New York Minknit

Pattern: This is my own pattern, but the colorwork pattern is from Fallmasche’s Strandlaeufer (Sandpiper) cowl. (Cowl pattern is free Ravelry download.)

Yarn: 2 skeins Anny Blatt’s Lady Blatt yarn, from our honeymoon, from The Bon Marche, in Paris.

Needles: I’m not sure—I’m too lazy to check, I’m guessing probably a size 5, 16″ circs.

Project begun/ended: My ability to note when I have started and finished projects has totally declined. I think it took me about three weeks to knit, but I managed to lose it (in my house!) for a while in there. So I probably started it in December and finished it last week.

Notes: By the time I found the hat again, I forgot what yarn I was leading with, so on the bottom of the hat, the dark blue is leading, and on the top, the light blue is leading. An interesting compare and contrast of the importance of yarn leadership in colorwork.

I also didn’t change needle sizes between the colorwork and the stockinette, which I think was a mistakes. Should have gone up 1 or 2 sizes for the colorwork. Laziness. It gets you in the end.

I was thinking of putting a pompom on it, but then Adam pointed out I have lost every hand-knit hat that has a pompom. So.

Also, I realize that my honeymoon was sufficiently long ago enough that this is a crazy name. (And that, in between then and now, I even went on a second honeymoon! With the same husband. We called it Honeymoon 2: Electric Bugaloo.) but I did get this yarn on my honeymoon, so it has nice memories.

Adam, said husband, was all like, “How is that hat honeymoon-ish?” (Since we went in the summer, I guess.) And I’m like, it’s like the sea!! And he was like “Okay, I guess, I can see that.”

Photo from my honeymoon, taken by said husband. This is along the Normandy coastline, inside a lookout point called Cabane Vauban.

I know I always say I’m going to try to blog more, but I don’t, so I have decided to embrace a blogging-as-much-as-I-feel-like-philosophy. Voila.

Blogging…something I apparently forgot how to do. 🙂

Pattern: Staccato Cowl, my own. I’ll detail how to make it below.

Yarn: Jade Sapphire, Angelwing Sport, 200 yards, 100% cashmere. I had a $20 gift certificate to Purl from my NYU Business School creativity project thing, and this was on sale. I think I paid an additional $12, so I think it was $32. The price tag says $46—yikes! Cashmere! I think it was about 30% off.

Needles: Clover 5, 16″ circs.

Project begun/ended: I think I made this in a month or so, just in time for the East Coast’s freak October snowstorm!

How to make:

Gauge: 5 stitches = 1″ in stockinette

1.) Cast on 105 stitches with a long-tail cast on.

2.) Join, make sure not to twist. Place marker.

3.) k1, *p1,k2,* repeat until the last 2 stitches, p1, k1

4.) repeat round 3

5.) *p2, k1* repeat until the end

6.) repeat round 5

7.) k all

8.) k all

9.) repeat rounds 3 through 8 until you run out of yarn. End on one of the non-knit-all rounds.

10.) Do some sort of sewn bind-off.

It is named Staccato because it has a staggered rib, like the way staccato sounds. On a semi-related note, I read that Rick Perry’s favorite movie is Immortal Beloved, which I saw in the movie theater, and is a semi-ridiculous bio-pic of Beethoven, starring Gary Oldman and a lot of hair. I find this a very weird choice for Rick Perry, but who knows? The power of Ludwig is great.

Before I do a 2010 roundup, I have one more 2010 FO to blog about. By the way, I switched my blog theme to match my personal website theme, but it’s a little tricky to comment in this new theme. You have to click on the post’s title to see the whole post and on the bottom there’s a comment form. Don’t let me blog into the void. 🙂

Pattern: My own. I cast on 108 stitches with a provisional cast-on with the smaller needle, knit 12 rounds, knit a purl round, switched to larger needles, knit another 12 rounds, undid the provisional cast-on so the stitches were live, knit the two rounds together with the second color and then knit 10 rounds of the second color (yellow), then 12 of the first color (blue), rinse and repeat. Decrease the top away, by dividing the total amount of stitches by 6, pm, knit 2tog every marker, knit one round plain, repeat decrease and plain round until you are satisfied. Also towards the end I started decreasing every round.

Yarn: Silky Malabrigo in blue and yellow from Imagiknit in San Francisco. I think I bought this in 2009, when I went to my friend’s wedding in September 2009. I love this yarn! It looks beautiful in stockinette and has a slight sheen and is super soft. Above is one of my favorite photos from that wedding that one of the guests took. The light is gorgeous!

Needles: Number 3 Knitpicks and I think a number 4 or 5 Addi Natura.

This is Ithacowl around my neck.

Project begun/ended: I think I started this in the beginning of December and finished at the end. So it took about a month.

Notes: I never watched Felicity, the television show, but I believe that she had a hat kind of like this. I saw everyone wearing these slouchy hats, and I wanted one, too. The color scheme was inspired by this random old French movie Diva (which the protagonist in High Fidelity considers one of his top five movies). I don’t remember a lot about this movie except that the titular diva had a very ornate sitting room done up in shades of yellow and blue on the wall, which I admired. Also, that there was a chase scene in a sketchy Paris bowling alley, which I think I’ve actually bowled at.

It was pretty warm this year on Thanksgiving–I didn’t even have to wear my puffer coat. The day AFTER Thanksgiving, however, was very cold. So cold that I said to Adam, I am going to buy some yarn right now, even though I have a huge stash, and knit myself a hat. He scoffed, but I did it. I knit this hat in the two days after Thanksgiving, watching parts of Legally Blonde, Sleepless in Seattle, and Monster-in-Law, and strangely, all of Can’t Buy Me Love, which I had never seen before. (Yes, Adam has cable, and specifically, Oxygen or Lifetime, or some other woman-oriented channel. Can’t Buy Me Love was so cringe-inducing that I could barely stand to watch parts of it. And the fashion! Apparently high school seniors dressed like 40-year olds in the 1980s, with strange suede blazers. Monster-in-Law, well, the part that I saw of it, was ridiculous. I do, however, have a fondness for Legally Blonde, so I watched that happily.)

Pattern: Falling Leaves Chunky Hat, by Karen Clark or Choo Choo Knits. It’s free on Ravelry.

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky, in Misty Blue. Okay, this yarn is a great value–I bought it for $8 at a new-to-me yarn shop, Annie & Co, on the Upper East Side, and it knit this whole hat, with earflaps and pompoms, and I still had some left over.

Needles: Set of 5 size 10 bamboo DPNs.

Here’s a photo of the back.

Notes and mods: First, I knit two or three rows of purls after casting on, to give the hat more of an edge. After I finished, I knit two short-row earflaps in reverse stockinette, added two i-cord cords and some pompoms (not shown) at the end. Voila! Super-cute. My sister says it looks like a Hershey’s Kiss hat, which is kind of true.

The pattern was fine for me width and height-wise–some people found it small on Ravelry, but just right for me!

Pattern: My own top-down helmet, following instructions in Barbara Walker’s Knitting From the Top. A similar free pattern for heavier (worsted-weight) yarn is here (or in Stitch and Bitch).

Yarn: One ball of Rowan Felted Tweed in camel, bought on sale when The Yarn Connection closed. I think it was about $5, after discount.

Needles: Size 5 DPNs, and one bamboo Clover 16″ circular in size 5.

Project started/ended: February 5 to February 12, so about a week.

Notes: This is pretty easy to make. I’m not giving a formal pattern because the average person should be able to figure it out, but here’s the basic recipe:

Cast on about seven stitches, increase (k1fb) in seven “slices” using DPNs (increase a round, knit a round plain, repeat for a while). Measure gauge. Calculate how many stitches you would need to fit around your head, by multiplying gauge by the circumference of your head. Keep knitting. Slip stitches onto 16″ circulars when wide enough. When you have knit for a while, slip stitches off onto a spare piece of yarn (something non-sticky, like cotton yarn) and try on. Stop knitting about an inch and a half before you want the hat to end. Knit in seed stitch (k1, p1) for about an 1″ to 1.5″ (knitter’s choice). Stop knitting.

Try on again by sliding stitches onto a spare piece of yarn. Using scraps of string, mark (tie string between stitches, but not around the needle) where you want your ear flaps to go. Put stitches back on needle. Bind off in pattern (k1, p1) in the bigger sections between the markers (aka the front brim and the back brim). When you get to the ear flap markers, slide those stitches onto a spare piece of yarn. Continue binding off, slide next ear flap stitches onto a piece of string. Put one set of ear flap stitches back onto the needles. Knit a flap. (Seed stitch one row, and then decrease at the sides–k2tog at beginning and end of the row. Repeat until flap is longer than ear. Decrease rapidly by k2tog two or three times, then k a couple of stitches, then k2 two or three times, repeat until you have two or three stitches. Bind off. You may want to throw in a couple of rows of plain seed stitch between the decrease rows to give a slower taper to the triangle.) Repeat for other flap.

Knit two lengths of i-cord. Weave in ends on hat. Sew i-cord to each point of each flap. Wash and block. WAA-LAA!*

* I used to work at a magazine whose readers would post recipes in their online forums, and they would always end their recipes with the phrase “waa-laa,” and I could never figure out whether they were joking or didn’t know how to spell “voilà.” But I kind of loved it and think it’s much more dramatic than just “voilà.”

Note: If you’re interested in the cowl I am wearing, it’s my Ithacowl, which is my own free pattern. You can download it from Ravelry or here.

Photo shoot notes: Adam took me to Montauk for Valentine’s Day, which is on the tip of Long Island, and also where they filmed parts of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind**, a movie that inspired many people (including me) to go visit in the winter. It was beautiful, and in the back of these pictures, you can see the famous Montauk lighthouse.

On the way back, we stopped by a grocery store where I saw this funny bag of fruits (above). I would say that those banana chips don’t look a day over seventeen, wouldn’t you?

** An astoundingly beautiful movie despite the fact it stars Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, two of my least favorite actors ever.

I’m supposed to be writing a book review, but I’m procrastinating a bit…by blogging! And knitting, of course. I didn’t finish this hat in time for my grandmother’s b-day, though I did give her the never-worn  Ella shawl instead, which she seemed to like a lot. I’m going to give this to her once I’m done, which should be soon. This ear flap is a little funky, but I’m hoping it will right itself out with blocking.  I still have another ear flap and i-cord to knit. It’s actually pretty cute on the head–perhaps I’ll have a modeled shot later this week.

Okay, back to work.

I’m trying to knit a quick hat for my grandmother (if you’re reading this and know my grandmother, shhh, it’s a surprise), and looking at it today, with the ball of yarn stuffed into it, I realized that it looked awfully like a knitted breast. Ha! Well, I am hoping it’s going to turn into an actual hat soon.

P.S. If you’re curious about what Brooklyn Tweed looks like, The New York Observer did a nice little article about him, the state of knitting in New York, and Ravelry, in  this week’s issue.

Pattern: Patterned watch cap, with the Double Irish Chain pattern, from Robin Hansen’s Favorite Mittens.

Yarn: Two skeins of Colinette Cadenza, in Slate, $10/skein; 1 skein of white Zara Merino extrafine, $10; both from Downtown Yarns. If you make the brim shorter, like 1.5″ and no pompom, you could probably get away with one skein of Cadenza.

Needles: Size 4 Hiya Hiya bamboo 16″ for brim, size 8 Balene plastic 16″ for stranded colorwork, size 5 Clover bamboo 16″ for the stockinette top, and size 6 Boye DPNs for decreases. (The DPNs and stockinette top should have been on the same size needle, but I didn’t have a size 6 16″ or size 5 DPNs, hence the change.)

Project started/ended: November 10 to November 16–5 days from cast on to cast off, with 1 more day for the pompom!

This is my first stranded project–whee! I think I did a pretty good job. I’ll have to take a photo of the insides so you can see the floats. The Colinette Cadenza yarn color is beautiful–I felt sad to have to interrupt it with the pattern, but nothing was going to stop me from fair-isle-ing!

I enjoyed learning how to do stranded knitting, but I was shocked because I am normally a loose knitter, and have to go down two sizes from the recommended gauge, but on the stranded knitting, I had to go up two sizes to make the gauge. Robin Hansen’s book is very clear and helpful about how to do the actual knitting, and all in all, it went pretty well. (There were two periods of knitting rage: once, when I couldn’t get gauge and the second time when I couldn’t figure out how to decrease within the pattern–hence the solid top.)

My last two projects were with rougher yarns, so I was shocked how soft the merino felt. It was like butter! Here’s a blocking shot:

The hat is blocking over a tupperware bowl (one of a set, the smaller size is to the left) balanced precariously on a drinking glass placed over a Ms. Bento container. (P.S. That sink’s rusty corner once cut Adam’s finger so deep we had to go to the emergency room. This was early on in my knitting career, so I was actually kind of excited because I got to knit during the 4+ hours we waited, before they finally gave him stitches.) It was cool this weekend, so to speed up the drying, I started blow-drying it. You know you’ve reached a stage of insanity in your life when you’re standing in a bathroom, blow-drying a hat pulled over a bowl, balanced on a glass, on top of a thermos.

Oh, by the way, if you’re interested in making a Dairy Queen hat, with that crisp fold and not my weird holes, Meg Swansen is holding a knit-along on the Schoolhouse Press website, complete with instructions and photos.

In an attempt to show off my gloves, I have chosen possibly the twee-est pose of all time.

Pattern: Three-spiral hat or the Dairy Queen hat, by Elizabeth Zimmerman, from The Opinionated Knitter

Yarn: Less than 1 skein of Morehouse Merino Bulky, in Silver, $16.50 from Brooklyn General. (There was a lot of straw in this yarn!)

Needles: Clover bamboo size 13 16″ circulars and Brittany wooden size 13 DPNs.

Project began/ended: Day after Thanksgiving to this Monday. So, about a week.

Notes and Modifications: I was frustrated with all of my never-ending knitting projects, so I bought some bulky wool to knit a hat. I was planning on knitting Yarn Harlot’s Unoriginal Hat, but then I saw versions of this hat on Ravelry, and decided this just might be the thing, especially because I already had The Opinionated Knitter.

I was worried that my gauge was off, but it turns out that size 13 needles led to the exactly the right gauge. I did, however, misunderstand one part of the pattern. Elizabeth Zimmerman tells you to make a backwards loop over your needle, and I just thought this meant a yarn over, but actually, it’s a little different. I don’t think it’s a huge change, except that it made some holes along the brim that probably weren’t meant to be there.

I was going to take photos in front of Shake Shack, the closest thing New York has to a Dairy Queen, but it was so cold that I ended up making Adam take photos in the Met Life building across the street instead. I’m sure lots of office workers thought I was nuts. Especially once I started dancing:

I don’t know if you can tell, but my (store-bought) skirt is made of knitted spirals too–I wore it to match the hat. I know, lame.

I like to wear all my knitted items at once. I’m here, I’m a knitter, I’m proud. (Here’s my post about the gloves, in case you’re interested.)