WIP Wednesday: Stochastic Knitting and a Sewing Project

This week's WIPs are a bit different than some week's WIPs in that they're not my typical crafting project.

First, a colourwork hat. Which isn't at all out of the ordinary for me, but the "pattern" is definitely not my typical thing.

A bit about what this is. To start, the pattern is more or less based on the Turn A Square Hat by Jared Flood, which is sort of my go-to standard hat pattern at this point. It's a great unisex hat with an easy construction (except the Channel Island cast on, which I find beyond tedious and almost never do), it's basic and easily modified, and it's free. All wins in my book. The yarn is stuff I pulled out of my stash that I've been "saving" for "making random hats"...which is my way of justifying not getting rid of the yarn. Good thing that's finally paying off. The grey colour is most of a ball of Lion Brand Wool Ease leftover from a Fourth Doctor scarf. The red is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes left over from a sweater I made my mom a few years ago. None of that is odd.

What's odd is the "pattern", which I keep putting in quotes for a reason. The Knerdgirl Knits podcast (you hear about them alot around here!) is doing a cool event this year that's a year-long bad-ass women craft along. Four times (two months each) this year, they're doing a set of challenges to celebrate women in STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) fields (of which I am one). This round is the Women in Tech/Education KAL, and one of the challenges is to knit something with a stochastic pattern generator that Kris (Geknitics on Ravelry) found. The very complicated explanation that I don't understand behind it can be found here, but suffice to say that this uses all sorts of computer math formulas and generates random patterns of colourwork depending on a variety of things you input. It basically generates them on the fly and you then knit the block of stitches, hit next, knit the next block of stitches, hit next, etc. I should warn you that I hear the site only works in Firefox (which I happen to use), so visit at your own risk or whatever. It's pretty fun to not know exactly what's coming next or what this is going to look like when it's done, actually. That's not normally at all how I roll, but the way the pattern generator works it's making it very easy.

It's going slowly because it's colourwork and I have to sit at my laptop so I can generate the next steps, but it's a worsted weight hat, so it shouldn't take too much longer. Any rate, I need a project to take to geek knitting night at the LYS tomorrow, so I want it to be at a place where I'm knitting straight red and doing crown decreases by then, otherwise I'll have to bring the laptop with me, which I don't want to do.

Second...a sewing project. I'm making the top left dress from this Butterick pattern for my first day of grad school classes.  It doesn't look like much yet, but I'm hoping if I can squeeze out some time this Saturday before I go on a work trip and then maybe the weekend after I get back, I can make real progress on it. It's allegedly an easy project, and I don't think it should be too much more work. I just had to stop because I need to think about lining fabric and buy a zipper.

Anyway, just for funsies, here it is in progress!

 The long piece is the skirt. The contrast pieces go on the midriff. And the bodice pieces are the things you can sort of see on top. Here's hoping I'll have something more tangible to show you soon!

Stash Confessional: Minnesota Knitters Guild Yarnover 2015

So...I acquired some yarn this weekend. I was so proud of myself for knitting a whole sweater out of worsted weight and using up yardage this month, and now I've more than negated all of that for another net gain of yarn. Although, admittedly, the bulk of it wasn't really my fault.

Here's the situation:

Looks pretty bad, right? It is, but I can explain.

Game of Thrones Swap--recieved

So apparently I'm hooked on swaps now. Or, rather, if people keep coming up with swaps for shows/fandoms I really enjoy, I'm going to keep doing them!

We'll do this like we did the Downton Abbey Swap and put it in two parts so this post doesn't get hellaciously long, yeah?

Let's start out with the MOST AWESOME swap package I received all the way from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from Ravelry user QTR. It took a long time to get here, but it was well worth the wait! And it came last Friday on a delightful 80F sunny afternoon just when I was thinking things couldn't get much better around here... and then they did!

Here’s my full haul:

WIP Wednesday: Sock (and a quarter)

Here's the completed sock as it was on Monday. Since this I've managed to get another 48 rows done on the next one, but I didn't photograph it. Lots going on around here today.

(Mo)FO Friday: Giant Orange Stockinette Sweater for Jonas

It's not DONE, done, but the giant orange stockinette sweater is blocking and awaiting seaming (and then re-knitting).

Sorry for the terrible photo. It's still blocking and it's too huge for me to take a proper photo of it yet.

To recap: The pattern is Joukahainen by Krystel Nyberg. The yarn is Berocco Ultra Alpaca in colourway 6268.

I started this sweater for Jonas on March 23 and wrapped it up on Tuesday (April 14), so it took me just over 3 weeks start to finish. It's an easy pattern, being predominantly stockinette, so even though Jonas is huge and has a giant long torso and huge arms, this still knit up really quickly. That said, the bit just after joining the sleeves and before you get a good way in to the raglan decreases is probably best described as a slog. I had 300+ stitches on the needles and was working to reduce (every other row) to 92 stitches. It took me 15 minutes to knit a rest row and 20 minutes to knit a decrease row. The good thing about working it in decreases is that it got better from there, but gosh was I ready to just throw the sweater down and walk away once I realised what I was in for while knitting the full chest measurement. But I got through it and it's over.

And it needs re-knitting.

Don't panic...it doesn't all need to be re-knit (I hope), I just need to re-shape the neckline. It came out way more like a mock turtleneck than the crew neck it looks to be in the photo (plus it's way too wide for Jonas to wear as a mock turtleneck even if he wanted to). It seems like this is a common problem with the pattern and I've looked up people's fixes and have pulled out my sweater design books, so I'll devise a solution for re-knitting just the very top and the collar as soon as it's dry (it's been blocking since Wednesday and is still pretty soggy). The bigger problem might come if Jonas thinks it's not long enough. When he first tried it on, he definitely didn't think it was, but based on how much the yarn stretched when I knit my Tauriel, I'm hoping it will block out long enough for him. If not... well, I told him to expect the sweater in a few years when I can muster up the Can to rip it back to the sleeve joins and knit more onto it before doing all those raglan decrease rows again. I'm not even sure I'm going to get to re-doing the collar for a while, since I've got other projects I need to commit to now.

Good news is, he had it on in the house on Tuesday night for less than five minutes and was already too hot in a wool/alpaca sweater, so I'm betting he won't be clamoring for it until September at the earliest. So I have some time. Which is good, because this sweater and I need a break.

It's not even that I mind that much stockinette, really. It's easy knitting and I can do it while doing pretty much everything else, so it was actually good... it was just A LOT of sweater and I'd like to knit something else now.

The yarn was lovely to knit with as always. It's got a great hand and it's not at all splitty or difficult to work with, even when I had to cable it to do the raglan decreases. Lovely all around. The only complaint I had is that a lot of dye leaked out into the water when I was soaking it. The basin was a delightful tangerine colour when I pulled the sweater out and it still wasn't rinsing clean. If I remember correctly, the green yarn for Tauriel did the same thing. So... a bit of caution if you're using this yarn and want to wash the item with other things. It looks like there will be a significant amount of excess dye for the first few washes.

Jonas is weirdly allergic to Eucalan, so I had to use regular laundry soap, but I don't think that will affect the blocking process too much. I just really hope it's long enough after blocking because as lovely as it was to knit, the only challenging part is at the top, and that's the bit I'd have to do again. No thank you, please.

It's a good, basic stockinette sweater. Nothing fancy, but certainly a blank canvas for colourwork or easy design changes and a good place to start if you need to just knit a sweater with no frills. I *might* knit it again. In a smaller size. In a few years. With a different neckline.

WIP Wednesday: Swatching for Socks!

I promised you wouldn't see the orange stockinette sweater again, and I'm making good on my promises. It's currently blocking. It's got some fixes needed, but we'll talk about that on Friday. For now, we're going to talk about the new project I started today.

To be fair, this is barely a swatch at this point, let alone a WIP, but it is what it is and it's sure pretty exciting to me.

Stash Confessional: Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop 2015

Well, you know how I was saying that I had a new way to keep the stashdown resolution and how I was going to do better? Well... I am doing better with knitting. I'm doing less well with not buying yarn.

So, every year several of the local yarn stores get together for what we call "Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop" over one weekend in April. The ultimate goal is for people to go around to all of the stores on the list (there are 17 this year) and there's a free pattern and an exclusive yarn and perks for donating to a local food shelf and prize entries and a grand prize entry for people who go to all the stores. It's good exposure for the stores and the indie dyers they work with and it's a good cause and it's a lot of fun. This was my first year participating. I wasn't going to really go all out, just have Jonas drive me to some of the stores that are closer to us, but one of my knitter friends ended up having Friday off and wanted to go, so I took the day off and went along, foolishly telling myself I wasn't going to buy things no matter what.

And then it ended like this:

FOs: House Stark Fingerless Mitts and Fifth Doctor Socks!

It's still not Friday (but it's kinda close) and these have been finished for two weeks now, but better late than never, right.

In my post about my resolutions for March, I alluded to these finished objects, so I should probably show them to you. Plus they're pretty awesome.

First: T.A.R.D.I.Socks by Anna Richardson (round 2)

It's really hard to photograph your own feet.

So... I mentioned above that this is round 2 of these particular socks. I also mentioned in my resolutions post that these socks resulted in a net gain of yarn. Here's the story.

You can first start here with the story of how I decided to knit myself knee-high socks for my Fifth Doctor (Doctor Who) costume even though I had never knit a single sock before in my life and previously had no desire to do so. So I knit myself knee high socks out of a cotton/bamboo/spandex blend yarn (because the costume was originally for summer) following a pattern that's lovely and beautifully charted, but presumes you've actually done some moderate amount of sock knitting and are using wool and know how to adjust socks to fit your feet. Needless to say, I was setting myself up for failure before I even started. So I knit them over the course of 6-weeks desperately trying to finish them in time for the convention I needed my costume for (the only time in my life I've ever knit more than one thing at a time. I will never do it again.), and I was pretty proud of myself. For one thing, I've heard many people who attempted these socks either don't finish or take forever to finish since there's a lot of purling and cabling and charting and they're REALLY LONG, so I was pretty impressed that I not only managed to make socks that look like socks, but that they were also socks that experienced sock knitters don't even finish. So I put them on for the convention and they were HUGE. Four inches too long, too big in the gusset, bunchy in my shoes and didn't stay up if I took more than 10 steps. So...they were socks, but they weren't socks that fit.

Fast forward to now. I needed to re-wear the costume for a Doctor Who panel at a convention in April, and I knew I needed to re-make the socks. I'd been trying to knit my way through the basic sock patterns in Wendy Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up book so that I could have some knowledge of how to make socks fit my feet, and I'd also knit the (still don't fit) butterfly knee-highs to try to figure out the calf sizing. Armed with this knowledge, I ripped out the socks (3.5 balls of RIDICULOUSLY SPLITTY YARN), re-wound, and started again with a modified pattern. I dropped a needle size so I didn't have to modify the width, but I took out a portion of the chart and recalculated the row count so I could shorten the socks and still keep the calf shaping. I managed to use about 55 fewer yards (50 fewer meters)/15 fewer grams of yarn this time, which is where the net gain came in. But the socks are the right height and fit better around my calf (though still not perfect, but I devised a solution with a ribbon that holds them up just fine) and I'm much happier with them. They are a bit of a slog though, so I can definitely see how people who don't need them for a specific purpose on a deadline would get tired of doing it. The only reason I made it through without quitting was that I knew I needed them for the costume.

In addition, this yarn is terrible. I won't mention what it is here (although you can see it if you look on my project page), but I don't think I'll ever knit with it again. I chose it because I wanted lighter weight and hopefully cooler socks to wear with the costume in the summer, but the cotton and bamboo don't have the memory to hold the socks up and the spandex makes the yarn INCREDIBLY splitty, making it very difficult to work with, especially when you're knitting and purling and cabling with yarnovers. I'm not impressed and it definitely wasn't fun to knit it twice.


Second: Game of Thrones House Stark Fingerless Mitts

These are for the Game of Thrones swap package I put together (which I'll tell you about as soon as a package actually arrives for me and I can do a sent/received post like I did for the Downton Abbey swap). These are my own design, modified from a very basic fingerless mitts pattern. I've done the same sigil on a hat and on an eReader case, so it was just a matter of modifying the stitch count and re-charting it. The grey main colour is Knit Picks Palette in Ash and the sigil colour is Knit Picks Imagination Hand-Painted in the Castle Walls colourway, which screamed Winterfell to me from the moment I saw it.

These were super quick and easy to knit up and my recipient loved them. I'm not really into fingerless mitts (I find them hugely impractical) but I'm thinking about modifying the other designs I have (Targaryen, Lannister, and Night's Watch) into the fingerless mitts too. Someday I'll write up the patterns for actual. I started writing up the hat pattern, but I never finished it. These are super fun and a great way to show your support for various houses. If you're interested, I sometimes list the hats (and may eventually list the eReaders and the fingerless mitts) on my Etsy page. Let me know.

WIP Wednesday: Continuation of the Giant Orange Stockinette Sweater

This week's WIP is the same as last week's WIP, which is to be expected when you're knitting a size XL men's sweater for someone who's 6'1" tall on 3.75mm needles.

As a reminder, this is Joukahainen by Kristel Nyberg and I'm knitting it out of Berocco Ultra Alpaca in colourway 6268, which is a lovely burnt orange colour with a bit of depth to it.

That said, progress has been made! Noticeable progress! Much thanks to me working a 4-day convention that left me with hour-long chunks of time to sit and knit, the entire sweater being stockinette, and sleeves having SO MANY FEWER STITCHES than the body of the sweater.

So... since you saw it last I finished the main body section, finished one sleeve, and have started the next sleeve. I had to make the slightest of modifications to account for Jonas having dainty wrists compared to the size of the rest of him, so basically I dropped down to 3.5mm needles and cast on 4 fewer stitches (the amount for the size L), did the ribbing, then switched back to the 3.75mm needles and increased until I had the amount of stitches for the XL, then knit to the length of the L. It's based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage formula so it's pretty easy to make changes like this on the fly, especially since the whole sweater is just stockinette in the round.

Still loving this yarn. It's super easy to knit and has a really nice hand even before washing. The biggest thing I have to remember is that when he tries things on they need to be slightly on the small side (fitting, but with slightly less ease than he might like) because it will stretch out when blocked.

I'm hoping to wrap up the sleeves before the weekend and then maybe get the yoke done over the weekend or early next week. I'm currently dyeing some yarn so I can use it for a sock test knit I agreed to do, so hopefully the next time you all see this sweater it will be in an FO photo.

Resolutions Check-In: March

I think the fact that it's currently April 7 and I'm just now getting to this post speaks VOLUMES about how well I did on my resolutions this month. But the current run of Do All The Things is behind me and I'm hoping to make some headway as I gear up for the next round of Do All The Things. Maybe. I hope. I've got some new strategies, at least. But, let's check in anyway. If only because even though I know I'm failing, I have a scientific need to quantify how hard I'm failing. Or something like that.

WIP Wednesday: Giant stockinette sweater of awesome

So, back in 2013 Jonas and I (along with LAP) were at one of our local yarn (and fabric!) stores for Small Business Saturday (that's the Saturday after US Thanksgiving in case you don't know) and for some reason I decided to purchase ALL THE YARNS.

That day, I bought myself a sweater quantity of Malabrigo worsted in the "Garden Gate" colourway (which I am still ABSOLUTELY in love with and I hope you'll get to see knit up soon), the Berocco Ultra Alpaca I used in my Tauriel, and seven skeins of the same Berocco Ultra Alpaca in a sort of burnt orange heathered colourway with the intention of making a sweater for Jonas. Probably for our anniversary, which is in May. He looks really good in that orange colour and I know I'd found a pattern for a basic pullover (which, I note, the sample page is pretty much the same orange colour, so that probably influenced my decision) that I thought he'd like, so I got it for him. Not really thinking that he runs naturally very warm so an alpaca/wool blend might not be the *best* decision ever, but, you know.

Well, I'm finally getting around to knitting it. Now that it's more than a year later and it's almost summer. Yep. Nobody ever said our knitting had to make sense.