The Knitting Pirate

The fourth washcloth has been giving me no end of troubles. I must have started it seven or eight times, with four different patterns, just trying to get it right. Each time something went wrong – I missed a stitch, I chained the wrong number of stitches, the colours were playing out in the ugliest blotches. Finally I gave up and decided to do another Woven Stitch cloth, since the last one came out so well, and I had much better luck. I didn’t get another argyle, but I did get some nice zig-zags. So much better than splotchy blotches! (But man, I really need to get a better camera, or wait ’til daylight to take pictures.)

I ordered the Silken Kydd yarn from Elann for the Dancing Cranes stole, and I’m totally impressed with their shipping time. I placed the order on Sunday night and got the yarn on Wednesday morning! The pattern calls for three balls of yarn and three pattern repeats to make a 14.5″ by 80″ stole. I ordered a fourth ball in case I’m crazy enough to want to do an extra 8400 stitches of a fourth pattern repeat for a slightly wider stole, or just in case three isn’t quite enough. Since I want it finished for cousin Dianna’s wedding in May, I’m going to have to get started right away. Even if I only knit one row a day, it will be done in time. I’ll cast on this weekend and see how far I can get.

Floyd and Kipling are the best laundry helpers I could have wished for. They’re also a great incentive to put the laundry away as soon as it’s out of the dryer. Otherwise they will shed on it, use it for a jungle gym or as a hiding spot for guerrilla warfare or as a perfect napping hammock.

Cats are great, aren’t they? Happy Feline Friday!

Every so often I take a look at Blue Moon Fiber Arts to see if they’ve added anything new, or if anything jumps out at me. I really love the Socks that Rock yarn and invariably I find one or two (or five) colourways that I really want. Then I go check out the projects on Ravelry that were made in that colourway and wow, I am amazed at the differences.

Monsoon, for example. The picture of the skein looks like the yarn is two shades of gray, green, and a little bit of brown. But then, check out the socks that were made in this colourway. Where did all that blue come from? I still like it, but not quite as much as I thought I would from the original picture, so I’m not going to buy this one. The gray and green that I thought I’d be getting has a similar feel to the sock yarn I bought at Rhinebeck, anyway, so I’m finding it easier to resist now than when I first saw the colourway.

Green Eyed Monster is the same. I’ve been coveting this one since I first saw it. It’s even described as down and dirty greens, and reminiscent of Oscar the Grouch. So again, where did all the blue come from, and where has the brown gone? The picture on the website looks like Oscar, but those finished socks… not at all. I’m disappointed; if the socks had really looked like Oscar-colours I absolutely would have bought a skein, but I’m really glad I waited for some other people to knit it up so I could see what it looks like for real. I’m generally an optimistic and cheerful person, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Oscar. There’s a little bit of Grouch in all of us, sometimes!

Bella Coola is another one that I keep going back to look at. In the SCA I go by “Belaset,” and everyone calls me “Bella” for short. (note: I had this name well before those Twilight books came out. Grr.) Given my nickname, I thought this would be an appropriate yarn for me. The picture from Blue Moon shows two blues, green, and gray. The socks that people made actually look like they came from that same skein of yarn! I’m still tempted to buy a skein of this, but I’m holding out until I knit up some more of the sock yarn I already have in my stash.

I know that hand-dyed yarn can have a lot of variation from one batch to the next, but when it comes to Blue Moon, I will always check Ravelry first to see what projects have been made using a colourway before I choose to buy. The differences are sometimes so great! Their base yarn is wonderful and I love how it knits up, but I’d hate to be disappointed in a colour that just doesn’t match what I thought I’d be getting.

(Disclosure: These pictures are from Blue Moon’s site, though I saved them to my own webspace first. Hotlinking is bad, but I want to give credit where credit is due. If Blue Moon wishes me to take the pictures down, I will.)

I’ve started a page for the Knitting Pirate over on Google+, which I greatly prefer to Facebook. If you use Google+, please feel free to add the page to your circles and spread the word! And if you still only use Facebook, don’t worry – I’ll keep posting links to new posts over there, too.

When I picked out this “Earth Ombres” colourway of Sugar ‘n Cream, I thought that Michael might like the blues and browns. I was right, so I’ll be giving him this washcloth the next time I see him. I used this free pattern from Linda Bohrn called the Woven Stitch Dishcloth (on the Wayback Machine now, the original is gone) and again I chained a few more stitches than called for. I like bigger washcloths, around 10 or 11 inches square. I got lucky – the number of stitches I ended up with was exactly the right number to give me perfect argyle patterning! There’s a way to figure out the stitch count to make the colours stack or to make the argyle, but it seems like a lot of effort for an instant gratification type of project like a washcloth. I will just be grateful when it happens inadvertently, and not stress about it if it doesn’t. But I bet I’ll be making another washcloth with this pattern and the same number of stitches to see if I can make it happen again – I actually picked this pattern because of the number of projects made with it that did end up argyling. Is “argyling” a word? Well, it is now.

I really like the texture of these crocheted washcloths. They’re knobbly enough to be properly scrubby, but the cotton is soft enough so it doesn’t tear off any skin. The only thing is, they seem to take forever to dry! This is partly because they’re 100% cotton, and partly because I have to keep the bathroom doors closed so the cats don’t get into any mischief in there. If I make some cloths for the kitchen to use as dishrags or counter-scrubber rags, I’ll make them with more holey-space out of leftover acrylic, something like Over the Rainbow from the same author as the cloth I just made. Red Heart is scratch enough to wash with, but not so much as to scratch the dishes. Or I’ll buy some tulle and work with that. Not only will the cloths made of synthetic yarn dry faster, but it’s mold-resistant and won’t harbour any germs, and will stand up to the frequent washing and scrubbing better than an all-natural fibre will. I have heard that the tulle scrubbies are perfect for cleaning glass stovetops, as well.

And now, to pick the next pattern. I’m on a roll here!

This has been a very slow week for me, thanks to my achy back. Limiting the physical activities I can do makes me fidgety, so I’ve been crocheting a lot. As soon as I finished the blue washcloth, I got started on a third, using this free Woven Stitch Dishcloth pattern and the “Earth Ombres” colourway of Sugar ‘n Cream which I had picked up at Jo-Ann on Monday.

Then, disaster! (Well, not really, but it sounds better that way.) I missed a stitch only a few rows in, which was throwing everything off… and I didn’t catch the mistake until much later, when I was looking back at my work and thinking “Hm, it seems to step in on the side there, and these stitches aren’t lining up the way they ought to.” Perfectionism won out over laziness, and I ripped all the way back to the mistake to begin again, knowing that it wouldn’t take too long to redo the work. Probably no one would have noticed, especially if I put an edging on the cloth, but I would have known and it would have bothered me. Besides, the cloth was working up into the perfect argyle pattern, and I wanted to keep the right stitch count so the pattern would keep going smoothly. By Thursday night I had recovered the work I lost and then some.

Happy Feline Friday! As the weather gets colder, Floyd and Kipling can often be found one on top of the other, or tangled together. They’re just so adorable! We’ve started calling them the Dynamic Duo – Floyd is Batman, naturally, leaving Kipling to be the Boy Blunder. For all that he appears to be a sleek graceful jungle cat, he’s actually kind of clumsy. The other day he tried to jump up onto the garbage can just as I was opening the lid, and oh, the look on his face as he missed and fell backwards onto the floor. He has startled himself off perches, fallen from the hallway railing, and tripped over his own paws. Of course, I love him anyway.

Right after I finished the first washcloth, I began crocheting a second. This time I used the Bumpy Not Lumpy pattern, which can be found for free here, and Sugar ‘n Cream yarn in “Faded Denim,” which is three shades of blue. I was hoping for an argyle pattern to work its way up, but I got zigzags instead – or maybe they’re little fluffy clouds in a blue sky. Either way, I quite like it, and I like the pattern a lot too. It was easy to memorize, being the same thing on every row, but it gave a good texture that will be just right for face-washing. I could easily see making this one again.

A set of colour-coordinated washcloths would make a great housewarming gift – or, hey, a baby gift in case my “never making anything for babies again” resolution needs to be retracted. I do like giving handmade gifts, but it would absolutely be wiser to give something that I could make in a few evenings as opposed to a project that takes over a few months. (On that note, I wonder if a crocheted baby sweater would take a week of evenings instead of months, as well. Maybe I can still make presents after all.)

Monday was a rough day. I was in a car accident about a month ago and have finally admitted that my back hurts and isn’t going to get better on its own. After I dropped my poor dinged-up car off at the shop and picked up my rental, I had about an hour of free time before an appointment with the chiropractor. Unintentional yarn therapy ensued at both Michael’s and Jo-Ann, both of which were only minutes away from the doctor’s office. I bought a packet of split stitch markers, Patons Kroy FX Sock in the perfect ‘me’ colours, a ball of navy sock yarn to be used for cuffs, heels and toes on another pair of socks, and three more balls of Sugar ‘n Cream. My picks were two ombre colourways and one in a solid blue. There were a few other colours that I liked, but I’ll hold off on buying them until I know if this washcloth thing is just a passing phase. Sock knitting isn’t a passing phase, I’m sure of that. When I showed the Kroy FX to Pirate-Husband, his comment was that they were most definitely a Piratey colour. Bluesy-greens and a nice transition from one colour to the next? Aw yeah. (I almost bought the colourway that looks like a faded rainbow, too instead. These won out by a tiny margin.)

When I got home, the only thing I really felt up to doing was sitting down, and so I finished off my second washcloth in the evening. Whether it was because this pattern is easier with only one row to remember, or because I’m just better at crocheting now, or because I had nothing else to do, I feel like I whipped this one off before I hardly knew it had begun.

Monday night found me procrastinating on going to bed looking through the Ravelry Library yet again to find a third pattern that I liked, so that I could get started right away on using some of my new yarn. The ombre colourways of Sugar ‘n Cream are now coming in 150 yard balls instead of 95. This is a good thing, because that blue washcloth could have done with two or three more rows. It was almost one row taller, but when I did the final row of single crochet I was three stitches short on yarn. I ripped it back and ended up with a cloth that’s 10.5 by 11 inches, which is a pretty good size overall, but I do wish I could have made it square. The larger put-up of the new yarn will be helpful.

It is sometimes difficult to take pictures of one’s work…

When you want some instant gratification, crochet is definitely the way to go. It’s so much faster than knitting! I decided that a crocheted cotton washcloth would be the perfect project for my weekend, and after some searching of the Ravelry library I decided on the free Big Girl Dishcloth/Washcloth pattern, upsizing it by 150% because big washcloths just seem so much more luxurious.

My own beginnerness at crochet caused me to run into some trouble getting started, but after six or seven beginnings and watching a few tutorials on YouTube I was able to get past the first row. I probably tore out half as many rows as I crocheted; I kept missing stitches or ending up with too many stitches at the end of a row, but by the end I was cranking away at it. Not counting the several attempts at starting, it took me one evening and a solid day to make the washcloth. The next one will go faster; I’ve learned a lot about crocheting from doing this one, and if I don’t lose time working rows and tearing them out again… yeah.

I used about three-quarters of a ball of white Sugar ‘n Cream, and the finished cloth came out to be around 10.5″ x 11″. It will almost certainly stretch out to an even larger size as I use it. If I hadn’t made a bigger washcloth than the pattern specifies, I probably could have gotten two smaller ones out of one ball of yarn. As it is, I will use the remainder of the white for edging on other projects.

Things I’ve learned: The chain and the first row need to be worked a lot looser than I would have thought; that edge pulls a little tight. I’m not sure if I like the little loop from which to hang the washcloth, so I’ll see if I end up using it and then decide whether to include it in the next one. Maybe a fancier border would have been fun to try. And, I learned that washcloths aren’t too difficult at all… perhaps I’ll design one of my own! Combine a few different stitches to make a nice design and texture, add a nifty border, test it out a few times, and voila – a new pattern to offer. That makes it sound really easy…

I tested out the new washcloth on my face, and I am so thoroughly impressed that I’ve already begun a second one.

In other news, this is the blog’s five hundredth post! Wow, huh?

I needed something that would be a quick and easy project, and I thought that crocheting a washcloth would be just the thing to keep my mind occupied. I chose a pattern and got started. Chain 28, that’s easy. Except I wanted a larger washcloth, so I chained half again as many stitches, wondering why the pattern didn’t include anything about how to make it larger. Some quick sketching on paper seemed to indicate that it would work with any even number of stitches, and I figured if I was wrong about that, then I’d just tear it out and start over. Because crochet is fast, right?

By the end of the second row I was sure I’d done something wrong. It didn’t look like the pattern and there were many more stitches than there should have been, even accounting for my upsizing by 150%. I tore it out and started over.

I have a copy of “The Happy Hooker” and I pulled it out to see exactly where I was supposed to be making the single crochets into the chain. The picture of the chain in the book looked a lot like mine… mostly. I *know* I know how to chain, and I know I made each stitch of it exactly the same way, so why do some of the stitches seem backwards and some forwards? To heck with it, I said, and began to work the first row. Single crochet, chain one, skip one, and so on. Halfway through I realized that I again had many more stitches than there should have been.

I tore it out again, and then I chained the same 42 stitches three more times, and three more times ripped it out. When I chain tightly, it looks like the picture in the book; I can figure out exactly which two strands I’m supposed to be hooking through, but I can’t actually get the hook through them. When I chain loosely, I can’t tell which strands are which. One day I’ll be able to read crochet as well as I can read my knitting, but today is not that day. That’s when I gave up and went to bed. And that’s why today’s picture is not of a washcloth, but of the ball of yarn that will eventually become a washcloth.

Kipling doesn’t worry about things like washcloths (unless he’s being threatened with a damp one). He just wriggles around until he’s upside-down, in what looks like the least comfortable position he could possibly be in, and then he purrs himself to sleep. Last night he slept like a normal cat, right side up, snoogled into the small of my back. I had never thought of using a cat for lumbar support before…

Like most of the women in my family, I run on the cold side. I’ve even been known to shiver in 75-degree (24 C) weather if there’s a breeze. The other night I stubbornly refused to turn the heat on, though it was 66 degrees (19 C) in the house. I’m told that some people are comfortable at this temperature, but not me! Instead of cranking the thermostat I put on a sweatshirt, my warm wool slippers, and enticed the cats to sit with me. It wasn’t just me, at least; Kipling’s ears and paws were cold too, and once he realized that I was making a warm spot on the cold leather couch, he was happy enough to curl up beside me. (We do this a lot, as evidenced by the picture.) Maybe I should knit a cat sweater for him? I bet he’d absolutely hate that. I’ll get his reaction on video, if I try to get a sweater on him. It’s sure to be amusing to everyone who isn’t him!

My co-workers seem to think that 68 degrees is a good temperature for our office, so I’m often cold at work too. I have a company-issued blue fleece blanket to wrap around myself, and a forbidden space header hiding under my desk which sometimes gets turned on even when it’s incredibly hot outside, because that’s when they crank the air conditioning to make it too cold inside.

People make fun of me for being cold all the time. But as they say, “Cold hands, warm heart!”

Where is this going, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you: in the next year I have two weddings to attend, and the sort of dress that one wears to a wedding is also the sort of dress that doesn’t cover much, so unless I do something about this problem I will be shivering my way through two wedding ceremonies and receptions. Or I will look silly wearing a man’s suit jacket over my dress. I’d rather not be covered in goosebumps or look silly, so I’ve come up with a solution: I am going to knit a stole.

This stole, in fact. (Picture is from Elann’s website.) It is the Dancing Cranes stole from Elann.com, knit in Silken Kydd, which is Elann’s version of Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze for less than half the price. Conveniently, the pattern is free! I’m undecided between “Pewter” and “Winter White”, but I think I’m leaning towards white as it would go with everything. “Forest Mist” and “Baked Apple” are pretty colours as well, but probably not as versatile. It seems to me that light coloured stoles show off best over a dark dress. What do you think?

The runner-up in my pattern search for a fancy lacy thing to wear at a wedding is this half-circle shawl inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann, in honour of what would have been her 100th birthday. If you don’t have a Ravelry account you can see the designer’s picture of the shawl on Flickr.

It was a very close second; I like half-circle shawls and I think this one is quite pretty, although I’d probably choose a different edging for it. Maybe I will knit this pattern as my second shawl and use it for office-wear, using a dark colourway of one of the yarns with silver content for sparkle-appeal. I never thought of myself as someone who would wear a shawl, but between being cold and hanging out with knitters, I’m starting to see the appeal of a warm and pretty lace-thing to wrap around myself.

At this point, there isn’t much left to say about these sweaters, is there? When Dave and Sam announced that they were expecting twins, I knew that I’d be knitting matching sweaters for my niecelets. I didn’t expect the sweaters to put me off knitting for a few months, or that they’d make me swear off knitting for babies altogether. Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets about taking on the double project (making two little sweaters is really nothing next to Sam’s work in making two little babies) but I think I’ve concluded that knitting to deadlines is the sort of thing that takes all the fun out of my favourite hobby. I could also blame the cats, for making it much more difficult for me to knit in the living room – but that would be wrong of me.

But anyway, here are the sweaters! Both were knit from KnitPicks Swish Worsted, in the Carnation and Amethyst Heather colourways. I appreciate that the yarn is washable, and that’s why I chose it, but I really didn’t like the feel of it at all. It had a plastic-y feeling almost like acrylic. Maybe it was my hurried knitting but I also found the yarn to be on the splitty side. I have some left and maybe I’ll use it for crocheted toys or something, but I can’t see buying this stuff again.

Speaking of crocheting! I sewed the purple sweater’s seams, but for the pink sweater I did a slip-stitch seam and I loved it. I can’t say it went much faster than sewing, but it gives a neat edge. The best part about crocheting the seams was not having to measure out a length of yarn. I always seem to get that wrong…

Pirate-Husband went out and found the buttons at the last minute. We measured the buttonholes using random buttons in the sewing box, and then he bought these adorable animal buttons at JoAnn. It’s impossible, he says, to find ten or twenty matching buttons… but I think these are even better than matching. I finished sewing them on about three minutes before leaving to see the family and hand the sweaters over – and then I begged my brother to take pictures and send them to me. So he gets the credit for the three pictures in this post.

Here’s the nieceling, who is starting to like her new gig as “Big Sister.” Now that the twins are more than just crying lumps of baby, she is really enjoying making them smile and laugh. In a couple of years, she’s going to be the ringleader of a dangerous trio!

What better way to end a summer hiatus from the knitting blog than with a trip to one of the biggest Sheep and Wool festivals?

Last weekend I went to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, which everyone just calls “Rhinebeck” because that’s where it is. It was so much fun, and not too crowded either! Much thanks to Michael for driving up there, for taking all the pictures in this post, and for thinking that *of course* a llama parade is reason enough to go anywhere. We gaped and gawked at millions of skeins of yarn, bags of fibre both raw and processed, spinning wheels and drop spindles, and everyone’s handknits.

In my opinion, no Sheep and Wool festival would be complete without a lamb gyro for lunch. There was really no question about where I’d be eating, once it got to be lunchtime. We also got to taste some local New York wines and cheeses in one of the barns.

The sheep had hay for lunch, of course. These two kept nuzzling each other’s neck and face, but just like with Floyd and Kipling, I’m not sure whether the attention was meant to comfort or to annoy. They seemed to be good friends, though!

Now that I’m looking at the picture, I think I should have bought this hat. Apparently hat-wearing is my mutant superpower. (We all have one! What’s yours?)

I did buy this skein of sock yarn from Periwinkle Sheep. The colourway is “Grass in a Crack in the Sidewalk” and it called out to me from the rack where it was hanging. Surprisingly, there was nothing else that jumped out at me the same way. Some years I go to a Sheep and Wool festival and feel like I need to buy everything, but this year I just bought the one skein of sock yarn. I couldn’t leave completely empty-handed; I always buy at least one souvenir!

When it started to drizzle, we ducked inside the barn where the llamas and alpacas were housed. One or two of them seemed distressed by the crowds of people, but most of them were happy enough to munch their hay or to pose for pictures. Some of them were humming little alpaca songs to themselves, which always makes me laugh. This spotted fellow appeared to be meditating his way into peace and contentment.

We thought we might have missed the llama parade because of the rain, but it cleared up soon and as we were making our way towards the exit, there they were! A little girl with a goat was leading the parade. (You can see the goat here, but not much of the little girl.) When they told her that she had to slow down, she protested that the goat was pulling her to go faster. Someone knelt down next to the goat, rubbed its forehead, and gently told it to slow down. It was a cute moment that I’m glad I saw.

I had not expected to see any lemurs at a Sheep and Wool festival, but there was a traveling educational zoo right before the exit. They’re even more adorable in person than they are in pictures.

And so, with a renewed zest for both knitting and blogging, I’m happy to return to posting on a semi-regular basis!