Dear readers, please accept my apologies for my silence and neglecting some comments on my last post! I’m not sure what all went on but there was some kind of temporary vortex between wordpress and gmail, and a number of old-ish comments suddenly appeared in my email well after the fact. But never fear, I haven’t returned to you empty handed. But no, I have pictures of an angry cat clad in crochet!!

This is the Lael Viking Helmet. I’ve made one of mamachee’s patterns before (these flip flops, which we a gift for a friend, but now that I look at the pattern page again I really want some for myself) – her patterns are seriously freaking cute. Honestly, the viking helmet pattern didn’t do it for me in the end. Don’t get me wrong – the concept and FO are the BEST. But those vertical ridges of post stitches were nothing short of a royal pain. The thing about working crochet in the round is that your stitches don’t line up exactly one on top of the other, so oftentimes in objects like hats there is a natural bias that can create a spiral. This normally isn’t a problem unless you want a perfectly vertical ridge. The pattern appears to try to correct this tendency, but it doesn’t do so until round 9; by that point the top of my hat was already clearly spiraling. And then the correction is actually written so you skip the stitch *after* the post stitch in every other round. If you want to fight the bias you should actually be skipping the stitch just *before* the post stitches. So basically what I’m saying is, I had to constantly fight to keep those post stitch ridges straight, which kind of pissed me off. I love the hat and I’m glad I made it. I think there’s some element of “some people’s crochet will bias more than others” here, vs. “this pattern seems to be fighting what is a natural tendency of crochet fabric.” It’s an adorable pattern but I don’t think I’ll make it again, even though the hat would look smashing on me as well.

That said, I worked up a pair of booties in a tried and true pattern:

These are the baby mary jane “skimmers” from Sylver designs. And now that I look at this pattern again, why oh why have I not made a pair of these for myself as well?! Sigh. These booties are pretty much always a winner, in my view. Malcolm doesn’t quite agree, though.

Til next time – which I promise won’t take so long.

I knit myself a sack to wear and let me tell you it is the most fashion-forward sack the world has ever seen, because it is from a pattern in VOGUE.

If the sack were an item you could order from the JCPenny catalog this shot is exactly how it would be represented.

The pattern is actually called bulky topper, and it appeared in the all-around fabulous issue of Vogue Knitting from fall 2011. As is apparently my MO now I knit this sweater along with my best girl Minty – you can see her post about it right here!

When I first picked up this issue of Vogue I flipped past this sweater in favor of drooling over the numerous fabulous colorwork designs on other pages. Those are normally more my thing. But Minty pointed out the sweater to me, and once I looked at it with fresh eyes I fell completely in love. It’s like that cozy sweatshirt you’ve always loved, but with some structure (seams! set-in sleeves!) so it’s something you can wear out of the house. It’s a whole lot like a knit version of the cowl-sack from Target that many of us twitterers have been into these last few months. But HAND KNIT.

As far as the knitting went, the pattern was completely straightforward. No stories of adversity overcome here – it was totally clear. There are a couple minor things I would change, were I to be able to go back in time and do this again. First, I would pick up the stitches for the back layer of the pocket – not cast them on and sew them down later like the pattern tells you to. Minty was smart enough to pick hers up. I thought a seam would add stability at the bottom of the garment but, eh, it doesn’t really seem to do anything. Secondly, I would most definitely figure out a way to work that collar so it doesn’t have to be seamed all the way across my chest. The thing that is not apparent from the pictures is that the entire collar – cowl all the way down to the ridge on the chest – is knit off the back of the garment, and you sew it down all the way across the front in the finishing. And let me tell you, that is a hard seam to sew so it doesn’t look like crap.

But all said and done, for how much I like this sweater now these critiques of the process aren’t such a big deal. I’ll admit, it took a couple days of wear for me to get used to the fit. At first I freaked out thinking it was too big – in a way that’s beyond what it should be. I think I’m just not used to sweaters that fit so loosely.

Here are the deets:
I went down a needle size to US9s. Apparently I knit more loosely than I once did. The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky, which I thoroughly loved working with. I’ve sung the praises of worsted weight WOTA before; all those complements apply to the bulky version as well. It’s reasonably priced with generous yardage, and a nice wooly wool that softens up some with washing. I actually had this lot of gray from a kit I ordered off the Knit Picks site a million years ago, and then decided I didn’t want to make that pattern. I have a couple skeins in some other colors that I haven’t decided what to do with yet… And if anyone is wondering about my fuschia jeggings – yes, I am wearing fuschia jeggings. You may love em; you may hate em. I love em. Like everything I wear they’re from Target. And no, I do not accept advertising/freebies for blog posts. I’m just poor so all my clothes are from Target.

…And I have a preview of things to come to leave you with:

You can click through to flickr for a full explanation if you’re curious.

Well, it hasn’t been that long since I last blogged but it feels like about a million years for a few reasons – 1. school is nutso (what else is new, and I wouldn’t have it any other way) 2. my desktop computer died and was reincarnated as an almost entirely new computer (a million times faster, but lives in the same case) and 3. I have crafted about 9000 new things. Don’t hate me – they’re all super small. Strangely enough, quite a few of them are pink. So I’m dumping all the pink things here in this post.

First up, a cowl for Carolyn:

on C (her picture):

About a million years ago Carolyn showed up at my house with this huge bag of pink yarn she’d spun, saying she didn’t know what to do with it. It sat in my yarn closet (aka disaster area) for far too long before I decided it was high time I should make Carolyn something with her handspun. I made this cowl using Tunisian crochet – Tunisian knit stitch (link to Kim Guzman’s youtube)! I basically made a scarf, gave it a twist to make it into a moebius, and sewed the ends together. It took all of one quick evening.

Next up, simple socks:

These were knit in plain ole stockinette. I followed the formula of David’s Toe-Up Sock Cookbook – I think I’ve FINALLY found a toe-up method that suits me. I was able to use all my yarn (pragmatic!) and work my beloved gusseted heel. I’ll definitely be using David’s Cookbook again. The yarn is something I picked up in Austin a couple years ago – Hill Country Yarns Instant Gratification Sock Yarn (it’s sport weight). Unfortunately I think the company has gone out of business since I bought the yarn, which is too bad because these are some great cozy socks. I love sport weight yarn for socks.

Finally, a long-term work in progress, my luna sweater:

The color is way off in that picture because that particular shade of fuschia makes my camera’s sensor go NUTS. But as you can see – I’ve got back!! This has been a slow-going project for a few reasons. The short single crochet stitch (another link to Kim Guzman’s youtube – apparently she is now my go-to for crochet tutuorials!) is a bit slow/tricky to work. It gets better the more you do it, but it by no means flies off the hook. This is fine with me because I’m really enjoying the project. You may recall that the project was also waiting in the wings for a little while since I had kind of lost a few balls of the yarn. Upon tearing apart the yarn closet (aforementioned disaster area) I found the remaining yarn and am back on track!

Coming soon: a few gift items including stranded colorwork knitting, and yet more Tunisian crochet!

Hello readers, I’ve just got a quick FO post for you today! I’ve got a bit of a backup on photographing/recording items I’ve finished so far this year – there’s already several waiting in the wings! Yikes! First up is a pair of mittens I crocheted – for myself! Because I needed mittens! This was a totally selfish project that took two seconds and got me an awesome pair of mittens.

The pattern – like the subject of this post – is called Cozy Phalanges. It’s by my crochet colleague at Loopy, Taylor. She doesn’t sell her patterns online, but if you’re in Chicago you can pick up a hard copy at Loopy.* It’s worked in bulky weight yarn at a dense gauge, so while they’re not totally wind-proof (in Chicago at least, where nothing is really wind-proof anyway) they are super warm – almost too warm for my sweaty mitts.

The yarn I used is from Romni Wools, and it was a gift from a Canadian friend a while back. Gosh would I ever love to make it to that shop some day.

I love the details in this pattern. The mittens are worked top-down, but there is a thumb gusset (a necessity for mittens, IMO! I absolutely cannot abide mittens without thumb shaping) and a ribbed-esque cuff worked in post stitches.

Next up: two FOs that are BRIGHT PINK. No one can ever say I’m afraid of color.

*Since the pattern is not my own I can’t provide readers with copies, but a search on ravelry for crocheted mittens in bulky weight yarns will show you some super similar patterns!

It seems a bit ridiculous to be posting a 2011 wrap-up at this point, but I guess as long as it’s still January the topic is fair game, right? Frankly, I just like to drag out the holidays for as long as possible. I’ll keep it short and sweet:

That’s 36 finished items, people! I’m pretty proud, if I may say so. I attribute the x-treme productivity to a couple things: 1. teaching beginning crochet about once a week (I always have to have a simple crochet project to bring to class) 2. a handful of road trips and 3. (this one being a bit sad) almost zero design output (just one thing I can’t post about yet). Here are the stats on the finished items:
2 embroidery
14 knit
18 crochet
2 a combination of knitting and crochet (the French press cozy and the baby bonnet)
14 gifts (including 1 that was actually a swap)
11 for me
11 now reside in Loopy

I have a number of goals for 2012 (I hate resolutions). Firstly, I need to take a cold, hard look at my stash and make some calls about which yarns have a plan and which I will clearly never use. The yarn situation in this apartment is approaching Hoarders material. Conveniently, my neighborhood knitting group is having a stash swap in a couple weeks – it’s possible I could acquire some new things through this (hopefully things I’d use!) but the leftover items get donated to a local prison, so I don’t have to feel too bad about destashing. Secondly, I really want to get back on the design wagon. I have a handful of ideas that are totally executable; I just need to find time and/or get off my butt and do it. Finally, I would really like 2012 to be the year when I finally finish a crocheted sweater for myself.

The state of the WIPs:
I carried over a couple WIPs from 2010, but the unfinished object situation isn’t actually too bad. I have a pink stockinette sock that needs a mate – no problem, since I always need a stockinette in the round project. Then there’s the matter of my Luna sweater – this is a bit stalled at the moment because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have enough yarn (I’m sure I have 2 more balls than are in my project bag), and the color I’m using has been discontinued (not a whole lot of it available on rav, either). I’m hoping with my upcoming stash-assessment I’ll come across the remaining 2 balls of that yarn that I’m pretty sure exist somewhere in this apartment (why they were separated from their mates I have no idea). If not, well, … I’ll maybe just cry? I really like this sweater and I want to wear it, but if I have to admit defeat on something I’ve spent this much time on and is working well aside from the yarn situation it might have to go to the back of the closet for a while.