It’s the New Traditions Afghan Kit by Knit Picks. I saw this on their website for the first time last week, and I knew immediately that I must have one. The bright colors are certainly a huge attraction. But, what really got me was the quilt design, knit modularly, in what looks like all garter stitch. (I haven’t yet taken the pattern out of the bag for wanting to keep the yarn all together.) Once I get the technique down, can you IMAGINE the creative possibilities, and all of the quilting designs? I am practically glowing from excitement at the thought of it all!
The other thing that came in the mail was this:
Fall 1997 Interweave KnitsThis is the Fall 1997 issue of Interweave Knits magazine. It’s a very early issue. Thumbing through the pages I quickly realized that one of two things must be true: either it’s that truly classic, beautiful designs never really go out of style, or perhaps I am hopelessly behind the times and unfashionable. This fabulous issue contains a top-down Aran by Beth Brown-Reinsel, with not only a pattern, but also a detailed article about its construction. And there’s the article about Alice Starmore, and a pattern by Alice Starmore. Cool!
Those of you who have been knitting forever might already have this magazine in the rack on your shelf, and you’re probably chuckling at my glee. Or, maybe you’re quietly nodding, because you totally get it. You understand. Either way, this magazine is a treasure to me. And, out of style or not, I don’t care. I’m going to get up the guts and knit something from this puppy.
Thank goodness it wasn’t a gift, but I was hoping to be able to wear my funky elf hat in Christmas morning photos. The same thing happened to me the last time I knit this pattern. I should know that starting this pattern in November just isn’t enough time, at least not at the Holiday Season. I mean, with everything that goes on at this time of year, there were days when I never even knit at all.
And this is why I don’t knit occasion gifts. I never make my knitting deadlines. So, I’ve for the most part decided just to never have any.
The thing is, I’ve started the decreases now, so soon enough the rounds on this hat will begin to go quickly. So will I wait til next Christmas to wear this hat? No way! Let everyone think I’m crazy when I show up wearing it when it’s done. (I was thinking of attaching jingle bells on the pointy end of the hat… maybe I’ll wait til Christmas for that part…) My coworkers already know that I’m weird, what with the other Santa hat and my eyeball scarf. So this one won’t be hard to wear to work, for sure. Except that it clashes with my purple coat. Oh well…
The weather has been really cold here! Ok, so we’re not below zero like a lot of folks in some parts of the country, but our area has relatively mild winters and it’s cold here! Our old drafty house isn’t helping. almost think I can feel the wind coming right through the walls sometimes. Yesterday was everyone’s first day back to school and work after the holidays, and even though the weatherman swears to me that the days are getting longer now, I don’t believe it. Not even the sun wanted to get out of bed yesterday morning. It’s supposed to get colder before we see normal winter weather again. I can definitely say I’m not looking forward to the rest of this week.
One thing I’d like to share before I go… my favorite Christmas gift. The kids went on a cruise with my in-laws this summer, and they had a photo taken while they were gone:
New photo of brother and sister
I love this photo. It’s on my mantle, on my computer wallpaper, and now on my blog. Now I can look at it anytime. I’m such a proud mama.
It was really cold today. So cold, in fact, that I actually considered for a moment staying home and napping instead of going to knit group today. (Please don’t tell my family that I am so easily swayed… they’ll order cold weather every time.) Everyone was slow getting out the door, me included, but out we did go, into the wind. The cold wind. (Can you tell I hate cold?)
Boy I am glad I decided to go! By the time I got there, there was a long row of tables already set up, and it was already mostly full. I couldn’t believe it! Was I that late?
I sat down next to two newbies, Cathy and Susan? It was their first time joining us, and they were trying their hand at the Knit Picks tote bag kit. I own this kit myself but have not started it yet. And then I looked over and who should I see?
JENNIFER!!
Trish with Jennifer
Jennifer is someone I met through Ravelry, I think the first time was in a thread on the boards about blindness and accessibility of websites. Yes, we talk about just about everything on Ravelry. (She’s jinniver, a prolific Raveler whose post count would take me another 10 years to match). I’m lucky to have her as a regular reader of this blog, and she frequently comments when I post, which truly is the juice that keeps me going. (To think that for years this blog was actually a static website, and I never did receive the added energy from getting comments. Nowadays, I could not imagine that!)
Jen and her husband recently moved to Virginia from Texas and so of course I said to her once that since she was in the area, she’d have to come check out our group sometime. Now, she’s about an hour away, and I never really thought she’d actually ever come. In fact, she came today without telling me, so that I’d be surprised. (To further the surprise, she threw me off by commenting on my blog at nearly midnight last night and didn’t mention that she’d be coming…) Wow! What a treat for me! And I immediately discovered that Jennifer is not shy and she just jumped right into our group as if she’d been coming all along. How cool is that?
But of course, Jennifer wasn’t the only person at group today. In fact, we were rather crowded for such a cold, blustery day. Here’s a gallery of photos from today’s Knit Group. As usual, click to embiggen:
I wish I could say I got a photo of everyone, or that I even remembered everyone’s name today. Sadly, I am remiss on both. But the photos above give the flavor of the many activities of the group and show, I think, how our group just “clicks” and people help each other. A lot. It’s one of the coolest things about our group. Today there were people paired off winding yarn, helping with knit fixes, teaching new techniques, and mulling over patterns yet to be cast on. It’s the kind of thing I was hoping for when starting a knit group. People coming together over yarn and coffee, and getting energy and inspiration from each other. It’s great!
Time to leave came too soon for me, as usual. But, I’m glad that starting in 2010, we are now having regular meetings twice a month instead of only once. I know I won’t be able to make every meeting, but knowing that they’ll be there again in two weeks? Awesome. I already can’t wait.
Well, I’ve been singing it to myself like crazy as I’ve been knitting away on my stripey elf hat:
elf hat in progress
It now has twice as many stripes as it did last week and I am beginning to have hope that it might actually be wearable by Christmas morning. I’m liking it better than I did last week, too. It always looks nicer as the spirals become obvious. I love this pattern by Brian Kohler. I wish he would re-publish it. It’s so fun to make! The original pattern was designed for two colors, a main color and a color for the ribbing and tassel.) By adding stripes I actually made the stripes a touch wider. The reason is that each row is a combination of knit and purl stitches forming a wide rib, and I wanted to make sure that the color transitions were not made icky by showing the interlocking nature of the purl side… so I added a row of plain stockinette at the beginning and end of each stripe. So, the stripes blend perfectly! Because of the spiraling nature of the pattern the color change jog is very minimal as well, so I think overall this has worked out well.
Christmas, here I come!
And now, I have a confession to make. I bought… cashmere.
Webs has some Gedifra cashmere on closeout, and for once I could find a color I can live with. So, I jumped.
I’ve been eying the cashmere wraps at Nordstrom for weeks, and I almost bought one, except John was with me, and well, you know… my relationship with the credit card is a little strained when the husband is around, so I didn’t. But, I figure I can make my own wrap. Now, to choose a pattern… any ideas?
I need some ideas on something else as well. Next week we’re having a holiday brunch/luncheon at work. My boss is the queen of breakfast casserole, and another coworker is famous for her quiche. So, I’d like to make some sort of breakfasty/lunchy side dish in my crockpot, so that it’s easy to do overnight and can be lugged to the office and plugged in. No pork. (Drat!) Any ideas? Please let me know…
Anyway, I’ve got a sick kid so I’m headed to bed early so I’ll have energy for him tomorrow. That, and I’m crazy behind on some projects at work so I’ll be juggling lots of stuff over the next couple days. Wish me luck!
Sorry I’ve been away so long. Do I have an excuse? Not really. I’ve been knitting, as you’ll see in a moment, but for the last couple weeks I thought it was sort of boring to look at so I didn’t blog about it. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t at least think about blogging. I thought about it, a lot. The thing is, I’ve been having trouble turning the thinking into doing. I didn’t even do the knitting group meeting report from two weeks ago yet. Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow. Or sometime before the next meetup on Saturday! Wish me luck on that.
In fact, I’m setting a goal for this month. In honor of the Holiday Season, I am going to try to blog at least 12 times this month. 12 times. It won’t be easy, given that the dark days of winter suck the motivation right out of me, but I am going to try. Hang in there with me!
So anyway, on to the knitting:
Long Stocking Cap in progress
I’m finishing up the third stripe of my long stocking cap. I like it, I think. But, the design has a lot going on and some of it is getting lost. The original pattern was two colors (a main color and a contrast color for the ribbing and tassel). I decided to incorporate stripes. But there’s also these cables in the pattern, that creep up the hat and shift around in a spiral as you do each repeat. Well, the stripes are sort of eliminating the effect of the spiral. So I could have left the spiral out, I think, but oh well. It will be interesting to see how this hat comes out.
I’m hoping to have it done for Christmas (it’s not a gift), but right now it’s feeling doubtful.
Hey, guess what? My Christmas shopping is almost done! Next… the dreaded Christmas card. I ordered custom ones again this year with our photos on them. I like making the card but I hate the whole mailing part. It’ll take me from now til Christmas to get them all done.
Finally, I’m going to leave you with a video of the cutest little kitten I have ever seen (today, anyway). If you watch the Ellen Degeneres Show, you probably saw this today, but it’s worth sharing:
The sock is going well, thank you, but I need a change of pace for the holidays. So, I have decided that the sock is what comes with me in the car on a daily basis (I’m not the driver, don’t worry!) and that I need a different project to work on at home. So I decided to cast on for an old favorite hat:
Hat Ribbing with other colors in the background
This is the “Long Winter’s Nap” hat by Brian Kohler, which was done for Knit Picks in 2005. Sadly the pattern is no longer available. Please don’t ask me for it either, as the copyright is now solely in the hands of the designer. I don’t know if he plans to re-release it or not.
I loved knitting this hat, but even though I worked it at a fairly tight gauge, the original hat I made still came out too loose for my head. So this one I began the ribbing with fewer stitches at a tighter gauge. I’ll increase to the number of stitches needed for the pattern after I’m done with the hat band.
The other thing I am going to try with this version? Stripes. It means doing rounds of plain stockinette between the pattern repeats to hide the color transitions better, but we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to be an adventure. I hope I get it done in time to be able to wear it for Christmas.
For the yarn I’m using Cascade 220 in a natural color for the ribbing band and pom pom, and then alternating colors 2425 (rust) and 9338 (olive heather) for sort of an antique faded-looking red and green. At least that’s what I’m seeing in my head! Time will tell whether I have have a workable idea. Wish me luck…
I’ve been having the urge to write again. Not just about knitting, but lots of things. When I was younger I wrote short stories and essays and poetry, a lot. I filled notebooks with my writing. I’d like to try my hand at writing again. Sometimes I wonder whether age and a half lifetime of technical and marketing writing has sapped the creativity right out of me. But I guess I don’t know what will happen unless I try, right? So, occasionally this blog might contain other types of entries, just for fun, and I hope you’ll bear with me if I do veer away from knitting every once in a blue moon. I can’t even say it’s going to happen soon, because writing well takes a while, but if it does, I hope you won’t mind.
In the meantime I’ve got lots of knitting to do. It feels good to be making progress again.
