Niecey goodness

I have a niece! She's a month old now and I can't wait to meet her at Christmas. She's super expressive in all the photos I've seen, and looks like she's got a lot of opinions - definitely one of us!

So I've been getting my craft on a bit for her. In addition to the blanket and burp cloths I made, I've also been in Hat Mode. I made a very cute small hat:

But, alas, it was TOO small (though the picture of it wedged on her head is classic and makes me laugh). Fortunately I'd made a second, larger hat, which is a bit too big but will at least go on her head. But now I'm making a bigger version of the above hat, and perhaps a little sweater to go with it. It's December 1st! I gotta get on it!

knitted goodness!

This hat was my first real foray into colorwork, and man, it was killing me. First of all, I foolishly took the advice of another knitter who used that pattern and my yarn, and used very small needles. When I followed her example, the hat was far too tiny to wear! Then when I finally got the needle size down, I had trouble with the floats, resulting in a puckery hat:

It's very  hard to get a picture of one's head...

Anyway, I finally finished the project and I'm happy with it!

I actually ran out of the blue, so finished the itty bitty top bit with green. You can sort of spot it in this picture:

Yay hat! Too bad it's feeling like summer most days here! But with any luck we'll get some more chilly/rainy days so I can bust out my springy goodness.

Sweater: finished!

I should've gotten a standing shot. It fits great!

Pattern: Aidez
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, bulky on size 10 needles. It took EXACTLY 3 hanks, I had like a gram or so left (and an entire bonus hank I don't know what to do with but can't return).

Works in progress: sweater, marjolaine

This week has been a weird juggling-of-project bits.

I'm finally wrapping up the sweater. Since I wasn't smart enough to wash and block the pieces as I finished them, and since my drying mat is only so big, I started with washing and blocking the arms on Sunday, then the back on Monday night, and the front panels on Wednesday evening.

I'm also working on a semi-complicated layered dessert called a marjolaine. On Sunday I made the praline (caramelized sugar and toasted/chopped nuts).

 On Tuesday night I made the meringue - it's more like a cake than the puffy cookies, with egg white, sugar, corn starch, and ground nuts. You bake it in a long thin sheet, so you can cut it into four sections for layering later.

Last night I made the ganache,

and the vanilla cream (some of which I used to make the praline cream for another layer, but evidently forgot to photograph it):

Then it was time to assemble:
layer of meringue/cake, layer of ganache; layer of cake, layer of vanilla cream:

And finally another layer of cake, a layer of praline cream, and a final cap of cake:

Some of the layers were a bit runny, so I had to quickly wrap it and get it in the fridge. The flavors should some together a bit, and I HOPE the creams will firm up. On Friday after work I'm supposed to frost it with the rest of the ganache and serve at room temperature.

The recipe is from David Lebovitz' excellent cook book Ready for Dessert. He had NO pictures so I relied upon the internet. My fingers are crossed it come out - though I'm fully confident it'll taste great!

Oh, and at some point I'll seam the sweater. It would be nifty to wear it to wine group on Friday but I'm not optimistic I can hold still long enough to do all the sewing tonight.

WIP: Sweater!

Yes, I'm still knitting:

Obviously the sweater is juuuuust about half done. I cast on the back last night, actually, but it's going to be a while before it's complete. It will be this sweater when it is complete. Note the trellis pattern on the back! This will take some serious focus!

WIP: alllllmost there

I probably won't get a picture in time for this post, but remember that sweater that I ripped out in March?  Yep, it's almost done. yes, this time I think it fits (though I will stretch it a leetle bit when I block it). yes, I am very excited!!!!! Then maybe I can finish the pair of socks for a friend that I started in May. And maybe do something about Halloween/Christmas...

WIP Wednesdsay: Coloriffic

It's not really a WIP since I finished it in the course of a weekend, but this is so pretty I am dying to brag.

All it needs is buttons - and then to be wrapped around a baby!

WIP Wednesday: baby surprise

I am friends with a lot of great people, and a number of them have produced children over the years. In fact it seems like there's a never-ending supply of pregnant people in my life!

One of my favorite persons is having a baby later this summer. She's a knitter and has a lot of knitters in her life, so I want to make something special, but a little different. I think this is just the ticket. I'm going to remain vague about the specifics until it's completed and mailed off. (which is a hint in and of itself!)

WIP Wednesday: cookie socks, continued

I've made good progress on this sock! Too bad I need to make two of 'em. On the plus side, it's an interesting, complicated pattern. On the minus side.. yeah, it takes some serious concentration!

Actually, considering how busy my spring/summer has been, this is pretty decent progress after about a month.

WIP Wednesday: oh yeah, that sweater

So yeah, I started a sweater around the beginning of the year, and ripped it all out at the end of March. I got right back on the needle (or something!) and have made decent progress.

This is the body, take two:

And here are the arms, so far:

Decent progress, if I look at it objectively. I really really really want to get into new territory with this project, but that's a while away, because I'm also knitting at least two other projects, and sort of stumbled on a yarn sale recently. I love when that happens!

WIP Wednesday: cookie a socks

I went to Florida this weekend to hang out with a couple of my siblings, so had some quality airplane time on the way back to work on these socks.

I'm making them for a friend; they're In and Out designed by Cookie A. The pattern is really interesting, way too hard to memorize, and it's pulling me right through. I've already more than doubled the sock from this picture, am mostly done with the first leg and will be working on the heel before I know it!

Okay, that's the exuberance of Early Sock speaking, but they ARE coming along.

Before and after

The gory details on the sweater. Here is the before:

 

It was cool to finally get this far in the project. As I sorta thought, you just attach the sleeves 

and start knitting the rest of the shoulder cap along with the top of the torso. 

I think it would have worked if not for the matter of it being entirely too small! 

Here is the after: 

I didn't rip out the sleeves yet - there's a chance they may fit. Probably not really, 

but I guess I'm not ready to totally scrap this sucker. 

Even more nuts, I already cast on to start over!

WIP Wednesday: Two-fer

Still working on the sweater. I've put it down for a moment to whip out a baby hat, since I never did get around to seeing a high school friend who's been pregnant for nine months now. Oops. Well, I'm sure that baby is here and I'll make an effort to go meet it - I'm making the hat a little large to buy myself some time.

But here is where I am with the sweater.  You may recall that I got the torso done as far as it was supposed to go, and now I'm doing the sleeves. Both of 'em at once. Yep, I'm cool like that:

They're knit from the wrist up, and at some point you attach them to the torso and keep going. At some point near the end you go back and sew the sleeve-seam, turning these rectangles into arm-shaped tubes. I'm fuzzy on the details but will be sure to share!

Knitting two at a time is not that hard - you use a different ball of yarn for each piece and have to make sure you don't forget and use it across the whole row! It doesn't save any time of course - it really is six of one, half-dozen of the other - but the efficiency pleases me. Here's a closeup:

Just about 9 inches done and about 5 more to go. I might go a bit longer; we'll see! You're supposed to increase every 8th row and I use that green string to the left of the tape measure to help me track my rows. I learned that trick from some clever knit-bloggers I read, called The Rainey Sisters. 

WIP Wednesday: body!

Confession: I've been posting my WIP pictures about a week after they're taken. This one is actually a couple of weeks old! I've been working on the sleeves (both at once) for a little while but still have quite a way to go.

Most of the torso is finished. I put in a lifeline (dental floss, actually!) in case I decide I need to rip back and make the body shorter, or add short rows, or make any changes at all. I devoutly hope I won't need to do that!

WIP Wednesday: more sweater!

I'm cruising along and enjoying this sweater. I like the way the stitches line up in an interesting column - it's definitely an added bonus that I can memorize at least a row at a time so I'm not constantly looking at the chart.

I've only made one little mistake so far (not pictured!) - I messed up one of the cable-ish twists and fixed it, but one row higher than it should have been. Right, well, I'm not perfect. No problem there.

This will likely be finished sometime this summer, unless other (shiny!) projects distract me. Could happen.

WIP Wednesday: Cookies!

(not THAT kind of cookie!)

Cookie A. has made a name for herself in knitting-land for her interestingly-constructed and beautiful sock patterns. Like many, I first became aware of her work when I encountered the legions of knitters making her Monkey socks (that's Cookie in the picture!). I didn't make them though.

Then last winter I received a knitting-related book for Christmas, and wound up swapping it for Cookie's first book, Sock Innovation (amazon link). I admired and bookmarked it like crazy, but got distracted by other things (like the six months I spent on a sweater...) and didn't actually create any socks from the book.

This fall I went to a book signing party for her NEW book, knit.sock.love  - and yes, bought a copy of the book. And finally I've actually cast some on!

I chose her Gothic Spire pattern. It's fiddly and has multiple charts and lots of things to pay attention to, and I couldn't begin to memorize the pattern, but it's quite fun nonetheless.

Part of the pattern requires slipping four stitches to another needle and wrapping them repeatedly, then knitting them. Some posters on Ravelry complained this reduced the stretchiness of the sock, so I was careful not to wrap too tightly. I also did only three repeats of the leg chart, rather than four, to avoid having snug sock hit the wider part of my calf. So far so good.

WIP Wednesday: sweater!

I happened to be perusing Knitty looking for sock patterns, but came upon a lovely sweater pattern instead! I am the proud possessor of a sweater's worth of yarn (purchased at a discount as they've discontinued the oh-so-me color).

After the six months I spent knitting a sweater last year, I wasn't at all convinced I'd do another. But perhaps knitting is like childbirth, and you just forget the pain (I hear..but do not believe) and remember only the nice bits. At any rate, I've cast on a sweater.

This one is a cardigan knit from the bottom up. I've only skimmed the directions (bad knitter!) but it looks like you do most of the body, then go make the sleeves, then join the body and sleeves as you knit the top bit. If that's true, I may quite like this project!

Right now I just have a few inches of waistband, so I'm a long way off from worrying about arms and stuff.

(Thanks to AnotherYarn for reminding me about the WIP series!

WIP: silly hats

Actually these are complete - I made two goofy little hats to give to people I know having babies. If you can't put a silly hat on a kid, what's the point of having one?

 I hope I get a picture of the hats on the kids' heads. fyi, that means a lot to the knitters in your life!

WIP Wednesday: wintery goodness

This is coming out even better than I hoped.

WIP Wednesday: wedding finery!

Nope, not my wedding! But I have two couples-with-whom-I-am-friends who are getting married next summer. I'm definitely making it to one of the weddings, and I hope to make either the wedding or the party for the other one (the events are being held on different coasts). So, you know, that means when I saw a summery dress on sale, I got it! And now I need to make a little something to go with it.

Here's the dress & the yarn I selected:

Pretty good job matching, huh? I know! So then I had to pick out a pattern for some sort of shawl or wrap or shawlette-thingy. I didn't want to do acres of stockinette, and didn't think a super-busy pattern would work well considering how much is already going on with the fabric. I chose Knitty's Annis and have so far had to rip it out completely once. I'm back up to the tricky bit (about 8 rows in, but there are 363 stitches per row!) and have been more careful about putting in a lifeline, and counting the stitches as I go. Fingers crossed I get through it this time!