The Knitting Pirate

The thought of sewing up a million (okay, 39) hexagons after crocheting them all had me a little… what’s the word? Not “nervous”, not “anxious”. Not “unhappy”. What about “dreading”? Yes, I was dreading the idea of connecting up all the hexagons, whether I sewed or crocheted them together. So I decided to just attach them as I finished each one, thereby dooming the project to complete importability but also making it a lot easier on myself, at least mentally.

I’d solved the problems of potential duplicate hexagons and under- or over-utilizing one colour or another by making up a chart (which is completely filled in now, and looks delightfully random even though it’s not entirely), and attaching as I go takes care of the problem of having to find one of thirty-nine hexes in a giant pile to crochet into the right place.

It takes much less thinking to follow along with the chart. I’m enjoying the “much less thinking” right now as my brain seems to have taken a vacation. We’re very slowly getting used to life without Aubrey, but I’m still grieving and I know that’s affecting my thinking processes, so simplifying my work as much as possible is definitely a good thing for the moment.

Twelve! Twelve hexes, ha ha ha haaa!

Aubrey M. Tinyfierce lost her fight with FIP yesterday. In the end, her fierce was just too tiny for a disease which is inevitably fatal. To say that we’ll miss her terribly is an understatement. At least for now, her picture will stay in the banner of my Etsy shop, which should be opening for business in the next couple of months. If I can’t do it to support her any more, I can still do it in her memory – and to build up a fund for Floyd T. Underfoot, should he happen to get sick. Right now we’re grateful that he’s healthy as a horse, sleek and energetic.

Friend Stef came over yesterday to keep me company and help distract me from thinking about Aubrey too much. I showed her the Winterlude Hat ™ which I’d blocked over a perfectly-sized ceramic bowl¹, and she fell in love with its awesomeness. Then, because she has more sewing experience than I do, she helped me pin the fleece lining for the hat. It went much more smoothly for having an extra pair of hands involved. We had a good time chatting about craftsy things while I began sewing it up. I’m so close to being done with it and I can’t wait to try it out when I get to Canada in a week and a half.

While I’ve got the sewing box out, I need to sew the magnet-snaps into Michael’s Fleeps. And on the subject of projects which are really, really close to completion, I’m within a few stripes of the toe on the second Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey Jaywalker. I’ve been working on it here and there while I wait for things like car maintenance and allergy shots. The other day I pulled it out to knit a few stripes and was actually surprised to discover that it’s almost finished!

I didn’t get much done on the blanket this past weekend, but I plan to work a couple of hexagons in tonight. And soon, if I’m feeling tired of crochet and want to get back to knitting, I can start on the pink and purple sweaters for the twin niecelets.

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1. Which shall be my hat-blocking bowl forevermore, when it’s not serving its usual role as a fruit dish.

For the Hexagon Blanket, I’m using this tutorial from Attic24. It is so clearly written, and has clear close-up pictures that so perfectly illustrate how the stitches go, that I’ve had no problem at all figuring out what I’m doing. The Ravelry entry for the pattern is here, in case you’d like to see the other thousand blankets that people have made. They are gorgeous!

One of the things that I’m really enjoying about crocheting a baby blanket is the riot of colours. Okay, so I didn’t choose the most riotous of colours, and I only have seven to work with as opposed to the rainbow that you see over at Attic24. (She takes marvelous pictures, doesn’t she?)

Originally, I hadn’t planned to plan. I figured I’d just make each hexagon as I went along, and try not to get two similar ones too close together. However, I am at heart a planning sort of person, and so I made up this rough and imperfect diagram in Photoshop. Also, I am convinced that I will colour myself into a corner if I have no plan. And I want to make this blanket with no two hexes identical. Well, maybe two that are the same, so that when the baby gets a little older, he can have fun trying to find which two are alike! I’ve gotten a good start on colouring in the chart already, but I’m going to leave the uncoloured one up here and just show the progress on the blanket as it goes along.

I may also be unable to resist making a neater diagram for potential future blankets. This crocheting thing is pretty awesome indeed.

I have been making hexagons! Lots and lots – okay, eight – hexagons so far, which I am joining together as I go, to make a baby blanket. I will need 39 total, and then I’ll crochet a border around until it’s big enough. Some people have done half-hexes to make the edges of their blankets even, but I think I will like the uneven edge that follows the shapes of the whole hexagons. Especially if I work a number of stripes for the border. I’ll have to see how quickly it goes; maybe I’ll do one single crochet stripe of each of the seven colours.

Making hexagons is ridiculously fun. I’m especially enjoying the part where I join them together as I go, and the part where there are no ends to be woven in afterwards, because they’re just worked in. Why did it take me so long to pick up a crochet hook? This is great!

Today is my birthday! I am 33 today. Happy birthday to me!

I’ve been saying for a couple of weeks that my birthday present to myself was going to be teaching myself to crochet. After doing the edging on my Winterlude Hat and then making some bobble-buttons bigger by single-crocheting around them, I thought it might be time to work on an actual crochet project.

And then I thought, hey, I have to make something for friend Gwen’s baby who is due in May. So I started looking through the pattern browser on Ravelry, and came up with this awesome hexagon tutorial. There are nearly a thousand projects to look through, and I got inspired! This, I ran to tell Pirate-Husband, would be the blanket I would make!

Because Pirate-Husband is absolutely awesome, he said “Hey, I have to go to Michael’s anyway. You could get the yarn for the blanket today!”

So that is what we did.

Seven skeins of Red Heart Soft and one scrap wool practice hexagon later, I am *ready*. I am stupidly excited about this new skill – and also because Pirate-Husband said that he’d check out this crocheting stuff with me, probably because I showed him some neat gears and cogs patterns, and he digs the steampunk aesthetic. (Admittedly, neither of us think that crochet is going to really be his thing, but he wants to learn anyway, just so he can say he knows how.)

The practice hexagon I made started out slowly, but picked up speed as I got the hang of pulling loops through other loops with a hook. Having a copy of The Happy Hooker was definitely helpful as I needed to refer back to it a couple of times, but then I began to remember what I was doing from stitch to stitch. Also helpful: the fact that I knit Continental and I’m already used to holding the working yarn in my left hand!

I got some other things while we were at Michael’s, including foamboard and oaktag to make a photography lightbox, and a set of many markers for colouring on Shrinky-Dinks. Yes, I said Shrinky-Dinks. What? They’re fun!

Hello, 2011! I think you and I are going to get along quite well. The year started off just right, waking up with two little kittens snoogled up to my legs. (Sorry for the crappy quality of the cell phone picture.) Now it’s time to light a fire under myself, because I have lots of plans for the year ahead!

First of all, I know of four babies who are going to be born in the first half of the year, and I’m planning to make something for each of them. I’m well on my way to finishing a (secret) gift for the first one; I’ve already bought the yarn for the second and third and I have sweater patterns picked out. But I have no idea what I’m going to knit for the fourth baby, who is due to arrive in May. Something autumn-ish in a six-month size, perhaps, or maybe a toy.

Second, I want to learn a new skill this year: I want to learn to crochet. Not just to put edging on a hat, but to actually make things with a hook and tangly stuff, rather than pointy things and tangly stuff. There’s a bunch of kitchen cotton in my stash waiting to be made into new Swiffer mop covers, and I keep eyeing this Prairie Star afghan as something I’d love to have over one of the guest beds. (Hm! Maybe I will crochet a toy for the fourth baby, and kill two birds with one stone.)

Third, this year I am going to finish all the projects that are currently in progress. It’s time to get them done and move on, no matter how much I might dislike working on them. Maybe even the hibernating projects, like the Ostrich Plumes lace.

Fourth, I am going to design, knit, and publish a new pattern this year. It may be socks, or armwarmers, or a one-skein fingering-weight shawlette.

The fifth one is the real biggie: There are two rooms in my basement. The front room has gym equipment and a guest bed futon in it, as well as a TV for watching while working out. The back room has the washer and dryer, but other than that it’s been sort of a landing spot for unwanted things since we moved into the house three years ago. I want to rebuild that room into a crafting space. Pirate-Husband is totally in; he wants a space in which he can do leatherwork. How awesome would it be to be able to work in the same room on our projects? To be able to leave the carder or the sewing machine out and not worry about a cat shredding anything in the night? To have a dedicated carding station! And one for leather! And one for drawing, too! To have a lightbox setup that will make it easy to take great pictures! I want to make it a cozy and inspirational space, a room that I’d want to hang out in, a room that just calls out “spend time here! do wonderful things!”

In closing, I’m going to share with you the New Year’s wish that Dad sent, because I think it’s just perfect:

I hope that all of you have a new year filled with happiness, and health.
Set your goals, set your sails and head off.
Let honor and goodness be your guides
Let peace and respect be your muses
Enjoy the journey as much as reaching the destination.

Happy New Year, everyone!

We had our family holiday celebration on Monday at my brother and sister-in-law’s place, and I finally got to give Dad his hat. It fits him perfectly, and he said that it is exactly the hat he wanted! Hooray! Now that I know his size, I told him, I can keep him in hats for as long as he wants. He mentioned a hat with notches over the ears to fit his headset when he flies. I’ll have to see about making something like that, perhaps for next Chanukah. Dad was kind enough to model it for me and even to lend me his camera to take pictures, since I’d (of course) forgotten mine.

Speaking of cameras, I’ve been thinking about getting a new one. Not another point & shoot, like the one I currently have (a Canon SD850IS), because – well, because my next mobile phone will have a really good small camera built right into it – no, I’m envying a DSLR, with which I can take much better pictures. It’s almost silly to think about it now because I don’t have the money to buy a camera, but maybe someday soon I will. Pirate-Husband thinks it’s silly of me to want such a thing. He is convinced that I will buy an expensive camera, take twenty pictures, and get tired of it. I’m not sure I see myself hiking all over the countryside hauling a camera with me, true, but I’d certainly take lots more pictures of stuff indoors, like kittens and dinners and knitting.

In other news, I got a package from Thailand in the mail. It makes the world seem very small, to be able to buy things from the other side of the planet with a few clicks of the mouse, and have them show up at my door less than two weeks later. What was inside the package, you might ask? (And why did I buy from an Etsy seller in Thailand? Because I couldn’t find the same things for a better price more locally. I looked. But 20 sets of snaps for $12, including shipping, is about as good as it gets.)

Twenty sets of ultra-thin, surprisingly strong, magnetic snaps. They are the kind of closures that are sewn on, rather than clipped through fabric. This seemed to be a wise decision for attaching a magnetic snap to the mitten-tops and wrist cuffs of Fleep-Top gloves. The kind of magnet that’s clipped through would leave a very cold metal circle on the inside of the cuff. I’m actually concerned that they are *too* strong, that unsnapping them will put more stress on the yarn than it can take, and that the gloves will have a shortened lifespan as a result. Perhaps I should reinforce the place where the snaps are sewn on with a piece of fabric on the inside.

My own Fleeps have never had anything to hold the top back when it’s not in use, and I’ve never had a problem with them flopping about… but Michael requested that I do something for his gloves, and so I shall. And if the magnetic snaps are as awesome as I think they will be, it’s fairly likely that I’ll add them to my gloves, too.

Some of you may have already known, and some of you have guessed, but most of my readers have been curiously wondering about the super-sekrit project with Ben Kenobi’s face as the only available picture. Well, the mystery is finally unveiled; I am proud to show off the Paraphernalia Socks (link to free pattern on Ravelry) that I knit for Pirate-Husband’s Chanukah present! I surprised him with the gift last night, just after we lit the first candle on the menorah.

It took just over two 50g balls of Regia Tweed to make his socks. I estimate that I used maybe a fifth of the third ball, which leaves enough for… well, for leftovers. I had to make a couple of modifications to the original pattern. Firstly and most necessary, I added many stitches to accommodate Pirate-Husband’s wide feet, casting on 84 instead of the pattern’s 68. As a result, I had to do a lot of math to get the heel numbers right. The second change I made was much easier and purely for aesthetics reasons: I knit the cables on the second sock so that they would cross in the opposite direction as the ones on the first sock. I thought this would give it a certain… je ne sais quoi. Non? Pirate-Husband thought it was pretty cool, too.

I’ve been working on these socks in secret for a really, really long time – I started them in April 2009, and only worked on them while Pirate-Husband was out of the house, in and around other projects that I needed to finish. I was afraid to take them out while he was home, for fear that he’d come upstairs before I had a chance to hide them. With no real deadline on the socks, I figured that it would be better to take my time and be sure of keeping the secret. I really didn’t want him to find out! He hadn’t even known about the yarn, since I’d snuck it into the house right under his nose. This is often a point of contention on the Ravelry forums, where there are regularly threads about sneaking yarn past their husbands. The only time I think it’s acceptable to do that is if the yarn is meant for a gift for said husband!

Sometimes he would ask me about the mystery project in the sidebar, but I’d always brush him off. He had a hint that it would be something for him, else I would have told him what it was. The funny thing is, for the past few months, I’ve been knitting almost entirely for other people. And every time I gave a knit gift to someone else, he’d make a joking comment along the lines of “Suuuure, knit for other people, never anything for your husband, I see how it is.” The hardest part was keeping his socks a secret for so long!

Among other patterns, the ribbing that continues on down the heel was an inspiration to me in designing both the Sibling Socks and then the Cakewalk Socks. Now that I’ve done that in two patterns, though, the next one will have to be different. I wouldn’t want to get into a ribbed heel rut!

So, finally, here are the Paraphernalias on Pirate-Husband’s feet, fitting almost perfectly. They’ve been a long time in the making, and a hard secret to keep, but they are done now, and given. Hooray!

You’ll still see Old Ben Kenobi on the sidebar. He wasn’t ready to be cut down by a lightsaber just yet; he’s returned as the face of the Sekrit Stardemon Gift, to be revealed at some point in the future…

Now that the Fleeps are done, it’s time to move on to the next gift, which is something for Janis’s little Stardemon. Unfortunately for blogging purposes, this is going to be a Sekrit Surprise Gift, and that’s going to make writing about it a little difficult. But there are a few things I can say: I’m using this worsted-weight merino from 100purewool. It’s the “Winter Joy” colourway and it is so, so very soft.

I wound it up on Sunday afternoon into these beautiful cakes, with only a little bit of grumbling as the yarn had gotten a little felted together in places, and then I started knitting. It is as wonderful to work with as I remember, and just as soft. Before bed, I’d knit enough to feel like I got a really good start on the project, and I put it down with a sense of accomplishment (and aching hands). I added a few more rows on Monday.

I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so I might not say much about this project until after it’s done and given. I’ll leave it with this for now: wow, my tension is even. The stitches look so pretty. The yarn is delightfully soft, and knitting up to a good firm gauge that is neither too drapey nor too stiff. I found a knot in the yarn and after a little growling at it, I cut around the knot and spit-spliced the ends, and now I can’t see where the join is. And even though this yarn obviously felts with very little effort, I don’t feel at all worried about giving a handwash-only sweater to my knittingest friend.

Due Date …… Project
1/1 ….………. Gift for Janis’s baby boy (in progress)
2/1 ………….. Fleep Restraints (magnets ordered, 1 month delivery delay)
2/1 ………….. Jacob Hat
3/1 ………….. Twins’ sweaters (yarn ordered!)
4/15 …….….. Gift for Gwen’s baby (What to make, what to make…)

I’d mentioned that the first two Fleeps had come out slightly different in size, but the more I looked at them the more I realized just how different they were. I tried to quell the thoughts of reknitting, but when Michael tried them on a few weeks ago, I knew instantly that I’d have to make one glove over.

He said I’m crazy, that if he wanted two identical gloves he would have bought them in a store. (Isn’t he nice?) I say it’s not crazy; the whole point of custom knitting is so that things fit exactly as they should. What good is it if one glove fits perfectly and one is so big that it might have been made for someone else?

How far off could it have been, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you, although it’s kind of embarrassing… one glove was 3/4″ longer than the other, and about 1/2″ wider. That is some serious difference. And it’s totally unacceptable. So really, the decision to reknit wasn’t a difficult one at all.

The sizing difference has to be a matter of gauge/tension, because each of the gloves has the same number of stitches (I counted to be sure) and the same number of rows. Maybe I was hurrying more when I knit the second one, and it came out tighter, and thus fits perfectly? Obviously I should hurry when I reknit the first one to get the same gauge. Or maybe I accidentally knit the first one on US 4/3.5mm needles instead of US 3/3.25mm? We’ll never know.

I began to knit the next (would that be the third, or the first?) glove, making sure to pull my stitches tight. After the cuff I could see that my gauge was much more in line with the second glove that had fit properly. Hooray! I kept measuring as I worked my way up the hand, just to be sure. And it came out just fine!

I had enough yarn left in the ball to knit a third glove and one mitten-top, and unraveling the first glove gave me enough recovered yarn to knit the second mitten-top. Unraveling was an adventure as I’d woven the half-million (okay, ten) yarn ends in very carefully. I also had yarn left over from my own pair of Fleeps that could have filled in, if I didn’t have enough, but it worked out just fine. And the cut-off fingers will make wonderful felted toys for the kittens.

The second mitten-top was finished in a frantic burst of knitting on Thanksgiving morning, and I held my breath when Michael tried on the gloves Friday night. But woo! They fit perfectly! Then he gave them right back to me to put on some sort of fleep-top holding device. I ordered little sew-on magnets that are shaped like snaps but don’t actually snap; if those turn out to be somehow wrong then I’ll sew on a button and a loop.

He still says I’m crazy – and a perfectionist, too – but I feel lots better about having made gloves that fit right. Would you have done differently?

Due Date …… Project
10/3 ………… Angie’s gifts
11/1 ………… Second Fleep, hand section
12/1 ………… Mom’s sock #2
12/1 ………… Dad’s hat
1/1 ….………. Gift for Janis’s baby boy
2/1 ………….. Fleep Restraints for Mitten Tops, awaiting magnets
2/1 ………….. Jacob Hat
3/1 ………….. Twins’ sweaters
4/15 …….….. Gift for Gwen’s baby