Checking In

Hello.

How are you?

Everything is good here. I just spent a few days in Long Beach. We were house-sitting and it was very very nice.

Some time was spent drinking champagne by the ocean at night. Marc drank some out of a sea shell. Really. That was pretty awesome.

Also, I just knit a hat for my mom and I'm going to share the pattern here. I hope you'll check back.

Yarn Babies

Have you heard about what Lexi Boeger (of Pluckyfluff fame) is doing? She's organizing a Handspun Revolution show in Norway that will consist of a GIANT skein of handspun yarn made from thousands of individual handspun yarns. It's going to be really neat and spinners of all skill levels are invited to submit their work. Click here for more info. I'm excited to see what the final product looks like...

In other yarn news; the giant yellow cone of yarn had babies! Hooray! Logan and I are planning on making some sweet God's Eyes.

Lacey

So, I've gotten a lot further on my charted lace.

I'm sorry I don't have a better photo but i really wanted to show off my progress. Up until now, I would always see charted patterns and think, "Oh well, I guess I can't do that one." But now I feel so much more confident. Hooray!

Socks

Hi. Did you have a nice weekend?

I was very cozy. We wore hand knit socks.

Full disclosure: Logan's socks are pink because I knit them for myself but they turned out too big. Oh well. Also, the socks I'm wearing are the ones I mentioned here. I love them and I wear them so often that a friend asked me if I have multiple pairs. I said, "Umm. No... I just wear these a lot."

Acorn Head

Hi.

I have a new pattern to share with you.

It's easy to make and your friends and family will tell you how cute you are and ask you to please make one for them. Really! Wear this guy with a hat underneath and you can brave even the most windy winter day. I made this for a trip to Minnesota and wore it non-stop (I think I might have slept in it one time).

All you need to know for this pattern is knit, purl, knitting in the round (you could knit it flat too), and some seaming. Because this pattern is quite simple, I've written it as more of a knitting recipe that a standard pattern. Feel free to email me if it's confusing and I'll try to clarify.

Hooded Circle Scarf a.k.a. Acorn Head

You Will Need:

- 2 Balls of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick (I used the color Denim)

- Size 17 29-Inch Circular Needles

- Size 17 Straight Needles (Optional)

- 1 Stitch Marker (I just use some scrap yarn tied into a loop)

- 1 Tapestry Needle ( or a crochet hook will do just fine)

First start off making a basic Circle Scarf (you can see the Circle Scarf Tutorial I made here):

Loosely cast on 70 stitches with your circular needles (edit 10/21/10: some folks on Ravelry have been knitting Acorn Heads in which the scarf portion is a bit too short. If you're a tight knitter you may want to cast on an extra 10 stitches). Join to knit in the round and place marker (be careful not to twist your cast-on stitches).

Purl one round. Knit one round.

Continue in this fashion of alternating purl and knit rows until you have about 6 1/2 inches of knitting from the cast-on edge, ending with a purl row.

Loosely bind off 57 stitches. You will have 13 stitches left.

At this point you can switch to straight needles if you want.

Now you begin knitting this flap extending from your scarf that will form the hood.

You will be knitting flat so you will knit both sides (garter stitch). I like to slip the first stitch on the side opposite the join to create a neater edge on the outside of the hood.

Knit these 13 stitches in garter stitch until the flap measures about 19 inches long. Bind off all stitches and leave a long tail for sewing. Fold over the flap so that the freshly bound-off edge is against the bound-off edge on the opposite side of the join (right next to the base of the flap). See how that will form your hood?

Use the tail from your bind off to sew these two bind-off edges together and then continue sewing up the back seam of the hood (you want the seam for the back of the hood to line up with the join of the circle scarf). Weave in ends. You're done!

Notes: The circumference of the entire long circular part is about 4 feet. The hood is about 8.5 inches deep. Remember that this isn't science though, and you shouldn't worry yourself to much trying to be exact.

The first 2 photos show how the piece looks if it is double wrapped, the 4th photo is single wrapped. See that cute little point on the top of the hood? That's why it's called Acorn Head. Thank you to Maya for coming up with the name and modeling for me.

Happy Sunday

I hope you're having a nice day. If you're not, this might help:

I Like Yarn

Hello again.

I've been bad about getting back in the swing of writing here after the holidays. And it's a shame because I really enjoy having this space to share what I'm working on. So I want to get back into the habit of writing more.

Anyway, here's what I've been working on:

I tried a couple of new things!

I tried knitting lace from a chart.

This really didn't go so well. I had to rip it back three times and I only have about an inch of knitting... And I'm pretty sure I made another mistake... But I'm going to try again because I really want to figure this out and confidently read a chart.

The chart I'm working from is Haruni by Emily Ross and it's free on Ravelry. It's so beautiful and i really want to make one.

I also tried Navajo Plying yarn and this was much more successful. If you are a spinner and you've been thinking about trying this technique, you really should go for it. For non-spinners who are wondering what I'm talking about; it's a way to take one strand of hand-spun yarn and then turn it into a 3-ply by sort of re-spinning it.

And it looks pretty.

And I finished a new design. Well, really just a circle scarf 2.0. That's what I've been calling it, I'd like to think of a prettier name for it though. My friend Tim called it a 'Harf" (hood + scarf = Harf). And Maya says it makes the person wearing it look like "an acorn head" which I think sounds really cute.

More photos and (probably) a pattern soon to come.

Happy New Year

Hello!

I'm back from a long trip to Minneapolis, MN to visit my family and friends. It was very nice. I went bowling, played Apples to Apples, watched movies, baked cookies, went to new (to me) yarn stores, and spent time with my favorite girls in the world.

But I'm so happy to be back in Brooklyn in my own little home! Sleeping in my own bed, and playing Scrabble, and trying new things on my spinning wheel. It's just so great to be here.

And I'll have photos up soon of some new knitting designs and new yarn and other things like that. Promise.