Christmas Knitting Part the Third

I have now completed the last Christmas knitting project - minus the NaKniSweMo that stalled out weeks ago when I tried to start a sleeve. I'm going to have to re-start with the sleeves and find a different way to incorporate them into the sweater. I have all my other Christmas knits complete, including these convertible mittens for my little brother:


Fingerless...



Or pop-top!


And the upclose and personal shot.


My brother recently moved to the West Coast of Canada, which doesn't really get the same kind of winter that Eastern Canada gets. So these were made for a not-so-cold winter.

Notes:
Pattern: My own, available here.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, one skien black
Needles: size 3 US circs

Something wicked this way comes...

So I was hanging out in my lys yesterday (what else would I do on Black Friday? You weren't gonna catch this gal at the outlet mall at 4am!) and I saw a colour of Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I had never noticed before. It's a deep reddish burgundy and there was 3 skeins. (It's # 6236 "Chianti" and you can see it about half way down the page here.) I have been wanting to make Wicked by Zephyr Style for the longest time, but I want to make a long-sleeved version which would call for 4 skeins of Ultra Alpaca. So I reached deep down into the back of the yarn cube and pulled out 2 more skeins! It was hiding! So I grabbed 4 skeins and ran with it. It will be my reward for finishing up all my Christmas knitting.

Speaking of which, I finished up the mystery present yesterday and now it is blocking on my futon. Just a couple of finishing touches once it is dried and it can be checked off the list too! The devil that is ravelry, however, has me finding all kinds of other cute little things that I want to make for extra presents. There's only 30 more knitting days before Christmas though! (Shhhh, pretend I didn't say that outloud...)

One more down, eleventy hundred to go*

Another Christmas Knit bites the dust! This one is for my dad (who I don't *think* reads this... or at least I hope he doesn't!) This was a fairly easy knit, except that my freakishly small hands had a hard time with the ginormous yarn and size 19/15mm needles! Once I got used to it, it went really quickly.

The following is pretty much the same info as yesterday, just slightly more organized...
Pattern: Big Fat Cable Scarf by my friend Julia
Yarn: Cascade Magnum
Needles: Size 19/15mm
Mods: Used size 19 instead of size 35 needles; added one extra seed stitch on either side of the cable, added pattern row 8 with purls (otherwise the cable would switch sides every time).
Notes: This did not turn out quite as long as I hoped, although the smaller needles and extra stitches probably account for that. I used every last inch of the skien - literally, there was about an inch left when I bound off that I wove in using my fingers (Magnum = too fat for tapestry needle). I don't care though, because this scarf is so fat I can't imagine anyone wanting to wrap it around their neck all that much.
For: Dad's Christmas Gift.

* eleventy hundred is one of the trademark sayings of one of my fav non-knitting bloggers: Loralee. I can't claim to have come up with this one myself. Ridonkulous, however, I do claim as my own. :D

Happy US Turkey Day!

So, I'm not American, but I do live in the States and so today, if nothing else for me, means a day off! And actually, I am going to have Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of friends and one of the friends' family, so yay turkey!

So on my day off I have done this:


On the left is my mom's famous apple cake and on the right is a blueberry pie. The apple cake is always a hit, the blueberry pie I'm a little less confident about. It's my first "on my own" pie crust (that's right, no frozen pie crust for this gal!) and it's my first blueberry pie. The last pie I made (which was about a year ago) was peach, also a first time, and a hit. I didn't make the pie crust that time though, my friend Andrew did...


And a little of the Christmas Knitting:

A giagantor cabled scarf (on size 19, not 35 as directed). Pattern is Big Fat Cable Scarf by a friend of mine. If you are going to try out this pattern, make sure you add an 8th row to purl across the cable... you'll see what I mean. Oh, and I also added an extra stitch on either side of the cable.

OK, back to the baking... time to whip some cream!

ta-da!

Behold, ladies and gentlemen - the first Christmas FO:



Pattern: Wisp from Knitty Summer '07
Yarn: Slightly less than 1 skein Rowan Kidsilk Haze
Needles: Bamboo US 7 / 4.5mm straights
Recipient: Nana
Mods: No buttons, not blocked (I like the way the lace looks right now and I'm afraid that it may become one big, wet, tangled mohair mess...)

in which we explore other people's knitting...

but more specifically, people who are knitting things that I designed! Remember the mittens I knit last year around super bowl time? I was in my fav LYS a few weeks ago and a girl came in and saw one of them and lurved it, so she asked me if she could buy the pattern. Being that it's free for whoever finds their way to this blog, I gave her the blog address and she picked out some Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, mixed it with some Trendsetter's Dune, and voila! Someone else's version of my very own pattern! I find it exciting anyway...

As for my own knitting, things are coming along. I'm more than 3/4 of the way through wisp and I'm hoping to be done and able to take FO photos tomorrow afternoon!

help!

I'm designing a couple of the presents that are on my to-make-for-Christmas (this Christmas too - I know, I'm crazy...). Anyway, one of them is the sweater that I'm supposed to be knitting for NaKniSweMo (which totally stalled out about a week and a half ago) and the other is this scarf. (Sorry for the non-ravelrers but I can't risk letting the intended recipient see! If you aren't on ravelry and you aren't a potential knitted-gift receiver, email or comment and I'll let you in on the secret via email!) What I need help with is: do you see the patterning? Do you have any suggestions / comments / constructive criticism? If I decide to write the pattern up for sale on etsy (or through the blog or LYS) would you be interested in being a test-knitter?

And now, some knitting that I can share (it's for my Nana for Christmas, but she doesn't own a computer, much less know how to use one!):



Pattern: Wisp from Knitty Summer 07
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a grey-ish colour (I lost the tags so I don't know the exact colour # / name)
Needles: ChiaoGoo US 7 circ
Mods: None so far, but I don't think I'm going to add buttons - I want it to be more of a scarf / light shawl, and I don't see my nana fiddling with buttons and mohair...

Thanks in advance for anyone who emails / comments (on ravelry only please... don't want to give anything away!) on the design dilema!

Norwegian colourwork

HPIM0907.JPG, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

I'm going to be teaching a class on colourwork at my fav LYS later this month so I whipped up a sample mitten (only one! tee hee) this weekend. These went pretty quick but they're a little small, even for me (I have pretty small hands). I think they'd be fine with a bit of blocking.

Here's a picture of the inside:



Stats:
Yarn: Cascade 220
Needles: US 3 (2 circs)
Pattern: Hello Yarn's Generic Norwegian Mitten filled in with a pattern from Vogue's Stitchionary Vol. 3

And speaking of new hats...

I was feeling antsy last night, and despite the fact that I have a semi-ridiculous amount of wips (4, if anyone's counting - not totally ridiculous, but bordering on it...) right now, I thought about my stash and decided to use this for this. The Fall Issue of Knitty hadn't really impressed me when it first came out, but there are a few patterns that have grown on me and Urchin is one of them. Plus I knew that that yarn would be perfect for it and I had no idea what else to do with it.

So I cast on yesterday evening and this morning I just had to graft the stitches together and the end result is this:





(Sorry for the bathrobe chic pics... It was just too cute to wait to share!)

This hat is ridiculously easy to knit, even if you've never done short rows or grafting before, I swear! My only mods were using bigger needles (Size US 11/8mm... 7mm doesn't come in US sizes and would have been hard to get here... and it would have meant waiting... I wanted instant gratification!) and 1 extra wedge before grafting. The yarn I used is a thick & thin, but not nearly as thick in the thick parts as the original.

It's finally cold!

Ok, so I don't really *like* the cold... in fact I really hate being cold - I'm a very baaaaaad Canadian, ok? - but I am happy about the fact that I actually got to wear my new hat last night for the first time!

No pictures this time... there is knitting getting done, but almost exclusively on the NaKniSweMo Sweater. I'm actually designing a sweater on my own because the yarn wasn't working with any of the patterns I wanted to use, so I'm almost done the lower body and I'm going to have to work out a plan to attach the sleeves... but I'll probably have to knit the sleeves first!

2nd pair done!

twinww.JPG, originally uploaded by gradschoolknitter.

Second set of wrist warmers for friends done! Early, early morning this morning. 5am by the clock (although we did have the time fall back last night so really it was 6... but still, very early!). So I've finished these up and tried to go back to sleep (unsuccessfully) and watched the latest episode of the Office. Perhaps a nap later this afternoon will be in order...