My first socks and more!

As I mentioned a few posts back, I've started taking knitting classes.  The classes are great!  I love my instructor and the other students are so fun and inspirational.  Last night I completed my first pair of socks.  They took 2 weeks from start to finish and now that I have the hang of them, I imagine I'll be able to knit them a lot quicker in the future.  Before I ever tried socks, because of the pretentious way other knitters had described them in the condescending way they tend to communicate with crocheters, I always imagined that they would be extremely difficult and/or time consuming to learn.  With regards to this pattern, I never could've been more mistaken!  The pattern was very simple and straight forward; the vast majority of the work is quite thoughtless and repetitive and a delightful addition to bing watching TV.

In the spirit of X-Mas, I couldn't resist doing red and green socks.  

 They are so warm and cozy and they fit me perfectly!

Here's a rolly-brimmed hat I just finished knitting in the stockinette stitch with some fun color pooling yarn for my penpal in Italy.

I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Coney Island.

I love the spiral star finishing at the top of the hat!

This yarn is super bulky. I used 10.5 circulars and double pointed needles.

Even the interior looks beautiful!

 These ribbed hats are the first hats I learned to knit in the round.  I used 10.5 circular and double pointed needles with bulky Knitpicks acrylic I had leftover from making Xena's Halloween costume.

Below are my dear friends in Connecticut, Milly and Ian, modelling their hats.  There is nothing more satisfying than learning a new skill to make useful gifts for friends!

The creamy colored hat on the bottom right is the very first hat I made.  I used Baby Alpaca Grand and even though it's luxuriously soft and ridiculously expensive, it's a total pain in the ass to knit with and I doubt I'll ever use it again.

 Finally, here's Eelco's little baby modelling his hat on the means streets of Amsterdam, Holland. I crocheted it back in March and he finally just grew into it. Last but not least is one of my current crochet WIPs that I am hoping to finish by the end of the week and then I'll post some photos.

 In addition to any number of WIPs and random holiday projects, I just picked up the yarn for my seamless sweater knitting class starting in January.  My homework between now and then is knitting and blocking a swatch to test my gauge.  I'm quite curious to find out if can make the gauge.  Stay tuned!

WIP City

As soon as the ends are woven in on one project, the hooks and needles instantly begin to fly on the next. As per usual, I have no shortage of perpetual WIPs going.  For starters, I enjoyed the Flatiron Shawl I finished last month so much that I already started another with some Houndstooth yarn I recently purchased at Lambtown up in Dixon.  The colorways I picked for this fade are so autumnal, my fingers are plunging into pumpkin spice with every stitch.

Next I've been garter-stitching away to make a very conspicuously colored supply bag with some totally outrageous HHF yarn I bought ages ago (and then completely forgot about).

Since I'm talking about knitting, (as I mentioned last month) my 3rd knitting class is tonight.  For the first 2 weeks we worked on a sampler with Lamb's Pride.  The photo above features the sampler I made over 3 years ago and the sampler I just finished (and still need to bind off) last week.  Tonight I'll start my hat with the ball of Baby Alpaca Grand in the corner.  The yarn is SO soft and gentle, I can't wait to feel and wear the finished project!

Truly last but not least, I came up with the brilliant idea, utterly at the last minute to crochet scarves for the 2 sisters at my salon for X-Mas gifts.  So now it's a race against time to get them finished sooner than later.  I downloaded a great shifted stitch yarn cake pattern from Yarnybird on Etsy.  Tomorrow night we're flying to Chicago for a stamp show and I plan to be busting out my hook at any given opportunity during our travels.  So here's to hoping I'll have plenty of HOTHs to proudly display in the very near future!

Stitches SoCal 2018

A couple of weekends ago, Kristine and I went on our first roadtrip together, down to Stitches SoCal in Pasadena.

We had such a wonderful time together, surrounded by 100s of fellow fiber artists!

We took a great class on improving our Continental knitting style.  We learned some incredibly helpful tips.  My speed and tension consistency immediately improved (literally during the class, simply by making a few simple adjustments) and most of all, I've discovered that this is truly the least arduous and most ergonomically pleasing style of knitting.

Both of us went pretty crazy in the marketplace.  I bought some beautiful yarns but my finest purchase of the trip was finally investing in my own yarn swift and ball winder.  Knitpicks had them on sale and I simply couldn't resist.  The double bonus is that Xena is completely mesmerized by the yarn spinning around the swift and she now immediately crawls under the table and peacefully sprawls beneath it while I wind the yarn.

The 2nd class was a wild and wacky introduction to Crochet cables, taught by the CLF's very own Shibaguyz.  It was super fun and informative and like a grand finale to our weekend, they raffled off free yarn and supplies and we both went home with more freebies than we even knew what to do with.

This photo easily captures the way I felt all weekend long.  We're already anxiously anticipating Stitches West in Santa Clara in February 2019!

TL Yarn Crafts Flatiron Shawl

In between no shortage of other projects, it took me about 2 1/2 months to complete the TL Yarn Crafts Flatiron Shawl.

It's an easy to follow pattern and the perfect on the go project for public transportation or social crocheting.

Best of all, it's a great excuse to buy 3 different shades of hand-dyed fingering yarn to create a breathtaking fade.

My shawl fits perfectly and because I used Wooly Wonka Aerten Sock yarn, it's softer than pussy willow kisses and lighter than air.  Aerten is 80% SW Merino, 10% cashmere and 10% nylon.

These photos simply do not do the shawl justice.

 I enjoyed making this shawl so much.  I already have the yarn ready to start another one!

Xena's first Halloween!

Well, it was inevitable that I would crochet a costume for Xena's first Halloween and it was a lot of fun but when you consider the hours it took to make in comparison to the minuscule amount of time she'll actually wear the costume, it was a pretty ridiculous endeavor.  That being said, I used Knitpicks Brava Bulky yarn and a size H hook to expedite completion of my festive project.  And as much as I might complain, this certainly won't be the last costume I ever crochet for her. 

I didn't follow any patterns.  I just had a rough idea in my head and I went with it and I have to admit that I'm quite pleased with the results.

In fact, I like the little booties so much, I'm planning on making an adult pair for myself.  And here's some bonus beats below:

Baby Sloane modeling the hat I made her from my previous post.

HOTH = 3 hats + 1 cardigan

It's already been over a month since my last post but I intentionally refrained from posting until these last 3 projects were complete as they're all related to one another.  Xena is almost 10 months old now.  Much to the tension of my frazzled nerves, she perpetually alternates between "bundle of joy" and "total handful".  When I'm not yanking something out of her mouth that she isn't supposed to be sucking on or pulling her off whatever she's not supposed to be climbing on, I've been busier than ever with various crochet and knitting projects.  I also recently assumed the role of chief organizer of both of the SF Knitters and Crocheters meet ups and to top it off, I took a quick trip to NYC last wknd to DJ at the Subway Soul Club and catch up with old friends. Technically I retired from DJ-ing about 4 yrs ago but this was a 15+ yr anniversary of sorts for the SSC and a reunion with my old roommate from Manhattan in the late 90s who is also (still a) rare soul/funk/RnB 45s DJ.  Ultimately, this mom just needed a break and some time to herself, even if that time was just spent crocheting on a nonstop flight, crocheting at a cozy cafe in Tribeca, crocheting on a BFF's couch in Ridgewood or crocheting on the MTA across town at 2AM.

So because I loved the cardigan I made for my friends in Seattle (you can see their beautiful daughter modeling it here) so much, I decided to make the same cardigan with a matching hat for Xena.  Both pieces still have enough room in them that I hope they'll last through the winter; although at the rate that our little porkchop is expanding, who can be sure?

The bottom 2 photos were taken of Xena at Vogue Knitting LIVE at Union Square a few wks ago.  

It was my first time attending the show and I enjoyed myself but the entire vibe seemed a bit pretentious.  Not that the two should really be compared but I definitely prefer Stitches West and speaking of which, Kristine and I are heading to Stitches SoCal 2018 in Pasadena next month.  It's our wild fiber weekend getaway.  We're spending 3 nights in an AirBnB and we have 2 classes scheduled.  It'll be my husband's first time watching Xena on his own for a weekend.  When I went away last weekend, he avoided the responsibility by literally flying to Boston to have my in-laws watch her instead.  And people wonder why I constantly need to be doing something with my hands; it's actually to prevent myself from strangling someone!  Kidding, maybe.

For the next project, I had a beautiful skein of Galway wool just begging to be worked on and I've been wanting to crochet something for one of my penpals who's a knitter so I used the same pattern for Xena's hat but with adult dimensions.

I used a size G hook and the griddle stitch which works textured wonders with wool.

Then I had an epiphany.  I wanted to create a seamless hat crocheted in a round.  The hat below is for my friend's (twin) sister's newborn, made for an infant's size.  The circumference of the opening is 60 chains with a size G hook using Knitpicks Swish DK 100% Merino in Bare.  The yarn was part of my 1 year wedding anniversary present from my husband in addition to a circular knitting needle set, some rare stamps and dinner at Fog Harbor next week!

By simply using a stitch marker to mark the last stitch of every row, I was able to jump up and shift the pattern vertically with a seamless transition.  I really have no idea why it never dawned on me to try this technique before.

I also modified the the top of the hat, with purely aesthetic purposes by reducing with dc2tog's to create a star anise shape inside of the hat.  By weaving in the ends in, in a round after the pompom was attached, the star is formed.

I'm incredibly pleased with the results, so much so that I want to make an adult-size one for myself; since I still have 2 1/2 100g hanks left!

I'm waiting to post photos of my other 2 other projects concurrently in production as both really cannot be best appreciated until they're blocked, so stay tuned.  

Finally, I started knitting again and here's a photo of Xena assisting me at Sales Force park.  I heard that Imagiknit offers free weekly knitting workshops at the park every Wednesday, but I've yet to attend, simply because lately it's been too hard to get my shit together in time to get downtown by the time they meet.  

But in an effort to keep the knitting train rolling, I'm taking a knitting class at Atelier starting at the end of the month.  I really want to improve my knitting skills because I do believe in my potential.  Perhaps I will always prefer crochet but the feeling of knitting also comes naturally to me.  Not to mention that despite what many may confess, the two fiber arts can have healthy bipartisan relationship.