Giftalong 2017

This is my fourth year participating in the Indie Designers' Giftalong on Ravelry. If you are unfamiliar, it's basically a big KAL/CAL (knitalong/crochetalong) that starts with a pattern sale, then continues on up to New Year's Eve. The sale starts on Tuesday November 21st and runs for a week. I've got 20 patterns included in the sale- check them out here. There are prizes like free patterns, yarn, and books for those who finish projects and post about them. Even though I don't generally get a chance to make anything during the Giftalong, I always discover a new-to-me designer or two, and my queue gets bigger every year.

Check out the patterns, and use coupon code giftalong2017 for 25% off from November 21st to 28th. Happy gifting!

Clover Club Hat

Remember a while ago when I posted about this hat, and how my color choices were questionable but I was probably gonna finish it anyway? Well I did. Color choices are still questionable. That pink reads as neon but maybe we'll just say it's FUN!

The pattern is Clover Club Hat from Berroco's Portfolio Vol. 4, which also has my Millington Cardigan pattern (shameless plug.) The hat is fine. I like the pattern, but I wish that a) I had made better color choices, b) I had done twisted ribbing, because I think that no matter what, 1x1 ribbing that isn't twisted looks sloppy, and c) that I had lengthened the hat either in the pink part above the ribbing or the tan part above the colorwork. It's just a tad short on my head, and my ears aren't totally covered, and personally I find that unforgivable in a hat. 

The colorwork pattern is awesome-looking, but keep in mind that you do have to strand across like 9 stitches at some points. I personally dislike doing that, but to each his own. It's much easier to do in worsted than fingering, though, so there's that. I wouldn't do this hat as a first colorwork project.

The brim is knitted to twice the length then sewn to the inside to make it double thickness. This is the first time I'd done that and I like it. 

I will likely take this hat with me to the Midwest at Christmas and see if any family members want it. I actually have quite a collection of accessories that are looking for new homes. I just don't need much more than a fingering-weight hat and a pair of gloves down here in the Bayou. (Not that that's stopping me from knitting more hats and mittens and cowls, but.)

Zen Yarn Garden Quartet // So Faded Pint Sized

I understand now about fading. At first I was like "I don't get why everyone is SO OBSESSED with fading, I mean it's fine I guess" but now I want to fade everything, and I mean everything. It's addicting. I'm not one to jump on a bandwagon, but here we are.

I'm making a So Faded pint sized for baby Elaina with this Zen Yarn Garden Quartet. Once I'm done I simply must cast on for another one for her, and one for me too. Love the fade effect. I like the pattern, it's fine, but it's the fading that's got me. If you're not into fading, or want other ideas for this yarn set, Zen Yarn Garden has this helpful idea list for patterns that fall within the yardage of the gradient sets, which come in quartets, like I have, or trios.

How great is this fade?

I was offered this yarn as a blog review, and I knew right away that I wanted to make a So Faded for Elaina. The yardage (200 yards per skein, 4 skeins total, 800 yards) is great for a kid's sweater. For reasons that surely made sense at the time, I decided to make the size 4... for my 8-month-old. I guess we'll put it in storage once I'm done and pull it out in a few years. I claim mommy brain.

The yarn! It's really soft. It has a slight superwash stringy feel to it, but I suspect that will be remedied by 5 minutes in the dryer after I wash it. For babies it's so important that yarn for next-to-skin projects is really soft, and this definitely is. It's lovely to knit with, too- think of a sock yarn you really like, and that's this. No splitting, no snagging, smooth stitches.

As for the colors, I absolutely love how the teal, purple, and pink fade into one another. It's perfect. I'm less thrilled about the gray- if you look closely at the photo above, the gray has speckles that are cobalt blue and red. To really fade it should be teal and pink to match the other skeins. Also, I sort of wish for a color in between the gray and teal. The fade is a bit harsh between those two. I might just be picky though. It's a great gradient and I like that they take the guess work out of picking coordinating skeins. Plus the packaging is nice so it's totally giftable. See? Pretty.

Thank you to Zen Yarn Garden for providing the yarn for me to review. All opinions and rambling are my own.

Self-Patterning Socks

Finished these plain vanilla socks the other day. They don't match. I don't care. But also, I don't love them, and I do care about that.

After the flood, a bunch of wonderful souls sent me yarn, and an awful lot of it was sock yarn, including several balls of self-patterning yarn. Self-patterning yarn has never really been my thing, but sometimes I find myself in need of some vanilla socks on the needles, and self-patterning doesn't require winding, so... perhaps a touch of laziness wins out, and I cast on. 

This particular pair is maybe not my favorite, because the yarn isn't terribly soft and the socks aren't super warm (odd, for knitted wool socks) so I'm not sure I'll wear them a lot. Not that I get to wear my wool socks a lot anyhow, but. 

I've got all of this self-patterning in my sock yarn bin, courtesy of the aforementioned knitters. Do I keep on trying with self-patterning? Let it shuffle to the bottom of the bin?

Thoughts on self-patterning yarn?

October Cardigan, just sneaking it in

I finished my October Cardigan from Knitscene Fall like, um, two months ago maybe? A little less? But today it occurred to me that I should take pictures and talk about it while we're still in October. Nothing like waiting until the very last minute.

Overall this is a simple cardigan with some fun details. It has welts across the upper back and front shoulders, and these nifty curved pockets. It's knitted in pieces and seamed, which I used to totally hate, but I'm coming around on it. 

I used Malabrigo Rios in the color Water Green that I got from someone's destash on Ravelry. I hadn't used this yarn before, but I'm glad I picked it out because I totally love it. It reminds me of Madelinetosh Vintage without the hefty price tag. It's a nice firm yarn, which is especially helpful if you're going to be doing a lot of seaming.

Didn't make any modifications, really. Size 37, and I think it took 6 skeins? Or 7? I've forgotten. It took one less than I bought. 

This was a nice, soothing knit, good for the few months post-baby when my brain wasn't on yet. Big swaths of stockinette to zone out to while basically just waiting for the baby to wake up, again. Luckily we're now past that stage, because wow does it suck being zombie tired literally all the time.

My Jack-O-Lantern baby is lurking in the background. Happy Halloween!

Too cute, can't deal.

I finished the new Unicorn Hoodie for Elaina.

I simply cannot. One of my husband's aunts sent us this dress after she was born and this is the first time I've put it on her. Of course it's perfect with her new unicorn hoodie. I just about died when I got her dressed up. She must have known she looked adorable because she sat there and let me take a bajillion photos of her.

I wanted to make a new unicorn hoodie anyway, since I lost my original in the flood, but what sealed the deal is this Be Sweet Magic Ball yarn in the candy-colored Pastelicious. Is this not the most perfect unicorn yarn you've ever seen? I couldn't have come up with a better yarn for a unicorn mane and tail if I'd designed it myself. It comes in 48 colors, so should you want to also make a unicorn for your little one, you can make whatever color unicorn your heart desires. My heart is apparently candy colored.

The Magic Ball yarn is about 95 yards of a bunch of coordinating bits- mohair, regular yarn, metallic stuff, ribbon- just tied together in approximately equal lengths. I separated out the different bits so that I could make the mane and tail just the way I wanted. The only bit I didn't use was the blue ribbon, because I just didn't think it would fit with what I was going for.

Once I had each bit untied and wound up into a ball, I just cut appropriate lengths and made the mane and tail according to my pattern. I've got enough left over from one skein that I'm thinking of making her either a unicorn hobby horse (unicorn head on a stick) or a stuffed unicorn toy, or maybe even both. I've got a thing with unicorns, can you tell?

For the body of the sweater, I used some leftover Happy-Go-Lucky HGL Worsted in Salt Silo- the yarn I used for my Blowing Snow cardigan for Midwestern Knits. The horn and hooves are Knit Picks Swish. I wish the horn was smaller. I wrote this pattern with only one size of horn, despite the sweater going from 6 months to 12 years. Kind of a derp now that I have more experience, so I went back and fixed that in the pattern. I actually made quite a few changes to the pattern while knitting this version, including bringing it up to my current style sheet.
 

 While this yarn was 100% perfect for what I wanted it for, I don't think I'd enjoy knitting with it, especially the ribbon part. However, to each her own, and if you would like to knit with it, there are three patterns written specifically for this yarn: the Magic Scarf, Magic Cowl, and Magic Ball Hat.

Thank you to Be Sweet for providing this yarn to me for review. All opinions are my own, as always.

Knitscene Winter 2017

I got my copy of Knitscene Winter 2017 in the mail the other day, which was totally exciting because I've got two patterns in it! I've got a cowl and a sweater in the Hygge section (that's a Danish word meaning "cozy living," sort of, and it's pronounced HUE-guh, like the sound an old-fashioned car horn makes, which is totally adorable.)

This is the Dejlig Sweater, and I think it might be my most favorite sweater design that I've done. It's an idea I kicked around in my head for like a year before it became real.

I will admit that I got inspiration for this sweater from an episode of Pretty Little Liars. Don't judge. Everyone has that one show. One of the characters was wearing this great sweater with exposed seams, and I got obsessed. It took me a minute to figure out how to expose seams in a stockinette sweater, but I worked it out, and ta da! Here is it and I LOVE IT. I love the curved side seams, and the integrated kangaroo pocket, and the slight hi-low hem. It's cozy and warm and I can't wait to get it back.

I actually finished this sample the day I went into labor. Maybe somehow my body knew that I needed to get this done before the baby came? But yeah, I finished it at like 4 pm, made dinner, we decided for certain on the baby's name, then not 15 minutes later I was having contractions 5 minutes apart. Elaina came the next morning. It was actually kind of nice that she came when she did because I got to try this sweater on before I sent it off to Knitscene- I didn't think that was going to happen. Glad it did, because this fits me perfectly and it was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be and I'd like it back, please.

I also have a cowl pattern in this issue- the Kostbar Cowl. This one is pure and simple comfort knitting. I knocked out the sample in like two days because I liked knitting it so much.

Easy lace, worked in the round, no edgings, Malabrigo Worsted. What's not to like. 

These patterns are available on Ravelry if you don't get Knitscene in the mail, or you can get the entire digital issue here.