FO: Mom Blankie

Yes! It's actual knitting content!

I finished Mom Blankie today. It wasn't the ten days I so hopefully planned on Christmas Day, but I did finish it in just about a month.

The details:

Pattern: Zig Zag sock yarn pram baby blanket by Debbie Orr (free pattern here). Obviously, I used thicker yarn and bigger needles to get a sofa sized blanket.

Yarn: Noro Kochoran

Needles: Size 10 Knit Picks Options circs

Size: Before blocking (as in these pics), it was 48" x 60". After blocking, it is 52" x 64".

Mods: None, other than the size, and the fact that I used self-striping yarn instead of sock yarn scraps. Very easy and relaxing pattern, perfect for tv knitting! And now, perfect for tv watching, too. :)

Happy Knitting

ETA: I've tried to fix the pictures. Could someone please let me know whether they are now visible? Thanks!

I mentioned in my last post that my house had been torn up for 45 days. As it turns out, 45 days is the outside limit of my tolerance for having my house torn up. On day 46, I evidently become a raving lunatic who frightens husbands and small children and causes contractors to back slowly away while laughing nervously.

However, I apparently also become extremely energetic and efficient. My house is entirely put back together, with a new bathroom, new walls, new paint, and new living room furniture. It is beautiful. I am happy. All is well with my world.

My husband deserves (he insists) full credit for talking me off the ledge. He also deserves full credit for moving enormously heavy pieces of furniture all over the house and lighting a fire under contractors who clearly did not understand the importance of getting the damned project done already.

And now I am deeply engrossed in happy knitting. I got this (at my request, and to the accompaniment of much eye-rolling) for Christmas:


This is a full bag of Noro Kochoran, one of my all-time favorite yarns. I really wanted this to make a soft, fluffy sofa throw. I cast on Christmas morning and have been happily and obsessively knitting ever since.


Note the colors. There is nothing about these colors that would appeal to a male--ever--and that is the point.


Every afghan I have made has been confiscated by someone in my family. And while I am thrilled that they love my afghans, I am also cold. I want my own blankie, and this is it. It's like the hot pink flip flops I bought when my black and brown ones kept disappearing. I couldn't keep a pair of flip flops for more than a few weeks. I've had the pink ones for three years. So this is the knitted equivalent of hot pink flip flops.

The pattern is here, and it is free. I used the Kochoran instead of sock yarn scraps, obviously, and size 10 needles. My goal is to knit one ball of yarn per day, giving me a finished 48"x 60" throw in ten days. So far, I am on track. I don't normally set knitting goals, but this is an exception: I want my blankie, darn it!

FO: NLCA

And here it is: The Noro Log Cabin Afghan!

I started this back in March and fairly quickly worked up all the very addictive squares. But then it took a while to plow through all the assembling, which involved miles and miles of garter stitch and almost as much grafting.

In the end, it was totally worth the trouble. The afghan is warm and colorful and lovely to curl up with.

I used 20 balls of Noro Yuzen--which is a wool/silk blend, labeled DK weight, but really a worsted--in 10 different colorways. I made the blocks using this tutorial, which was really easy. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the blocks and kitchenered them together to create strips. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the the strips and kitchenered them together to create a rectangle. (I used a different yarn for this, which I pulled from the stash.)

I should have made my strips narrower, since a) they ended up wider than the "logs" and b) I ran out of yarn before I could make the border as wide as I wanted. But calculating exactly how wide they needed to be to use all my yarn without running out too soon would have required...well...math. And I try to minimize the need for math in knitting, because, as I have proved time and again, math lies. I know there are those of you who disagree that math is inherently dishonest, and maybe even those who would suggest that I--myself--might in some way bear some responsibility for the way math has repeatedly failed to conform to my knitting reality, but I reject those arguments and repeat: math lies.

So, after much consideration, I decided to use the "ah, screw it" approach to making a border and just started single crocheting around and around the edge of the afghan until I ran out of yarn. Which, naturally, happened two feet before the end of a round. At that point, I extended the "ah, screw it" approach to its natural corollary, "ah, f*&! it!", ripped back to the end of the side (not all the way back to the beginning of the round, which would have made the border the same width on all sides but also narrower on three sides), and tied it off. I figure, no one will ever notice that one side is one row narrower than the other three, and I used up all but a few feet of my yarn.

Being familiar with the ways of Noro, I soaked this baby overnight in some water with a good dose of fabric softener, and it's now drying out on the deck. Since I've also finished Morgaine (modeled pics coming soon!), I am now without project on the needles! I will be remedying that situation in short order, as soon as I decide what I feel like knitting next. I am getting ready to start a new job in a formal office environment (more about that later), so I am trying to come up with a sweater I could wear in that setting. It's the sort of place you have to wear a suit every day. I was thinking a fitted shell or sweater for under a suit, but I been able to find any patterns I think would work. I'm not averse to designing my own, but I don't really have a vision for it. Any suggestions?

Make New Friends...

...but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold!

Was anyone else a Girl Scout? Did you have to sing that song every single meeting, too? The wretched Beatles medley after John Lennon was assassinated was almost a relief.

Here is proof that the FO parade was not just an excuse to cover the fact that I haven't been knitting. I have indeed been knitting. Here is the current state of the Noro Log Cabin blanket:

Yes, that is all the squares, edged and grafted together!

And here is the yarn I have left:

Although it looks like a fair amount, my calculations indicate that there is not enough to do the matching border I intended. My calculations consist of considering that it's taken me six and a half balls so far. There are three long strips and two short strips. I have two and a half balls left, and to do a matching border would mean knitting a bit more than two long strips and two short strips. Even in my math-resistant world, this equals not enough yarn.

I am taking suggestions. This yarn is discontinued and utterly unavailable (I've looked). It is impossible to match, being a wool/cotton/nylon baby boucle in plum (I've tried). So my options are to make a smaller sort of border, like maybe an applied I-cord (god save me), or to pick an entirely different yarn for the border. I am leaning toward the narrower border, but I'd love to hear other options. I have spent too long on this to give up now, no matter how tempting it may seem at the moment.

And this is Morgaine, which is what I am calling my version of this pattern--the one I didn't order because it was only available by snail mail and I am not that patient.

Instead, I just used the photo as a guide. And I've saved about as much time as you save when you get caught speeding and spend half an hour exchanging pleasantries with the Highway Patrol. I have ripped almost as much as I have knitted. Natch. But I think I have it worked out now. I had to set it aside for a couple of days when I ripped the sleeve cap for the second time, but I'm reasonably happy with the current version of the cap and I think it will end up perfect after blocking.
This yarn is Ultra Alpaca, so it will undoubtedly grow like crazy in length when it hits water. I am counting on it, in fact, since I deliberately shortened all my measurements to accommodate this growth. (Now watch; this will end up being the only non-growing alpaca in history.)

I gave it a hood, which will benefit from a good blocking.

I also did a shirttail-esque short row hem, which is longer in the back than the front. I was thinking sort of a medieval cloak shape. The added advantage is that it covers my butt without hanging to my knees in the front.

These are my only "real" WIPs right now. "Real" WIPs are those which stand a chance of being finished in the near future, as opposed to the other sort of WIPs, which are just UFOs in denial. (We won't discuss how many of those I have floating around.)

And you know what that means, don't you? It means I will be picking a new project in the next few days! Ah, the possibilities...

Strips

Yes, it's true: now I have strips for real. As opposed to the strips that existed only in my mind. But more than that, in some sort of knitting miracle, I didn't use any yarn. Well, not any real yarn, anyway. Somehow, I managed to do all the strip assembly using only overlooked partial balls of yarn that I didn't count in any of my optimistic calculations for the rest of the blanket. And this has put me right back where I thought I was before that awful moment when I pulled out squares when I should have pulled out strips: I may actually have enough ancient, discontinued yarn for the rest of the blanket! (For the record, this is the solid purple boucle yarn in the picture, not the Noro. I looked on Ravelry and found only three stashes with this yarn, and none in the color I need. Nor was there any available anywhere else online. So really, this is more of a drama than I usually choose to engage in.)

Onward, knitting soldiers!

Cosmic Smack Down

So I was knitting along happily on my new sweater and finished the body and hood, and then I hit a snag. Not a major snag, but one that required me to take a little break. Feeling the need for a little mindless knitting, I pulled out the Noro Log Cabin blanket that's been waiting patiently for a while. If you recall--as I did--I had finished all the squares and assembled them into strips. No mean feat, that, since it required miles and miles of garter stitch and grafting. But I persevered and conquered and all that, and I distinctly recall the relief with which I put all those assembled strips away in a basket to await the final assembly, requiring more miles and miles of garter stitch and grafting. At some point, I even got the first two strips put together, with three left to go.

All this I remembered, and I pulled out the blanket with some sense that, if I couldn't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least I was beginning to believe there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I knitted and knitted and knitted, with a growing concern that the ancient and discontinued yarn I was using for the assembly might run out before the blanket did. I grafted and grafted and grafted, and finally the third strip joined the first two on the blanket and it was good:

At this point I paused and assessed the yarn situation. After some thought and some calculating and a little bit of unwarranted optimism, I decided I just might have enough to finish the assembly and put on a border. Maybe.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I reached into the basket to pull out the fourth strip and found this:

Those are not strips.

Those are individual squares.

I distinctly remember strips.

This not only means I have to invest god-only-knows-how-many-more hours in assembling these b*&!^%$s into strips--it also means there is no-freakin'-way I have enough ancient, discontinued yarn to finish both the assembly and the border.

*&%!

Sabotage

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Last night I was working my seven-hundred-and-ninety-three-bazillionth row of garter stitch while assembling my Log Cabin Afghan. I finished the row I was working, detached the needle tip that I was using so that I could attach it to the cable that was holding the square I planned to attach on next, capped the end of the working cable, and went to pick up the needle tip...which was gone. It was in my lap one second, and the next...gone.

I did what any rational person would do and carefully shook out everything in my lap. Not there. Then I stood up, shook out my skirt and shirt, checked the floor, lifted the bottom of the sofa slipcover, and ran my hand under the edge of the sofa. Nope. I took off the sofa cushion and looked under it. I slid my hand under a dog lying on the sofa. Still nothing.

I paused, took a deep breath, and carefully walked the family room floor, looking for the needle. I checked the coffee table. Twice. I checked the kitchen counter, even though I hadn't been in the kitchen. (What...isn't that where things magically turn up in your house?) I went upstairs and interrupted the KH on a phone call to ask him, with barely repressed irritation, if he had taken my needle tip to drive me around the bend, because it was working. (Hey, he does that sort of thing. It was a reasonable suspicion.) I'd have interrogated the kids, but they were all in the swimming pool and I was reasonably sure none of them were telekinetic.

I went back to the family room, checked the floor and the table again. I made the dog get off the sofa and ran my hands through his fur. (You never know.) I pulled everything out of the gap between the sofa and the side table. I lifted off the sofa cushion again and ran my hands through the dog hair, crumbs, and what I think was a half-eaten cookie (not mine, though--I don't leave half cookies behind). Nada.

I lifted the sofa skirt and looked under with a flashlight. I checked the dining room, where I haven't been in two days. I looked on top of the piano in the living room. I checked the entry table. I looked in the dryer, because all sorts of strange things turn up in there. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I went upstairs to get a different needle tip, cursing all the while. I returned downstairs, sat down--and there was the missing needle tip, lying on the sofa. On the cushion I had already taken off the sofa twice.

I managed a deep breath and carefully set it on the side table, well away from the edge, feeling the need for a little break. I had a snack, checked my email, and ordered pizza. Then I picked up my knitting, reached for the errant needle tip...and promptly knocked it into the no man's land between the sofa and the side table.

I got off the sofa--again--and dug everything out of the gap--again. No needle tip. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I ran my hand along the side of the sofa...and shoved the needle tip under the sofa so far I couldn't reach it.

I moved the side table (a huge, full steamer trunk), shoved the loveseat out of the way, and wrestled the nine foot sofa out of its spot to, finally, capture the needle tip.

After a little rest, I put everything back where it belonged, sat down again, and at last grafted the last square onto the strip I was finishing. I carefully wove in and trimmed all the ends. I laid it out on the table to admire it, and wondered why it looked...different. I pulled out the last strip and laid it beside the new one. All the squares were oriented the right way. The colors were in the right order. There were four squares in each...uh, oh. There were four squares in the first strip. There were five in the second. That last square I went to so much trouble to graft on? That square should have been the first square in the next row.

Sabotage. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Stripping

Believe it or not, I've finished all twenty squares for my Noro Log Cabin Blanket and I've started assembling them into strips. I did the first strip this morning, and it was nowhere near as difficult or tedious as I expected. I laid out the squares on the floor and played with the arrangement until I liked the result, then stacked up the squares in order. I decided to attach them in horizontal rows first, then attach those strips together vertically.

To put them together, I picked up and knitted along the edge of each square for half the width of the strip, then grafted the strip halves together in the middle, as you can see above. The grafting line isn't invisible, but it's pretty good and there's no seam. It turns out grafting in garter is easier than grafting in stockinette.

The yarn I'm using for the strips between the squares is some prune colored baby boucle that's been in the stash for years. It's a blend of mohair, cotton, and wool--unusual, but quite soft. I swatched it a few times for different tops, but finally decided I'd never like it for a sweater, so this was a good use for it. The color picks up on the purples in virtually all the Noro squares and the solid makes a nice border for all the self-striping yarns in the squares.

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to maintain momentum on this (it's pretty boring), but I'd like to get this one finished, so I'll keep plugging along for as long as I can. More pictures soon!

I Do Still Knit

Despite the lack of evidence here on the blog, I have been knitting.

This is the completed back of the Tweedy Aran Cardigan (Rav link). There are approximately 5000 ptbl's in this section. I used to hate ptbl, and was unable to execute one in under ten minutes. Now I just hate it.

I have to admit, though, all those twisted stitches make for a lovely textured fabric. I'm trying to get this one finished before the summer heat kicks in. I don't think I can handle a lap full of aran weight fuzzy wool in 90 degree temps.

And I've been gartering away on my Noro log cabin blanket, which continues to captivate me with its ever-changing colors.

This is perfect carry-along and/or tv and/or social knitting. I even worked on a square at the movie theater during Iron Man II (good thing I had something interesting to do).

I love this one from every angle.

Mmmm...can't get enough of that Noro!

Someone please remind me of that when I have to join all these things together.

FOs!

April Fools! I don't really have FOs to show you. Well, I do have FOs--I just don't have pictures of them. But as I realize I haven't posted any knitting to this knitting blog in...a while...I'm going to share my current WIPs instead.

Yes, I did say WIPs--plural. I am usually a pretty monogamous knitter, but my attention span has been a little short lately. I don't know whether it's hormones, the weather, or just lots of distractions, but I've found myself casting on for multiple projects in the past few weeks. Here are some of them:


I know you've seen this one before:

This is Red Ruffles, which suffered the unfortunate accident with the left front--the one I somehow managed to knit as some sort of mutant half-right, half-left front. The offending section has been unseamed and ripped, but so far, I haven't been able to summon the enthusiasm to reknit it. A shame, that, since it has the potential to be a very nice sweater.

And then there's this one:

This was a test knit of Vera for Snowden Becker, and I love the design. Sadly, I stalled out when I realized the second skein of the hand dyed yarn I chose for this project was a completely different color than the first. I can't bring myself to rip it, and I can't stand looking at it. So it sits in limbo, waiting for a decision that may never come.

And then there's my Tweedy Aran Cardigan:

I've wanted to knit this for ages. I've had the perfect yarn in the stash for months. I don't know why I haven't cast it on before. So I did. I worked exactly 20 rows. And then...I don't know what happened. I only know that every time I pick it up, I put it back down again.

In fact, the only thing I want to work on is this:

Plain garter stitch log cabin blocks, but in a rainbow of gorgeous Noro colors. I think I'm finishing block 11 of 20 at the moment. I'm not sure I can explain the appeal of these. They are incredibly simple. No pattern, no fancy stitches, no cables, no lace, no nothing. Just garter stitch and Noro, around and around and around. It's mesmerizing. Addictive. It's all I want to knit these days. Just...around and around and around. I am ignoring the fact that, eventually, I will have to pick up and knit--and then graft together--all the borders for these squares. That will not be around and around and around and will not be at all mesmerizing. But for now...if anyone needs me, I'll be with the Noro.

Noro Jag

Ah, Spring. The time when a knitter's fancy turns to thoughts of Noro...or is that just me?

I'm on another Noro jag. Happens every once in a while. Remember last year's must-have Noro Giant Granny Square? This year it's the Noro Log Cabin Blanket. The need to make one of these (Rav link) bit hard while I was in Lake Tahoe. And thanks to the internet, even though I couldn't make my intended pilgrimage to Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno (seems some of the males in my household don't see the necessity of driving two hours round trip to visit a yarn shop from which I can order yarn online in a matter of seconds--party poopers, all of them), I discovered that Noro Yuzen has recently been put on clearance by a number of my favorite yarn pushers...uh, suppliers. I ordered mine from WEBS here, but it's also on sale at Little Knits.

This is a round about way of explaining that I bought a blanket's worth of Noro last week. Wanna make somethin' of it?

And here's the current progress:

I started two days ago and have discovered, despite all the other projects on the needles, that these little squares are a lot like potato chips: I can't have just one. In fact, I'm not sure anything else is going to get done until I've turned my entire supply of ever-changing Noro colorways into log cabin squares.


(Don't mind the wonkiness. I haven't blocked any of them yet.)

I bought two hanks each of ten different colorways. Each hank makes one 11-inch square on size 7 needles at 18 sts/4 inches in garter. Don't be fooled by the gauge listed on Noro yarns. It's always wrong. I don't know whether yarn gauge is measured differently in Japan or whether it's just a Noro thing, but I find the yarn is always at least one size larger than listed; in other words, this "dk" weight yarn is really a worsted/aran weight yarn.

In case anyone is of a similar mind, these squares are wicked easy to make. After the first one, you don't need anything resembling a pattern to whip them out, and you may not even have to look at your hands, if you can resist staring at the color changes.

I worked this one sitting in Younger Son's academic awards ceremony today (honor roll-yay!).

He's the one on the far right. Congratulations, Goober!

FO: Giant Granny Square

It's done! I used the purl bee granny square tutorial to make this. I think you could easily make one of these even if you don't know how to crochet already. These pictures are of the afghan unblocked. It's currently soaking and will be blocked tomorrow. The finished size pre-blocking is about five feet square.

I used 10 skeins of Noro Iro plus a bag of unknown recycled brown wool I found in the stash for the border. I just crocheted until I ran out of the Noro, then switched to plain double crochet (I think) for the border and continued until I ran out of the brown yarn, which I held doubled. If you don't already know this, crochet really, really eats up yarn. I think I had a whole sweater's worth of the brown yarn.

I used a size J hook, because it seemed to be about right and I had one. Gauge is pretty irrelevant with an afghan, as long as you like the fabric. I can honestly say I loved making this, despite the problems I had and the massive amount of ripping I did to solve them. (After I got the whole thing done and the ends woven in last night, I discovered a mistake with a corner only inches from the beginning. It doesn't throw off the shape, though, and I'm not about to rip the whole thing again, so I am embracing the error as proof that it was made by human hands and not a machine.)

The tortoise came over to check it out during the FOto shoot. I think he likes it.

[Endangered California Desert Tortoise, which can't be re-released into the wild. I have a permit for him. My aunt rescued him from another owner more than 30 years ago, and he was already an adult then. I've had him for the past three years, since my aunt moved to Colorado, so we know he is approaching 40, at least, and may be much older. No one knows how long they live, but they are known to live at least as long as humans, and probably longer. I'm going to have to put him in my will.]

All Squared Up

From this:To this:

And the Giant Granny Blob is once again a Giant Granny Square.

Only 500 more grams to go.

The Antidote to Lace Knitting

A few days ago I saw this and fell completely and hopelessly in lust. My palms started to sweat and my heartbeat sped up and I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until I cast on for a Giant Granny Square of my very own. I know it's crochet; I don't care. I don't have anything against crochet, except that it's not knitting. I learned how to crochet years before I learned to knit, if by "learned" you understand that I mean I figured out how to make something resembling a square piece of fabric out of a stringy, plastic-y substance that went by the name "yarn" back in the 1970's. Come to think of it, I believe the original granny square blankets were often made out of this same substance.

But I love the idea of a single, giant granny square crocheted from gorgeous, chunky Noro yarn. I almost immediately located this and deemed it perfect for the purpose:


See how well the colors work in my family room?

So I pulled up the instructions on my computer and cast on.

Within the first few moments, I discovered that I do not know how to crochet. Whatever the thing is that I learned to do all those many years ago, it was not at all what the instructions told me to do now. It took me an embarrassingly long time to get the hang of making a simple granny square. I stopped counting after the sixth time I ripped back to the beginning.

Eventually, though, I got it working, and was reminded how delightful instant gratification really is:

This is one skein of Noro Iro, and it's a little more than a foot square. I have nine more skeins, so this should end up being a decently-sized throw for the family room sofa. Or...um...maybe my bedroom.

Move Along, People...

...nothing to see here. Return to your homes...

{Is she gone yet? The KG, I mean?}


The body of the Kochoran Scoop is done. I even picked up and knitted the collar. That was a little tricky. Since the diameter of the opening got smaller as the ribbing got longer, I had to do something to prevent the ribbing from flopping over as it grew. I did the collar in 2 x 2 ribbing, and I didn't want to decrease part way through and change the look of the ribbing. Instead, in the bind off row, I purled two together for each purl rib as I bound off. This pulled the ribbing together and seems to be preventing the flopping, but I won't really know until it's blocked. I have accepted that I may need to redo the bind off if the collar relaxes too much after washing.

I am expecting quite a bit of change after washing. I used Kochoran for a sweater coat I made, and the fabric changed dramatically when I washed it. It became much, much drapier and looser, and the coat grew more than four inches in length, as did the sleeves! To prevent such a huge change with The Scoop, I worked at a tighter gauge and also made the entire sweater shorter and more fitted than I ordinarily would. I am hoping this will not backfire on me. I will be really annoyed if this doesn't relax after washing. It fits now, but it's pretty snug, and about a inch or so shorter than I want it to end up. I think this will result in a post-washing sweater that fits perfectly, but it's still a gamble.

I'm working the first sleeve now (picked up and knitted down in the round, natch!), so I should be done with this in a few days. Good thing: since I've discovered the destash group on Ravelry, the stash is going to need its own zip code soon.

FO: Petra

I've saved my favorite for last in this week's FO parade. This is my new favorite sweater. It took less than a week and I loved every minute of knitting it.

Pattern: Petra, by Julie Weisenberger of cocoknits. Size 37".

I love the design of this sweater. It is worked all in one piece from the bottom up. You cast on enough stitches for the back, then increase every other row to add stitches for the front. The unique method of increasing creates the little points in the fronts, and also angles the knitting, as you can see from the stripes on mine. I deliberately picked a self-striping yarn to exploit this interesting shaping.

The sleeves are knitted separately as tubes, then added to the body, and then the shoulders are given raglan shaping. The collar is just an extension of the fronts.

Yarn: Noro Transitions.

I love the yarn, too. Like most Noro yarns, it is a little rough in the skein, but softens when worked, and becomes quite soft and drapey after washing. It is a unique yarn, since the fiber content changes with the colors, giving it a variegated texture. It's bulky weight, so it knits up very quickly. (Too quickly, actually--I was a little sorry to finish this one.)

Modifications: I did have to modify this pattern to allow for greater length. This seemed more complicated than it actually was. I just worked the pattern as written, but started my waist shaping later in the pattern. Then, I added extra length again after finishing the increasing at the top of the waist shaping before beginning the armholes. I also lengthened the sleeves by quite a bit.

The yarn tricked me a little. Even though my washed swatch showed no change in gauge, this fabric grew significantly in length with washing. Both the body and sleeves grew about three inches. In fact, I ended up taking out the bindoff on the sleeves, shortening them, and binding them off again. This wasn't much of a problem, since the cuffs are knitted last, utilizing a provisional sleeve cast on.

And in case you're wondering about the gorgeous fastener, it's one of Romi's shawl pins! You can even order one of your very own here.