The Knitting Pirate

Yesterday I visited Woolwinders with Janis and Sam, and although there were quite a few tempting yarns, I flexed my willpower and bought nothing at all. I’m saving my yarn-buying for Maryland Sheep and Wool, just under seven weeks away.

It’s interesting to see how my tastes in yarns and colours have changed since I first started knitting. I’m still drawn to many of the same colours and colourways: purple and green together, teal blues and greens, heavily variegated hand-dyed yarns. But those aren’t really the colours I wear anymore. I tend much more towards the earthy colours now, the greens and rusty browns, tweeds and heathers. I’ve never been able to wear oranges or yellows, but I love rusty fall colours. I used to prefer a variegated worsted weight or even heavier for scarves and hats; now I’m leaning towards lighter yarns and stranded colourwork.

It’s also interesting to see the different yarns that the stores carry now. Woolwinders used to have an entire row of sock yarn; now they have one or two cubbies of it, and some other sock-weight yarn scattered throughout the store. There was a lot of cotton, which I ignored. They had no Noro Kureyon – not that I need any, but I do love looking at the colours – but they did have a fair selection of tweeds and heathery yarns which really tempted me. I spent some time considering a skein of Cascade 220 Superwash for a hat, but decided to hold off for now. I have so much yarn at home, I really can’t justify buying more right now!

The light was perfect, and Floyd was too sleepy to put up any objections to my pointing a camera at him.

While he doesn’t like having his picture taken, Floyd has become more affectionate in the past few months. A few nights ago he demanded my attention while I was washing up after dinner, meowing at me insistently until I got down to his level. Then he followed me upstairs, squawked his annoyance that I was taking so long with teeth-brushing and clothes-selecting, and immediately hopped up onto the bed with me when I climbed in. He made a nest of the blankets and was still there the next morning when I woke up.

Kipling is much more of a ham for the camera than Floyd is. He let me snap several dozen shots, all the while squiggling around into cuter and cuter positions.

Last night it was Kipling who slept next to me. I woke up in the middle of the night and found him there, upside-down, his face under my chin, purring like a motor. He reached both front paws out to grab my hand, and I fell asleep again in the midst of giving him a belly rub.

It’s good to be loved by cats.

Kipling, play dead! **BANG**

(No, he doesn’t actually know this trick. But wouldn’t it be cool if he did?)

I found the most adorable pattern for a knitted kitty in one of Eskimimi’s older blog posts, and immediately added it to my favourites list on Ravelry. I might knit a few of these, stuff them with yarn scraps and catnip, and give them to the cats as toys.

Of course, there’s a possibility that they won’t be appreciated; Floyd’s favourite toy is a fur mouse, and Kipling’s is any string that a person is willing to drag around for him. Floyd will entertain himself with the mouse – tossing it up in the air and pouncing on it, carrying it around the house, leaving it in Pirate-Husband’s slippers, and so on. Kipling, on the other hand, only seems to want to play if a person is at the other end of the string. The other day I caught him chasing the shadow of his own tail, whirling around and around but never quite catching it. His efforts built up one heck of a static charge, and when he came over to see what I was laughing at, he zapped his nose on my finger. I felt so bad for him!

The speed at which I’ve been knitting lately has given me a boost of confidence and renewed my energy for knitting. Two hats in five working days, a pair of armwarmers in less than ten hours? When I first started knitting, I never would have dreamed that I could crank out finished products so quickly. (And now, I’m making excuses like “well, it’s worsted yarn, it’s not like it was a pair of socks or anything.”)

So here I am, considering that it’s eleven weeks to Maryland Sheep and Wool, and wondering how many of my current WIPs I can finish before then so that I can feel no guilt about buying more yarn or fibre. (I’m rather pleased that I’ve used all the yarn I’ve bought so far this year. Three balls of yarn in, three balls of yarn out.)

Currently on the needles, I have the neglected Stripey Striped Socks, the not-yet-forgotten Napramach, my current traveling sock (I’ve just realized I’ve never taken a picture of it, nor of the last pair of socks I finished! Must rectify that.) and the light and airy Dancing Cranes stole.

The stole doesn’t need to be finished until the middle of October, but I know it will take a while, so I want to keep up with adding at least a row every day, and preferably two. With around 60 or 90 rows left to work, depending on whether I choose to do three or four pattern repeats, I don’t want to risk the chance of not finishing it in time. I do like working on it, but it’s a solitary sort of project, and I don’t always want to lock myself away to work on it.

The sock will just travel around with me until it’s finished – I’ve almost completed the first of the pair, and then the second will take up residence in my purse. When I’m done with that one, the second Stripey Striped Sock can become my traveling companion if I haven’t yet finished it at home. It’s not the best sock for the job, but it’ll have to do, because I really want it to be done.

Napramach… I actually don’t know how long it will take for me to finish this thing! It took me six weeks to make the first half of it, and I seem to be knitting much faster now. Maybe three weeks? Then blocking, crocheting the sides together, and sewing in the lining, and it’s done. I’m guessing that my friend has probably forgotten about the bag by now, or if she hasn’t forgotten then she’s given up hope that I’ll ever finish it for her. It will be a nice surprise for her when it’s finished – she only knew that I was making a bag for her, but I never told her what it would look like!

The bonus prize of finishing Napramach will be that I’ll have most of each of six colourways of Rowan Felted Tweed to play with after the bag is done. I’m thinking of designing a colourwork hat with the leftovers; there should be more than enough, and I already know how nicely the colours go with one another. The second bonus prize will be on my yearly tally, because I’ll be able to cross off six balls of yarn from my count! I wonder if I should cross off all six balls, because I bought them specifically for this project? Or do I mark each of them as half-used, since there will be enough to make another project?

The Stripey Striped Socks are close to the heel on the second sock, and I can’t seem to find my notes on how many heel stitches I left unworked in the centre of the short-row heel. I think I scribbled them on a tiny piece of paper, not expecting nearly two years to fly by between sock heels. I’ll count stitches on the first sock and try to get the second sock as close as I can.

I’m going to love each of these projects when they’re done. And I hate having the Stripey Striped Socks and Napramach hanging over my head. I see them and think I ought to put some rows on them, and then I go do something else. It’s time to crack down and get these projects done and off the WIPs list so that I can start new things. At the same time, I don’t want to burn out on knitting again; I know that’s more likely to happen when I’m forcing myself to work on projects that I don’t like as much. I’m just going to work steadily on these four projects until they’re done, and I won’t start anything new until at least both pairs of socks are finished. Then, of course, I’ll need a new traveling sock.

I finished the first “As I Go Along” armwarmer last week, working with the notes I’d scribbled down when I started it. While I saw some room for improvement in the fit, I was happy enough with the way it came out and decided to knit the second to match. This yarn doesn’t seem like it would be happy about being ripped out and re-knit, anyway, so my decision was based on that as well as on the fit. Trendsetter Tonalita is a soft and loosely spun yarn, not very sturdy at all, and unfortunately I don’t think the armwarmers will last very long before they get fuzzy and pilly.

I decided to save weaving in all the ends until I was done with both, and as it later turned out, that was the best decision I could have made, because I ended up using every single inch of this yarn. The full ball of Tonalita would have been enough for both armwarmers if I hadn’t taken a dozen yards out of it for the top of the Hurricane Hat.

The colours of the first armwarmer are nicer than the second. On one hand, I like that the Tonalita doesn’t have a repeating colour pattern in the skein. On the other hand, why did they have to put all the silvers, greys, and beiges together at one end of the yarn, and all the lovely greens and blues together at the other end? In the Hurricane Hat, the lack of repetition was perfect, and the higher stitch count meant the grey and beige parts were less obtrusive. But here, it almost looks as if the two armwarmers were knit from different colourways, and I like that less.

The second armwarmer got all the dull colours. I knit most of it on a four hour train ride on Sunday afternoon, and as I got towards the top of the hand I began to worry that I wouldn’t have enough yarn to finish. The more worried I got, the faster I knit. I tried to tell myself that I’ve had this concern before and that everything has come out just fine, but the little voice in my head kept saying no, I was going to run out of yarn before I ran out of armwarmer to knit. I knit even faster, because that’s what knitters do when they’re afraid the yarn will run out – don’t ask me why! – and had worked everything but the thumb before my train pulled into the station.

No one on this train ride commented on my knitting. First I sat next to a woman who lived one town over from where I grew up, and we talked about that a bit, but by the time I pulled out the needles and yarn she was deep into a movie on her laptop. After she got off the train, a man came on with a box of cookies. He offered me one, but didn’t say anything about my work. As introverted as I can be, I’m almost disappointed! I enjoy when people notice my knitting, and the conversations that often come of it. I’ve met so many nice people that way.

The little voice turned out to be right. On Monday evening I sat down to knit the eight thumb rounds, and had only enough yarn for five. The ends from the first armwarmer came into play here. I wove them in and scavenged what was left to splice onto my sadly short yarn tail, and managed to get the thumb finished and bound off… only to find that the double thickness in some places had conspired to give me a thumb that’s considerably larger than it ought to be. There’s no way of pulling this out and redoing it, so either I’m going to ignore it or I’m going to take it in with some sewing thread. I’m leaning towards ignoring it, because if I sew it up there’ll be an unpleasant lump on the side of the thumb. The only other thing I could think of would be to ask on Ravelry if anyone has an extra ten yards of Tonalita in the same colourway that they’d be willing to send me. Then I could snip out the thumb, pick up the stitches, and try it again.

These are good little armwarmers, even with one oversized thumb, and I actually have them on right now to keep my hands warm as I work. It’s often cold in my office; I expect to get a lot of use from them. The best part about them, though, is how much I learned from making them up as I went along. It’s given me more confidence to begin the design work on the pattern I’m dreaming up.

Friend Erika and Floyd, presented without comment.

At first I couldn’t decide what to knit on the plane. While I was thinking about it I took out the leftover Tonalita and idly knit fifteen rounds of ribbing, then some stockinette, then started to increase for a gusset. I just sort of made them up as I went along, and I wrote down everything I’d done so that I could have some hope of making a second armwarmer just like the first one.

By the end of the flight I’d gotten up to the part where I would set aside stitches for the thumb, decided that I wouldn’t make individual fingers on these due to the thickness of the yarn, and written down what I think will be the rest of the pattern. I could probably finish the first one in less than an hour, and the second one will take about two hours to knock out.

If I were being more picky about the “as I go along” armwarmers, I would put four more stitches into the ribbing to make it easier to get over my hand, even though it’s the right size for my scrawny wrist. I’d spread out the gusset increases over a few more rounds, because I reached the target number of stitches before I’d reached the base of my thumb. But I’m not being picky, because they’ll look totally fine, and I have no plans to write up or publish this pattern.

(Technically, I was the guest in the cat’s house. She’s just a guest on my blog.)

Today’s Feline Friday is brought to you by Keta, small and grey, who lives with my sworn-brother Stephen. Every so often she would look up at me and say “mraaaaaaah.” I’m not sure if that means “give me treats,” or “what the heck are you doing in my house, human?” or if it’s just a friendly hello.

She was very patient about letting me take pictures of her. Here she is showing off her super-fancy Soft Paws, which prevent her from tearing the carpet into small ragged bits. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to apply these to Floyd and Kipling’s claws, but I think I could probably only successfully get them onto Floyd. The claws still need to be trimmed before the Soft Paws go on, and if I can get Kipling’s claws trimmed then he wouldn’t need the Soft Paws in the first place.

Unlike Floyd and Kipling, Keta is happy to sit right beside the fire. (Unlike my fireplace, this one is gas and less likely to startle cats with sudden noises.) Whenever we had it burning, she was up on the hearth soaking in the warmth. I can’t say that I blame her!

Keta’s favourite toy is a small rubber alligator, which she carries around the house with her. It seems to be the only toy she’s interested in, though she did stare pretty intently at my yarn while I was finishing up the Warm Hat, and once or twice considered making a grab for the dangling ends.

Thanks for being a guest cat on today’s Feline Friday, Keta!

On Saturday afternoon I cast on for the Hurricane Hat while sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home, and knit fairly steadily on it through the afternoon and the rest of the weekend. By Sunday night I thought I had gotten far enough to do the decreases, but when I’d broken the yarn and tried on the hat, it was about two inches too short. I guess I’d misinterpreted the pattern where it said “five inches” to mean from the cast on, and not just the patterned part of the hat. Since the brim of this hat isn’t meant to turn up, it needs to be exactly the right height, so I ripped back to just before the decreases. At least the width of the hat was right! I had been a little worried, since I’d done no swatching or anything, that it might have been a little on the small side, but it fits really well. Hopefully it doesn’t stretch out too much with wear.

After work on Monday I got back to it and in an hour or so had re-finished the top of the hat. When I had to join yarn ends, I untwisted the single, split it in two and broke off one piece on either end, then intertwined the two halves and rubbed them together until they stuck. I didn’t bother using any water to felt the ends together as it didn’t seem like the ends would wriggle out at all when they were knitted together. On the other hand, when I wove my final end in I was probably more careful than necessary to make sure that it wouldn’t ever come loose.

The Hurricane Hat pattern is available for free at String in Motion. It is a quick cute knit, definitely suited for the soft stripes of this yarn. It would work nicely with a semi-solid or tweedy yarn as well, but the texture might be lost in a wildly variegated colourway.

I really like the way the purl stitches spiral up into the top of the hat to make the eye of the hurricane, and could see doing a similar swirl motif with twisted stitches or traveling decreases and hidden increases. I get more and more design ideas from nearly every project I knit! Now, if only I had the time to work them all up… though I do seem to be getting faster at this knitting thing. One hat in two days, another hat in three days? (And it would have been another two day hat, if I hadn’t had to re-do the top.) Pretty fast indeed!

I’m happy with the finished hat, but not thrilled. On the plus sides, the swirly pattern is appealing and the colour of the yarn matches my eyes. I think this hat will go perfectly with my gray coat. On the minus side, the yarn was fairly expensive for its quality and it seems like the hat will last only a few seasons before it gets covered in pills. While that does give me an excuse to knit yet another hat in a year or two, I’d rather have clothing that lasts a little longer, especially if I’m going to the effort to make it myself.

The Tonalita yarn was interesting to work with – not awful, but not great either. It’s half wool and half acrylic, spun up into a loose soft singles yarn which is quite soft, but it splits easily and so I had to be a little more careful with it than usual. In some places it was significantly thicker than others, but the differences are almost imperceptible in the finished product. It’s a little thick for the US 6 needles I used, especially when it came time to do the decreases, but I like the way the fabric turned out for this kind of hat. The label suggests a US 9 needle, which would give a fabric with a lot more drape. I barely had to dip into the second ball of yarn to finish the hat, and I’m considering using the leftovers to make armwarmers, maybe with a light neutral yarn for contrast colourwork. There is certainly enough remaining. I just wonder if armwarmers wouldn’t pill up so fast in this yarn, due to the extra wear that they’d see on my hands and wrists as opposed to on my head.

The outside of the ball of yarn is even and smoothly wound, with each strand laid comfortably against the next, but the inside has this fascinating star shape to it. I found myself wondering about the yarn-winding machine, and what sort of movements it would need to make to create this loose star on the inside but a rounded ball on the outside.

It had come to my attention that I’ve never knit anything for my sworn-brother Stephen. When he was living in a mostly-summerish place it would have been unnecessary, but he could certainly use a warm hat now that he’s living in the land of eternal winter. I ran over to Needles in the Haymarket and found some Cascade 220, my go-to hat yarn, in a lovely heathery grey-green. Unfortunately the selection of superwash colourways was limited, so this isn’t a machine washable hat, but Stephen assured me that he would be fine with hand-washing as long as I gave him instructions.

I cast on for the hat while I was waiting for my flight. I knit at the gate, where I met some knitters who were winding balls of yarn. I knit for the full duration of my flight, while sitting next to a woman who used to knit but now prefers crochet. I knit while watching television later that evening, and about 36 hours after I started, I was weaving in the ends of a new hat. This is a speed record for me!

There was already snow on the ground and more fell while I was visiting. I think this expression is, “Take the picture already, it’s cold out here!”

I chose the free Cousteau Hat pattern and made a few adjustments to it. From comments on other projects I knew that the hat comes out large, so I only cast on 100 stitches instead of the 140 called for. I changed the decreases to a simple K2tog, and started doing double decreases towards the top to make the hat less pointy. I should have gone with a K3tog instead of slip, k2tog, psso, and I should have started them sooner – ah well, there’s always next time. Knit and learn, knit and learn!

Of course, when the hat is on, the top doesn’t appear to be pointy at all. I really like how the sections come together in quarters at the top. It’s different from the more spiral decreases that I’ve made on previous hats, and quite distinctive.

I’m seriously tempted to make a matching hat for myself, though the next size down might be a little tight at only 80 stitches, and the fabric might be a little loose if I went up a needle size to compensate. (Or it would fit me perfectly, as I do have a small head, and the hat could always be blocked larger. Besides, it will stretch.) Maybe I would try working the decreases every other row for a more rounded top, but I’m not sure if that would look odd in the way the ribs get cut off by the decreases. It would be worth the attempt, I think, and if it doesn’t come out well then it will be easy enough to rip back and redo.