{WIP} You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round

Nate has been nagging subtly hinting for a hat pretty much since I finished his scarf in September.  And then joking it will take me a year like his scarf. Well, jokes on you Nate -- I LIKE knitting hats. I don't like knitting scarves.

I had purchased some Noro a month or so back for his hat, and had leftover cascade from my Turn A Square.  So I  decided to make one for him! Not only is this a super cute pattern but it is simple as well.  

So there Nate. 

{WIP} Deja Vu?

I have a good feeling about 2013.  But, being the natural worrier that I am (seriously, if worrying was an Olympic Sport I would be the gold winner) I hope history does not repeat it's self.  One titanium metal plate is enough thank you very much.  With that said...my first project of 2013 is....a shawl! Ha! Last year I had started my Multnomah Shawl before the dreaded car accident of 2012.  And this year I am working on the Hitchhiker shawl.  Although, the Hitchhiker is more of a scarf in my opinion. 

Technically, I started the Hitchhiker in 2012 but as it was in the last couple of days of 2012 I am counting it as a 2013 project.

This is such a fun and EASY knit.  I haven't had a good bit of mindless knitting in awhile.  That I enjoyed making (I did do a whole bunch of coffee sleeves the last month and a half).  I had forgotten how pleasing simple garter stitch is.  And the 8 rows that make up the pattern go by relatively quickly - the first ten teeth flew by but now that I have longer rows they are taking longer.  It's hard to believe that this project only starts with 2 stitches. 

The yarn I am using makes this a pleasure to knit as well. Seriously, if you haven't tried any of Tami's Candy Skein yarn you don't know what you are missing! The colors are very vibrant and the yarn is just so squishy.  It's fantastic! I will definitely be purchasing more in the future. 

New Year Resolutions

It is hard to believe that 2012 is almost over.  It started with a crash (literally...remember my car accident and broken wrist?) and ended with snow.  I am hoping that 2013 will treat me a little bit better. 

Part of my knitting resolution for 2013 will be to blog more often and therefore I am looking forward to participating in WIP Wednesday and FO Fridays again.  I am also hoping to participate in the Year of Projects for 2013 but we will see how that goes (and I need to figure out how it works womp womp) 

To celebrate my blogginess I will leave this teaser picture and will touch base with y'all on Wednesday!

We interrupt holiday knitting with baby knitting

I pretty much only have one week left of knitting...and I've fallen behind! But for a good cause - Nate's coworker recently had a baby girl and he asked me to knit something for her. And my co-worker is having a baby boy in January and we're throwing him a surprise baby shower at work this upcoming week.

Owl tuque hat

bitty cabled hat

The Dreaded Kitchener Stitch

I've been knitting now for almost two years and there is still so much I do not know...and I still love the thrill of accomplishment when I tackle a new trick.  

My goal was to mail out my swap gift on December 1st (side note: holy crud, where did the time go?!) but alas, I've procrastinated starting the legs because 1)three yarns at once makes me twitchy and 2)I was terrified of the kitchener stitch.

Ah, yes, the kitchener stitch.  That feared method of grafting that has so many steps for one single stitch that one begins to wonder if anyone would notice that instead of an invisible seam there was a row of shiny staples.  You may have noticed that after nearly two years of knitting, the closest I've come to socks were toeless, heelless yoga socks.  Ahem.

But, tonight with the realization that it's December and I really need to finish my swap gift and get that in the mail ASAP I started the first leg.  After about ten rows I found my rhythm of working with the three yarns and it progressed smoothly. And then I got to the end. With a gulp I pulled my Knit Aid by Vicki Howell book off the shelf, watched a few videos on youtube and sucked it up.  Tapestry needle in hand I began the slow going chant of "knit off, purl on, purl off, knit on" and amazingly did not mess up!  

Tomorrow night I will tackle the last leg :)

Speed Knitting

Guys...I'm so stinking proud of myself on this hat.  It is one of the two matching hats I will be knitting for Christmas gifts for my teenage cousin and her boyfriend.  And of course I couldn't choose an easy-peasy fast hat pattern.  Or so I thought.

Cables galore

I cast on Irving by Jared Flood Thursday night post-Turkey binge. And figured, based on the amount of cables, that I would be done in a week or so. But no! I knit the larger slouchier version with an additional cable repeat in about two and a half days.  The Irving cable repeat was easy enough to remember that it went by very fast - and the decreases, while trickier (I LOVED how they were hidden in the cables) went by surprisingly quick.

Here is a pre-blocking photo of the finished hat for Tori:

Color in first photo truer - as it was night I had to mess with filters so cables showed up

I am hoping to finish the less slouchy version for Thomas by mid-December.  I need to currently finish a mini-ornament for a Danger Crafts swap I'm in.

Christmas gift count: 7 so far

Knitting like crazy...must be the holidays!

Hey there blog friends, how is everyone doing with their holiday knitting?  I hope everyone of you on the East Coast survived Super Storm Sandy...we were fine, I got to leave work early that Monday due to the MBTA closing early and Nate and I hunkered down for two days but other than losing power for about 10 hours we went by unscathed.  My parents, who live on Long Island are OK too - their house is fine and they finally got their power back last night.  After 6 days of no electricity my dad was pretty frantic to be able to watch TV.

I've been busy knitting.  I have some Christmas presents I've been working on:

These coffee sleeves (from the fall '12 Knit Simple) are super easy and quick to whip up!

I also managed to knit something quickly for me.  Like a day and a half quickly.  And I used some stash yarn for it! I pulled out a skein of Noro Kureyon that I've had for over a year - this was my first time knitting with Noro and all the rumors are true: there were a bunch of knots and it broke on me.  But other than that I love the color changing and think it came out really awesome.  The pattern is Turn a Square by Jared Flood and the grey yarn is Cascade 220 Super Wash.  

I learned how to do jogless stripes on this project which I think is great to know.  I didn't like the instructions in the pattern so I used a different method which I think is much easier - Knit a round in the new color like normal and on the second round slip the first stitch purl wise and continue to knit.  Piece of cake and I love how the decreases form the square at the crown.

Asides from more coffee sleeves I have a couple of hats I need to knit for Christmas gifts and I signed up for another Danger Craft swap.  Like my very first one last year, this is a mini Christmas/holiday ornament - and it is using more stash yarn! Happy day!

I also purchased some yarn for a selfish me knit - I fell in love with Candy Skein's Yummy Fingering Sock yarn in the Rainbow Fruit Chew color way when Tami posted a picture on facebook last week.  Despite saying recently that I wouldn't buy any yarn unless it was for a specific present, I caved and bought a skein.  It's very reasonably priced and the colors are soooooo vibrant (ignore the crappy lighting instagram photo above) and it is very squishy.  I am looking forward to knitting the Hitchhiker shawl with it :)

My lessons in crochet are going well and I even made my first amigurumi!