knit, made for my hairdresser who just had a baby in December.  I searched high and low at Rhinebeck for the perfect bulky weight superwash yarn for a baby-tastic little item.  I chose a baby sack (some of you may call this a bunting bag, BORING), and she loved it.  At my last hair cut (which I had to wait 2 months for because of the previously mentioned newborn baby), she mentioned that she'd already washed it a few times (phew! it passed the washing test), and it's the perfect little thing to slip on baby Abigail when she's in her crib.  That's all a gifter/knitter wants in life, to know that my gift is enjoyed.  Ah, satisfaction.

 I also had enough yarn to knit up a quick little baby hat.  I love the wooden buttons I found, since I didn't need to actually make button holes for them.  I wrapped the whole package up in bright green tissue and wrapped a shoe box in brown craft paper and butcher twine.  I win at presents.

 I also started and finished a non-Rhinebeck item that I had my eye on for a while.  I bought 3 pillow forms from Ikea in the summer, and I finally found a reasonably priced roving-style wool for this project - I had looked everywhere at Rhinebeck, but considering I needed 4 normal skeins for one pillow, I wasn't really down with spending $80+ on a single throw pillow.  I ended up buying Bernat's Roving wool from Len's Mills Store in Cambridge, and spent a total of about $40 on the yarn for the project.  Score. 

 Quick and simple knit.  I panicked a few times during the production of the pieces about how they would fit the pillow form, but I blocked the pieces out to the correct measurements before sewing them together.

Trinity stitch pattern.

Also in the pile of non-Rhinebeck FO, please welcome Momma's Christmas socks (finished January 19).  These were made with one of the sock yarns from my indigodragonfly shopping splurge in June last year.

 Nutkin pattern, and the yarn is Merino Sock by indigodragonfly in "We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero"

Back to Rhinebeck projects - hello big chunky delicious cowl!  I had my eye on a big thick cowl when I saw them featured in Vogue knitting holiday 2009, and while I originally bought this yarn to make the baby sack above, I decided on a cowl for me because of the 60/40 alpaca/wool blend. 

 Fun fact: the yarn I bought did not have a dye lot, and one of the skeins definitely had more of grey-speckle going on, while the other one had lighter yellow and white splotches.  I decided to alternate each skein every row throughout the piece to evenly distribute the variety of non-yellow colours.  It was a mild pain in the ass to juggle two balls of yarn at the same time, but I'm very happy with the result.

 Horseshoe cable (made without a cable needle), twisted rib, and bobbles of knit stitches on patches of purling.

 Hello pretty!  Wearing a coat and cowl in my kitchen.

First socks from the Rhinebeck stash:

 This is Maeva, knit in The Periwinkle Sheep, Oh So Fine! sock yarn in "Memories of Summer".  From the lovelies at The Periwinkle Sheep, I really wanted to buy their "Rhinebeck 2012" yarn, but I hesitated on day 1 and when I came back on day 2, they were all out.  Sad face.

And finally, my pride and joy, my new baby, my 2013 sweater: paulie.  He doesn't look like much yet, but he will be glorious.  I'm swatching like a mad woman to make sure I have the right gauge, and then I'll be blocking everything and hanging it to test for gravity-effectedness.  No one wants a saggy sweater.  Paulie will be my go-to work cardigan to wear over my uniform.  And then for once, when someone knows I'm a knitter and asks if I made my sweater, I can say YES.  It will be a great day.

This is Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Manly yes, but I like it too", which will be joined by his contrasting colour friend "Tumbleweed".

 In knitting-related news, I'm officially a professional knitting instructor.  The programming coordinator at my museum learned that I was an avid knitter, and asked me to put together some knitting workshops to teach in the winter.  I suggested 7 different workshops that I would be comfortable teaching, and she agreed to all of them.  You can find the full schedule and pricing for the upcoming workshops here, just scroll through and look for anything with "Knitting" in the title.  I've already taught my very first class, Knitting 101 (shout out to my two brand new knitters!), and I'm looking forward to the next few months of teaching.  My upcoming workshops, in order, include Knitting 102 (the "next steps" class after Knitting 101), Learn to Knit for Kids, Knitting Lace, Knitting Cables, Colourwork Knitting, and Knitting Socks.  If you know a knitter who wants to learn a new skill, send them my way.

I'm off for the day now, readers, happy knitting!

Onward, 

vrock