novamade

"wouldn't you love to knit me a hat?"

 

Little Sir has a birthday coming up. He has been talking about it for months now (probably since a week after his birthday last year, if we are being honest). He pretty much has an expectation that he will get something mom-made for his birthday (pressure, what?). But now all gift-giving occasions seem to warrant handmade gifts as far as he is concerned (somewhere along the way, making someone a hand made gift became equated with love and care for the giftee, which, well, yes). So now I am crafting goodness for every occasion imaginable. A week before Valentine's day Sir and I had a conversation, it went like this:

Sir: I love you mommy, don't you love me? [honestly, I should have known.  Nothing good can come out of a conversation that begins this way.]

Me: Of course I do.

Sir: Since you love me, wouldn't you love to knit me a hat?

Me: Sure, I can do that. Would you like one for your birthday? [obviously, he has no idea about the sweater and quilt things...]

Sir: I think it would be better if you knit it sooner. Maybe for Valentine's Day. And since it's for Valentine's Day and red is my favorite color, you could knit my new hat with red yarn. Maybe with some of that merino yarn the you made with your spinning wheel.

Me: That's a very specific request.

Sir: Yes, you should probably get started on it soon.

Me: Well, if I make one for you for Valentine's Day, I will have to make one for your brother too.

Sir: Well, I guess so, but mine is the one that needs to be done on time. [oh, snap!]

Two red hats were not in the cards, which was all for the best since Little Mister had no desire for a red hat (as it is not his favorite color right now). He wanted a green hat, because that is his favorite color right now.

So that's what he got,  a green hat (or, sage, if we are being specific).

Special K did not want a hat, actually, he probably didn't want anything; but, he got some handmade handkerchiefs made with the most ridiculous fabric I felt he would tolerate.

And while this post is many days (weeks, whatever) after Valentine's Day, know this: I finished these hats and the handkerchiefs on the 13th. All of it. Okay, maybe I finished the handkerchiefs at 3 in the morning on the 14th, but everybody got their gifts on time.  So there's that.

"the children need hats"

 
Little Sir has taken to referring to himself and his brother as, "the children."  I am not sure why.  While it sounds cute in theory, waking up to a child yelling, "the children are awake" or "the children are hungry!" a few mornings in a row has killed any sort fondness I had for the phrase when it first became part of the vernacular of our house.  The one thing I have learned of late, my "the children" are very needy.  But what they were most in need of, apparently, were hats.

 
Little Sir mentioned on several occasions that he "could really use a a hat, maybe one that was handknit."  He further piqued my interest by appealing to the fiber-crafter in me by saying that "it would be nice if it was made from handspun yarn, too." So obviously, he was going to get what he wanted, at least in this regard . 
I let him go through all of my handspun and he picked out his favorite.  I really nice blue-sy superwash merino dyed by Traveling Rhinos in the Baron colorway that I spun up ages ago (you remember back when I decided to spin a rainbow ? I know it was a really long time ago).  I did want to start doing something with my handspun, afterall, so this worked out well. 

 
And you can't knit a hat for one child and not the other, well, you could, I guess, but that would be mean.  So I picked some of the Ashland Bay merino (in English Garden) that I spun to knit a hat for Little Mister.

 
While he normally eschews anything that covers his head, Little Mister has taken a shine (I have no idea where this phrase come from, but I think it's funny) to wearing this hat.  He loves it.  Which I, of course, think is awesome.

 
The best thing about these hats are the fact that I just cast on and knit.  Okay, reverse that, I took the measurements for the circumference of their heads (they're both huge) and did a small swatch (I know, it was an OMG moment for me, too).  I ripped out the swatch (I wanted to make sure I had enough yarn--I did), I did a little bit of math and cast on and knit.  Knitting on the fly.  I know, it's just a hat (or two, actually), but it was the first time I had this thought of "pattern?  I don't need no stinkin' pattern," and was, well, right!  Yes, I do feel terribly clever.

 
So now "the children"  have hats. Knit with handspun, no less.

and there was also the knitting

 
I wouldn't want you to think that I finished last year only with quilting (though, that is probably truer than me saying that I finished the year with knitting).  I did manage to finish some projects in the realm of knitting last year (which, I guess, should come as no surprise).

 
My knitting group at work did two projects this year.  The big one was a Christmas tree with knit beaded ornaments.  We used the patterns from a Leisure Arts book called Beaded Ornaments to Knit, but the leader of this project, Susan, designed the pattern above. I referred to our ornaments as "ornament hugs" because we knit the ornament cover that went over a glass ball.  There were twelve of us and we knit 150 beaded ornaments, most of us did 10 each.  Our tree was really elegant and got quite a bit of local media covereage.

 
The other thing we did was charitable knitting, this year we focused on hats.  I think the Hill Country Hat is the quickest hat pattern out there, and it's free on the web.  It's a nice little teaser for the Book of Wool.

And then I did some baby knitting. While I am not a lover of pullover sweaters for babies, I couldn't resist an opportunity to use some of my Koigu in a baby sweater.   
Hannah Fettig's Sock Yarn Baby Sweater is sized for wee ones, to the not so wee.  But if I tried to make a sweater for anyone besides a baby in sock yarn, I would probably have to gouge out my own eyeballs.

 
My intent was to give this to a friend who had a little boy, but the final look (to me at least) was, decidedly, feminine--it made have been the neckline that made me think this.  So there were baby socks.

 
Of course there were baby socks.  I am now 100% certain that I need to find another baby sock pattern because I have knit the Mim's baby sock pattern too many times to be enjoyable now.  But there are new babies I need to make something for soon-ish, so I am sure this pattern will be trotted out again.

So that's it.  That was the knitting of 2010.  Tomorrow I will tell you about my plans for this year, I know you are on the edge of your seat.

i was on hiatus, let's catch up!

 
Did you miss me?  Every now and again, I feel a little too wired and I take a break from blogging, from flickring, from, well, pretty much anything that I can (except work, well, it's work) to regroup and spend more time with my boys.  It always shocks me (and I realize this no profound statment) that one can accomplish a great deal in the way of productive crafting if one is not glued to the computer overly much.  Now I am catching up on bloglines and trying to de-buzz my profiles and etcetera, etcetera.  But there has been some crafty going on, of course.

 
Valentine's Day is a mere memory for most, and while we didn't get overly celebratory (it is rather a Hallmark-y day, is it not?), we did make a heart garland because Rae did, and I like everything she does.  Little Sir picked the colors for the hearts.  I wanted just red and pink (I know!); but, he wasn't having any of that monotonous ridiculousness (his favorite word right now = "ridiculous" as in, "Momma, you are so ridiculous." Sigh.).

 
Over President's weekend, we went to Vermont.  I discovered Nido, which, in my mind, is the happiest place on earth.  It's a fabric shop and yarn shop all in one.  The owner, Phiona, is really nice and will have a conversation with you if you are feeling chatty, or she will let you shop and she seems very good about figuring out how to read a customer, which is a skill, in my opinion. 

 
Also, Ashley from Film in the Fridge shops there, so it was very much a fun "six degrees" situation for me, and I like that sort of thing.  Kids were not only welcome, I felt it was almost encouraged, there were toys for the Littles to play with, so everyone was happy. Well, almost.

 

Should you find yourself in Burlington, Vermont and in need of a crafty fix, do yourself a favor and hie thee to Nido.
  
While in Vermont, Little Sir spent a day in an all day ski class for 3-4 year olds at Smuggler's Notch.  After falling the first time, his only concern was staying upright, with that as his goal, he didn't really care who he knocked down to accomplish his task. 

 
While I felt bad for the other children who were unfortunate enough to cross his path, it was pretty funny.  And the other kids weren't hurt at all, so there you are, if you want to see video footage go here.  We also took the boys to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream; because that is what one does when driving through Vermont when it's freezing outside, I guess.

 
And then, I closed up my little millinery by knitting two more hats. 

 I made the Aran Cable Watch Cap from Charlene Schurch's Hat's On! again.  It was made for a student who works at my library.  He mentioned that no one had ever knit him anything before, which seemed sort of unfortunate to me.  He mentioned that he liked the color red and cables, that seemed doable, so I did it.

 
And I also made myself a hat without a trace of possum in it.  I spun up some beautifully dyed merino from Funky Carolina a while ago, but had no idea what to do with it.  I ended up using it for a Felicity hat. 

 
I am not sure if it is "Boho Chic" or "Hobo-esque" but I love it.

 
 Have you been knitting Olympically?  I tried, but I end up watching the Olympics rather than knitting through the telecast.  So I will save my chit chat on my new cable-y vest project for another time.  I am able to do other crafts while watching the Olympics though. I have been doing a bit of stitching (as in embroidery)...but more about that tomorrow.  I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with my craftiness or anything.

millinery

 I have been on something of a hat knitting binge lately.

At first I wanted to knit a small baby hat for a special little boy; but, not something babyish perse.  I really liked Jared's Turn a Square pattern, so thought I would baby-fy it. I think it should fit a 3 month old's head, but all I have around here are the heads of an almost 4 year old and a 1 year old who measures more like he's 2.  Speaking of those heads...

 
When Little Sir saw the hat, he felt strongly that he, too, should have one, so I made him one.

 
And then he reminded me that his little brother still didn't have a handknit hat, which was true.  So I made him one too.

 
And then I figured that Special K should have a birthday hat, since he is very much into the whole functional gift thing.  It's good too because it goes nicely with his Noro scarf made for a birthday gift 2 years ago.

 
After knitting all these hats for everyone else, I thought I should knit myself one.

 
I had some Cherry Tree Hill Possum Merino Worsted that I bought years ago.  I am not sure why I bought it, but I did.  It has been sitting in my stash for a while now, so I decided to knit a skein of it. With some of the Noro left over from the mitered mittens I made last month.  I should have known something was wrong while I was knitting the hat.  My hands started itching, my eyes were watering, I was coughing and sneezing.  And then I wore the hat and I broke out in hives...so yes, I am allergic to possum. 

 
I gave the hat to my friend Emily, she is not allergic to possum.  I am not sure if my allergy to rodent hair/fur/fiber is necessarily a good thing or a bad thing; but, there you are.

what'cha doin'?

 
There's really not a whole lot to see here; but, I was finding my blog silence a little sad, so I thought I'd drop in.  I am in the midst of various and sundry projects in progress and have nothing in the way of finished articles of brilliance to share.  And since there was a time when people who read knitting and craft blogs liked to read about what other knitters (and crafters) were working or how knits were holding up, I thought, "I could do that."

A long time ago, when he was wee, I knit Little Sir a hat to warm his noggin. 

 
This picture is 2.5 years old!!

It was a little big; but, it did its job.  When we got the first big chill in Connecticut earlier this week, we were scrambling around to find things to stay warm and we found his old hat again.  My first thought was to use it on Little Mister's head; but, Sir was having none of it.  It was his and he was going to wear it.  Surprisingly, it fits.  Actually, it fits much better now and he is super excited about it.

He is convinced that his yellow mittens work with the hat as a natty ensemble.  I don't like to argue with him, so I just agreed.

Of course, this means that Little mister is a bit on the hatless side right now.  This makes him sad. I need to do something about his hat situation; but, it would mean covering up his curls, which I am loathe to do.

 
Aside from digging through winter wear to find knits that don't exist (since it takes me forever to finish anything these days), I have been slogging away on my Babette Blanket which got stalled due to yarn shortages. 

 
I grossly underestimated the amount of yarn a crocheted blanket would require.  I think I read somewhere that a crocheted blanket takes 30% more yarn than one that is knit.  I can see why some many crocheters love acrylic, because seriously, I have had to put in two more orders for wool and you know, the natural fibers, they are not inexpensive.

 
I am a little obsessed with crochet right now.  Aside from the amount of yarn required, it's so efficient.  If you are measuring efficiency by time and not resources, I suppose.  The economy of movement required is pretty thrilling too.

 
I am still knitting too, of course.  I started a pair of socks for charity. 

 
It's a plain old stockinette sock.  I am not in love with the way it's turning out, which is probably for the best.  If I liked it too much there would be danger in not wanting to offer it up for charitable purposes.

And then I am still knitting the vest I have spent an inordinate amount of time working on.  You'd think I was knitting a man's sweater for Pete's sake.  Thank goodness for two-hour line waits for flu shots, I guess.

 
So that's what I am about right now, what about you? What'cha doin'?

i'm one of those people

I am one of those people who is unsure of the whole hat thing (though I do love a baseball cap on sunny days--I am nothing if not practical).  I never know what to do with them, to be honest.  My head is really large and my hair, if I bother to make it look presentable, prefers to be left uncovered.  If I try and cover it with, for instance, a hat, the resulting reaction is either hat-head or some unfortunate frizziness that most would label "a bad hair day."  That being said, I thought it would be fun to knit a beret.

Also, I just like saying the word "beret," and said it repeatedly while knitting my little project--to anyone who would listen, really. "Oh what am I knitting?  It's a beret.  From the "Beret Gaufre" pattern. It's a pretty easy beret to knit..." and so on and so forth. The reasons I picked  Véronik Avery's Beret Gaufre pattern were threefold: it was free, the circumference looked like it would accomodate my large noggin; and, the fabric looked good.

I think the beret is great.  I just don't like it on me.  I have no idea how to wear it.

If worn the wrong way, one could look like a Guevaran revolutionary reject (viva!).  I do not thing Che would approve of the suburban revolutionary vibe I have going on here.

I will keep the beret around since it might come in handy on a weekend during the winter when I am shoveling snow; but, in general,  it won't get a lot of wear, if we are being honest here.  Oh, well.  Notes in the gallery and on ravelry. 

have gnome, will travel; and, eat pie

So it's Halloween.  Boo.  Special K and I aren't usually celebrators of said day of ghoulish extravagance; but, when you have a kid who actually "gets" it, you really don't have much of a choice, do you?

My kid wanted to be the Travelocity Roaming Gnome for Halloween (thank you Travelocity and your incessant advertising during the Amazing Race--what, you don't consider The Amazing Race "educational TV?!"  Hello?  Travel and culture!  And the snarky banter of dysfuntional couples, I mean there is so much to learn!).  So because I decided to be Supermom this week, that's what he dressed up has for Halloween.  Sort of, he had no interest in wearing the belt (the belt that took an hour of my precious crafting time, but there you are).  I will put the details for the costumery in the gallery, but most of my trials and tribulations are going to be covered in this post, for those who are interested in such things.

The gnome hat was the easiest thing.  1) Measure head circumference (in this case, 21 inches--yes, he's got a big noggin).  Take red (or any color you like, but I needed to use red) felt sew a 2 inch hem for the base of the hat (it gives it that "finished" look), 3) measure off the head circumference at that base and add whatever you like for a seam allowance (I did an inch extra for a half inch seam allowance, do whatever makes you happy). 4) Decide how tall you want the hat (I opted to use the head circumference as my guide, it came out pretty tall, again do what makes you happy).  5) Center your height measurement from the base and draw a triangle.  6) Cut and sew, 7)  turn hat inside out. 8) Smile, with tons of self-satisfaction because you just made an uber cute gnome hat.

The jacket, was not as easy.  Granted, this jacket was the first article of clothing I have ever sewn.  Clearly, I was not thinking rationally when I decided that this would be a good project to cut my teeth on garment sewing.  I mean really, collars, facings, buttonholes?  Oh, and pattern modification because the pattern was for a short-sleeved shirt and not a jacket...right.

I modified a child's camouflage shirt pattern for the jacket because it had the length and basic look (style, not the fabric itself) that I was going for (I liked the collars...before I started sewing the jacket).  I figured the sleeves could just be lengthened.  And really a jacket is just a collared shirt made of heavier fabric with a lot more ease.....right?  It seemed to work out okay, but don't look to closely at the collar, it is, as the kids like to say these days, jacked up.  I had no idea what I was doing, the step-by-step directions may have skipped a few steps so I just sort of made things up as I went along.  And seriously, I need a foot attachment to make buttonholes, because the three buttonholes in this jacket almost made me gouge my own eyes out (thank you Christina for helping me decipher the directions in the big book of sewing).

The boots were some funny green rain boots purchased at the local target that I covered with black electrical tape.  Little Sir thought the eyes were weird, so he wouldn't wear them before.

There was a belt too.  A cardboard buckle painted metallic silver with black felt cut to size.  Little Sir had very strong feelings about the belt.  Namely, he wasn't having it.  Take a look for yourself.  This look of mortification is the same look I sometimes get when asking for a hug now (usually accompanying the statment, "no mommy, you are too big."  Lovely).

 

In the midst of the Halloween madness I made a pie, because, you know, Pushing Daisies was on on Wednesday night...and that is what I do...make pie while watching said show.  Chocolate Mousse Pie. 

 

This chocolate awesomeness was a really easy recipe (a lot of dirty dishes though).  I didn't feel like messing about with a spring foam pan (who is lazy and pregnant?!) and just used a large tart pan with a removable bottom (a method I would recommend to you, should you decide to make this easy and tasty pie/tart treat).  The side benefit is a few ramekins of chocolate mousse to enjoy later.

And then I made festive cupcakes. I guess my anti-Halloween days are over.  Maybe next year I will make myself a costume.  Because, you know, I am all about the garment sewing now.

hats for everybody!

In the interest of starting anew in 2008, I figured I would go ahead post the last of my 2007 knitting.  Did I mention that I knit a bunch of hats?  Well, I did.  Meatheads were the hot item for Little Sir's funky bunch.  I decided to embellish with wool felt appliques.

I knit one for Little Sir first.  I needed a prototype for blindstitching the seal (cut free hand, thank you very much).  Clearly, I needed the stitching practice.

The stitching for the one for his friend CPea went a little better (and it makes me all jolly to know that CPea LOVES this hat!).

The one for his friend KB, better still.

And Mo's was the clear winner.  I almost hated to say goodbye to that polar bear (I free hand cut the polor bear too.  I have no idea how I managed it).  Truly.  I now heart blindstitch.

 

And then there was the requisite Koolhaas for Special K.  Everyone else was doing it.

I was able to use the Malabrigo that I was going to use for fingerless mitts before finding out that Special K would have no use for mitts without fingers... I think Koolhaas was the perfect pattern for the yarn.

The details for all the hats are in the 2007 gallery.  The hats (even Koolhaas) took relatively little time.  And they were pretty enjoyable knits.  All right, bring on the sweaters!

Happy New Year!  See you in 2008 with more hobbies, more projects; and, of course, there will be more pie!

starting small

As we packed our car for the drive up to Vermont on Friday I grabbed Little Sir's hat that I made a few months back.  I figured, Vermont=cold, cold=hat, right?  The only problem?  The cute hat was way too small.  Somewhere in the past four months, Little Sir's noggin got really big (like the rest of him, I guess).  So I grabbed that random ball of Cashmerino Aran from the Project Spectrum resource stash and knit the kid another hat.

It's just another simple basic hat using Ann Budd's great template-y book, the only reservation I had was the length of the hat, I think it a little longish, but that's okay.  The hat serves its purpose, it keeps the kid's head, ears and forehead warm, which really was the point. 

He didn't have it to sport about town while in Vermont (which was fabulous, by the way; if you are looking for a good place to knit in southern Vermont visit the good people at Nutmeg  Country Inn in Wilmington, Gerry and Sue will treat you right (and best of all they feed you the best of all possible breakfasts to get you started for a long day of skiing or knitting or whatever else you can think of); but since I finished the hat on the way back home yesterday Little Sir was able to wear it to school this morning.

While in Vermont I made a few yarn purchases, nothing ridiculous, just a few things that called out to me in persuasive hushed tones, you know how it is.  I went to a farm that sells handspun yarn and bought two skeins of fingering weight merino, it's soft and luscious and smells like nature itself.  I also visited a local yarn shop in Wilmington which is still in the process of being set up.  I originally went in thinking, "oh, I can get some other shade of Cashmerino to make a hat of stripey goodness for Little Sir (a la Ashley's hat for Isaiah), but no luck on that front, there was no Cashmerino to be found...but there was plenty of Koigu and Rowan Yorkshire Aran Tweed 4-ply (on sale even, you know it's been discontinued, snap it up when you can).  The colors are bright and shocking and totally not me, but we all need to mix things up some times.  I will share the outrageousness of color in the not too distant future, I wouldn't want to shock you too much.  So instead I leave you with a small touch of gray, which is quite kid friendly, if you think about it.

Basic Toddler Hat

Pattern: from Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, 1 skein (I had 8 inches of yarn left)

Needles: Bamboo DPNs, US 5

Modifications:  None, just followed the template for the appropriate size and style

A very simple knit.  This took less than four hours to knit, it could have taken less time if I had not unnecessarily knit the prescribed length for the crown, like I said, a bit longish.  Sometimes you need to be careful with the Budd book, use your best judgement--be the boss of your knitting, and all that.