collegeknitting

New Design! C’Mon Baby (Twist and Slouch)

collegeknitting — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:57:45 +0000

Spiraling, from the back!

I have a new pattern out! The C’Mon Baby (Twist and Slouch) hat is a slouchy beret perfect for the hipster in all of us. The lacey, twisting rib will catch the knitter’s attention without being too difficult to remember. Plus, it creates a nice looking hat! I’m particularly in love with the spiral-y thing on the crown.

Side view. My awesome roommate was modeling in Colonial Williamsburg- super fun!

You will need about 80g of worsted weight yarn to complete the project. I recommend anything with some drape. Alpaca blends, like Cascade’s Alpaca Lana D’Oro, work really well. It is a bit big (the model has a larger head…) so pay attention to guage and don’t be afraid of going down a needle size.

Laughing at my photography antics- "put the hat in the light!"

If you’re interested in this FREE pattern, check out the ravelry pattern page here, or directly download the pdf download now">here. As always, you can also see it way on the bottom of my designs page, here.

Baby Blanket

collegeknitting — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:21:13 +0000

I am so close to finishing this blanket it’s not even funny. Of course, it’s mostly stress knitting, because I am so not close to finishing my papers that it’s pretty funny. When I finish and it’s blocked, I think it’ll measure about 30″ by 36″. I know it’s an awkward size, but what can you do. I think any longer might be strange, and it’s not like I’m about to rip the whole thing out and re-knit it wider. And, to tell you the truth, I’m getting a little tired of the stitch pattern.

blanket!

Still, I’ve only used about half of my third skein of yarn. I don’t think that’ll be a huge problem…I can always stash it. I’m sure that I’ll need to be making some baby things soon. I’m in college; eventually my friends are going to start getting married and having babies. I’ll be an adult!

Chalice Baby Blanket

collegeknitting — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:04:12 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, I finally got the chance to cast on the Chalice Baby Blanket now that I’m finished with the knitting portion of my sweater. The pattern calls for a worsted weight yarn and size US 10 needles, I guess to open up the lace. Of course, I didn’t want to do that. I mean, why would I possibly want to do what a pattern asked of me? I wanted something somewhat denser to really keep that child warm, so I compromised with a US 9 needle. Of course, when I then CO the required number of stitches it looked way too small. Well, it looked too small and my tail was really, really long and I wanted to use it up. After searching through the pattern for a while (in 2 different pdfs- one for the written pattern and one for the chart- it didn’t come out and say how long the stitch repeat was) I ended up with 103 stitches for an extra 2 repeats. If I could go back, I would probably add another ten or twenty stitches. After all, I have four skeins of yarn…

it's so big! Sorry for the bad pictures, it's pretty overcast outside...

As you can probably tell, this pattern is pretty addictive. The relatively simple lace is really, really easy to memorize line by line and I’ve been keeping the pdf cropped into the corner of my screen for easy access. I finished my first skein of yarn after about 24 hours- which may be a record for me. So far, I’m about 20 inches into the pattern. As, after stretching the knit (lace!), the lace portion of the body is about 24 inches long, I’m thinking I’ll go at least until it’s 36 inches tall. I know this won’t be a traditional square, but I really, really want to use up this yarn. I mean, what else will I do with a light yellow acrylic blend? Hopefully, I’ll have leftovers for a baby hat or something really small and that’s it.

oh delightfully pimply un-blocked lace, how I've missed you!

It’s been a while since I’ve done any real lace- for some reason, I’ve been on a big cabling kick recently. Well, it really feels like DESIGNERS are on the big cable kick, and I just keep seeing some scrumptuous cables that I really, really want. In fact, I may or may not be putting in a big order soon…I’ve been stalking the wonderfully cabled Locke St. Cardigan, which is in the new Urban Collection by one of my favorite bloggers: the Crazy Knitting Lady. It’s knit in DK yarn, which I’m having trouble finding for what I’m willing to pay. Webs has some relatively cheap 100% wool (Legacy O-Wool DK) that I’ve been thinking about, and the Swish DK from Knit Picks is slightly cheaper, plus free shipping! I don’t usually like superwash yarns…has anyone ever knit with Swish? Is it soft, or does it have that superwash feel? Oh, decisions!

Sorta Finished Object Friday

collegeknitting — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:05:52 +0000

Even though it isn’t at the wearable stage, I’m still gonna call my Rocky Coast Cardigan finished. I mean, the knitting is all done. It needs a really heavy block to make sure everything is a little more…proportional…but I’m sure that will work. As of now, I don’t even want to show you a picture of how it looks on me, the fit is so strange. Instead, I’ll give you this:

Rocky Coast Cardigan, pre-blocking

and promise to show the post-blocking pictures after I get a chance to do it over Spring Break. And trust me, I am so much more anxious for these next two weeks to go by then you are. Trust me.

Baby Chalice Blanket. And I promise that there is NO green tinge to the yarn, it is a pure, baby yellow.

In the mean time, I’ve moved on to a quick little baby blanket. This is the Baby Chalice Blanket. I’m using Plymouth Encore Worsted (75% Acrylic, 25% Wool) in a light yellow color. I’ve done a little modding, but so far it’s looking pretty nice, and knitting up really quickly. I’m sorry to FO and go, but, really, paper writing calls!

WIP Wed: Rocky Coast Cardigan Numero Dos

collegeknitting — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:27:26 +0000

Rocky Coast Cardigan

For my second WIP Wed. on the Rocky Coast Cardigan I have some major progress to show you. The last time you got a picture, I don’t even think I had started on the second sleeve. Now, I’ve finished both sleeves, the body, and I’m about half way done with the button band/shawl collar. Here it is.

Sleeve, bottom edging, and collar/button band thing

As always, I’m only part way sure that I have enough yarn. I only have one skein of the brown that I’m using for all of the ribbing, but hopefully it will work out. I think the color combo looks good, although I would be much happier if the red was slightly less pink. In case you were wondering, this is Plymouth Yarn Galway Highland Heather (100% wool- discontinued) that I bought way back in the day. I made a sweater out of it, but frogged it and now we’ve got a beautiful Rocky Coast Cardi. Well, mostly.

More of the same- this time on the left!

Remember when my sleeves were way too narrow? I ended up casting on an extra six stitches over the arm pit and not doing any decreases until right before the ribbing. It’s still a bit tight at the top, but not excessively so. I mean, if I can get it over my arms unblocked, I’m calling it a win. Hopefully, blocking will add some ease.

I wish I could write more, but as classes are taking over my life, I’ve got to run. Check out Tami’s for more WIP Wed. posts!

Snow!

collegeknitting — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:42:25 +0000

It snowed! Between Friday evening and early Saturday morning we got about a half inch of snow. Now, all you people from anywhere cold might think that’s nothing, but for people who got no snow whatsoever last year (and 8 inches the year before???), this is something. Saturday morning I tried to do a ‘virgin snow walk,’ but people had pretty much beat me to it. In fact, the snow was already melting, and most of the buildings had lost any layers of white. I walked around campus, and even hit the first block of Colonial Williamsburg before deciding that it was just too damn cold to go any further. Still, these are the fruits of my labor…

the view from my dorm's stoop

James Blair Hall, home of the history department

spoooooooky

someone put a snowman on the steps of the President's House

Colonial Snow!

Really Colonial Snow!

Puppy!

As far as the knitting goes, I’m almost finished with the second sleeve of my cardigan. After that, I just have to finish up the body and then do the button band/shawl collar and I’m finished!

Lazy Saturday

collegeknitting — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:11:13 +0000

It’s been a kind of dark and rainy day, so, despite my best intentions, all I want to do is curl up and go to bed. After a laundry debacle, I’m trying to work (rather unsuccessfully) on a paper. Of coarse, the paper is not due for another three weeks. Then why would I be working on it, you may ask? Well, it’s because I just realized that I had FOUR papers due in the same week. That’s right, every class that I have to write papers for has a paper due in the same week. I’m going to knock one out this weekend, and another next weekend. Of the last two, one is a group project, so that shouldn’t take TOO much time. The Professor of the last one is being a little pissy about setting topics in advance (OK, his wife is pregnant, so I bet things at home aren’t going too well. And I do love this guy…I am making the baby a blanket, so forgive that comment. I wasn’t being mean), so he’s just going to get a paper that was written two days before. He’ll survive. My grade will survive. It will be fine. So, to kill time before my dryer finishes my laundry, I thought that I would write this up.

the section is literally called 'fancy work.' literally.

I got my new edition of Interweave Knits in this morning, and I must say I’m not extremely impressed. I know it’s the Spring issue, but can there be something in here that’s not a short-sleeve tank-top kind of thing? I just really don’t want to invest all of that knitting time in something I’m pretty sure that I’m never going to wear…and I’m never going to wear a tank-top the thickness of a knitted garment. Never.

Helpful, but not a whole ton of new information.

Still, there’s a nice feature on lace that goes from explaining the basics (a yo creates a whole in your fabric…and an extra stitch) to some explanations about how the patterning will pull the fabric. It’s interesting, and I liked some of the other articles, but I’m pretty sure that there’s not a single thing in there that I would knit. Sorry, Interweave, but I’m going to call that issue a fail.

Cardigan

I have been getting some pretty steady work on my cardigan. I finished the first sleeve, and am about half way done with the second. I’m hoping to finish it up today or tomorrow, and then I’ll do that last little ribbing on the body before moving on to the button band/collar. I’m imposing a deadline on this sweater: if I’m not finished by the end of the month I’m moving on to the baby blanket, because that has a pretty set in stone deadline

Guess what came in the mail today?

collegeknitting — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:22:26 +0000

So, early this morning I FINALLY got an email that there would be a package waiting for me at our campus post office. I got my slip, waited in line for a long, long time, and finally got this:

Super apologies for the lighting; it doesn't matter that it is 2:00, it's still winter!

It is a skein of the Yummy Series (75% Merino Superwash/ 25% Nylon) Sock Yarn from Candy Skein. Tami, who does the WIP Wed and FO Friday links, is the magician behind candy skein. When I saw the January Sock Club colorway, Arctic Mint, I simply fell in love with it, and when I heard her sale promotion on the Playful Day Podcast, I couldn’t resist. The yarn is a lot softer than some of the others that I’ve tried, and it doesn’t have that superwash feel. By that alone, I would really consider making a lace scarf out of it instead of socks…but the colors are so, so vibrant that I’m afraid that it might be too bright for a scarf. Even so, I’m sure to get at least one pair of rocking socks out of this! It really is a fantastic yarn, priced very reasonably. I’m sure I’ll go back to Tami for another colorway sometime soon.

Sleevies

Besides the new yarn, not much has been going on. I’m still working on re-knitting the first sleeve of my Rocky Coast Cardigan, but progress has been slow. I’ve just discovered that I’m going to have four papers due in the week before Spring Break, so I’m going to get started on that. On top of the usual madness, I’m a member of my Hall Council, which is like Student Government for the dorm, and the shit has really hit the fan there. I’m supposed to be planning a big event on Sunday, but none of the executive board has offered to help me out, which is making it really, really difficult. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pull it off! And even if I don’t, I have plenty of yarn to console me

It's starting to look like a cardigan!

Now, I’m finally going to go a week back and reveal the winners of my contest! Katie guessed correctly: I do go to the College of William and Mary. Katie, if you check your email, you’ll see one from me! I’ve included a promo code to get a free pattern from my design shop on ravelry. As a heads up to you and everyone, I’ll have at least two new patterns out by the end of the month, so you might not want to cash it in right away…

Sleeve Disfunction

collegeknitting — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:37:02 +0000

Let me tell you guys, I followed the directions on the Rocky Coast Cardigan to the T. I ignored that niggling voice in the back of my head that said ‘this is too tight to ever fit your flabby arms.’ I ignored it so hard, that I didn’t even look for errata. Woops. Anyways, when I followed the directions, I got something that looked like this. Basically, not only was it so tight that it pulled at my paper-thin Old Navy T-Shit, but in order to stretch around my arm it had to shrink about 2 inches length-wise. It looked a little something like this:

Old Sweater Sleeve- too tight and too short

Now, it looks like this:

New Sweater Sleeve: non-existant

Yes. I frogged. I frogged and I frogged and I frogged until there was no more sleeve left. And then I was reading my blog roll, and found Audry’s post about HER Rocky Coast Cardigan, and I figured it out. I had done everything right, but the sizing on the pattern was so off that the designer had to post notes about the dimensions, which I somehow had never seen before. Silly me. Hannah’s new instructions tell you to add extra increases on the raglan yoke in order to make the dimensions correct. I don’t think I’m prepared to frog the whole body of the sweater in order to get back to that point, but this time I’ll probably pick up at least 8 stitches under the arms instead of the 4 that the pattern tells you to. I’ll probably wait a lot longer until doing my decreases, and I’ll definitely make the sleeves extra long so I can block them plenty hard width-wise while keeping my length.

Of course, this is all in the future. That magical time when I don’t have excessive amounts of work for classes, or events to plan, or extra-curriculars to attend. If that time doesn’t come soon, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Still working on the Cardigan…

collegeknitting — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:42:21 +0000

Rocky Coast Cardigan Body

As my title may suggest, I’m still working on the Rocky Coast Cardigan. After getting to the end of the pattern in the center part of the cardigan (it’s a top-down, seamless raglan) I decided to just put my stitches on hold before I started the ribbing. Remember, I’m doing the ribbing in a contrasting color, and I want to make sure I have enough of that for all of the ribbing and the shawl collar/button band thingy. Luckily, I was using my Knit Picks interchangeable needs, so putting all of those stitches on a holder was pretty easy. All I had to do was unscrew my needles and put the little stoppers on in their place.

Yeah, that's a sleeve.

Next, I put my needles on an extra cable and picked up my stitches off of waste yarn for the sleeve. I’m a little concerned about how narrow the sleeves are- my arms have their fair share of flab. I’ll probably try it on after I finish this one and see how it fits. Hopefully, it’ll be just fine. Still, I’m really enamored with this sweater, so I hope I won’t be afraid to rip! I’m doing the sleeve in the round, but I kind of wish I was working it flat. I’m using magic loop instead of DPN’s (DPN’s sometimes give me tighter gauge) and it is kind of making me knit slower Still, I’ve got a movie for the afternoon plus a Super Bowl Party, so hopefully it won’t take me too long.

Plymouth Encore Worsted

And finally, I have a yarn shop purchase from A WEEK AGO that I have yet to tell you about. One of my favorite Professors announced that his wife is pregnant and due in a little less than two months. Of course, this means I’m making a blanket! I always loved the baby blanket my grandmother knitted me, so I hope this kid has the same experience I did. I picked up 4 skeins of Plymouth Encore Worsted in a pale (unisex!) yellow. I figure the heavy acrylic content means easy washing, and won’t the wool keep it from bursting into flames? Right now, I’m leaning towards making a Chalice Blanket. I’m kind of feeling some light lace, so hopefully it will be a pretty enjoyable pattern. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time to make it after I finish the Cardigan.

Baby Chalice Blanket. Picture sniped from ravelry; please don't sue. I have no money...

While I was at Knitting Sisters I, of course, had to pick up a little something for myself. I just grabbed a skein of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the colorway Polar Morn, a lightish grey. The malabrigo was hiding underneath a bunch of cubbies of Manos, otherwise I probably would have sniffed it out earlier. The only malabrigo I have ever worked with was Sock. Although I loved that, I’m really excited to try out a yarn that has such a good reputation. I’m thinking that I might go with a scarf or cowl. I haven’t made something to go around my neck this year, and the grey would match my favorite jacket…

Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Polar Morn

That’s all the news from here. Next post, I’ll announce the winners of the contest, so keep your eyes open for that (or if you’d like to enter, check out the post and take a guess!). I’ll also probably have some book reviews to keep you from languishing from the boredom of watching me slowly, slowly work my way through the Cardigan.