Canadian Silliness

When I was home for Christmas, Mom and Dad took Sister and I up to Victoria for a brief jaunt. Funny how one forgets that Canada is a foreign country. It was so much like Washington, and yet so completely different. (Funny how you can travel a couple of hours and all of a sudden everyone pronounces their vowels in a quaint and exciting way.)

While there I walked past this amusing hat on sign post. It led me to wonder, was this an act of purposeful urban kniting grafitti...or did someone lose their actual hat and it was placed there for safekeeping?

I'll never know for sure.

And it'll probably bother me.

Forever.

Just Playing Around!

I love my nephew. He is the best baby ever. Babies need toys.

My mom came across a pattern to knit covers for super balls, and then felt them. The balls still bounce really well, but not as erratically, and are easier for little fingers to grasp.

I had some Noro Kureyon in the stash that was perfect. What I didn't have was a super ball. It turns out that in this modern digital age, super balls are not only incredibly difficult to find...they are also insanely expensive. Still, nothing but the best for Nephew. I finally tracked on down and got to knitting.

The knitting itself was very fast and easy. It only took a couple hours. What was not fast and easy was the felting. I had to run the ball through the wash/dry cycle 10 times before it was properly tight/fuzzy/felty. I sure liked it though.

And I think that Nephew did as well!

He Likes It! from Megan May on Vimeo.

When Birthdays and Christmas Converge

For my birthday, back in August, Mom gave me The Knitter's Book of Wool. It is a very neat book. It talks about how different sheep create different types of wool, and how various wools are more suited to certain types of projects. (Wonder why Aran sweaters developed where they did? Cause the sheep's wool was perfect for Aran sweaters, thats why!)

The book also had some really nice patterns. Mom particularly liked a certain farrow rib knit in the round cardigan. It was called the Allegin. It was a very pretty sweater, and looked like it was well within my skill set.

Mom's birthday is in December. Christmas is in December. It is always a bit of challenge figuring out what to get her for both, and to properly budget them. Occasionally though I have moments of brilliance. I decided it would be a GREAT idea to knit said sweater for mom for a combination birthday and Christmas present. Mom is a great knitter, but rarely takes the time to knit anything for herself...and I don't know when she last knit a sweater.

With a little help from my dad (who selected the color of the yarn...Knitpicks Shamrock in Kavanagh), I buckled down to knit the sweater. The pattern was extremely well written and easy to follow. I knit the sleeves first, and placed them on waste yarn. Then I knit the body from the bottom up, joined the sleeves, and knit the yoke in one piece. I LOVED that there was no seaming up to do. I hate seaming up.

I actually got the sweater completed and the ends woven in before I got home for Christmas break. I had planned on giving mom as much as was finished for her birthday, since I did not think it at all possible that I would finish it by her birthday. And then I was going to finish the rest before Christmas. Instead, when I gave it to her, all it was missing was the buttons. (I have always found buttons to be a very personal choice. The wrong buttons can completely change the personality and appeal of a sweater.)

Mom was delighted and surprised to get the sweater. Together we went shopping for the pewter buttons. She wore it to the family Christmas gathering at my grandparents, as well as to work.

I think it turned out extremely flattering, and love the way it looks on her. I may just make a version for myself as well.

Falling Off and Getting Back On

Stopped blogging again.

Rats.

Starting up again.

In order to play catch up, I have done the following: pre-written blog posts covering the knitting I have been doing, uploaded the pictures appropriately, and scheduled them to post DAILY until I am back on track.

Please note...these entries are not necessarily in the correct order of occurrence.

Apologies to my readers.

Hypothetical Knitting

I have a friend, Printer, who has a screen printing business, and has done a LOT of t-shirts for me and the residence hall this year. I fear he tends to cut me a better deal than he ought to occasionally. So, because we are friends, and because he is so generous...I wanted to give him a Christmas present. The problem is, he is a bit of a tricky fellow to shop for. He doesn't have a television, he makes his own t-shirts, he doesn't collect anything, he doesn't have any real hobbies to speak of...I decided to knit something for him. The problem was determining what to knit that he would actually wear or want. So, we had the following telephone conversation:

Me: So, hypothetically, if someone were to knit something for you, would you wear it?
Him: It depends on what it is.
Me: Lets say it was hypothetically a beanie.
Him: Possibly. Would it look...crafty?
Me: Not necessarily.
Him: Yeah. I would probably wear it.
Me: Hypothetically, what color would it need to be.
Him: Something dark like black or grey.
Me: Ok.

A few nights later, we had another telephone conversation:

Him: What are you up to tonight?
Me: I'm knitting.
Him: Knitting knitting, or hypothetically knitting?
Me: Hypothetically knitting.
Him: How is it coming? Hypothetically.
Me: Hypothetically, I am really liking the pattern design I came up with.
Him: Cool.

I, hypothetically, finished the beanie and mailed it to my sister in Kentucky. (Printer also lives there, too...I put it in the same box as SNCFan's hat and scarf to save on postage.)

She delivered it to Printer before she came up to the parents' house for the holidays. Hypothetically he can wear it frequently this winter as Bowling Green is having an appallingly cold and icy December.

Apparently, he liked it, as in an unprecedented move, he actually took a picture of himself and sent it to me.

He is pondering deep hypotheses.

And it looks much better on him than it did on me.

The pattern was really easy. It is a variation on a standard 2X2 ribbed beanie that ended up in a sort of waffle pattern. It was a little less boring than a standard beanie without being fussy or girly. Heaven forbid we knit anything less than masculine! I will write it up soon and post it.

Airport Eyre

I am flying back to Washington today for the holidays. (Actually...I am bouncing all over for the holidays...Canada, Oregon, etc.) This means I need airport knitting. And, I actually need more airport knitting than normal.

I plan on arriving at the airport at least an hour before my flight, then there is the nearly 2 hour flight to Vegas, then the 3 hour layover in Vegas, then the additional 2 hour flight to SeaTac, then the nearly 2 hour drive from the airport to my parents' house...which comes to roughly 10 hours of knitting...and that is just on the way there!

After much thought and deliberation, I decided my best bet was the Eyre Wrap. It requires no pattern looking, and there is no way on earth that I will finish it and need to start another project.

The Eyre Wrap is my own adaptation of the Bridesmaid Wrap in Suss Cousins' book Wedding Knits. The pattern called for a very thin yarn to be knit on very large needles. I tried it. I tried it 4 times over the past 3 years or so with different yarns. I really did not enjoy trying to knit lace on size 11 needles. What should have been a fairly brain-free knitting project (1x1 rib for forever and a day) was horrid...also, the pattern called for the sleeves to be knit flat and seamed in. As anyone who knows me may remember, I hate seaming things up! The pattern kept going back in the queue and the yarns were repurposed.

Sister gave me a craft store gift for my birthday (thank you), and I found some Caron Simply Soft in Pagoda. It was the exact color I was looking for to make a drapey wrappy cardigany thing. Since I was gonna make it up as I went, I didn't want to spend a ton on yarn...so was willing to go with an acrylic. (I have used this yarn before for experiment projects...reasonably priced and nice to work with.) When I was drawing up the design, I kept coming back to a version of the Bridesmaid Wrap. The yarn's gauge was the same as the patterns, only the yarn was thicker so it wouldn't be a pain like the lace. This wrap should look similar to the original pattern, just less airy and lacy. (And I was actually wanting a cozier wrap anyway.)

But what about the piecing? Well, thanks to Wendy Barnard and her book/blog/patterns, I am confident in my ability to pick up the sleeves from the armscye and knit them down in the round...so we will see how that goes.

Raiding the Gift Stash

On Halloween, some of my staff members decided to dress up as lumberjacks. They had boots, they had plaid shirts, they had 5 o clock shadows...they even had elastic to make fake suspenders. What did they still need? The iconic lumberjack beanie! What did I have lots of in my gift stash? The iconic lumberjack beanie!



(That battle axe that Arty AD is holding was found in the residence hall's magic closet, dubbed Narnia. Seriously...it is like Mary Poppins' carpet bag...whenever we need something, anything, we go look in Narnia...and it is ALWAYS there! Now if I could only convince Narnia to function like a yarn shop...)