Noro Bowls

"You're going to knit bowls? What can you put in a knit bowl?" Said everyone (except Kelly!).

You can put almost anything in a knit bowl!

I saw these in a Noro magazine a few years back and then kicked myself for not buying it. Enter Ravelry and I found where I could buy the pattern, Felted Bowls, even though the magazine was out of print. Thank you Ravelry!!!! I also have a serious love for Noro. Those colors, I just want to fill my world with those colors. Specifically its Hitsuji, a big squishy, seriously wooly stuff. I forgot where I bought it, but I had to get it online because not a lot of people seem to stock this stuff (at least when I got it). The yarn was a Christmas present from my wonderful in-laws, thank you Pam and Jim!

The pattern was easy, but I didn't quite trust I was doing it correctly at first. This was also my first time felting anything (on purpose), which was slightly terrifying. The bowl on the right is more felted, the one in the middle is the least felted. They were all felted at different times. I think because the felting was so inconsistent, I didn't get the nesting effect that the pattern shows. I'll probably one day felt that middle one a bit more.

Shaping these wasn't the easiest thing in the world. You might able to tell the middle of the knitting circle isn't the middle of the bowl. Kind of like an off-center belly button. I have a slightly off-center belly button so it makes me feel better about myself. Lol. When the bowls are filled, who cares where the center is located? That's a deep thought man.

So what can you put into a knit bowl? I have one of work, I toss everything in there, pens, candy, hand lotion. At home, house keys, headbands, change, lipgloss. Great for keeping my messes contained!

GARGANTUAN

Originally conceived as a light summer sweater to wear while watching the sun set in the cool evening breezes of the Hawaiian islands, this monstrosity holds none of that poetic promise.

Gargantuan is loosely based off Pickles Good-Morning Sweater, I say that because they only offer one size for free and being the cheap fuck I am, refused to buy my size. Now I'm pretty good at sewing, I can riff pretty well, hell I can even pull off some baking improv, but I do NOT have the experience under my belt for knitting improvisation. So I went for it, like the idiot I am. No fear! The first incarnation of gargantuan ended up being about 4 times my circumference, yes gargantuan was preceded by colossus. Colossus was frogged for that reason and there was no yarn left for sleeves. Just the world's biggest sleeveless sweater.

I used Blue Sky Alpaca worsted cotton which feels amazing, like velvet. I purchased from Jimmy Beans which has the best customer service ever. Brick and mortar yarn stores always seem to be manned by the snarliest women so I generally buy all my yarn online. Plus if Jimmy Beans does not have a picture of a certain color, they put up a picture of one of their dogs. That makes them good people in my book.

My main problem with gargantuan is the neckline. Nope not the giant sleeves, I like those although they ended up a tad or two bigger than intended, nor the giant body, its the neckline that really gets my goat. Its too high and too tight. Being a lady who likes sweaters that don't choke me, I'm going to do something about my predicament. I wanted to get pictures up before I ruin this thing because I'm performing never before attempted (at least by me) sweater surgery. I have grosgrain ribbon which I'll sew to the sweater at the neckline I want, cut away what I don't want, then turn and sew. I'm essentially bias binding the sweater.

I'll probably ruin gargantuan and I've already thought of several reasons why this won't work, but its better than never wearing my beautiful behemoth.

Oh yeah, I went to Hawaii almost a year ago, so that didn't work out.

The Luxury Throw

The Luxury Throw was born from a moment of madness. I wanted to make something pretty for my mom and while flipping through my newly acquired Twinkle knitting books and showing her the projects, she mentioned that the wrap was pretty. In my head I thought, I'll make her that, but I'll make it BIG. I always seem to go that way: big art, big plants, bigger is just more striking. Bigger here was the wrong decision.

The Luxury Throw uses the Lilac Mist Throw pattern from Twinkle's Weekend Knits in Rowan's kidsilk haze stripe. I only know which yarn I used because I have one ball left that I couldn't bear to add to the throw. I hate mohair. How did I forget that? I sticks to everything, especially itself, it knots, its like knitting with spiderwebs. Like the angry ghosts of spiderwebs. The pattern itself is fine, I like repetitive knitting and knitting is one of the few parts of my life where I don't like to challenge myself.

Want to hear the kicker? This behemoth took almost two years to knit and has been to South America THREE times. Its huge, but can fold up and fit in the tiniest purse. It weighs significantly less than a potato, but after being under it for two minutes, you'll be warmer than you ever thought possible. Its super strong, but snags like a bitch. This is The Luxury Throw of contradictions.

Now why am I calling this The Luxury Throw. I gave it to Mom on Christmas and she asked me what it was. I struggled with that same question starting about halfway through this creation. Too big for a wrap, too light for a throw. That was until I saw on the Pickles website, a giant mohair throw similar to this under the heading: Luxury Throw. I'll stick with it.

Pattern Review: Riverbed Shawl

There was nothing better to follow up my enormous, never-ending previous knitting project than with a shawl that took me two days to knit. Two glorious wonderful days.

The shawl is one of my diy Christmas presents and is going to my lovely future mother-in-law. My boyfriend's contribution was picking out the colors and they are very beautiful colors.

The pattern is from Twinkle's Weekend Knits which has the best bulky yarn patterns. I LOVE Twinkle! I used Blue Sky Bulky yarn which is soft and fluffy and yummylicious. My two yarn loves are Noro and Blue Sky, they are the best stuff. The pattern calls for 9 stripes, but I only made 7 to reduce some bulkiness in the width which was perfect. I also reduced the 13" (!) fringe down to 7", wayyy more manageable. I've never put fringe on anything, it was quite fun!

What a pretty project, I hope she loves it!

Now here's the shitty part. I was so anxious to get this in the mail that there's only one picture and it was only discovered serendipitously on my boyfriend's phone.

...yeah.

Pattern Review: Tuck Stitch Lap Throw

I finally finished the wedding present for my future brother-in-law and his lovely wife. Its only over three months late, that's ok right?

Its enormous! That's a queen bed to give you an idea of the size.

I used Cascade 220 in coral and bright blue, the couples favorite colors, but the coral is a bit redder than what it looked like online and the contrast from the blue makes even redder. So I guess I made a red and blue blanket. I used 5 skeins of each color for the body and 1.5 skeins of coral for the border.

Oh the border. The pattern calls for a an entwined, I-cord border. I knit about one-half of the border and HATED it. Completely and utterly. The busy stitch of the body needs a simple border to highlight it, not compete. So instead, after knitting the body I picked up stitches and knitted up a simple garter stitch border. If I were to knit this again (I'm not!) I would knit a garter stitch border at the same time as the body.

I kind of hate this blanket :(
It took way too long, the colors aren't right, the border doesn't look quite right with the picked up stitches. I'm going to hand it to the happy couple and say, 'Here's your wedding present, I'm sorry, let's go burn it together'.

In other news, knitting takes FOR-FRICKIN-EVER! Nearly all of my knitting plans for 2012 have been cancelled, damnit!

Passed the happy paw test.

Previous post about this project

New knitting project: Wedding Blanket

I am more than one skein in on my Amazing Boyfriend's brother and future-wife's wedding present. Their favorite colors are blue and coral so I bought some lovely, washable, wooly blue and coral yarn from my favorite online yarn store, Jimmy Beans. Went with Cascade 220. Unfortunately, the coral was a bit redder and brighter than I thought it would be from the online pictures....and together the colors look more like blue and red. Its a very patriotic blanket. You see their wedding is exactly one month at the 4th of July, keeping the theme alive!

Not a flag, warning, not a flag.

For the pattern I'm using the Tuck Stitch Lap Throw by Patti-Ann Williamson that I found on Ravelry and KnitPicks that I thought was perfect because its a little retro and old fashioned. I have a picture of the couple and the background is a granny square wall hanging, a little retro and old fashioned.

The only problem is: this is not going to get done in time for the wedding. Crap.

Away from the sewing machine

When you go to places like this, you can't bring your sewing machine.

A few years ago, ugh many years ago now, I went to a magical and odd place known as college. I went to a hard college, let's call it Richard Dirt College. Dirt as we Dirters like to call it, is a challenging school. Most Dirters cry at least once a month, those who don't cry punch walls, some Dirters do both. I knew about Dirt's reputation before I went there and that combined with the general size of dorm rooms meant I was not going to be able to bring my beloved sewing machine and all of my sewing accoutrements with me. I knew I would need some sort of distraction when I wasn't studying something Dirty (hahahahaha!), so I decided to pick up a new skill. I choose knitting. Totally portable and compact. I had tried crochet, my mom, Wonderful Mom (WM) from here on out, was a wonderful crocheter in her time, but I tried it and it didn't click with my hands. I picked up Stitch and Bitch and gave it a go. It clicked.

I really do like knitting, its very different from sewing and sometimes I just want to sit and knit instead of sit and sew and stand and iron and crouch and cut and stand and iron and sit and sew and repeat. Knits and wovens also go together on the body so well, they really bring out the best in the other. Like two peas in a pod. I think knitting helps the sewing and sewing helps the knitter.

I decided to make a knitting plan for the year so here it is:

• A present for my ****** for *******. (Number of *'s does not accurately reflect length of words, stop trying to figure it out)
• A present for my ****** for *******. (Number of *'s does not accurately reflect length of words)
• A wedding present for Amazing Boyfriend's brother and future wife: a blanket in their favorite colors, coral and blue, preferably wool as I hear they are moving to Minnesota, brrrrr. Wedding's in early August, better get on it.
• A Christmas present for my grandma: a hat, she ordered one from me a long time and after not finding a suitable pattern gave up, but I really need to get on it because she's really a top notch grandma.

It's the year of knitting for other people, yes, but since I sew pretty much exclusively for myself, they deserve a little love. I'll blog about Grandma's present and the wedding gift, but you'll have to wait until after ******* to see the rest.

Happy Creating!

Knitting Pattern Review: Sweetheart Sweater by domiknitrix

This sweater has been TWO. YEARS. IN. THE. MAKING.

Its a beautifully designed pattern with princess seaming-like decreases and increases giving a gorgeous waist. There is short row shaping in the chest for an amazing fit. The neckline frames the face perfectly. There is intarsia that is possibly the most evil design in the history of knitting. Ok, maybe not, but there were nine bobbins going at once and I accidentally dropped everything on the ground. Almost cried.

The pattern is very nice, I didn't have any problems with the instructions. The only problem that I found was that the neckline is a bit floppy. This is the first time I've picked up stitches so the neckline was definitely difficult for me. You can especially see this in the back view as the back neckline is stubbornly not standing up. When I wash it again, I'll try to coax it up. I also made the sleeves way longer than the pattern as its quite cold during the winter and my wrists would get jealous.

This was the second time I've done intarsia and it was the first hardest I've done. I was terrified that it was going to stretch out the front something terrible, but when all stitched up and the ends woven in, its .... perfect!

<3

I used the yarn recommended in the domiknitrix book which my teeny-tiny and perfect LYS miraculously had in stock in all the right colors. It knit up very nice. It feels very nice. Not itchy at all.

And to clarify, this sweater didn't take two years total to knit, I had other stuff to do.

Story #1 about this sweater:
July 2011, upon nearly completing the sweater and getting ready to seam everything together, I realized a little creature had nibbled holes all over the sleeves. I spent $20 on 15 min of time with a lady teaching me how to duplicate stitch over the holes. I ripped everything out to the holes and re-knit everything later.

Story #2 about this sweater:

The first stitches I made for this sweater I did at my boyfriend's old apartment. We'd only been going out for a short time and I didn't yet understand his (now our) cats proclivities. I had knit up about 5 rows of ribbing and headed to the bathroom. When I came back and sat with at the knitting, Amazing Boyfriend asked, and I quote in its ridiculous, "Did you give the cats one of your yarn balls?" My "No" turned into a "AHHHH" as I saw Foliage darting away with one of the yarn balls. It was a "Nahhhhhh." Resuming knitting, I quickly realized that the yarn ball that had so peaked Foliage's interest was the one I had been knitting with. She had gnawed through it. Little punk. Lesson learned.

I <3 the sweetheart sweater. I want another one. It'll only take 1 year this time, right?