FO: Caroline

Here's the first of a few finished object posts.  I had a blocking session the other day, so I've finished a few things that were hanging around.  First off, a cute hat that I can wear now that it's getting chilly out:

Pattern: Caroline, size L
Yarn: Peru DK Luxury in Purple, 2 skeins.

Needles: US4/3.5mm Addi Turbo Lace and DPNs.
Timeframe: October 3 - November 1, 2010.  One (long) day of knitting, one day of blocking and ribbon making, procrastination in between.
Mods: Slightly fewer rows per inch, so knit 5.5" brim instead of 6" and I love it!
Problems: None.  I think it's a tad larger than desired, but the small likely would have been too small, so no real complaints.

I've had this hat and the yarn to knit in in my queue for quite some time.  I finally took the yarn and pattern to RoboCon, a robotics competition my students were involved in, and knit it entirely during the competition and bus ride home.  It just had to wait awhile to get blocked and be-ribboned.  Mostly, I wanted to block a few things at once, and had enough projects in the "almost there!" stage of knitting where you're close but not really and it takes longer than you think but you're so optimistic you'll finish them this week that I waited until I did, in fact, finish a couple more of those items.  Which you'll see shortly.

Flowers!

We've recently had our school festival, so here's my arrangement:

Every so often, every student puts their weekly arrangement on display for the school.  There's always arrangements in certain areas, and here was mine this year:

And here are a few more I've had throughout the year.  I really haven't been showing them off, but there've been a few good ones:

Stamps

I have stamp carving supplies, and while I don't typically have a reason to carve stamps, I've carved a couple that I haven't yet shown off.

This one is for a friend.  We'd talked about letterboxing at one point, and she has quite a few sites near her, so I made what I thought would be a pretty good signature stamp for her to letterbox with:

She's from the Northeast but lives and works in Florida, so the combination of Mickey and a snowflake seemed pretty good.  I printed out the pattern and used the tracing paper to transfer the pattern to the rubber blank, then carved it out.  It came out pretty well for my second stamp ever!

For my third stamp, I made myself a letterboxing signature stamp.  Like everyone, when I'm bored in class, I've doodled from time to time.  Since I was little, I've doodled a specific dragon, not a traditional dragon in any mythology really, but my personal doodle.  Therefore, this particular doodle, being fairly small and fairly easy to recreate and fairly unique, would become my personal signature stamp, along with the kanji for my name:

I very much enjoy carving stamps.  They really don't take much time at all.  I'm definitely going to place a stamp or two in Kanazawa, in Kenroku-en, the famous local garden, and maybe in another famous place or two, but probably just there.  I may also place stamps in a couple other places around Japan, say, at the three famous mountains or the other two of the three famous gardens.  We've already climbed Mt. Fuji, and I'm not sure if I'll get to the other two gardens again, but if I do, I'll have to plant boxes.

Anyone else have stamp ideas they need carved up?

Back in Black!

Yes, they did in fact have black elastic, and I did in fact get some.

In keeping with my last-minute finishes, I finished my Blaze about five minutes before walking out the door to a Halloween dinner.  Wearing it.  I left my knitting scissors at home during an earlier train ride, so was unable to run the elastic through the tops of my knee socks before wearing them out, but since they only fall when walking and we'd be mostly sitting, I wore them anyway.  Made quite a cute Halloween outfit!

Not so good picture, but the best of the sweater and socks

Now for a major washing/blocking session, washing my well-used Rogue and blocking (read: finishing!) my Caroline hat, Amethyst Wrap, Cusp socks (from Cookie A.'s soon-to-be-released Knit.Sock.Love), and Blaze.  The Caroline hat will still need a ribbon, so will need a bit of work when it's dry before it's really done, but this brings my yearly total of projects up to 50 finishes, of course in a year that I don't set any goals for myself and assume that with two queen-sized blankets, I'll have a smaller than usual count.  Not that I'm complaining!  I should have at least a few Christmas presents (Nuno scarves, socks, and Pocket Creatures) as well as a pair of gloves and a work vest or two done by the end of the year, so the total may well in fact pass 60.

Now with (somewhat) Less Fail!

I finished the Laceless Millicents, and promptly wore them.  I also learned that my calves seem to be an inch smaller in circumference than when I started the socks.  I'm wondering if I'd mis-measured by about 1/4 inch, then rounded up, and have lost a bit of girth, or maybe I was measuring some odd way?  Either way, the socks are adorable, but they don't stay up.  So, I got elastic cording to run through the 1x1 ribbing at the top, and now just need to run that through and photograph it.  I just realized, I purchased white elastic...I wonder if they had black elastic and I just got the white anyway, or if they didn't have black elastic and I wasn't quite as much of an idiot, buying white elastic to run through black socks where it may show up...

I fixed the Bramblewood, got a bit further, did the other armhole edging with US8 and that fits well.  Now I need to rip out the first one and re-do it.  I've also got to decide what size to do the neckline in, either the US8 or US6.  I suppose I could split the difference with a US7...I may do that.  I'm waiting until it's a bit further along, say, at the hip increases, and with the two armholes finished so I can try it on and decide how tight the neckline should be.  I'm also lowering the decreases to 10" from the original 6".  If I were to increase at six inches, I'd be increasing at my waist, and that's just not right.  10" should do me just fine, and the total length seems like it will be good too.  Of course, I won't know until I'm there, but it's all looking great so far!

I'm working on the second of a pair of socks I can't show off yet as my walking about project, since my Millicents are finished.  No pictures of those for awhile.  Because yeah, with the amount of pictures I take on a regular basis, that'll be a hardship, right?

I'm about to switch off from the Bramblewood vest to Blaze, a sweater that was on hold in the US for the last couple of years that as of this weekend will be with me and there will be enough yarn to finish it up.  The sleeves are joined, the underarm seams are seamed, all I've got left is a few inches of yoke and the neckline.  It's so close and such a great orange color that I'm hoping to finish it up in the next week so it's ready for Halloween.  It'll look adorable with my Millicents and a nice black skirt...Fingers crossed!

Nearly complete!

Of course, with my interchangeable needles, I'm using nearly all the cords again, and even have quite a few projects on thread or Addis instead of the Boye cords.  That's what I want for my birthday, extra cords!  Actually, I probably shouldn't get them, it's one of the ways I keep my knitting in check.  Somewhat.  I'll be switching the Bramblewood vest to the string currently holding Blaze, then back again.  I've got at least ten hours of train riding this weekend, hopefully I can get it most of the way there, if not totally finished!

I'm over 20 projects again.  However, that will change the minute I block stuff, as one project only needs a block, one project needs a block and a ribbon, one just needs ends woven in and a block, and another one should be finished tonight, and will then just need ends woven in and to be blocked.  I have so much knitting I want to do!  I'm in "finish yarn" mode, wanting to finish projects already on the go and make all the projects I have yarn for, starting with the bulkier yarns.  Hence the Bramblewood vest and the kitchen towels.  Next up will be a re-do of the Green Day Vest, hopefully one that will fit this time!

I've been spinning a bit too, and while it's not quite at the point where I want to take a picture of the yarn on the bobbin, I've about got one bobbin done in plain white Correidale, no real technique to speak of, a highly generic beginner's yarn, that will end up being a 3-ply and hopefully knit up fairly bulky.  I want to knit the Wave Hello Cardigan (Ravelry only), a pattern to be released late November, I believe, with it.  I think it's a good pattern with just enough interesting detail to look great with some bulky handspun .

Fail Week

This week, my knitting has been full of fail.  Epic levels of fail.  Okay, not epic.  But fail nonetheless.

First off, I brought my work vest, hopefully the first of a few this year, to my knitting group on Monday.  I'm working on a Bramblewood, fairly simple, worsted weight yarn so fairly quick, free pattern, and uses up some 3+ year stash yarn, win-win-win-win-win.  I was working on the I-cord edging for the armholes so I could maximize yarn.  Also, this way I was able to leave the yarn attached and not have multiple ends to weave in and was really slick about it.  However, in following the directions and switching to a US6 from a US8 for the edging, I made it entirely too small.  I can in fact fit it up on my arm, but add a shirt and I'm sure the circulation would be cut off by the end of the day.

Bramblewood Fail

Next fail was the second laceless Millicent Sock by Cookie A.  The first sock is lovely, finished, though I may run some elastic through the top as it fits amazingly but is tall enough to want to sag a bit during use.  I found this out while wearing it all evening after finishing it, with one leg of my lounge pants rolled up to show it off all night.  Lee thought I was hilarious and insane.  Anyway, the second sock.  I made it to the heel turn, and realized that I had two more stitches on the purl side than the knit side, and followed the directions correctly.  Crap.  In looking more closely at the heel flap, I realized that I had only 42 stitches, and while that may be the answer, it was not the number I was looking for in this case.  Rip and re-do.  In some cases I may have fudged it, but with this pattern, that was not something I wanted to do.  I hate messing up a heel flap, mine are always 48 rows due to my high instep instead of the typical 30 - 40.

Now with correct heel flap!

Finally I (hopefully) finished up my week of fail with another error on the Bramblewood vest.  You can see this one in the picture, kind of.  The final set of cables, at the widest point, is supposed to have an odd row where you knit the knits and purl the purls, and I went right on to cabling back towards the center.  So, instead of a lovely curve, there's a point.  I was considering ripping down and re-doing only the cabled panels, but I think it'll look better in the end and be less of a hassle to just rip the whole thing back and re-do.  It's all in the round with stockinette in between the panels, so not that big.  Three inches is kind of annoying though, even if it is in worsted weight yarn with only six rows to the inch!

Dinner!

I made a lovely dinner and just wanted to share.  First off, my chicken was browned so nicely that I had to take pictures:

I made Chicken Parm-ish.  No real cheeses to speak of, so I shake some canned Parm over the chicken before putting the sauce on it, then sprinkle some shredded cheese product over the top.  Pretty good for Japan.  The nice browning of the chicken made me very happy.

Secondly, I made Apple Pie-rate Ships for dessert.  They were quite delicious, though a bit more work than I'd do on a regular basis, and went over quite well:

I'm pretty sure I'll end up making these again, just not any time soon.  The color would likely have been better had I actually used the recommended egg wash, but that was just one step further than I was interested in going.  I made apple crisp the next day with the leftover apple filling.  I could have put more into the pies, but I didn't want to overfill them so I skimped.  The apple crisp was delicious though!