a spring in my step

Spring has sprung! Well, mostly kinda sorta.... I'm trying to finish up a couple of projects and catch up on bee blocks and get some new projects (both personal and professional) going. I'll spare you the laundry list of stuff to do and stuff in the works and just say that I'm savoring the sunny days and (slightly) warmer weather. Along with all the dreaming and planning and mapping out of gardens and quilts there is also a lot of singalong at the children's library and swinging in the playground and happy shrieks and laughter. I am savoring now. Hope you are, too.

i put a bird on it

 

...and a mushroom and a (totally messed up) little owl, too. So you know how sometimes you'll see something at one of those evil big stores, and it's cute and snuggly and ON SALE. And you know how it goes with baby clothes. It's only going to fit for a couple of months, so if you're going to spend money on them, you want to spend as little as possible. Suddenly, your beliefs fly out the window as you're pulling out your wallet clutching a handful of cheap, wee pants that are all fleecey and warm and ZOMG! just the thing your kiddo needs. Then you get home, throw them in the wash, and find yourself getting hung up on the stupid logo that's stamped on it because for the love of crunchy how you hate logos. There's an easy solution, however - grab some felt and scissors and sew on some critters to cover up the crap. Each one only took a few minutes to cut and sew. My only issue was sewing them onto the the pants themselves. That was a little tricky what with getting the leg onto the arm of the machine and under needle and positioning everything just right so that I wouldn't sew any part of the pants onto themselves. Next time I might just hand stitch 'em on. It'll take a more time, but it will just look better. Not that it matters, really, as the kiddo doesn't demand perfection. He's an easy-going little fella:

Anne totally planted the seed for this idea in my head. When I saw her a couple of weekends ago, she suggested I sew some adorable little mushrooms as pockets onto the Snug I had just finished. I loved the idea but wasn't keen on sewing onto squishy garter stitch. I filed the suggestion away because I knew it had to work for something. Not that I made these into pockets, but they are patches where normally pockets would go:

a meaty feast for the feet

 

pattern: toe-up socks w/ short row heels (see below for details)
designer: whoever invented knitting socks from the toe-up?
yarn: pigeonroof studios handspun in Ricochet (Corriedale) and Carnival (Shetland)
needles: Addi Turbo 32 inch circs in US size 3

Adrian made me do it. Or more specifically, she knit a ton of ridiculously beautiful socks using handspun that sparked an intense yearning in me for a pair of my own. Not being a spinner myself, I grabbed some pigeonroof I'd been saving for a rainy day and went to town. The thing was that I only had 127 yards of one and 136 of another, so if I wanted a complete pair of socks I would have to find a way to combine them. Not being all that savvy about the many different fibers, I thought the safest way to mix Corriedale and Shetland would be to use the Corriedale for the feet and Shetland for the cuffs. The colorways fortuitously had enough warm tones in common that they would work well together. 

While looking up a tutorial for a refresher on a figure-8 cast-on, I came across the Easy Toe, by Wendy Johnson. How have I not been using this method for all of my socks? How?! I find the figure-8 a little fussy sometimes, but this? So easy! It truly is the easiest toe-up cast-on ever. I cast on 4 stitches when starting the toe, increasing 4 stitches every row until I had 20 stitches total. Then I increased 4 stitches every other row until I had a total of 40 stitches on the needles. I  knit for about 5 inches, then worked a short row heel. Can I tell you how happy I am that I am no longer mystified by short row heels? I do wish that I had maybe made them just a stitch deeper and not so narrow at the point, but that's not such a big deal. I'll keep that in mind when knitting my next pair. I then went on to knit for 5 rows and work the cuff in a 1x1 rib, binding off with Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn bind off, which works beautifully. 

 

 

The resulting socks are dense and cozy and just delightful to wear around the house on cold, rainy mornings. Granted, they are meaty. We were joking at SPA about how you could knock someone out with one of them without even having to stuff the requisite rolls of quarters in them. They are way heavy. Wearing them, I can't even squeeze my feet into my loosest fitting clogs. Hence, they will be kick-around-at-home socks, which is kinda decadent and lovely. Once again, hooray for handspun socks!

the knit parade - snuggly snug

pattern: Snug
designer: hinke
yarn: Quince & Co. Osprey in Chanterelle
needles: Addi Turbo 32 inch circs in US size 10.5
modifications: knit at a larger gauge and some quick, basic math (see last paragraph for the whole shebang)

This is truly the quickest, easiest, yet one of the most clever patterns I have knit to date. I love the design - there's some neat construction in there. And the instructions are so clear and concise! Love it! Because the kiddo was almost nine months when I finally got around to casting on for this, I had to make a few mods since the pattern is sized for a newborn - 6 month old. I went up a few needle sizes, used a heavier yarn, and tweaked the numbers ever so slightly (more on the numbers further below). The resulting sweater is a little big on him right now, but it will probably last him through next winter. The funny thing is that when I finished knitting the sweater about a week after I cast on, it fit him just right. The sleeves were a little long, but they were meant to be worn rolled up anyway. When I blocked it about a month later, the sweater really grew a few sizes. All the glorious garter stitch stretched like crazy adding a couple of inches here and a couple of inches there. Not a bad thing considering that I was worried that it might just fit him as I had let it languish for a month (maybe just a little more). The kiddo is swimming in it, but the effect is kind of adorable.

Lazy-ass knitter that I am, I let it hang around for yet another couple of weeks awaiting buttons. I even went and found the perfect buttons for it. See?

I am so not a fan of these little finishing details. Projects amass in a huge pile o' knit stuff before I suck it up and get on with the weaving in of ends and button-attaching and seam-sewing and crap like that. I try to be good about it, but really, I am just the worst. I even outsourced some seam-sewing to Stacie once while hanging out with her because I flaked on myself. That's right. I flaked on myself. I had been meaning to seam those dang arms for over a month, but by that point I knew it just wasn't going to happen because I couldn't seem to get it done.

So yeah, it's a good thing that this little sweater grew. Good on that garter stitch, and good on that wonderful yarn. Quince & Co.'s Osprey is just the squishiest, loveliest stuff to knit with. It's so perfect for snuggly baby sweaters. I love squeezing the dense fabric the Osprey + garter combo created. Even better when it's on the kiddo. So much squishy goodness going on there!

As for those mods, I just increased stitches accordingly in increments of four. For example, I cast on 40 instead of 32 (8 stitches increased). Where it says knit 20, I knit 24. I put 16 stitches on scrap yarn instead of 12. When picking up for the front flaps & hood, I picked up 40 from each side and 60 from the back for a total of 140 working stitches. I kinda winged the measurements. Instead of knitting 2 inches in garter at the beginning there, I knit 3 inches. I made the sleeves 8 inches long instead of 6 inches. It was all pretty basic and intuitive stuff. It worked! Hooray! One more sweater for the kiddo!