leftovers

I had yarn left over from the silly hats I made for Christmas presents. I decided to use it up by making more stripey hats to give away:

I had very little left of any of the colors when I finished -- in fact, I had to rip out the green and purple hat several times before I engineered the stripes in such a way that they'd reach all the way to the end.

The yarn was thinner than I'd like -- the hats are bound for Maine so I wanted them to be very warm -- so I held the yarn double. With a cast-on of 72 stitches the knitting went quickly. But this is what confronted me after that!

It felt like weaving in the ends took as long as the actual knitting. Whenever I try to carry the yarn up when I am making stripes, it looks bad and feels lumpy, so this is what I had to do. (Yes, there was one more hat -- the Mission Falls colors seen upper left -- but (1) it refused to give me a decent photograph and (2) it's been claimed by a member of this household.)

now, that's my kind of Valentine!

Yes, I do like red. . . why do you ask?

This month's category, in honor of my least favorite holiday: knit something red.

special day

January 24 is friend S's birthday. I have developed the habit of leaving a little something on her front porch to greet her when she comes out in the morning of that special day. This year, it was this:

                                                               



I had a skein of Noro Silk Garden Sock in all her favorite colors, and I'd been wanting to try this pattern. The perfect oppportunity.  
I wish now I'd used a needle one size bigger -- but then I would have run out of yarn.

Here is a better view of the pattern, stretched out for blocking: 

It was a lot of fun, and I am going to make it again, in a thinner yarn, so the lace shows to better advantage.

(The pattern is Riverrun by Erin McNellis.)

January

those silly hats

This Christmas I finally did something I've wanted to do for at least 6 or 7 years -- I made these silly hats for (reading left to right) my sister-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, and sister. (You will recognize them, perhaps, from our Christmas card here on the blog). I got all four to sit on the couch and open them simultaneously. But then, as is customary in our family celebrations, things got silly and wild and I forgot to get them to model for me!! Here, at least, are the hats being well behaved:

I had to wash two of them before I even wove in the ends, because time got away from me. I was making tassels 2 hours before we left for the family gathering. But it wasn't really my fault. . .

I had yarn for my brother's from the very first time I planned this project. The brown and tan looked great side by side in the ball, but in stripes they were mournful and depressed. I tried adding colors, I tried taking out one and adding in another. . . nothing worked. They have been reassigned and are going to be mittens instead. Then I found that lovely dark red Mission Falls 1824. Perfect for him! Except -- several years ago I gave away what I thought was all of my Mission Falls 1824, and had none to make stripes. And none of the knitters I thought might have some of a color that would work have any either. The yarn was discontinued several years ago, so just going on line to order wasn't going to work. I did dig up one skein of gold, but that wasn't going to be enough. That one was supposed to be the third hat; I set it aside and proceeded to #4. As I worked on that, I decided I'd just have to order some new yarn, because it had to be superwash (for reasons of hat survival once released to its rightful owner) and I don't have much superwash that isn't sock yarn. I ordered four colors of Cascade 220 Aran Superwash, knowing how monitors lie, and hoping I would be able to work something out. Great news! The yarn was a match in weight and texture for the 1824, so I just added in that dark navy. Whew!! This project had not been intended to be a cliffhanger.

They were received with great delight, and I know that at least two of the four wear theirs all the time. (Still wish I'd got that picture. . .)

(The pattern is Yankee Knitter #26, Hats and Mittens.)

January: adult mittens

Um. Apparently it is not the first week of January. But plenty of time to reform! Starting in February the category will be announced right away (and Pat already knew, so she has not been waiting impatiently off stage).

The January category is adult mittens. I, of course, am just weaving in the ends on five hats. . . more on those when they are done.

Happy New Year!

I spent New Years Day in Germany sight seeing with my husband, Chuck and my Mom and Dad.  We did a Viking River Tour of the Main River and Canal as well as a 3-day extension to Koln.  We checked out the "after" Christmas Markets (also called Winter Wonderlands) as well as seeing the standard sites; castles, city walls, terribly old breweries, palaces, gardens and old towns.  I came to take photos and check out every yarn store I could find which worked out very well, knitting is popular in Germany!

I had both Dad and Chuck as escorts for each knit shop adventure.  They were patient and didn't hurry me.  I stopped and petted each skein of yarn in every store and as you know that takes awhile.  We even went to a department store to check out the yarn selection, we had to go to the very top of the store, four stories up and then to the way back corner... it was fun.

Lots of young folks in Germany are wearing crochet beanies.  These are made from thick, brightly colored, wool/acrylic blend yarns.  Many of them have pom-poms on the top and some sort of tag on the edge.  Each pom-pom was different and unusual.  The tags can be bought in wool shops (yarn stores). 

 I fell in love with the "bunny tail" poms and bought one first chance I got.  When I got back to the ship I pulled out my travel sewing kit and put it right on the hat I'd brought to wear. I choose a bright green pom with black tips, when the wind blows it flows around, dancing on my head.

My mother liked mine so well we went to Maschenkunst in Koln and picked her up a bunny tail in a very natural colorway...

Well as you already know Elizabeth and I are going to continue knitting for others as well as knitting for ourselves.  Have a Happy New Year!

Begin as you mean to go on

And it's time for happy birthday to the blog. We always post on January 1 not because it's a New Year's resolution, but because the first post ever on Two Left Feet was on January 1, 2010. Lots of knitting under the bridge. . .

They say you should start the year as you mean to go on (who are "they," anyway?). So far today I have done some knitting, started reading a new book, drunk coffee, fixed little things here and there to make the house nicer. . . and pretty soon I will eat some chocolate and then, later, make a pot of soup. That looks like a fine template for the year!!

As usual, we're setting a theme for the blog. We were successful with last year's hat project and we're continuing in a similar vein for 2014. This year we will be knitting, every month, for The Maine Mitten Project, who are doing their best to keep homeless kids and adults in Maine at least a little bit warmer. I lived there for 13 years; you don't want to be without hat and mittens during the cold months.

Each month we'll have a category, to be announced on the first day of that month. (Pat and I, of course, will already know it.) The Maine Mitten Project doesn't just need mittens, although those are crucial, of course, so there will also be hats and maybe a scarf or two. We have a tentative schedule for the year worked out, but we're not posting it now to leave us some room to roll with whatever punches 2014 throws. I think we will mail January's and February's items right away; we'll accumulate March through October and send them all together in preparation for the winter that will be starting just about then.

I am going to try to do every one of the 12 "assignments,"  but we're officially allowing ourselves two free passes during the year, if the need arises. And of course, we will continue to knit for A4A, as always.

Feel free to knit along!!

Peace on earth, good will to all

use it up

I have a lot of yarn. I like to make mittens. The combination works.

Here's what you can do with those sock yarn leftovers, or the single 50-g skein you found in the sale bin (or, mysteriously, unaccompanied in your house). By joining a strand of sock yarn with a strand of worsted, you get a slightly thicker yarn, slightly thicker mitten, and slightly faster knit -- and a mitten that is much more interesting.

My favorites so far are the bright blue with rainbow flecks over there on the right.

I am using my basic mitten pattern, available here. I follow the one that starts with a cast-on of 32 stitches and get a size that fits a medium-to-large large woman's hand. Use one needle size larger than you'd use if you were knitting with the worsted alone.

one for every letter of the alphabet

If you refer back to this post, you'll see that we made two promises at the beginning of 2013. We didn't do too well on "post more often." But we did complete the "13 in '13" promise, making a baker's dozen of hats apiece for Hats for the Homeless in New York, and that one's way more important. And we finished early, which really amazed us! All hats were made from yarn we already had in our extensive collections.

Ten days ago, we got together midway between our houses for a photo shoot and packing session. Each of us brought our 13 hats and gift tags. Pat brought the camera; I brought boxes and tape and Sharpies. Here's what happened:

After our very patient models put up with our photo session, where we laid them down on all sorts of cold surfaces, we repaired to a friendly local Starbucks to add tags and box them up (the tape dispenser was L-O-U-D -- sorry, everybody). It turns out there's a post office just a block away, so the boxes hit the road immediately.

Now Hats for the Homeless in New York has 26 more hats for their annual gift giving (in addition to the gifts of meals they give year round), the weekend before Christmas. They don't take monetary contributions, but there's still time to knit or crochet a hat -- the address is:

Hats for the Homeless
905 Main Street
Hackensack, NJ 07601

Maybe just one more. . .

Yeah, It's Been Awhile...

The last time I posted was May, blogging isn't my strong suit.  Don't worry I have been knitting!  I haven't been working on the 13 in 2013 project as diligently as I should have but I've got two hats to post about today and another that's nearly done (in only four and half months...) Where does the time go!?!  I've put all other knitting in a holding pattern until I get my last 5 hats finished; completely knit, blocked, photo'd and blogged.  It's a hard decision to make but I'll get 'em done and be back to my regular knitting feeling like a new person...well, maybe not new but special...maybe not special but diligent...you get the idea.

Hat number 6 (but who's counting) is a standard, folded brim hat.  It's super warm, made of wool, functional and should appeal to most anyone who is cold and needs a hat.

Hat number 7 is a beanie.  Most of the young guys in my life really like beanies, I assume that folks that are down on their luck and living rough might enjoy a beanie too BUT I don't think they keep you anywhere near as warm.  You can't pull that brim down further on a cold night and cover more of your ears or your forehead... it worries me so I don't make a lot of these to donate to folks.  That's just my thinking on the matter of the beanie.  They take but a few evenings to make and so are really quick.  Ah, the pluses and minuses...

Finally, I know you all must be wondering where Glass Head lives when he's not being carted around the yard, modeling hats for me.  So, I've include this photo of the side table in my living room.  Glass Head happily resides on the far end of the couch, sporting my latest knit creation and keeping me company when I read.

Punkinhead

This may not be exactly how I thought my sister would wear her new hat:

I had so much fun making this -- the yarn is Malabrigo worsted, color Glazed Carrot (the most perfectly named yarn ever). Cell phone photo in not-the-best light does not do it justice. The pattern is here on Ravelry, and a good tutorial on intarsia in the round is here (I tried a bunch, and this one worked best). 

The face is a little bit scrunched up because my yarn worked at 5 sts/inch rather than 4 sts/inch -- but all pumpkins are different anyway.

May Hat

For May I opted to knit a Tam.  I love knitting tams and no I've never worn one.  My daughter and her friends love them and look super cute in tams!  This is the Windmill Beret pattern and I used Lamb's Pride yarn.

Christmas is coming

Now that's a scary thought, isn't it?? It's kind of a chronic condition around here, though. . . so on vacation last week I thought I'd get a jump on some Christmas presents. I started a pair of these slippers:



I've used the pattern before, to make a pair in size women's S, and they worked really well. This time I tried to make the largest size -- and even though I was (uncharacteristically) using the yarn the pattern was written for, they came out way too small. And yes, I had done a gauge swatch and was getting the correct gauge. Virtue unrewarded. I am going to rip out and start over using needles two sizes larger, in hopes that will work. But this should teach me not to get big ideas about working ahead!

a diversion

Someone showed me this pattern on Tuesday afternoon. I finished it Thursday morning at 9.

Berroco Comfort DK Print (acrylic/nylon blend); colorway is called Kittens

Yet another not-so-great cell phone photo. I have lots of hats for the H4H hat-of-the-month project to photograph with my nice new camera, and I'll get a new one of this hat too. I hope to get to that next week. It just seemed time to stop in here and say hi --  it's been a long, long time.

April Hat

It's April and I'm from the South, where it's spring time now.  OK, flowers are blooming here but where's the warm weather?  I'm sitting here at the kitchen counter, writing you while wearing a sweatshirt.  Beyond the obvious ( I'm not wearing a hand-knit sweater) what's wrong with this picture...it's cold out, sunny, things in bloom but FLIPPING cold outside!  Enough said.

The April hat for our 13 hats in 13 is from a print pattern that I've knit a few times.  I really like it, it's cute.  I've used left-over Noro yarns to make it.  It will keep someone's ears nice and warm.  No I don't remember the name of the pattern but if you really want it let me know and I will dig it out and find it on Rav.

March Hat

Note to self: Publish your hats when you finish them!!  Don't wait till your four long, cold, dreary, winter months behind...don't be so darn foolish.

OK, here's my March Hat for our 13 hats in 2013 project.  Yes, Elizabeth, I'm still knitting my hats!

This hat started out life as one of those scrunchy hats the kids are wearing now...but soon I made "adjustments" to the pattern.  Yep, thinking for myself is a long shot, design/knit without pattern, without a swatch, without writing anything down is a bad idea.  I glanced at several patterns, made some mental adjustments and started knitting.  Anyhow this one isn't really scrunchy but it's warm and it's a hat!  It looks cute on Glass Head...I  guess it's OK but I'm not in love with it, fair enough?

BTW, how do you get the text and the pics together...so the blog entry looks cuter?