The January 1000

Posted on February 3, 2015 by MissCarlotta

Believe it or not… I knit 1000 yards in January. (Yeah I know, I hardly believed it myself) The whole month I was in “I’m never going to finish all the things I want to get done this year” for a mindset which may have helped but then again was a bit stressful at times.

So let’s see… first we made socks that I’m putting firmly in the category of “will wear for benefit of the TSA.” This is a silly idea of mine that since we have to take off shoes most often to travel, and since the TSA officers then get to see a myriad of socks, I shall wear socks as if it were a sock contest. Previously this was novelty holiday socks, but now I have these beauties checking in for the first 200+ yards:

No officer, a clown did not puke on my feet.

That pattern probably would look a bit better in a less variegated color, but it was a nice simple repeat suitable for taking in the car or when concentration isn’t as needed. Which means it offset my lace and beads shawl project.

2nd bead project!

Golden beads on russet

This project has a nice soft drape

A nice shallow cresent

The pattern itself was only available for a very short time called Dance With Dragons. I used about half of my Secret Santa yarn, so I shall need to find another project for the remainder, but overall I am loving how it came out.

Next up… it was the January Cold Sheep challenge… find the oldest yarn in your stash and knit it up. Technically I’ve other yarn that was in my stash for longer, but due to the time of year and the plans for it, I went with actually probably the oldest yarn. A vintage Dazzleaire from the era of when it was “new” that may even predate my own existence.

Dazzling Yellow Dazzleaire

This yarn joined my stash from another knitters stash. The idea of what to do with it went through several considerations and I really do like the colorway. But when pressed for an idea… I decided to make my very own design Neck Cat.

This dazzling kitty loves to travel.

The essential design idea is a cat themed neck/travel pillow, and I’d say that while its comfortable, and obviously a cat, this fella needs a second go through the design phase. The next iteration I plan to aim for a more curved and less square body shape, with feet that are a part of the main pillow.

Now at this point I was just shy of both February and 1000 yards. I wasn’t yet ready to start another beaded shawl. Another person shared some mosaic knit dish/wash cloths, and I am sitting on a stash of quite a bit of cotton so….I churned out a pair of cloths myself.

Coral and Peach Partners

Technically the photo above is at the one and a half cloth stage, but I thought it was a nice showcase of how you can just swap the two colors around and get a mismatched yet still matched pair. It successfully made two skeins of cotton exit the stash and so now I’m starting another mosaic pattern for another pair.

Mosaic knitting is where you slip one color while working the other color across the design. When you get back to the start of the design, you swap and work the other color while slipping the first color.

Winding my way into 2015

Posted on January 1, 2015 by MissCarlotta

So what kinds of things have I got planned for 2015? Well aside from the painting inside the house projects… I do have some ideas for things more in line with my knit and quilt blog.

First up… a confession. I have a lot of yarn. I knit over 5 miles last year… it was a drop in the proverbial bucket.

Stash Part 1

This is my primary stash. This is my nicer yarn, stuff I really enjoy working with. The left side has a bin full of sock and lace weights, (which overflows into the bags you see on the floor in front when I’m honest and not just cramming them in on top -.-) and a bin full of plant based yarns (cottons and bamboo blends). The right two bins are both worsted weight.

The secondary stash

But wait! There’s more! There is also a box of wool, and another box plus tote of acrylics hanging out in the closet. And that giant skein of cashmere lace in a project bag.

So clearly my first order of business is to do a bit of a stash down. Working on nothing but “Cold Sheep” for the next 3 months, with options to renew. Cold Sheep is where you do not buy new yarn for a set period…. like cold turkey only for knitters.

I’ve actually done a decent job of cataloguing my stash over on Ravelry (in case you want to see the particulars of what’s in the bins) and started to queue projects specifically to my stash. I have not yet found the perfect cardigan for one of the two sweater quantities of yarn, but do expect to see something cardigan with cables in the future. I am going to allow myself to buy notions such as beads and buttons, and patterns. I will get a new skein every month from my Tipsy Sheep yarn club, but technically that was paid for in 2014 so its not really cheating…. right?

I am going to knit up my salal dyed yarn this year, and I’m revisiting a designer who had the misfortune of being my first charted pattern, so I mucked it up pretty well, lets see if I’m ready to tackle a new chart and even more beads this time. I am also planning a shawl for the gorgeous lace that my secret santa included as part of my gift. (You can see my thanks here) and there is still an outstanding Jay bird shawl… all three lace with beads.

Apparently Salal and Knitpicks share colors

Yarn from my Santa!

This Blue, with matching beads and black for my Jay

In addition to the sweater and lace with beads, I also have some socks planned. Starting with some yarn from the last round of yarn club, and proceeding through a pair of hanks in some colorwork socks!

Which brings us to the quilting homefront. I absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of any doubt, want to do the shop hop by bus again this year. That’s in June. I had so much fun in 2014, I am looking forward to it again. So I am definitely going to need to focus on my progress quilt bin so that I have room. Mario, Chess, and Star Trek are pretty decently along and just need a bit more finishing. Movies and Stars are progressing, but still in the early stages. Tesla and Embroidered Snowmen are not yet begun, although some of the materials have been purchased. That’s a total of seven quilts I am aiming for this year.

First Sock Yarn for the year

The Central Panel of the Chess Quilt

Peach Block Mock Up

Whew! That thinking about all the things I want to work on this year has me already a bit overwhelmed. Good thing they aren’t all due in February! There is just one last thing; I am planning to get some projects ready with no intended recipient. I am considering adding a page of finished objects that will be open for offers. I’m still hashing out the details but I will be sure to post when/if it comes to pass.

How did I do? (Year in Review)

Posted on December 31, 2014 by MissCarlotta

In 2014, I knit at least 9320 yards, that’s over 5 miles of yarn!

The last thing coming off my needles was a Checked Rose Stitch Cowl experiment, finished Dec 30th.

This is a two color stitch worked with the same two yarns, just switching which yarn is the dominant yarn part way through.

Looking at the rest of my Ideas list from January and adding up all the things I’ve done this past year;

I did not knit up my alpaca yarn. I did manage some design work, but thus far I’ve not been happy enough with the results.
I DID make my first gloves, followed by my first fingerless, and first TWO sets of mittens.
I DID tackle my second socks, and the third pair, and even a fourth!
While I didn’t work on the Stellar’s Jay shawl, I did start and finish 6 shawls this year.
Four of the Six Quilts I was planning did get some work done, but I actually did not finish a single quilt. The only Quilting thing I finished were some pillow cases. I am still working on Mario!
I totally tackled brioche stitch too!
I published 2 new patterns and even dyed some yarn using local berries.

So here’s a visual overview. Included you will find one rather fuzzy bear that was the secret gift I mentioned earlier.

This was the surprise gift from last post!

Disappearing Deep Space 9-patch

Fingerless!

Brioche in two colors

Advanced Cables

Colorwork Mittens

First Beads

Experienced Level Pattern

Three pillowcase fronts.

Yarn Swap Success

I still love lace

My first dye attempts!

Stranded Purling

8 QAL Blocks

First half of my auntie shawls (4 of them)

Over 25% done!

Cashmere Lace

I tackled a milestone on the blog front too. There was exactly one day when this site was not visited by anyone, not even a robot. So I want to thank all of you (even the robots) for making me feel so awesome every morning.

So now I be you are wondering what is next. I am going to save all that for a later post in the next few days, as this post is now very long and full of photos already.

Don’t Panic! (Its supposed to look that way)

Posted on December 21, 2014 by MissCarlotta

So I decided to refresh the site a bit as I head into year five. (Can’t believe I’ve been at this for so long.) So I hope everyone likes the blue, and if not then you can look forward to the next update in say… 4.75 years or so.

Nearly finished photo.

In other news, when I visited my Grandmother this year she tried to explain how its hard to find a cute winter hat, perhaps one with flowers. So as a knitter…. I got right to work. The first one is a slouchy hat with a flower on the side, and I thought being kind of festive I’d use up some more blingy fluff and sparkle style yarn from my stash.

While I did take a actual finished photo, with the skies getting pretty dark by 4PM the lighting on this one is a bit better. Unfortunately at this point I decided it probably wasn’t really my grandmother’s style. Thankfully, a friend was visiting about the time this photo was taken and proclaimed she really liked it, so guess who got a totally not a surprise, but I wrapped it anyway gift? [HINT: This amazing person right here!]

Fresh off the needles, one hat with flowers

So back to square one on the hat front, but I am one of these people that seems to collect patterns around an idea, so naturally I didn’t have just ONE hat with flower(s) to choose from. So I picked another and some yarn and forged ahead. This pattern was super fast to knit and simple, yet a nice design.

Hopefully its the hat with flowers type that she will enjoy and wear.

In other knitted gifts, I made a colorwork shawl for another friend. The pattern is called Unalakleet.

The back of a stranded project

A very Seattle Unalakleet

Stranded Purling

The actual drape is a bit of a capelet, and it is a real test of tension work as its done as stranded knit and purl. Which makes the backside appear to somewhat mirror the front, but is all done with loops of yarn carried across.

There is just one more gift on my list I’m finishing up, but you and that giftee will just have to wait and see!

Experienced Level, Beads and Knitting with Novelty

Posted on October 1, 2014 by MissCarlotta

Apparently September was just one of those months where you are doing just so many things that finding time to photograph your knitting and update your blog just wasn’t going to happen. If you really must know.. there was spaghetti sauce being made, and rooms being painted, and the buying and selling of cars happening… and yes, through it all there was knitting.

So first up… let’s chat about novelty yarn. Its one of those things that seems to change over time and finds itself marketed to a new knitter or learning to knit knitter, and then as you learn and grow your skill you don’t need fur and ruffles to hide your stitches and suddenly its the bane of your yarn stash. So in my latest round of stash assessment, I was a bit taken aback by the quantity of fur and other bits that “seemed like a good idea at the time” and went on a quest to find something to make with it. And I’m happy to report that the Suzy the Cuddlebunny pattern, is a pretty quick and simple knit that turns out rather well.

Looking for somebunny to snuggle.

I made mine with a flecked fur and an acrylic held double for all the body parts, and just a plain acrylic for the inner ear. The body was deemed “so soft and snuggly” but the test snuggler, so I think, FuzzyWuzzy here will find a good home this holiday season.

Which brings me to the experienced portion of this post. At some point in the learning of a skill you may find yourself confronted with determining your skill level. Are you still a beginner? Comfortable calling yourself Intermediate? What do you feel about “experienced”? Its kind of intimidating, but here’s the deal with knitting… if you can’t figure it out, or you screw it up beyond all hope… you can just frog it back to your source material.

For me, this bit of bravery involved a pair of socks labeled as experienced level. Someone else had posted their finished pair and they were marvelous…. so even though it was only my third pair of feet wearable socks… let’s go for it!

Socks of Grand Experience

This pattern relies on twisted stitches, where you knit into the back loops of the stitches instead of the front of the loop at points. The bottom of the feet is flat stockinette, but the pattern then picks up from the base of the foot and wraps around the heel and up the leg.

Second Sock Syndrome…. it was hard but I managed to overcome it!

So… what’s an “experienced” knitter to do, but finally tackle using beads. So here’s a vary patriotic themed Fabergé shawl for one of my aunts.

Thankfully the autumn rains gave me a photo op break.

I really like how the eyelet section is worked to make the stitches look mirrored from the center spine.

I especially like how the top eyelet section is worked to make the stitches look mirrored from the center spine. Beading is surprisingly less complicated then you would think.

So there you have it… the month of September. Now onto all the holiday knitting… which should include a new pattern revolving around gifting canned goods, some mittens both as gifts and as my first mystery knit-a-long. (yep, I’m finally giving up the “but what if I don’t like it?!” worry on this one.) And more quilting… because I’m falling way behind on my Super Mario QAL project.

PS – I am totally wearing those socks right now!

And the Trees are striped Bare, of all they wear…

Posted on August 5, 2014 by MissCarlotta

You may recall a few posts back I mentioned getting some amazing 100% bamboo yarn in my last exchange. Well my yarn Santa sent me not only the two skeins of bamboo, but a great hank of Hazle Knits sock yarn in Song Sparrow, AND a stunning pattern for a maple leaf shawl from my patterns wishlist. Which btw… I should mention that my Santa this swap was actually my rematch giftee from an earlier yarn swap! (If you are reading this then…. Thank you a billion times!)

So naturally I got out my birthday gift from Ben… which was a fabulous set of interchangeable needles. and got right to work on making my Maple Leaf.

This leaf fell a bit earlier in the year.

I absolutely loved the pattern and color combination, but I will say I was a bit worried because of how drapey the project was knitting up that it wouldn’t hold its shape so well during blocking. But I am very happy to report that a simple wet block and laid out flat was just right. It has quite a bit of drape to it, but it holds the leaf shape very well.

Out in the sunshine

An indoor Maple

Now the one thing I can say about this pattern to be aware of, is that it has a large number of ends to weave in. Now that being a somewhat subjective determination, I did count and can give you a comparison. For your average knit item its 2 ends per skein per separate piece. So for a single skein shawl, such as this one… 2 ends would be typical. I counted my ends as I weaved them in this morning… and came up with a total of 50! You have roughly 2 ends per point on your leaf. So this would not be a great travel project where you may find yourself without aide of yarn cutting implements. *cough*TSA*cough*

But overall I loved the project… AND! I still have a whole skein left of this great Bamboo and another skein of sock yarn in Song Sparrow by Hazle Knits from this exchange! Woohoo!

Since it was a great day… I couldn’t resist taking a beauty shot of my maple leaf out on the maple tree…. so I’ll leave you all with that.

PS – The title is from October by U2

Birdwatching Shawl: The Lady Cardinal

Posted on July 18, 2014 by MissCarlotta

It seems that knitting is so often inspired by Mother Nature, be it leaves, or flowers, and even birds. Which being someone that likes to feed the birds and plant flowers.. this appeals to me. And so when I saw the Dreambird pattern, I knew just the person I wanted to make it for, and just the colors I wanted to make it in. The pattern design is a bit bold, just like the impossible to miss Northern Cardinal.

Female Cardinals are one of the few singing Lady Songbirds.

However, I felt this would be a good chance to continue in my “Lady Birds” shawls I started with my Gamayun Evening Grosbeak Shawl. I did need to bit of looking to find the right yarn colorations as I wanted some tonal changes, like the change in feathers. Truthfully, we don’t get Northern Cardinals in Washington State, but they are very memorable as one of the birds I first learned about when I started birdwatching.

My “bird” perched on the heather and rockwork in my front yard.

This pattern is rather different, its shaped entirely with the use of short rows and was a great lesson in the German Short Row technique. It does use binding off and casting on at various places, so that the overall point of view is the wing of a bird, pinyons outstretched as it takes to flight. Since its mostly garter stitch, this is actually a pattern that difficulty-wise would be fine for a beginner; however, there is one caveat to that opinion. The author of the pattern probably gives too much information in the full directions. The intent is that you get the idea behind the design concept as you knit along. The full directions are certainly worth reading, to get the technique if its new to you, and to pick up the pro-tips like how many stitches to carry your yarn along the backside when you change, but after the first feather or two, there is a simpler single page row by row count directions you will probably use most of the time.

Climbing Hydrangeas – the bird perch-able shawl model.

How to Invoke the Fairies, and my Beautiful Brioche Shawl

Posted on March 26, 2014 by MissCarlotta

First of all…. I need to tell you I finished my Brioche 2 color shawl that I posted the yarn for earlier…. and its so nice I’m going to give it a proper size photo.

Just like my climbing Hydrangea… its wearing the colors of both Spring and Fall.

This is a pattern I fell completely in love with when I first saw it called Under Dutch Skies. I decided that I would need to learn to brioche, just so I could make one of my own. I started it towards the end of the Ravellnic Games with the hopes I might complete it. But as the deadline got closer and closer I started to push myself and made more mistakes… primarily with my leaf spine counts.

As you can see here, in rows prior I did my increase in the wrong spine instead of the center.

As you can see here, in rows prior I did my increase in the wrong right side stitch instead of the center stitch.

Once you’ve made that mistake well… its not one I was able to tick back and then work up correctly so thank goodness for lifelines, but it still meant frogging several rows. I wasn’t going to make it to seven leaf repeats in time to finish… so it was finally time to take a real break and get the shawl out of my head for awhile. This also freed me to make an additional leaf repeat. I was so excited when I got to the binding off.

Here’s a close up of the front pattern and the reverse side edge

Got a bit creative with my folding so you can see the front and back colorways.

Here’s a full view of the backside.

I realized as I was laying it out to block, that I’d made a mistake earlier on, and I’d just never found it. Now here’s the thing about knitting mistakes. They are kind of like looking at yourself. When you look at yourself and your own knitting you find all the things you wish were better. Maybe we wish we were thinner, or maybe we wish our hair looked better or that there is less of it in some places and more of it in others, and we can get focused in on all the things that aren’t just right. (My stitches are uneven, I twisted that one stitch wrong, etc) But when you take a step back and you look at the whole picture like someone else does…. both you and your knitting are so much better than you think.

So I’ve given you hints now go right ahead… find my mistake.

Not so obvious until you find it…. Feel free to click on the photo until you get it in a larger size too!

Now the reason for that whole exercise is that sometimes when we gift or sell our handcrafted items we feel this compulsion to point out those mistakes. There is no need. Its a gorgeous thing worth of praise WITH its minor imperfections.

Now perhaps you have some eagle eye friends and family or over time they find its special unique “feature” and feel compelled to point them out to you. You can respond to this in a few ways, but here’s my favorite two.

This is an identification feature. It proves that this item is unique and should it be lost or stolen you could correctly identify yours, even if someone else made the same item with the same yarn.
Invoke the fairies.

That’s right… invoke the fairies by looking that person straight in the eye and letting them know that you had to leave a mistake in the item. Fairies like to steal and take things that are perfect, and after all this friend/family member was already so incredible you felt that if you gave them an absolutely perfect knit item, the fairies might feel compelled to take them away. (Thus making your imperfection into a very high compliment!)

Let the Games Begin!… and then End!

Posted on February 24, 2014 by MissCarlotta

If you are a knitter with Olympic fever you may have heard of the Ravellenic Games. If not, well then here’s the scoop. During the Olympics, there is a group over on Ravelry, that encourages you to challenge yourself and knit during the time of the Olympics. Apparently there may be pixel medals involved. (You can see all the projects here.)

So in an effort to be a bit more involved in the social nature of crafting, I thought I’d take up the challenge.

I started out with another 2 color brioche project, because I wanted something in between my “epic Brioche project” and the simpleness of the Seattle Brioche Scarf. I didn’t want a super big project though… so I picked one that took less than 200 yards and finally frogged the cut off tails of my Luscious Sweater.

The pattern is called Rodekool, which is Dutch for Red Cabbage

The pattern is Rodekool, which is Dutch for Red Cabbage

Challenges in this project included, increases and decreases in two color brioche, learning the Italian Cast On method, and maybe, though I can’t quite be certain I got it right.. the Italian bind off.

Based on the yarns original project, I call mine Luscious Cabbages

Based on the yarns origins, I call mine Luscious Cabbages

I actually still have yarn bits left, so I might try to work out a hat to go with this one at some point in the future. Mostly though its the lighter Tidepool heather color.

The second challenge is right out of my list of ideas for 2014: Gloves

Right hand thumb and Index include conductive thread additions for use with a smart phone or tablet.

I went for fairly simple pattern, because I already had some superwash wool in worsted left from my Debora Counterpane. I didn’t find them too hard, but I know some knitters find the fingers to be rather fiddly bits they don’t enjoy. Its such a widespread opinion, that out of the 718 entries in the Mittens and Gloves category, there are only 14 that are gloves with fingers! Everything else is fingerless or mittens.

Part of the reason I took a break from the 2 color brioche was the keyhole scarf was more challenging than I expected, it was a “2 swears” project. Which overall is a bit unusual for me. The whole reason I wanted to learn how to brioche in the first place was for the project I cast on next….. a two color brioche leafy shawl.

This too, had a different style start, and different increases and decreases. So I thought I should start with an oversized swatch to see how it went.

Size 10 needles and worsted aught to do it...

Size 10 needles and worsted ought to do it…

Now I wasn’t paying enough attention to how long I had to finish, so I didn’t technically get finished with my shawl in time to “qualify” for the games. In actual fact, its still on my needles. So I’m going to save the shawl for another post once its completed. But I will leave you with a photo of the yarns I picked out.

Colorways are Paradise Valley and La Cantante in Mithril (laceweight) from The Verdant Gryphon.

PS – if you click that link in the last caption and find yourself falling in love with the yarn and want/need a referral code be sure to let me know either in the comments or via the email on my About me page!

Block and Load!

Posted on January 8, 2014 by MissCarlotta

So I really liked the yarn I used for my Spring Thaw Shawls, (which was Paton’s Lace btw) although with the mohair it does have a bit of a halo that may not be ideal for all designs, and its a bit more crabby about any frogging.

Since it had worked out so nicely, I bought some more in other colors. A simpler repeat pattern lace shawl is actually an ok trip project since you only have to pack a skein or two to work the whole project. Whilst I was on holiday I started up a Vernal Equinox Surprise Shawl, and based on its name I decided to go with the “Sachet” color way, which is white and sage and plum.

I cast off on the 5th. The thing with lace is it benefits incredibly by blocking, but non-knitters or newer knitters don’t always see how you got to pile of yarn fluff to the more nice looking lace. So I’m going to start out this post with an unblocked photo.

Taken at night with poor lighting.

Issues of lighting aside, it does look like a lace shawl, not super lacy but its not something repulsive either. And then you block it.

For the record, it is an overcast rainy day.

And it goes from this textured ripply shawl, to a true lace shawl. And like the Grinch’s heart, it can grow a few sizes too. You does not need to be super fancy pants to achieve a good block, though to be honest it may help; I don’t know. I just use towels and Sewing Pins and sometimes a few bits of old school acrylic yarn in the case where the edge is super loopy like this one. The yarn is my blocking wire that stretches the loops out evenly so I don’t have to pin every single loop out.

There are several different types of lace repeats in this shawl

There are several different lace repeats in this shawl

This shawl was a bit difficult for me to finish… not because of the pattern, but because I wasn’t really making it with a giftee in mind and started to have good ideas about what I wanted to do with some of that Alpaca yarn I just got.

I didn't even finish trimming my cast on tail before this photo.... ¬.¬

I did not even finish trimming my cast on tail before taking this photo…. ¬.¬

But I don’t like to leave too many projects undone, so I finished it up, and it shall be folded up nicely to await the perfect person for it to go to.

I can fold half circle lace shawls AND fitted sheets.

Knitting with recipient in mind is a huge motivator for me, but sometimes you find you need to use your yarn and just knit something, and in the long run it seems to work out alright.

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