New Apartment!

I moved in with Doug, my amazing super-duper awesome boyfriend, at the beginning of August. I finally found my camera charger, so I finally got to take advantage of this wild orange wall in our living room as a backdrop. It was a little late in the day when Doug and I took pictures, so they came out a little blurry, but check out the color!

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!!!