Crafting Firsts: I Published A Pattern!!!

I debated whether to consider this post a crafting first or a finished object, as it's technically both, but since technology prevented me from actually publishing on Friday (and since I have work travel next week so I don't know if I'll get to writing my Monday post where I'd ordinarily cover the crafting firsts segment) I thought I'd just publish today and sort of consider it both? That's unimportant, really.

What is important is what crafting first I've completed.

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Just now (like, 15 minutes ago) I published my first ever knitting pattern on Ravelry. Now, I never really thought I'd be the sort of person who would be a pattern designer of any sort. Too much to think about with fitting and moving parts. Plus I'm not one to think "I have this stitch pattern in my brain," it's just not how my brain works. But yet...

Here's how these mitts came about. I've spent the past four months listening to (and LOVING) Maggie Stiefvater's book series "The Raven Cycle." As part of that I dyed some colourways to honour some of the characters of the book, and one of them "Blue Lily" has rapidly turned into one of my absolute favourite colourways. Inspired by this, I wanted to dye the Knit Picks Capra that Jonas bought me for Christmas a few years back that I'd been saving until I found exactly the right colour for it to be. This was that colour. It needed to be this. So I dyed the yarn and found myself with 100g of DK weight merino/cashmere that needed to be knit into something Blue Sargent would approve of. As a short aside, I'm not one for fingerless mitts. Where I live, if it's cold enough to need something on your wrists/hands, it's cold enough to need your fingers covered. That said, I did think a few times last winter while I was working from home and my house was frigid that I could perhaps see the utility of the fingerless mitts. Plus, fingerless mitts are TOTALLY something Blue would wear regularly, probably even in the heat of the Virginia summer. 

Add to all of this that the Knerd Girl Knits podcasts's ongoing bad-ass women KAL was focusing on women in books during July and August and one of the challenges was to knit something inspired by a women in a poem or a poem by a woman. Since I'm not usually one for poetry, I didn't have any ideas...until I remembered that book three had a song (about Blue) running through it, thus making that bit a poem both about a woman and written by a woman. So it qualified. The problem was, there wasn't anything at all inspired by Blue that I could find on Ravelry. Or, at least nothing that would work with my yarn or would match up well with the poem. It was then that I pulled out my big book of cables, started browsing Ravelry to see what some other people were doing with fingerless mitts, and started thinking.

The ideas actually all came together really quickly. I browsed the books, found two cable patterns that matched up with the images that I wanted, drew a sword/knife pattern onto some graph paper and made a chart. I still didn't know how to put it together, but I did a bunch of swatching and then a bit of math and then started trying to do it.

I made myself the goal of designing the whole thing during the course of the summer Olympics as part of the Ravellenic Games. I thought that was appropriately ambitious, as the mitts knit up really quickly, but also I would have to push myself to do the calculations and math needed to put it all together. There were, as with all pattern designs, a few stumbles as I changed my mind, ripped back, and once ripped out an entire mitten because I needed to change the position of the thumb, but they knit so quickly that I accomplished it easily within the timeframe. Honestly, I think actually writing the charts and doing the layout took me more time than actually designing the mitts!

So, at long last, after much ado and explanation. I present to you, my first (and quite possibly only) knitting pattern, Lily Blue Mitts.

 

WIP Wednesday: Knitting Polygamy

You read that right, everyone...I have more than one thing in progress! It doesn't happen that often (and honestly I wish it weren't happening right now), so you might want to take a moment to commemorate this day with me. I want to tell you that I hope I won't still have two things in progress next week, but unless something changes with my schedule and I get an unexpected run on knitting time, I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing these both again next week. That's the problem with knitting two things at once...it takes so much longer to finish anything.

Okay. So. First up is the Queen of the Waves shawl I had started two weeks ago out of some Kauni I had. I took photos last week with the intention of updating you on where things stood, but school/work won out and the post never got written. As of now I'm probably slightly less than a quarter of the way into ball 2 (finished ball 1 last Thursday) and am in the part of the shawl that is mostly garter stitch with only a few pattern rows, so hopefully that plus the rapid decreasing will help it go faster than it looks like it's going to go on paper when you think to yourself that you have more than 100 rows to go and you've only completed 70 rows in two weeks WITHOUT working on a second project. (Trying to get these both done by the end of February. I might be killing my chances of even finishing one by undertaking both. The tragic irony of me trying to become a polygamous knitter when faced with deadlines. It's the real reason I only knit one thing at a time.)

Here's where the shawl was last week (for reference and since I have the photos):

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And here's where it is this week:

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So, yeah. Some progress, but not a lot considering how far I managed to get between week 1 and week 2. The Kauni is really growing on me (I thought it might be slightly too scratchy, but it's not at all). It does have a lot of random veg matter in it though, so if that's a thing that bothers you, steer clear. I'm a bit surprised at the way the colours are striping in it since I honestly thought this was going to be a true gradient from dark to light. It's a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Before I leave this WIP, here's a closeup of the pattern stitches so you can perhaps get a better idea of what's going on with it. It's slightly bothersome to actually create because you have uneven stitch counts and lots of yarnovers that you need to drop which get hung up on the needles, but really it's only a few rows and it's not that bad. The pattern is easy to memorize/follow. I keep ending up with the wrong stitch counts, but it's a shawl so I'm rolling with it.

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Okay. Wow. Posts get long when you haven't updated for two weeks AND you have a second WIP. Yikes. I'll try to make this quick.

Also for the Knerd Girl Knits 2016 Bad-ass Women Craft Along round 1, one of the challenges is to knit from an historic knitting pattern. I desperately tried to find something that would be roughly the era of Outlander so I could double-dip into the Subway Knits Outlander KAL, but the earliest patterns I could find were Victorian era. One of the sites we were directed to was the Knitting Reference Library at University of Southampton, and I have a soft spot for Southampton, so I basically didn't consider looking anywhere else once I couldn't find pre-Victorian patterns. So, after going through a lot of books of doilies and all manner of impractical things I had no desire to knit, I came across "Weldon's Practical Needlework" which has patterns for all sort of things, but most specifically for my needs, a pattern for fold-over "Club Stockings" with a Union Jack, which basically means a regular sock with a fold-over section that has a Union Jack intarsia on it. And if you've been around the blog for a while you know how I can't resist putting a good logo on something.

Problem was, I didn't have the yarn I needed. I could have produced all the colours I needed (save white) in Knit Picks Palette, which does very well with colourwork, but because it's for socks, it needs to have nylon in it, which Palette does not. I had the grey and the red in Imagination, but not white or blue. And since I'm on a limited purchases plan, I was a bit stuck as to what I should do. And then it came to me. I pulled three balls of the heavier weight superwash wool sock yarn from my undyed yarn stash (yeah, I'm using business yarn for personal purposes. People do that all the time and it's not like anyone was buying it in a hurry lately) and dyed some up. 2 balls grey (which has now become the Lonely Mountain colourway thanks to fortuitous circumstances) and one ball half blue, a quarter red, and a quarter undyed. I was trying to estimate based on weights needed in the pattern, but the pattern is truly for knee-highs for men, so the stitch counts are very different than mine. I'll probaby have yarn left over, but there was no real sense in not just using the full skein.

So here's where it is now:

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(and here is the intarsia disaster mess I need to weave in at some point but have been putting off):

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The knitting is going fast, but I'm still skeptical that I'll be able to finish this sock and knit another sock by the end of February, even if it were the only thing I was working on. Also I pulled the floats too tight so it's puckering weird in the straight red column. It looks a bit too "homemade" for me. Odds are good I'll end up redoing this or doing it in a different way. But I do love the idea of the foldover sock! I think I'll make them for all my footy clubs someday.

So that brings us to the end of this very long post. I can almost guarantee you that I won't have a finished object for FO Friday, so I will hopefully see you back here next Wednesday with progress updates.

Yarn Dyeing: Women's World Cup,What? What?

Okay, okay. Behind as always. But I promise you I CREATED these yarns in a timely fashion, I'm just really bad about getting them in a condition where I can share them with other people.

So... most of the excuses for U.S.ians to be patriotic have come and gone for this year, but LBR, you're totally not going to get around to actually knitting with stuff you buy now for at least a year anyway, right? Besides... these aren't strictly U.S. themed in the strictest sense (because I'm not U.S.ian in the strictest sense), but rather they're football based (by which I mean soccer... which I should probably start saying in regards to these yarns since they're #Mercian).

Let's start over from the beginning.

Last summer, the mostly-not-terrible-anymore U.S. Men's National Team shocked the world by getting out of their group in the FIFA Men's World Cup. I cared less about that than about the fact that their away jerseys were pretty cool and looked like the ever patriotic U.S. children's summer treat, the bomb pop. In celebration, I dyed some yarn... because, you know, that's what I do.

That's right... I dyed this yarn pretty much last summer and it's been sitting around waiting for me to do a thing with it ever since. I finally got around to it in anticipation of this summer's myriad of Hooray #MURICA events (even though neither U.S. team is wearing these jerseys anymore). If it helps though, think of them as Netherlands' flag-inspired. Or France... Bastille days is soon, yeah? Or just knit them next year.

Here it is... my first ever "self striping" yarn. Bomb Pop!

Second, but really most important and relevant... this year's U.S.A. World Cup yarn.

In case you missed it (I did, I was in a car driving across this ginormous country), the U.S. Women's National Team (who have always been superior to the Men's team) won the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup and earned themselves their third star. They are the first country to win three Women's World Cups. And I'll be damned if they didn't do it in the coolest effen jerseys ever created by anyone.

In preparation (and because, let's face it, gradients are THE THING in yarn right now) and in celebration and in pretty much just basic badassery, I created a dark blue - light blue gradient yarn that celebrates this team and all their accomplishment and what they're doing for the sport and also this freaking badass jersey (I now own a U.S. Soccer thing. Actually KNOWING a dude on the U.S. Soccer team couldn't get me to buy a jersey, but the badassery of this gradient jersey sure did), I did what I do and made a yarn. You can buy it on Etsy as single skeins or you can let me know how much you want total and I can make you a gradient kit. It's called, because it has to be, Third Star.

Pretty sweet, right? I made a gradient, y'all!

Hope you enjoy them. Tell your friends!

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.

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.

Hand-Painted Yarn: Game of Thrones -- Wolves of Winter

Hi all.

Lots to talk about in the crafting world (re-finished a pair of knee-highs, designed and knit some fingerless mitts for another swap, knit a project bag for said swap, started a sweater for Jonas) but I want to talk about the latest yarn I just put up in my Etsy shop.

I'm in a Game of Thrones swap with the Odd Duck Swaps of Ravelry (see swap referenced in previous paragraph) and my original partner (story on that later) said that they were a fan of Arya Stark. I had been meaning to create some Game of Thrones colourways anyway so I pulled two skeins of yarn and decided to use my favourite new gradient yarn technique and create a colourway inspired by House Stark.

Downton Abbey Swap 2015: Sent!

So, in my last post I told you all what I received in my AMAZING Downton Abbey swap package from Ravelry user goodstuff via the Subway Knits Downton Abbey swap. Now it's time to tell you all about the package I put together and how much fun I had doing it!

Teaser photo--here's what I sent to my partner moxydawg:

Yarn Dyeing: Downton Abbey Exploration

As you know, I’ve been part of a Downton Abbey swap via the Subway Knits podcast since the end of January. As such, I knew that I wanted to dye some yarn for my swap partner that was inspired by her favourite character. I happened to have a random undyed skein in one of the yarn weights she likes that I bought at a sale back when I was still just thinking about perhaps getting started in yarn dyeing, so I didn’t even have to acquire anything . . . except dyes.

I’d fairly exhausted my options when it came to the Jacquard acid dyes and while I know now that I can mix many colours to get what I want, I didn’t know that when I started thinking about colourways. Each of the Crawley women has always had their particular colour (or colours in the case of a few) to me and I knew I wanted to represent them as such. So I spent some time on the Dharma Trading Company site, at the recommendation of someone . . . though I couldn’t say who at this point . . . and found that they had the perfect colours for what I wanted to do: A peach, sage green, rose pink, and a lavender purple. I ordered them immediately and began the wait. After shipping issues (caused by my inability to type numbers in the correct order) and a phone call to Dharma by Jonas (in exchange for ice cream, as per our standard agreement) the order was re-placed and sent with newer, more expedited shipping. I received it last Friday and after acquiring new tester yarn last Saturday, I was on my way.

I first used the test yarn to just find out what the colours were when I mixed them straight, then I began building my colourways. I had a vision for all of them and with minimal mixing/effort on my part, I had produced colourways for Lady Edith, Lady Sybil, Countess Cora, Lady Violet, and Lady Rose by the end of Sunday. I had a brilliant time and everything was filled with fun and magic and I wished ever so much that I could just make this my life full time.

It took me a bit longer to get the yarns finally listed on Etsy (they still need better photos and not all of them have example swatches), because I do actually have a real job and a real life that needed handling, but those five (plus another that I’ll write about later) are now available for sale in my new Etsy shop that will be dedicated to my hand-dyed yarns from here on out.

Here’s a few teaser photos to entice you to purchase!

FO(s): High Tea Cuffs and Jabot

Hi all,

I have one totally finished object today (blocked and the ends woven in) and one that is completed, but hasn't been blocked or had the ends woven in, so I figured I'd talk about them together. They are a set, after all.

If you've been following along, you know I've been working on the High Tea Cuffs and Jabot by Andrea Jurgrau from the Unofficial Downton Abbey Knits 2013 for my swap partner for the Subway Knits Downton Abbey swap. Well...they are done. 

The jabot was easy and basically took the lace motif from the knits, applied a second panel of the lace motif that you attached over the top, then knit the scarf in the twisted ribbing for a desired length, then repeated the lace motif. It's a nice construction and very straightforward. Again, I was using the Knit Picks Imagination Hand-Painted Sock Yarn in the Ruby Slippers colourway, and I am no less enamoured with it than I was at the start. It's beautiful yarn and has a really nice hand and just the littlest bit of the alpaca halo. The hand-painting is gorgeous and I think it made a really beautiful end product.

The cuffs were also easy, but because the Imagination yarn (never stops being funny) is fingering weight instead of lace weight, it did require me to do a bit of math and chart fudging. I knit both the mitts and the scarf on a size 3 needle instead of the size 1 called for by the pattern, which meant I got the row gauge right, but not the stitch gauge. I thought I'd calculated my gauge right, but apparently I hadn't because the first time I made the mitts they were far too small to fit any adult-sized hand, so I re-knit them. Thankfully they're a very quick knit and once you're out of the lace section it's just 20 or so rows of the twisted stitch ribbing with a few decrease rows and check points and they go pretty fast. So I re-knit them with 3 pattern repeats instead of the 2 I started with and the 4 called for by the pattern, and they are slightly large on my very tiny hands pre-blocking, so I think they will fit just fine. Here's hoping. The scarf is probably skinnier than it's supposed to be because of the gauge things, but it's working out okay for me so I'm going to leave it. It's a scarf, it doesn't exactly have to "fit" a particular size as long as it's long enough.

So, this part of the swap package is done. Still much to do, but it feels good to have the knitting over with. The added bonus of this project is that I can count it toward the Stitch Red KAL that Geknitics and Knotty Knerd at Knerd Girl Knits are running! Hooray for one project serving two purposes! I love it when things come together like that.

FO(s): Tauriel and Custom Elvhen Triangle Scarf

Well, it’s certainly not Friday, but I figure it’s time I tell you all about the not one, but TWO objects I finished last week! A cabled cardigan out of wool/alpaca and a triangle scarf that someone commissioned from me on Etsy. I dyed the yarn and then knit the scarf for her costume for an upcoming convention. Pretty proud of myself for completing a “create this yarn and then make a thing with it” cycle AND getting paid for it on top of things!

First, the sweater! A bit before the end of 2014, I used the Random Number Generator system and landed on the 6 skeins of Berocco UltraAlpaca in a forest green colour that I’d purchased on Small Business Saturday in 2013 from the tiny little LYS/Fabric store/Indie artist boutique store inthe adjacent neighbourhood. So I searched Ravelry for patterns for the yarn and ended up on a sweater in my queue, Tauriel by Bonne Marie Burns from ChicKnits. I’d heard many good words for all of Bonne Marie’s patterns and the Chic Knits patterns, so I’d queued a bunch of them a few months ago. Fortuitous, because I think this yarn and this pattern (and this frigid weather we’re having) were made to be together.

The scarf is something I’ve knit before, but this one was a bit more special since I got to also dye the yarn for it. On my Etsy page, I offer a triangle scarf that was inspired by Merrill from the Dragon Age videogame, a character I also dye yarn inspired by. The pattern is from ALT Designs and is called the Elvhen Triangle Scarf. I knit the one I have and the one on Etsy out of the recommended yarn, Lion Brand Homespun, and hated every minute of it. I’m pleased to say this experience was quite different.

Let’s break it all down.