Summer FOs

A few small things I've also finished this summer:

Felted Miceys for various kitties. I wanted to knit two and stuff them with local farmers' market catnip for my aforementioned secret santee, so first I made a practice one that looked more like a bug. Cirrus wasn't too interested before the stuffing...

But filled with catnip - yum! (Sasha isn't as into 'nip, but even she has been seen rabbit-kicking it. Powerful stuff!)

The actual gifted mice look much more like mice and less like bugs - and the giftee says her cats are enjoying them as much as C & S seem to like the bug mouse.

I also spent a fair bit of July knitting a pair of ankle socks from a couple skeins of elastic, stretchy Cascade Fixation which I bought at Knot Another Hat in Hood River. After seeing how the colors worked together, I decided they should be Beach House socks for my Mom - so last week they went with her down to VA beach, where the air conditioning is often cranked up. Here are my feet modeling (Mom, feel free to send pics of your feet doing the same, if you like!).

The yarn is so stretchy, I could have done them down a needle size or cast on fewer stitches or something - the tops are a bit baggy as-is in size M. The pattern is free (pdf) - it's just a basic sock pattern, but the ankle socks knit up in ~1 ball of yarn. I adapted it pretty easily from the "on-2-circs" method to magic loop on one circ. I think for my next socks, after I make the mate to my magic loop class sock, should be either toe-up, or lace, or both. I do have 2 skeins of Koigu in my stash, but honestly I was considering a hat or gloves for those - seems a shame to hide the gorgeous colors under shoes. Hm. Suggestions taken :)

The weekend

A little rainy kayaking on the Nehalem River...

Unsuccessful hunting for an island geocache:

(We did manage to find a different island cache, but I forgot to take a picture...)

A little knitting...














And then some hiking. Oh, deer!





















Aaaaaaaaaah, the joys of a not-on-call weekend :)

Answers for Cass's 222 contest!

KT linked in her blog to this nifty contest in Cass's blog. So I commented for a chance to win! And here, I get extra credit if I post my answers in my blog, presumably so the readers (of whom I think there are 3, and that includes my mother!) will go check out Cass. Phew! The modern world of knitting is so complicated!

It was Cass's 222nd post, and so she asked some "2" questions:

2 favorite knitting blogs:
1) KT's (my college roomie!)
2) Hmm, I'm pretty new to knitblogs so I don't have any other regulars, I'll say Knot Another Hat, the owner of a yarn store in one of our favorite local vacation spots.

2 favorite knitting books
That's easier, though I'm still on pretty basic knit lit :)
1) Stitch 'N Bitch (taught me to knit this past January)
2) Knitting without Tears - I love her humor!

2 favorite knitting patterns
1) Umbilical cord baby hat from Stitch 'N Bitch- I've made 3, great beginner pattern
2) Cabled Tank Top from spring/summer KnitSimple. See it in my blog :)

That's all for now - I have to run out on the complicated errand to go to the grocery store to buy mustard and hamburger buns in order to get coupons to go to the airshow tomorrow, and with our airshow receipts we can get into Bite of Oregon free. So those are the weekend plans - they all start with mustard :) I'll bring my knitting

Hiking - Skamaniac gift bag - and a stranded mystery

Here's a quick bag I improvised on Sunday morning, after spending the night at Skamania Lodge in the Columbia river gorge, after spending Saturday hiking around Mt. Hood. The trip was fairly spontaneous, so I just threw a bunch of yarn and a couple of inspiration patterns in to my big old knitting bag. I wove in ends for one project as we drove out of cloudy Portland up to the sunny mountain; then, lo and behold, right by the turnoff for the mountain road to take us to the hike, there was a cute little yarn store! (it had a big banner on the side of the A-frame roof that said, simply, "YARN" :). So I picked up a couple skeins of Crystal Palace Kid Merino, for a possible future shawl.

Anyway... we had a wonderful hike, and had been intending to camp, but the bridge to the campsite was washed out, and long story short, the only hotel around that had any vacancies on a sunny Saturday early evening was the local resort. Ah, such tough luck we live with... So we made the most of it, eating lots at the breakfast buffet, staying right up til the noon checkout; and we sat for a good hour in the "lounge", in comfy chairs admiring the river view, Andy websurfing (yes, he brings his computer even when we plan to camp) and me knitting this ridiculous little gift bag out of the silliest yarns imaginable. So I would give it the name "Skamaniac". But it's the perfect size for something small, and it sparkles nicely in the sunlight (or the camera flash)

Oh, and a teaser, when we left at noon and drove up to Mount Saint Helens (unfortunately the only pictures we have from this whole weekend are a few from Andy's cell phone, as we hadn't been able to find the camera before leaving - of course, it was in the back seat of the car, buried under camping stuff....), I cast on for something new, but as it's intended as a gift for someone who might conceivable read this blog, I won't say what. But I'm enjoying the simple slip-stitch pattern, which I stole from Knitty via someone else's blog. It's a variegated sock yarn, but this isn't a sock!

Tank top, finished!

(pictures before the weaving in, as evidenced by the long flyaway in the left picture. Also note Andy's shadow, taking the picture)

Finished last week sometime! The sewing-up was actually kinda fun, once I got into it, though it took longer than I'd hoped. It came out pretty well fitted, overall - I'm glad I made the Small instead of the Medium, even though it was supposed to have 5" negative gauge. Either my gauge loosened up or (more likely) the cotton-acrylic blend stretched a bit. It's easy to find flaws with it, of course - my cables aren't symmetric, the design doesn't have any shaping to the back so it's kinda baggy, and of course, a tank top in worsted-weight is a tad heavy.

But overall I'm happy with it. Yay, first big project, done! and wearable! Let's see what Sasha thinks!

hmm, what is this thing? Oh, of course, it's a cat bed!

Swatch, felted!

I perhaps over-documented the felting process for my Malabrigo worsted swatch (from the previous post) for the KT collaboration tote. :D. Ah well, at least I'm blogging. One of these days I'll actually blog Japan.

And... here's the swatch after only 5 minutes of felting. Not quite there yet...

After 5 more minutes, the stitches had really melted into each other and the cabled area was taller than the plain StSt section. Here it is, after rolling water out but before "blocking" (i.e. pulling at the StSt section to make it more even with the cable)

After "blocking", still retaining at least 10 g of water (it's fun to weigh your swatch!)

These were all last night. This morning, I took the now-dry swatch out into the cloudy morning for some "glamour pictures"















And now, for the measurements, post-felting:
(reminder, this was 30 stitches wide by 33 rows tall on size 10 needles...)
~6.5" wide by ~4.75" tall (it's not quite a rectangle...)
The St St section (18 stitches) is about 4.25" wide.

The cable section is about 1.75" wide. The purls to the left of the cable are wider than those to the right! I'm a new cabler, and the ones on my tank top turned out somewhat asymmetrical as well.

Lookswise, I'm not sure I'm loving the cable. It's very subtle post felting, though more obvious now that the swatch is dry (when it was wet, it just looked fuzzy). Also, the stripes moving across it kinda hide it. But on the other hand, it adds a bit more visual interest, as I'd hoped, and you can still see the crossings if you look. I don't know. Maybe a couple of cables on the flap would be good (perhaps a cable both thinner and "higher" if that's possible?), but it's probably not worth the wool to cable the whole thing.

It's a nice firm fabric that still retains the softness of the yarn. It's not stiff, though - very flexible. And the color is still somewhat camo-y, but I'm OK with that. It actually reminds me more of produce - I'm having to fight off the sudden urge to knit up a felted watermelon!w

Final notes: I'm liking this little swatch more and more as I blog it. Folded "the short way" it would make a great little coin purse for inside the bag. Folded the long way, it might make a good pencil case. Oh, and when I was in Japan I picked up a couple of .75" wood buttons that I'd like to use on the bag if possible. Pictures later :)

KT swatch - before felting

So about a week ago I finished the swatch for the KT collaboration tote, but then fell into reading the final Harry Potter as my recreation after our guests left. Since I finished that last night (and it was goooood), I have time to post and felt!

Here's the swatch before felting. Both pics are in afternoon sun - first on our lattice iron table out front of the house, and then with the rosebushes for comparison.

Cast on: 30 stitches
Knit pattern (RS): K2, P2, 6-stitch cable (NB I think) every 6th row, P2, K to end (18 sts)
WS: K the Ks, P the Ps

33 rows, not counting CO or BO

Total width: 7.25"
Total height: 6.5" (guess I didn't get it quite square!)

total width of (left side) StSt section: a hair under 5"
StSt gauge: ~3.5 st/inch

Total width of P2, 6-stitch cable, P2: ~2 1/8"

Weight (on cheap kitchen scale scale): ~15 grams. Not too accurate, since the scale is designed for more.
Remaining yarn's weight: ~76 grams. Yikes! It's always surprising how light yarn is! I'm open to doing the strap from another yarn if we run out of this one...

Observations on colors - it came out a bit "camo", which isn't surprising for variegated greens, I guess. It might be interesting to knit it in the round to spread out the colors a little more. I do like the colors - they are significantly richer in person than it looks on the screen.

I just felted it and it's drying now - second installment tonight or tomorrow morning! A preview - it felted down a lot, and is much less tall now! And the cable is almost gone :(