novamade

gifts from the internets

A while back I won a contest that Kirsten was holding at her place because I suggested a pattern for some of her gorgeous handspun.  Kirsten is really generous.  She didn't just send a prize, she sent a package of gift happiness (including something for Little Sir, he loves his Woolbur, thank you, Kirsten).  One of the things is the package o'delights was a skein of Noro Sock Yarn.  Noro sock yarn, it's pretty, and I was curious to know how it knit up.  I messed around with the yarn for a few days and came to the conclusion that I didn't want to knit it up into socks.  This sock yarn is not what anyone would describe as "soft".  But it is what a lot of people, myself included, would call "beautifully dyed".  And then my new rigid heddle loom arrived and I wondered how it would weave up as opposed to knit up.

 

Not to sound big-headed, but I think this was a stroke of genius.  I used the Noro for both the warp (the vertical bits) and the weft (the horizontal bits, don't you love my technical explainations?) and just let the yarn do what it wanted to do.  The weave is pretty balanced, but I got the look I was hoping for, so I am not concerned with picks or what have you.  I think this scarf is fabulous.

I like how the vertical stripes of color are dominant over the horizontal bands of color.  Also, I just love my new scarf (details here).

Thank you for the yarn, Kirsten!  It's probably not what you had in mind as a finished product when you sent it...but you know, I like to thrill when I can.

And while Elise did not send this to me specifically, I think that original recipes from foodies are gifts too.  They may not be gifts that one always likes; but, they are gifts all the same. 

I used this strawberry and rhubarb pie recipe to make a pie yesterday.  I found the pie overly sweet and didn't care for it; but, it was snorgled quickly by a bunch of librarian-types that I work with who all tend to be pretty picky about their food.  It passed muster, all agreed it was a good pie.  So if rhubarb is your thing, here's a recipe for you, from me (really from Elise) to you.

on birthdays and giving

On my birthday this year, I found myself writing a pattern and knitting it up.  I needed to knit a cowl for a new friend.  Hopefully it has found its way to her.  I liked knitting this cowl, and the pattern is a pretty easy one.  Also, I think anything knit in Malabrigo is pretty much destined to be awesome, because, let's be honest here, it's Malabrigo, people.

 

Spending my birthday doing something for someone else made me feel all cheery and cozy, kind of like I am hoping the cowl will make the recipient feel.

I get cheery about knits and all, but you know, there is also that pie thing, and it's Wednesday...

I made another recipe from Sweety Pies.  Rice pie.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.  I shared it with my co-workers and they all thought it was pretty amazing.  Rice, it's a celebratory thing, right?

So my birthday celebration is all wrapped up. I had fun celebrating, of course.  I love gift-getting and everything, but I think gift-giving may be even better.  So for my birthday, I am giving you a gift (if you want it).  I am putting up the pattern for the cowl so you too can keep cozy when it's cool (which may not be at this particular moment depending on your location, but there you are).  Or maybe you just want to be cool, since "cowl is the new scarf" and everything.  Join the bandwagon!

It's my first pattern ever, so be nice!

Download birthday_cowl.pdf

ETA: I got word that some may have difficulty downloading the pdf, so here is the write-up:

 

Finished Size: 9.5” x 21”

 

Gauge: 5 stitches = 1” in the stitch pattern.

 

Yarn:  Malabrigo is suggested (though anyworsted-weight yarn should work; but try and select

something soft and cozy.  The colorway shown here is Bobby Blue.

 

Needles: US 8/5 mm, 16” circular

 

Extra notions: Tapestry needle, Place marker

 

Stitch Pattern: The stitch pattern is a bias rib called Barley Sugar.  The pattern is an eleven stitch repeat worked in 2 rounds:

Round1: *sl1, k1, psso, k6, yo, k3* repeat to the the end of the round.

Round 2: k (till the end of the round).

             

            sl = slip

            k = knit

            psso = pass slipped stitch over

            yo = yarnover

 

Instructions:

Cast on 99 stitches. Place a stitch marker to mark the beginning of the round.  Join and work 3 rounds of garter stitch (purl the first row, knit the second, purl the the third).  Begin working the Barley Sugar pattern until your cowl measures 9 inches (for a shorter scarf, knit to 6” for longer go to 10-12”).  Work three rounds of garter stitch as youdid at the beginning (p, k, p).  Bind off loosely.  Weave in your ends (there should only be two). Block your cowl.  Celebrate!

things to do in northern cali when you're crafty

I spent last week in northern California and due to having limited internet access took an unintentional blog break.  My apologies, I am working to catch myself up on your lives, projects and what-not.  But I wanted to share some of my doings with you, as most of them are of a somewhat crafty nature that you may or may not be interested in.

So here is my list of things that I did and things that you can do as well if you find yourself in northern California and you are crafty (if you are celebrating your birthday, that sort of helps too).

Pebble Beach, California. Wollmeise Gloria Cowl.

Start and finish knitting a Gloria Cowl (details here) to give to a friend for her birthday.  My friend is named Kathy, your friend can be named something else.

Artfibers in San Francisco, California.

Have your friend (Kathy) take you to local-to-her yarn shops like ImagiKnit and ArtFibers.  Acquire pretty things that make you smile.

If you are bloggy, take the opportunity to meet up with a knit bloggy friend and her beau. Especially if said knit bloggy friend is a birthday twin and is like some sort of long lost crafty twin of sorts. Apologize profusely for exposing your knit bloggy friend to your tired tyrannical toddler.

Rangsiwan meets a very tired Little Sir.

Because you can, go to a fabric store, there are lots of them in San Francisco.  If for some reason you, like me, are planning some sort of novelty quilt requiring 21 shades of silk dupioni, you should go to Fabrix like I did.

And since there is a Kinokuniya in San Francisco, you should go there and buy some Japanese craft books, especially if you can not decipher Japanese.  It makes crafting interesting.

And because you neither speak nor read Japanese and you bought a bunch of books written in that particular language, you should probably get some written in English (or whatever your primary language is) just to balance things out.

Whether you are crafty or not, you should take time to smell the roses (or whatever flora is at your disposal).

Pacific Grove, California.

And don't forget to take time to experience wonder.

Jellyfish at Monterey Aquarium in Monterey, CA.

When you return home, get giddy about the books you received for your birthday from friends near and far.

Utilize the book about pies as soon as possible, you know, if you are so inclined. 

Pineapple pie, a very sweet sweety pie.

So yes, good trip, I have a few more trips to California scheduled for the summer, but I am thinking they will not be as acquisition-friendly as this one, a birthday celebration is a great way to justify stash enhancements of all sorts.  While I usually kick off my birthday celebration on Cinco de Mayo and count up to my birthday (are you not doing this as well?), Special K suggested that we start the celebration on my actual birthday this year and add 8 days to it, isn't he sweet?  So with that said, I am still celebrating.  Though right now, I am trying to get my back to stop hurting after incorrectly lifting heavy boxes of books and documents at work.  I am also going to think about happy things, like friends in Philly having lots of fun.  And knitting, because I can do that lying down.

Hey, happy knitting, quilting, sewing, or pie baking!

trains need homes too

So yesterday I shared what I thought was an fo photo session of the tomten that almost killed my knitting mojo.  I was feeling all puffed with pride, so much so that I didn't give a second thought to Little Sir's reading selection for bedtime last night.

After we read about Corduroy and his pocket, Little Sir began his strategic assault on why his tomten needed pockets (culminating in the statement that "trains need homes too").  Of course they do.

Rockstars don't need pockets, I mean seriously, did the Biscuit ask for pockets?  Probably not, because he, you see, is a rockstar.  Little Sir is really a prepster who was posing.  He got his haircut and gone were his rockstar delusions.  So here is my kid, with a sweater his mom knit for him.  With pockets.

Or rather, a home for trains.

I did a pair of afterthought pockets and now the prepster is willing to go folksy and wear his tomten with a smile.  It all came down to pockets, you see.  Honestly, it's a good thing we can't go to MDSW this year, because he would be sporting the tomten no matter what the thermometer might read (and there would be trains in the pockets, of course).  Our absence from said happy event is probably best for all parties concerned.

After all this, I needed pie.  Or rather, a quick french berry tart with red currant glaze.  All is now well with the world.

Dorie wanted to send me some baking from her home to mine.  Just FYI, Dorie Greenspan is my new baking hero.

If you are interested in the details behind the afterthought pockets that made me Little Sir's hero (for about 5 minutes) I wrote it up in a tutorial, see the post below.  I think I am all done talking about the tomten now (you are all probably sick of reading about it too).  Now it's time to move on.

tutorial: afterthought pockets

I was really nervous about doing an afterthought pocket, to be honest.  The idea of snipping my knitting, quite frankly, makes me want to vomit.  But when you need a pocket, you need a pocket.  I am not sure if what I did was "right" perse; but, when all was said and done there were a pair of pockets on a sweater that were pocketless at the beginning of my pocket-making journey. 

After all was said and done, doing afterthought pockets are kind of easy.  You just need to get past the whole fear of cutting your knitting.  If you, like me, would like to see the steps of making an afterthought pocket on an actual knitted project (as opposed to a swatch or something like that), here you are:

1) Figure out where you (or whoever you are making the sweater for) want the pockets to be situated.  The sweater wearer will undoubtedly have strong feeling about the pocket placement.

2) Mark the center of the top of where your pocket(s) should be.

3) Cut Snip (sounds cheerier) the marked top center pocket stitch.

4) Unravel an equal number of stitches to the left and right of the marked stitch, I ended up unraveling a total of 13 stitches (I took these pictures when I was being stupid, so there are only 10 in the photos (pretend like you see 13, please)--so not enough.  Firstly, not evenly unraveled.  Secondly, a gauge swatch could have been useful here, I guess).  Again, my pockets were to accomodate a toddler's sweater knit in bulkier yarn.  If you knit a gauge swatch, it could actually come in handy at this point for guestimation of how much you need to unravel.  You know, if you are into that whole knitting a gauge swatch thing.  As an aside, leave the "live ends" from your unraveling intact, they will come in handy at the end to tighten things up.

5) Put the live stitches that are exposed from your unraveling in needles.  You will have a top live stitch row and a bottom one.

6) With another needle, bind off the stitches on the bottom needle in applied i-cord.  I used the directions on applied i-cord bind-off on knitty.com (scroll down).  Do whatever works for you.  You just want a good tough "border" on that pocket that won't stretch out with use.

7) Now we are going to knit some stockinette.  With another needle, you are going to take the live stitches on the top (now only) needle and knit a "patch."  This is your pocket you are knitting now, actually.  You should increase evenly to give yourself a pocket with a width that accomodates hands, candy, coins, trains, or whatever you and yours decide to house in your pockets.  When it's a suitable lenth, bound off.  The stockinette side is going to be the inside of the pocket, so yay, stockinette smoothness.  Knit the edge stitches in garter stitch to prevent rolling (or not, if you just want a special sort of challenge).

8) Almost there, let's attach the pocket.  Get a needle, it's time to sew.  Sew around the edges by picking up ridges from the sweater and your new pocket patch.  In some corners of the globe, they call this seaming.  I just call it attaching the pocket.

9) Weave in your ends and admire your handiwork.  It's a thing of beauty, indeed.

10) If you are opting for a pair (or more, I don't know, go crazy) of pockets, repeat steps 3-9.

11) Pop something in your pocket and pat yourself on the back.  You snipped your knitting and produced a place to keep hands warm and collect the detritus of everyday life.  Go, you knitting rock star.

This is my first tutorial.  I have no idea if it will be beneficial to anyone, but there it is.  I am not one to presume to tell anyone how to knit, but I like to see things spelled out sometimes; and, I figure there has to be at least one other person like me who wants to see this process written out and photographed.  I am not saying what I did is perfect or the "correct way" to produce an afterthought pocket.  It is simply what I did to slap some pockets on my kid's sweater.   If you have questions, e-mail me, I feel pretty good about the cutting your knitting for pockets thing now.