Sheridan

Finally, it's up! I've been so busy lately with Montessori teacher training, and then moving, that it's great to have some time to sit and edit...and then publish! Here are some photos:

My mom is lovely, isn't she? She's holding the DK-weight shawl that's knit with Noro Silk Garden Lite.
And here's the one I made for my grandmother, and boy was it hard to let go of. This is the DK-weight scarf, knit with Malabrigo Silky Merino.
And last, but not least, the fingering-weight shawl in Araucania Ranco Multi and Dream In Color Smooshy Starry Sock. So please, !

Free Pattern! Southport

This is a very simple, top-down ribbed hat that can be made as slouchy or as un-slouchy as you want. Fold up the edge, and you have a cozy beanie. Fold only the bottom, and you have a luxurious slouchy cap.

For this hat I used Noro Aya, a lovely combination of silk, cotton, and wool. I may try a second with Malabrigo merino worsted in Tortoise, which will be a much more masculine hat, and give it to Mr. Doug. (This hat was originally for him, but although he likes working with these colors in art, they really aren't colors he would normally wear. That's the kind of error one makes when one knits someone a hat after a single date...)

Fortunately for all of us, I wrote the pattern down as I knit it, and came up with a very simple design.

Materials: about 130 yards of any light worsted or dk yarn. For more memory, go with a wool yarn, but when tightly knit, cotton and silk work as well.

Set of 5 US4 double-pointed needles (or size needed to obtain gauge)

US4 16" circular needle (or size needed to obtain gauge)

1 stitch marker

yarn needle

Gauge: 17 stitches by 32 rows = 4" x 4" in stockinette

Important: Check your gauge because I personally have a very loose one. Aya recommends needle sizes between 5 and 7.

Special instructions:

m1R: Insert your left needle, from the front, under the yarn between the needles, making a new stitch. Knit that stitch through the back loop.

m1L: Insert your left needle, from the back, under the yarn between the needles, making a new stitch. Knit that stitch.

With your dpns, cast on 8 stitches. Divide between 4 needles and join in the round. Knit the first round.

Round 2: knit the front and the back of every stitch (kfb).

Round 3: knit.

Round 4: *kfb, k, kfb, k, repeat from *

Round 5: *k, p, k2, p, k, repeat from *

Round 6: *kfb, p, k2, pfb, k, repeat from *

Round 7: k1, (p2, k2) till last 3 stitches, p2, k1

Round 8: *k1, m1L, p2, k2, p2, m1r, k1, repeat from *

Round 9: *k2, p2, k2, p2, k2, repeat from *

Round 10: *k1, m1L, k1, p2, k2, p2, k1, m1r, k1, repeat from *

Round 11: *k3, p2, k2, p2, k3, repeat from *

Round 13: *kfb, k2, p2, k2, p2, k1, kfb, k1, repeat from *

Round 14: *k1, p1, (k2, p2) twice, k2, p1, k1, repeat from *

Round 15: *kfb, p1, (k2, p2) twice, k2, pfb, k1, repeat from *

Round 16: k1, (p2, k2) till last 3 stitches, p2, k1

Round 17: *k1, m1L, (p2, k2) 3 times, p2, m1r, k1, repeat from *

Round 18: *(k2, p2) 4 times, k2, repeat from *

Round 19: *k1, m1L, (p2, k2) 3 times, p2, k1, m1r, k1, repeat from *

Round 20: *k3, (p2, k2) 4 times, k1, repeat from *

Round 21: *kfb, (k2, p2) 4 times, k1, kfb, k1, repeat from *

Round 22: *k1, p1, (k2, p2) 4 times, k2, p1, k1, repeat from *

Round 23: *kfb, p1, (k2, p2) 4 times, k2, pfb, k1, repeat from *

When necessary, switch to 16" circulars, marking the start of the round with a marker. When finished with the increases, feel free to remove the marker and simply work in a 2x2 rib. Continue until your hat measures 9" from the top, or until desired length. Trust me that if your hat is much longer, it may look kind of silly.

Block very lightly, and weave in ends.

Free Pattern! Infinoro Scarf

Wow. It's been ages since I've updated, and I'm sorry. I can give all sorts of excuses: Christmas knitting, visiting my adorable baby cousin Aster, breaking up with Steve, meeting and falling in love with Doug, and procrastinating. Despite all these excuses, I want to make it up to you guys with this free pattern--it's very simple and quick, and should take not much more than 6 hours. So get a skein of your favorite chunky yarn (variegated or self-striping is best!) and a good book on tape (or NPR, or Netflix On-Demand) and get crackin'!

Gauge is not important, neither is number of stitches. For a longer loop, either cast on fewer stitches or provide yourself with more yarn. I simply knit until I had barely enough to graft it with the kitchener stitch.

Here's what I did and used:

1 skein Noro Transitions (Check this out: 55% wool, 10% silk, 7% angora, 7% camel, 7% kid mohair, 7% alpaca, and 7% cashmere...make up your mind, already!)

Size US 11 needles

1 audio file of Lolita by Nabokov

First, provisionally cast on 23 stitches (fewer for a longer, narrower scarf). Here's a good video by LunaKnits that taught me how to do it.

Odd rows: Knit.

Even rows: Knit one stitch, knit the next two stitches together, and then knit until one stitch remains. Lift the yarn between the needles with your left needle from the back of the yarn and knit that as a stitch. Knit the last stitch.

Continue these steps until you are nail-bitingly close to the end of your yarn. Finish with an even row.

Next, put the live provisional stitches on another needle. Put the end of your working yarn through a yarn needle, and graft the stitches together with the kitchener stitch. If you don't know how to do this, here's a tutorial from Stitch Diva Studios.

When you're finished, you may think, "Wow...this is not nearly long enough." It's time to block it! I soaked it in my bathroom sink and stretched it around my towel bar--that seemed to be a good size to make it stretch. In the morning I took it off, pulled the sides apart so it was flat, and laid it on my bed to finish drying. Later that day it was finished, and I happily wore it doubled as so:

Enjoy! I hope you like this super-simple scarf!

Knitting Wrapped Stitches

In a lot of my patterns I require a whole bunch of wrap-and-turns (where you move your yarn to the front, slip a stitch, move the yarn to the back, slip the stitch back to the left needle, and turn your work). When you've done this and come back to the wrapped stitch, you'll find that it looks like this:

If you knit it how it is, you're going to see the yarn that's wrapping the stitch as a little bar. If you're OK with this, let it go, but I prefer to make my work look a little more seamless. In order to make the wrap invisible, you should knit the stitch with its wrap. First, you should insert your right needle underneath the yarn that is wrapping the stitch.
See? It's easy! Now just place the tip of that needle into the stitch you want to knit:
But you can't quite knit them like that all the time (sometimes, if your stitches are loose enough, you can bring the working yarn through both loops as so, but I find it's a little hit-or-miss), so what I do is I slip the wrapped stitch off the left needle knitwise, then place them both on, together, as so:
Then knit both stitch and wrap together. It will be a tiny bit visible on the wrong side of the work, but after blocking, even the wrong side will look flawless! I hope this little tutorial helps you guys out!

Winkin'

I'm thinking of making this the first in a 3-hat series (later: Blinkin' and Nod). This one, as well as being the first chronologically, is slightly flirty, with its bow, pinks, and sparkles, so it shall carry the name Winkin'! (Because winking is what you do when you flirt! I think...maybe I don't know how to flirt.) Anyway, I just need to make the other two hats (one will be a man's hat, the other, a child's) and I'll put it out for testing!

First-Project Pride

Everyone who knits remembers what it was like to start knitting. You found yourself knitting into lower stitches, dropping stitches, finding that the yarn wasn't wear it was supposed to be, making accidental yarn-overs, and having no idea why your piece turned out like this:

This is the first project of one of the girls I babysit. She is a wonderful girl, full of love, who wanted desperately to wear her creation to school. As it was, her scarf didn't really scream "Finished Object!" so I decided to intervene. Fortunately for me, she is very open to my crazy suggestions, and this one was--"Buttons!" (Wait, isn't that my crazy suggestion for everything? I'm not sure.)
We draped the fabric, cowl-style, around her neck and found the accidental yarn-overs, which we used as button-holes. We sewed the buttons on, and it turned into quite the fashion piece--she's quite the fashion model, yes? A wonderful thing about her is she can't fake a smile. She will only smile like this when she's positively glowing from within, and she has a lot to be proud about!!!

Piece o' Cake

Recently I've been moving. It is NOT FUN. I bruise like a peach, I'm not made of muscle, and I got stung by a bee (true story). Also, a bed that Steve and I were going to get from storage was apparently locked up until the super got back from vacation. He had left every key with his sub except the one that was locking the storage place where the bed resided. So Steve and I are going to rent a truck again next weekend just to move the bed. Fun!

OK, enough of my whining. Nobody likes moving, and everyone's doing it these days, so I'm really not that special when you think about it. But it got me thinking: just because moving's not a piece of cake it doesn't mean nothing has to be! Inspired by going to the Foiled Cupcakes 1-year-anniversary party, I decided to de-stress by knitting the following:

Ah yes, the ubiquitous knit cake. It's silly, yes, but enough to get my mind off the stress of moving. I thought I'd share my recipe with you!

Ingredients:

2 small balls of different-colored yarn from your stash

1 cicular, convex button

1 set of US size 5 dpns

1 tapestry needle

1 scrap of cloth, about 16" x 16"

1 scrap of cloth, about 4" x 8"

Instructions:

Cast on 3 stitches on one dpn. With a second dpn, knit 2 stitches into the first stitch. With a third dpn, do the same with the next stitch, and with a fourth, work 2 stitches into the last stitch. Now you have 6 stitches in the round, 2 on each needle. Work 2 stitches into the front and back of each of those stitches, resulting in 12 stitches total. Continue increasing as follows: Round 3: knit 1, knit into the front and back of the next stitch; repeat till the end of round (6 times total).

Round 4: knit 2, knit into the front and back of the next stitch; repeat till the end of round.

Round 5: knit 3, knit into the front and back of the next stitch; repeat till the end of round.

Round 6: knit 4, knit into the front and back of the next stitch; repeat till the end of round.

Round 7: knit 5, knit into the front and back of the next stitch; repeat till the end of round. (You will have 42 stitches total.)

Now you will work the ridges of the cupcake paper. Knit 2 stitches and purl 1, repeat this till the end of the round. For the next round, knit 1 stitch and purl two, repeating this till the end of the round. Repeat these past two rounds until the ribbing measures an inch and a half.

Switch to your second (frosting) color. Knit into the front, back, and front of all the stitches in the round, increasing your number of stitches from 42 to 126, 42 on each needle. Try to make these stitches loose, as they will put a strain on your needles. Next, knit for two rounds. To decrease the ruffle, knit 3 together 6 times, knit 2 together, and knit 1. Repeat this till the end of the round. You will have 48 stitches.

Next, purl 5 rounds, knit 2 rounds.

Insert the stuffing:

Fold the 16" cloth in half, and then half again, lengthwise, making a 16" x 4" folded strip. Holding one of the short ends, roll tightly until you have a 4" tall cylinder. With the smaller scrap, fold it in thirds, lengthwise, so you have a folded strip a little more than an inch wide. wrap it around the middle of the cylinder, and insert it into your knit cupcake.

Now you will start decreasing:

Round 1: purl 6 stitches, purl two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 2: purl

Round 3: purl 5 stitches, purl two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 4: purl

Round 5: purl 4 stitches, purl two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 6: knit

Round 7: knit 3 stitches, knit two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 8: purl

Round 9: purl 2 stitches, purl two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 10: purl 1 stitch, purl two together; repeat till end of round.

Round 11: purl two together; repeat till end of round.

You will have 6 stitches left. Cut your working yarn, leaving a 3-inch tail. Pass the tail through all six stitches, taking them off their needles, and pull. Use this tail to thread though the button and use the yarn needle to sew it in and then weave in the ends.

Now, with a 12" piece of yarn, sew the increase part of the ruffle (the first thing you did with the frosting yarn) to the decrease side, making the ruffle more ruffly. Weave in ends, and you have a cupcake!

...Do not eat it.