Ties that bind…

Seems like lately all my knitting time has been taken up by my family — or more specifically, my parents.

It started simply enough. At Rhinebeck this past fall I picked up a magnificent skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight, in Loch Ness. My mom is of Scottish descent, so as soon as I saw the colorway name I figured that one Christmas present was done.

Yes, I cheated. I didn’t even bother wrapping it. I just threw it in her stocking, which actually turned out to be hilarious, because when she picked up her stocking on Christmas morning, she turned and held it out to me. “I think this one is yours.” Everyone else already had their stockings, myself included, and I pointed that out to her. She sat down with it, looking confused. “But there’s yarn in it.”

After I stopped laughing, I made her read the label, and she somehow managed to see everything else on the label before she finally came to the color — and then it all came together. I told her it was her choice what she wanted me to make her, and that just opened the floodgates. (In hindsight, perhaps this was a mistake…) A scarf? Or a small shawl? Or a hat, or gloves or mittens or socks or a scarf or… It took the better part of a month before she settled on gloves.


Mom's Loch Ness Mittens
Pattern: Basic Glove Pattern, from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns
Yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock Lightweight in Loch Ness
Needles: my trusty US1/2.25mm bamboos
Notes: These turned out adorable, if I may say so myself. Mom’s hands are pretty much exactly the size of mine (that is to say, very tiny) so these were a nice fast easy knit, and I could use myself to judge for size, which helps tremendously in speeding things along. As always, Ann Budd has made my life a million times easier by having numbers right there for me so I didn’t have to stop and constantly check to make sure I hadn’t suddenly started knitting something elephantine. Her pattern book is probably the most-consulted book in my knitting library.
I’m also very happy with the way the colors worked up; the little bits of pooling (literally, in watery blues) have a nice shape and seem to float along the fabric. I have quite a bit of leftover yarn so we’ll see what else we can eke out with what’s left.

Mom's Loch Ness Gloves

It doesn’t end there, though, since then Mom decided she wanted a hooded scarf, because her hair doesn’t tolerate hats well, but her ears still get cold, etc. etc. Since she asked so nicely, how could I say no?


Mom's Hoodie Scarf
Pattern: Mimi Hooded Scarf from verypink.com (pattern found thru Ravelry)
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Amber Heather, with edging in Lion Brand Polarspun, understandably discontinued
Needles: US7/4.5 mm circular (used my KP Harmony interchangables) and an H (5.0) crochet hook for the edging
Notes: Fun pattern that wasn’t as tedious as I’d feared to knit. The scarf did stretch on for just about forever but the basketweave pattern kept things interesting (although it took me a few repeats before my clever self figured out which side was actually the RS). If I made this again, I would pick up stitches for the hood and knit it directly up from the scarf rather than doing it as a separate piece and seaming it. Worked out fine, looks great — I just abhor seaming.
I used Polarspun to single-crochet the fluffy edging around the entire thing. The original calls for some Italian yarn I’ve never heard of, and the Polarspun’s been living in my stash ever since I picked it up at a Smiley’s hotel sale a couple of years ago, and there was no sense in buying something new when I had a perfectly good yarn in the stash. Well. Let me tell you how amazed I am that anybody would ever use this yarn for a full garmet. It catches on itself and sticks and pulls and is generally just a pain in the ass. That’s not to say it doesn’t look and feel amazing, because it does. But I wouldn’t want to have to use this for anything other than an accent. It’s just too frustrating to work with.
I’m happy with the overall effect, and it looks great on Mom — so warm and cozy, in fact, that I’m contemplating making one for myself. I’ll probably even use the Polarspun — after all, I still have two and a half skeins of the stuff in my stash!

I figured that would be that and I could get around to ripping out my February Lady sweater, which I have finally admitted, after a month of knitting, is just…too…big. (Don’t ask. I am currently conducting a cold war with my gauge.) But no! Dad decided he was being left out, and insisted on some Fair Isle mittens for himself. I handed over my Selbuvotter book and he found a pattern he liked, informed me precisely which shades of grey and red he wanted, and sent me on my way.

Well, I’ve shown him. I cast on for a hat for myself first! So there, family.

Road tripping

I went up to Vermont this past weekend to visit my baby sister, who is finishing up school at UVM. (I might be having some issues with the fact that my baby sister is about to finish school. Just a few.) Since it’s a bit of a ride (seven hours, give or take traffic…) I had plenty of time to knit. So I did.


Baby Surprise Jacket

Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket; Christine’s Stay-On Baby Booties by Christine Bourquin
Yarn: Koigu PPPM, colorway P511L, picked up from a Rav destash
Needles: US 4 (3.5mm) and US 1 (2.25mm)
Notes: I love this pattern like crazy, and it’s always fun to knit up. It also makes great traveling knitting, since it’s all one piece of fabric: nothing to drop or lose or have get stuck underneath the seat for two hundred miles. A million people have waxed rhapsodic about this pattern so I will just say that it’s my stand-by for a good reason.
Christine's Stay-On Booties
I love these booties possibly even more than I love the BSJ. I refer to them as moon booties, and I think they look adorable on and off baby. They are also easy to memorize (I haven’t looked at the pattern in, oh, five pair or so) and and I have yet to hear of them not living up to their name. The blockiness matches the square lines of the BSJ well, and together they make a nice little layette.
This particular pair is heading off to an old coworker expecting next month, and I hope her baby wears them in good health and happiness.


While up in Vermont, I prevailed upon my traveling companions to stop at one of my favorite yarn shops anywhere, Kaleidoscope Yarns. The shop is in a lovely little house in the middle of Essex Junction, notable for a large intersection (the Five Corners) and swift responses by AAA. (The car battery died. It was totally not my fault.) Retail therapy is a beautiful thing:
Loot
I was going to stop at the Piece of Vermont bamboo sock, but then I spotted the Starmore book, and by then I’d walked past the wall of Koigu three or four times, and then it occurred to me that buying Euculan in person means that I’m not shelling out for shipping, so there you have it.
If Kaleidoscope were any closer I’d be in real trouble. I am pretending they don’t have a very efficient and wonderful website, but if you go look I won’t tell.


While putting my new yarn away I decided it might be a good time to skein up my first attempts at a drop spindle, which have been sitting on said spindle, for, um. Months. It’s hideously over/underspun (depending on where you look) and broke several times, and is generally pretty wretched and unknittable. I really don’t care. It is my first yarn, and I’m calling it artistic and letting it live in its skein.
Handspun
It’s not exactly fine fiber (actually, it’s scraps that I picked up cheap at Rhinebeck) but for a first attempt it’s really not half bad. The real question is, how will my second skein look?

January Wrap-up

Melissa posted an end-of-the-month update, and I thought that was an excellent idea. So I stole it. Shamelessly. Thanks, M.

I didn’t really many any knitting resolutions this year, except informally to try to knitdown some of the stash. But I did finish three things this month:
HULA MONKEYS
Monkey Socks
Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A
Yarn: Some of my carefully hoarded, sadly discontinued Knitpicks Dancing, in the Hula colorway
Needles: US 1 (2.25mm)
Notes: These were actually started in October, left in Melissa’s car on the way home from Rhinebeck, retrieved from her house in November, abandoned in favor of Christmas knitting (and thesis) in December, and finally finished in January. Monkey is becoming one of my go-to sock patterns (easily memorized, doesn’t require my full attention) and Dancing is my favorite sock yarn. It’s not super-soft, but it’s like iron once it’s knit up, and bright happy colors like this one are good to have around you when you hit the post-holiday blahs. Very happy with these. Wore them today, in fact. =)

MAGENTA GEMS SOCKS
Magenta Gems Socks
Pattern: Thuja, from Knitty Winter 05, by Bobby Ziegler
Yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock in a Rare Gems, bought at the Fold booth at Rhinebeck ’08
Needles: US 1 (2.25mm)
Notes: Love everything about these socks except for how much they bled when I washed them the other day. A nice bath with some vinegar seems to have taken care of that but scrubbing the pink off my tub wasn’t so much fun.
Thuja is my other go-to sock pattern, although I usually cast on 64 to compensate for using fingering (the pattern was written for aran weight). These were my traveling socks in Disney, and they were the perfect airplane knitting.

NORTHERN LIGHTS TAM
Northern Lights Tam
I discussed this happy little FO in the last post. Still in love, still plotting mittens.

In addition to all this I have another pair of socks on the needles, Kelly Porpiglia’s Oak Leaf Socks from last fall’s Knotions. I am telling you this because they are a bit more complex than my usual socks and so I am dragging my feet, and now I cannot ignore them since you will all be expecting a progress report. See what I did there, turning you into an surprise Jiminy Cricket?

There’s also a pair of gloves for my mom, a late Christmas present — I gave her the yarn and told her she could decide what became of it, so she picked gloves. Since Mom’s hands are as small as mine they’re going nice and fast. I’m also halfway through the infamous February Lady Sweater, a year behind everyone else, but that’s fine with me. I’m heading up to Vermont this weekend to visit my sister (and perhaps get in a quick visit to Kaleidoscope Yarns…) and I forsee lots of knitting time in the car.

So that was January. Let’s see what the shortest month results in…