love love love it. i’m calling it done for now even though i haven’t blocked it. when i blocked the last cowl i made, i ended up a little disappointed, and wished i hadn’t blocked it… it got a touch too long, and lost some of its scrunchy-ness. i dunno, it just seems a little flat now. i still need to do an FO blog about it. maybe i’ll re block it, and scrunch it up as much as possible?
ah… timed shots mean that auto-focus doesn’t work very well…. i don’t mind. i prefer blurry pictures of me!
pattern: ships & seaside by tinyowlknits
yarn: rowan kid classic. 2 skeins crushed velvet, 2 skeins smudge, 1 skein feather, 1 skein smoke.
needles: US size 8 (5 mm)
absolutely no modifications. cuz i loved the original! i was a little worried about the gigantic row of kitchener stitch, but it worked out fairly well. i made a handful of mistakes, but the ratio of mistakes to looks-just-fine is utterly palatable to me.
i gave this hoodie to jake for christmas, only i keep grabbing it… since spring is dragging its feet, i need something snuggly to wear. while i wait for spring (any day now, sweetheart!), i’m working on my blindingly cheerful socks. just turned the first heel!
no new blocking. but i have finished my ships and seaside…. and i’ve been wearing it two straight days. i like it a lot, and the kitchener stitch wasn’t as bad as i had expected. i still managed to fudge it up a few times, but it looks pretty good! i’m on the fence as to whether or not i should block it. it’s lovely and fluffy and excellent now, and the last cowl i blocked got a little longer than i wanted it to, and it lost some of its texture. so i might take FO shots in the mean time.
speaking of pre-blocking, here’s my newest duck duck goose. i thought i’d take pics to compare pre and post blocking.
and i enjoyed pulling out some of my stash yarn for the ships and seaside, so i thought i’d continue the trend, and cast on for a new pair of socks with some brilliantly cheerful koigu:
and that’s what is new around here!
i’m in the middle of ships & seaside by the lovely, unparalleled tinyowlknits (i have my eye on orchids & fairy lights, deer with little antlers and perhaps even where the wild things are hat, though i have no idea how often i will be able to wear them…). jake gave me several skeins of rowan kid classic for christmas last year:
fuzzy ones on the right
and i’ve been waiting for the right project to use it. and in swoops tinyowlknits with the perfect new pattern! her timing couldn’t be any better, either. i got a couple of gift certificates to my LYS for my birthday, which made buying two more skeins in two more colors a very easy decision! i’ve been wanting to knit with rowan kid classic for a long time (i don’t even remember the root of this desire… ususally i can trace it to a specific project i saw, but not in this case), and so far i have really enjoyed it! and after wrasslin’ with the duck duck goose pattern a couple more times, i was ready for some straight up stockinette.
remember how i mentioned that i have a tendency to drag my feet before blocking? here’s some proof… four knits, all finished up, except a couple strands waiting to be sewn in, and all in need of some blocking. i am hoping that admitting this and posting this picture will guilt me into it.
the epic saga sweeps on… but not much longer, i hope. so this story begins early in 2009, with a hat made for my now sister-in-law:
estella’s blue lagoon <–ravelry project page for any interested parties.
which was a last minute project before she flew back across the big ol’ puddle to the continent where she lives. i loved the stitch, the texture, and the way it broke up variegated yarn (every knitters non-pooling dream, right?), but given the time crunch, i didn’t really have a chance to figure out an elegant decrease with this stitch pattern.
fast forward to fall. chronographia and i decide to do a hat swap, and she mentions that she enjoyed estella’s blue lagoon. aha! perfect opportunity to smooth out those decreases!
oooh, misti worsted tonos! so soft! such lovely colors!
which i did. and took copious notes. and asked knitters around me to test knit the pattern as i had written it up. which they kindly did. and out of three knitters, not one of them got their decreases to line up with the way my notes indicated. which definitely indicates that something is wrong with my notes. so i cast on for another duck duck goose:
mmmm…. madelinetosh-y…. so prettiful…
which i knit up fairly quickly, and got to the row before i would start the decreases, and then it just sat. just sat there…. for a long time. because i was frustrated about this decreasing business.
but i have had a request for a hat, with specifications for a duck duck goose. so today i pulled out the madelinetosh, girded my loins, and waded into battle with the decreases. and i feel that i came out ahead. i have new notes on a new set of decreases. and i think (i hope!) that they are simpler and easier to understand. i will be testing them out on the newest duck duck goose that i have cast on for.
my question is this: in the case that i can successfully re-create these decreases from my new notes, should i
a) just publish the durn pattern, try and troubleshoot if anyone has issues, and edit it as necessary?
or
b) try and find another round of test-knitters to do the troubleshooting before i launch my attempts at patterning into the world?
if b, if you would be among the willing, please for the love of nice things, let me know!
FO: der waffle hat <– ravelry project page
pattern: wood hollow hat by kristen kapur (throughtheloops)
yarn: lions brand wool ease, in my grandpa’s favorite shade of blue.
needles: size US 6 (4.0mm)
we had fun playing with the shutter speed after a good snow…
i managed to invert the plaited cables somehow. it wasn’t a conscious decision… it was, however, a conscious decision to do one extra repeat of the plaited cable, as the last wood hollow hat i made felt a little short. i find that in general, i like my hats a little larger/longer than patterns tend to call for. i don’t know if my head/hair is bigger than most people, requiring a larger hat, or if i desire for my ears to be covered by a hat more than most people? these are things i do not know.
ugh, knitting two of these in a row wasn't a great idea. this one languished a little as a result, and got finished a little late… but i lusted after this pattern a good long time before i finally purchased it, and i do actually think this is a beautiful gender-neutral hat, so… you know, it happened. i will be making this again, too. just not anytime soon.
oh, yeah, and the name. a play on der waffle haus (of dead like me). and this hat is for my grandpa. he is german (second generation american, but his german grandparents were prevalent in his upbringing) and he makes my favoritest ever waffles. all other waffles pale in comparison. so yup.
next up, actually, are two hats i will be knitting for PoPS supporters. we did a fundraiser on kickstarter to raise money for episode 5, and two people actually pledged to get a handknit hat by yours truly! so today: to the yarn store!
(actually i think i have a stored FO to post about, too…)
ifandany 