Category: Knitting (Page 2 of 2)

Heatwave Knitting

July 25, 2016 / Louise

There’s something about summer that makes me want to come up with knitting projects (and watch Predator 2 and Yakuza, which are the best heatwave movies). Maybe it’s because the summer edition of the knitting magazine always has awesome patterns, maybe it’s because I can take my projects out on the porch and enjoy nice weather (in the mornings before it gets hot!) or maybe it’s because somehow the AC always makes things feel more arctic than real winter does.

I suppose the fact that summer has actual sunshine (unlike winter around here, which is grey, damp and cloudy) makes me want to make lots of awesome plans.

I’m thinking about a couple potential projects, a knitting project and some sewing projects. For the knitting, I think I want to try making myself a pair of convertible mittens with gloves inside. I have a nice range of fingerless gloves and a couple pairs of mittens, but I’d like to have a pair for the coldest weather. I would want the inside to have fingers like gloves (though not covering the fingertips) under colorwork convertible mittens. I think that would cover the bases well and still make it easy to extract my train pass. I like the franken mittens pattern on Ravelry, but I’m not super thrilled with the pattern for the colorwork. Maybe I can use the overall mitten pattern and come up with my own colorwork pattern? I also really want to knit a shawl, but I’m only making very slow progress on my hat, so I’m pretty sure sticking to the hat is the better plan (especially since I really want a warm fuzzy hat when it gets cold again!). And given my rate of progress by the time I finish the hat it will be cold weather. And I’d really like to knit a small hat and some baby mittens for little Patrick before it gets too cold. So maybe I should aim for a hat, convertible mittens and a little hat and baby mittens by the end of the year. I will have time for shawls later. After all they don’t really wear out and they don’t have fit issues so there’s no rush.

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For sewing I’d like to do those sooner. I want to sew three new Hawthorn dresses. They button up the front so those will work well with needing access for little Patrick, and I’ve sewn them before so they should go together well. I will need to trace new pattern pieces given size changes, but once I’ve done that I can do all three at once assembly-line-style. I think they’ll be fun dresses, I have one piece of fabric I picked out, and two Patrick picked out. (I decided to get both since one was on clearance for really cheap, so yay three dresses!) I also plan to alter these to add pockets, with of course, a button hole for the insulin pump. It will be nice to have something pretty to wear that is comfortable and fits well. It’s been difficult needing to buy clothes, I’m looking forward to making my own again.

Speaking of clothes, the other thing I need to do is sew myself some skirts for work. At least those are easy to sew. Trying to buy them is egregiously terrible since apparently the only thing people want to buy is pencil skirts or trousers. Lets just say pencil skirts don’t suit my shape (I am not and never have been a square, if they don’t go in at the waist, they fall down, even at this point they need to go in at certain spots to fit). And trousers are ok, and I can find some that fit if I put a lot of time in but they generally look terrible and are really uncomfortable. Also, skirts are much more flexible for DC weather. They’re like wearing shorts in summer and in winter I can wear fuzzy tights and they’re way warmer than pants then. So yeah, buying skirts is a no-go so I need to make some new ones. I have some nice wool I was given as a gift, I just need to get some fabric for the lining and then sew them up. I have a month though to do it.

Other than those projects, the garden survives, it’s still making some peppers and tomatoes which is nice. We’ve also got lots of herbs which is very useful. The slow cooker also remains useful, Patrick made awesome pulled pork. It’s really nice producing a lot of food that can easily be turned into lunches or dinners when we need them during the week. It’s also nice for the budget.

Speaking of food, we’ve agreed to wait on canning this year since we want to move and things are busy. I will probably miss that the way I missed clothes I made myself, but it’s probably a good idea. And I’ll get to can lots of things next year. And I have plenty of things to keep me busy right now anyway…

On we go

July 6, 2016 / Louise

So my projects are making progress in various ways. I’ve made progress on my knitting, the garden (luckily!) is making progress with little intervention and I’ve gotten to try some new cooking adventures out too.

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Ta Da! Actual knitting progress! Knitting (while not very fast) has been very useful with my new sleep schedule. It’s a lot harder to space out and start to fall asleep if your hands are busy. And since I’m into the cable pattern now, it’s really obvious if I’m not focused enough! I want to start my Beatnik sweater too, but I think I’m going to stick to finishing my hat first. For one, this gives me the chance to get used to knitting again after a few months off; and for another I want my hat back! I don’t really need a fuzzy hat in July, but if I don’t stick with it, I won’t have one when it starts to get cold again so there are good reasons for sticking with it. Speaking of hats, maybe I should make a hat as a Christmas present for my brother-in-law this year. He likes to critique the hat I made him a few years ago…which in my defense was an early knitting project…giving him a newer fancier one would require him to up his game in terms of critiques, which would be fun. We’ll see though since I don’t think I’ll be doing any projects quickly this year. If not this year, maybe next year.

Things are actually looking pretty good in the garden. There’s plenty of lettuce and radishes out there and there’s a bunch of beans that should get picked. Also, the mystery squash hasn’t been killed off yet by squash vine borers! It even looks like we’re going to get tomatoes this year and the peppers have recovered pretty well from the insanely cold/wet May we had. I haven’t checked the cucumbers recently, but they were alive and trying to make cucumbers last time I looked, so I consider that doing well. The potatoes look a little sad, but that’s because they’d like to be watered more, and well, there’s a lot to do right now. Still, all things considered I think it’s doing petty well. And since the goal was “whatever we get, if anything, is awesome” I consider things a success so far!

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The new cooking adventure is our shiny new crock pot. Our old crock pot which was an older one from family no longer maintains high enough temperatures (which is a problem!) so it was time to get a new one. After a lot of research we picked this one since it’s bigger (6 qts!) it’s oval (yay meat cooking!) and it’s programmable (not burning the house down!). As for why we’re interested, the hope is that with the crock pot we can prepare a meal early in the day when we have a little more time and then there’s no rushing around in the evening when we’re tired and trying to get things done so we can get as much sleep as possible. The other idea is making a nice big meal that produces lots of useful leftovers and doesn’t generate a lot of dirty dishes to deal with. And since the lid and stoneware insert go in the dishwasher… there are some definite benefits.

So last night was it’s maiden voyage/cooking attempt. I think it did well, everything fit in there, it cooked it well, the timer worked, it was easy to clean, etc. Our first attempt was a nice simple pot roast (I was tempted to do the fancy recipe, but since this was our first try with this crock pot and since things are busy I went with the straightforward one). I think next week I’ll try the beef and dumplings recipe I have.

So, all in all, that’s a nice bit of progress on my projects I think!

Welcome to Autumn

September 25, 2015 / Louise

We may actually get a rainy day today! Well, so far it’s pretty dry, just a few sprinkles, but the weather has promised us rain… I made sure to water the garden this morning to encourage it! It’s been about two months since we’ve had any real rain, so it would be really nice if it managed it. I’ve got a bunch of fall veggies in the garden now (broccoli, cabbage, kale, turnips) and they would enjoy some more rain. It’s funny, you’d think the harvesting part of gardening would be the easy fun part, but it can also be a challenge. I’ve picked the peppers, eggplants and zucchini, but it’s tough. Sadly that’s it for this year’s zucchini, it will be replaced by lettuce and carrots. Overall though gardening has gone pretty well this year. Next year I’m going to actually manage some squash though!

We got plums and apples from my father-in-law’s trees when we went up to visit him, so there is now lots of applesauce (15 quarts) and lots of plum jam (9 half-pints). I’m really happy to have some more fruit stored for this winter! It also makes me really look forward to when we have fruit trees of our own since the fruit we brought back was only a tiny part of what the trees were producing. Someday! (I have plans for two apple trees, a pear tree, a peach tree and a cherry tree, maybe plums or figs if I get ambitious).

We also canned a whole bunch of pickled hot peppers (10 pints of jalapenos and wax peppers) too. It’s awesome to go down and see our awesome stockpile in the basement. It really brings home how effective the garden can be. We’ve got a lot of food in the basement now, and if we’re smart in planning our meals it will have a pretty awesome influence on the grocery budget. I could do a lot of math to try and figure out my exact return on investment, but for me, my gardening spending comes out of money I’ve allocated for personal stuff/hobbies, so the vegetables are effectively ‘free’.

For those who wonder what the actual cost would be and whether gardening is secretly super expensive it’s about $5 for a ‘market pack’of 6 plants at the local nursery or about $5 annually to grow about 10 plants from seed (assuming you have the equipment, buy nice pre-made potting soil and buy nice seeds). At that point (assuming your garden is made up) just put the plants in the ground and you’re set. There are some start up costs for gardening, but you can get good results with pretty minimal annual costs. Of course there is a steep learning curve like sewing. And making mistakes means losing plants and starting over or trying something else, but this year I feel like I’m finally starting to get it. Also even in a bad year, your plants generally still produce a little (even my poor squash…*sigh*) and that return is enough to offset the minimal annual costs. And when you win? You have at minimum a year’s supply of that food, which is amazing and awesome.

Of course you’re paying for that with time, but at least for me gardening is something I enjoy, so it’s worthwhile. Like sewing and knitting!

Speaking of which, I have sewing and knitting projects to work on too. Since the season has definitely started to change I’m sewing some new clothes for work (some shirts for me and Patrick and a new skirt too) and I made some fall decorations for fun. I’m also knitting a new winter sweater. Having unpacked my fall/winter clothes, I’ve been doing really well and knitting sweaters and cardigans. It’s nice to know this winter will be warm!

Weather Surprises

April 24, 2015 / Louise

So last week it felt like summer and this week it feels like winter again. Well, it’s a lot warmer than that, but after last week it feels cold. I got out my summer dresses (and even got to wear my new Anna Dress that I finished this spring!) and now we’re back to night temperatures in the upper 30s. The worst part is I need to bring in all my seedlings every night. Since there are six trays of them plus the three big ones in pots, this is an adventure. The forecasters are saying this will continue through next week too, so there’s no chance I’m going to get to plant anything early. I’ll just have to look at pictures of the garden from last summer to console myself…

If I’m lucky though things will warm up next weekend and I’ll be able to plant almost everything the first weekend in May (not this weekend, but next weekend). I think the tomatoes, marigolds, impatiens, zinnias, ground cherry and probably the peppers will go out next weekend. The eggplants and the basil are going to have to wait until the week after. I can still plant a lot of the seeds though, I’m looking forward to planting the beans, squash, corn and cucumbers! They’ve got nice big seeds so they’re easy to plant generally.

Having all the plants being almost ready to go out makes things feel half finished to me, and I have a hard time leaving things as only ‘almost’ finished. Therefore it’s really tempting to just stick them all in the ground! Maybe I’ll cheat a little and plant the marigolds and impatiens this weekend since based on the forecast they’re going to stay out overnight ever night for the next week (starting Saturday night) anyway. I think I’m going to start hardening off the basil and eggplants this weekend too. They can’t get planted until the second weekend in May in all likelihood, but at least getting them out of the basement during the day will really cut down on the gnats! (I will never ever be getting the Miracle Grow seed starting soil again, ever!)

At least since it’s cold it should be easier to focus on sewing and knitting, so I have plenty of indoor distractions. I’m almost done with my cropped cardigan, and I’ve just stared my “Summer Flies” shawl. And I have my spring sailboat PJs all cut out and ready to sew together (I even have buttons and remembered to cut out the interfacing! I’m extra prepared this time!)

Knitting Projects for Spring

March 29, 2015 / Louise

I’ve actually finished a few knitting projects lately. The first is my shawl. I’ve been working on it for a little less than a year. It’s the first lace weight project I’ve ever attempted and it’s surprisingly comfortable. It weighs almost nothing, but wearing it gives a nice comfortable warm feeling. So even though it may have been an epic experience finishing it, I’m pretty pleased with it.

I’ve also finished one of my basic sweaters. The first one was in “Bluebird” and it turned out great, and makes for a fun comfortable sweater. I’m adjusting some of the measurements a little for the second version (in “Grass”) and making the sleeves a little longer but I’m overall very happy with it. It was an interesting project since the pattern is based entirely on your own measurements and preferences. I think my gauge was a little off since I used a bulky yarn instead of an aran. (I did swatch, but based on how it turned out, I think it was still not exactly right.) But it’s still a comfortable sweater so I don’t really mind. And anyway, having sleeves that are slightly short is useful when washing dishes or on bread baking days!

Another recent knitting improvement has been a gift from Patrick. The basket is just big enough to hold my yarn, measuring tape and current project. It also keeps my ball of yarn from rolling away when I’m knitting. This is a bigger issue than you’d think given that I have two cats! It also keeps my projects neat and organized and keeps them from picking up too much cat related fuzz. If I set them down somewhere I often come back to find them claimed by one or more cats. The sweaters actually took less yarn than I thought so I’m going to use the extra skeins to make a blue and green striped sweater.

Next up will be a teal cardigan that ends at my natural waist that I can wear with my dresses this spring, and a fun purple shawl for summer. I’ve also got some sewing to do too. I’ve made two new pairs of PJs for Patrick, since while seersucker is comfortable it wears faster than some other fabrics. One of them had some polyester in it so we’ll see if that makes it more durable. I have fabric to make myself some new PJs too. I picked colors I thought would be good for spring and fall, one is blue with white flowers and the other is navy with red and white sailboats. I’m going to be using my favorite combination of Sewaholic’s Tofinos and Kwik Sew 3553. I think I’ll do long pants and short sleeves to make them transitional. I also got some plaid seersucker to make a second pair of summer PJs.

Loki for one has been enjoying all the craft time lately since it means that the papasan chair belongs to him!

The Trials of Knitting

February 21, 2015 / Louise

The hard part about knitting is that you need to be patient. In some ways this is a great learning tool for life in general. After all, you can certainly impulse buy yarn, but even if you do, you aren’t going to get a beautiful hand knit shawl or hat out of it today. Part of the challenge and awesomeness of knitting is that you have to wait, watching your project grow each time you work on it.

Some projects take no time at all. This fall I knit myself a hat using Tin Can Knit’s Apple Pie pattern. I cast on September 26 and five days later I had a warm fuzzy hat with a double brim. For knitting that is practically instant gratification! It’s a smaller size (only needed 1 skein of Malabrigo worsted weight) and the yarn is a heavier weight, also it was a fun but the pattern had a pretty straightforward repeat that was easy to memorize.

By comparison, some projects take a lot of patience. A good example of this is the movie night blanket. I started this in December, and estimated that it would take about 18 balls of yarn to get the size I wanted. The plan was that it would be an enjoyable knit since the pattern was interesting enough to be fun, but not so complicated that I couldn’t focus on other things like watching a movie or reading. The other plan was that since it was winter, if I was knitting a blanket I could use it and work on it at the same time! Given how cold it’s been lately this has turned out awesome. Even the cats think so!

The hard part though is the further I got, the more I wanted my blanket to be done. There was definitely some strong motivation when I got down to the last couple of balls of yarn! I think this is a good part of knitting though, if I wanted my blanket I needed to knit my blanket, there wasn’t anyway I was going to get it sooner. I think of it as the anti-impulse-buy. And it’s a good thing to have something like that around, it’s easy to get into the way of thinking that stuff is easy to get. E-books are instant gratification (and a major challenge for some of us who really love books…at least they don’t take up any space?), Amazon is happy to ship things in only 2 days or even the same day in some cases…. With shopping sometimes the impulse is that if you set up the order or go buy the thing you’ve got everything all sorted out and taken care of. At least that’s how it feels to me, but then when it arrives or you get back home and you actually need to use it/store it/make something with it, it’s back to the real world. There aren’t magic solutions, and knitting is a great, and fun, reminder of that. If you want something awesome you need to build up the skill, the careful plans and do the work and fix mistakes and so on. Gardening is similar, the seed catalog may promise that their seeds will provide immense numbers of tomatoes with heavenly flavors, but first you need to grow them!

I don’t want this to come off as sounding like making things is a great burden and too tough, instead I’m saying the making part of the process is part of the joy. Yes, my blanket was two and a half months of furious knitting in order to reach completion, but part of the reason I was knitting so quickly was because I was excited about my blanket and enjoying what I was doing. And now that it’s done it’s twice as awesome because I was able to make it exactly the way I wanted it. And now that it’s here there’s awesomeness to be had in hanging out on the coach in a big pile of people and cats and watching terrible monster movies. Making things, it’s a worthwhile and excellent thing! And I think, part of what makes life happy.

Next Up Knitting Plans!

January 8, 2015 / Louise

So, once the goals have been established, the next step is planning! January is the start of the new year, and therefore for me it’s also been the start of all my new plans. Given that I try to split my time between work and a bunch of different hobbies and projects having an outline of things I want to make helps with organizing everything.

Summer Shawl – Lamira in a variegated green in Knit Picks Shadow is still going! I think I’m about two thirds done so far, so hopefully it will be done by this summer. This will be a light airy shawl. So far it’s been fun to knit, but it’s the sort of project you need to focus on.

Movie Night Blanket – Abrigado in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky in Silver. I really want to have a big, warm, fuzzy afghan for the sofa and I think this one will do it. It looks nice on both sides and I will do an extra pattern repeat and make it longer to get the size I want. I’m going with Wool of the Andes because it will wear well, and I’m doing regular wool since I don’t think Superwash is actually all that much easier to deal with.

Everyday Sweaters – My Favorite Sweater in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky. I’m doing two of these since I think they’ll be nice warm everyday sweaters and they should knit up quickly. I’m going to do one in Bluebird and one in Grass, which will be nice happy bright colors for winter. The pattern is customized based on your measurements so I’m hoping to get sweaters with a good fit. I’m also hoping that since it will be knit in a bulky yarn that it will go quickly!

Winter Sweater – Feather Nest Raglan in Cascade 220 in Silver. This one is a nice silver grey. The pattern looks easy to follow and will make it a little fancier than the other two. I think the more detailed pattern will fit will with the light blue color. Also, it looks similar to the pattern on the blanket I’m knitting so hopefully experience will make it go faster.

Lace Shawl – Nadira in Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in Midnight. It will be a pretty almost black navy color with a lot of drape. I think it will also be really soft and warm. I haven’t knit with alpaca before so this will be an interesting learning curve. I’m hoping it goes well, and since it’s a lace weight shawl I hope it won’t mater that the yarn is not as robust.

Spring Shawl – Summer Flies in a deep purple in Wool of the Andes. This is a “for fun” shawl to wear with my sun dresses in spring. The last time I knit a smaller shawl it ended up being too small (I’m not sure how to wear it). But Summer Flies looks like a happy medium in that it should be small enough for warmer weather and faster to knit, but it’s big enough to look like a shawl.

Aran Sweater – Telluride in Wool of the Andes in Spruce. This is a deep green with a little blue in it (it’s a Christmas Tree green). I think the pattern looks like fun. There will be seaming which I’m not happy about, but I like the pattern, and it’s one I already own, so I’d like to give it a shot.

Holiday Shawl – Edwina Shawl in Knit Picks Gloss Lace in Port. This is a jewel tone red and a pretty lacy shawl that I think would be fun to wear around the holidays. The Gloss Lace has a nice shine to it that fits well. I really like the pattern on this shawl and I think it would look beautiful (and be warm!) to wear it in winter when it’s cold and dark.

Dresses Cardigan – Miette Cardigan in Wool of the Andes in Baltic Heather. The problem with normal length cardigans is they tend to look odd when worn with my dresses that sit at my natural waist, so I want to make a more cropped cardigan to wear with my sun dresses in spring and fall. It’s also a good way to use up yarn! I discovered last spring (when I wanted to wear my new dress to see the cherry blossoms) that I don’t have any cardigans short enough to look right on a dress that sits at my natural waist. This will also be a good way to use yarn that I don’t have quite enough of to finish a larger cardigan.

Holiday Cardigan – This would be the Hopper Cardigan from New American Knits in Wool of the Andes in Garnet Heather. I want to make myself an awesome wool dress for Christmas 2015 in navy and pale blue. I think this cardigan (and/or the Edwina shawl!) would look great with that. I really love this color, and I haven’t used any of the patterns from New American Knits yet, so this will be a great way to fix that.

Favorite Color Shawl – This will be a shawl using the Road to China – Silken Jewels Light in Topaz Kristen gave me for Christmas. The yarn is beautiful and really soft, so I’m not brave enough to make a sweater out of it. I think a shawl will be beautiful and not subjected to as much wear and tear as a sweater. Currently I’m thinking this will be the Margarethe Lace Shawl, though I haven’t decided for sure.

Category: Knitting (Page 2 of 2)

Heatwave Knitting

On we go

Welcome to Autumn

Weather Surprises

Knitting Projects for Spring

The Trials of Knitting

Next Up Knitting Plans!

About Me

My Garden!

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