FO: Apple Press Slippers

I am very late to the party, but I made some French Press Slippers finally. I think I'm number 4498. Better late than never?



Pattern: French Press Felted Slippers by Melynda Bernardi

Yarn: Cascade 220 Wool



Notes:
This required a surprising amount of concentration! That's not a bad thing, just not what I thought would happen. To begin with, the directions use a space-saving style that makes you think: "knit the first piece as such. Now do the opposite for the second piece." I'm a big girl and should be able to handle a little thinking during the knitting process, but I'll admit getting lost a few times while working on this project at my knitting group. Apparently I can't think and talk at the same time.

Also, the thing is knit in a million tiny pieces. Okay, four pieces per slipper. There are knitters on ravelry who have modified these slippers to be seamless or at least have fewer seams, and I might go that route next time. French Press Knits has some good video tutorials on youtube which I found very helpful while seaming them up.



These slippers were my trial project for felting in my washing machine. They worked pretty well, considering I have a front-load machine. It is clear that my machine isn't one of those famously gentle front-load washers, since the felting process only took about 1.5 cycles. Excellent. The only thing is, they didn't felt as evenly as I would like - there are some bulbous bits that didn't shape properly, and there is some stitch definition still present. That's not such a problem, but given that I used a yarn famous for felting, I was expecting them to felt more. I suspect that felting it for longer would have solved this issue, but I would have risked too-small slippers, so I took them out when they fit me.

They fit perfectly and they are very comfortable, despite bulbous areas. Maybe next time I'll do some hand-felting to even them out, but these are good enough for me now.

More Friday FOs at Tami's Amis

Oh, I wear my knits. Sometimes all at once.

There's a little challenge going on at Fridica: post photos of handknits that weren't taken purposefully to show off knitting. It happens that I have just the thing!

Here's a photo my dude took of me in his family's back garden over the holidays in December as I was taking pictures of the snow, probably before heading off on an adventure. It wasn't cold enough to wear a winter coat, but somehow I ended up entirely shrouded in handknits.



I'm wearing my Vivian hoodie, Ishbel shawlette, and Endpaper mitts. Whew. I expect I was quite warm...

FO: Idlewood

Say hello to my first FO of 2011.

Pattern: Idlewood by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

Yarn: Texere yarns Troon Tweed in the Donkey Tweed colourway



Mods: I went down to 5.5 mm needle and used a 6.0 mm needle for the cowl. I made the 36 3/4 in size at a smaller gauge, hoping to end up with about 34 in. It seems to have worked - the finished sweater has some negative ease, but not so much that the loose gauge stretches out.

I added extra rounds of garter stitch on the sleeves and bottom edge since the garter stitch edge of the cowl was rolling like crazy. In the end, I like how the cowl rolls, so that part isn't an issue, but I'm glad the sleeves and bottom edge don't.

I made the pockets as swatches, but in the end decided to leave them off the sweater. I couldn't get them to look right, and although they look adorable on some people, I didn't think they were working for me.



Notes:
According to my Ravelry notes, this took me exactly 2 months. Since I spent much of that time knitting gifts, this actually felt like a much quicker knit. One of my quickest sweaters, really, despite the fact that the cowl itself almost counts as another body of a sweater. No sleeves, but it does have two bodies.



The photo above shows the colour a little better: it is brown-gray, not just gray. (Next time I will choose a more contrasting backdrop and not get photos in front of something the same colour.)

I had a hard time figuring out the increases - the videos and photo-tutorials out there for k1 b/r or equivalent mostly just confused me more. Maybe I was being especially dense. In the end, I THINK I did them right with a little coaching over the phone from a knitting expert; anyway, they look fine, so whatever I did worked.


I can use it as a hood, but I probably won't.

Idlewood is really warm and comfortable. I know I will wear this a lot. I was a little worried that the yarn would be too scratchy - it is hearty and sheepy and not particularly soft. However, it doesn't irritate my neck at all. (Maybe I'm tough? Heh). I am convinced this yarn will be durable as well, despite loose gauge, which is awesome. No pilling please! It does shed woolly hairs a bit, but I don't really mind.


Told you it eats my head!

WIP: Idlewood

My Idlewood is coming along. Halfway through the waist-shaping I put half the stitches on another needle and tried it on.

and proceeded to take some dirty mirror shots.





And an unflattering flashy flashy one for good measure.



I'm pleased that it fits so far, although the cowl neck is pretty overwhelming. Once it is finished and blocked I'll experiment with ways of folding the cowl so that it doesn't eat my head!

More WIPs at Tami's blog

bikers, baking, sundry

I just wrote a long rant about my inability to find/get a job, but it turned out super whiny, so instead I'll just say I am at the whiny stage of my January job search. Now have some pictures of baking.

Look, I made rolls:



My dude prefers rolls to regular bread for some reason I can't understand, so I've been trying out recipes and techniques. I'm no longer afraid of baking with yeast, although it's still very mysterious to me. I'm learning a lot.

For this batch I used this basic rolls recipe by the Hairy Bikers - we don't have a tv and I've never been a devotee of food television, but I must say it sounds like an excellent premise for a cooking show. Chefs who are bikers and also hairy? Woot.

Anyway, I've made these before and didn't get any photos, but this time I ran out of white flour so I used mostly whole wheat.



As a result, these turned out really dense. I happen to like really hearty bread, but I wouldn't recommend doing what I did if you only like soft, fluffy bread. To be honest, I'm not sure they were worth the effort: kneading for 25 minutes? Man. I guess it is good to get an arm workout any way I can.

FOs for the men: Part 2

More manly socks. You'd be forgiven for thinking I've posted the same boring gray socks twice in a row. In fact, these are a different pattern and yarn from the last - I couldn't face making two identical pairs of boring socks! Hehe. (Boring in a nice way, of course).



Pattern: Globe Trotter Socks by Jodie St. Clair

Yarn: Regia Solid 4-ply

Notes:
I enjoyed knitting the seed-stitch rib pattern. The fact that there are two rows to the pattern, rather than the same thing every row, added some interest.



I made the 70-stitch size. Just a note if you're thinking of making this size: I don’t think you can do a slip-stitch heel on an odd number of stitches, but the pattern specifies 35 stitches for the flap. (Or can you? Am I being dumb?) Anyway, it wasn't working for me - constantly slipping an already-slipped stitch at the beginning of the row wouldn't have worked out for long. After doing a few rows and getting a bit confused, I decreased to 34 stitches for the heel flap and it worked fine.

These were the last gift I made for Christmas, and I almost didn't make them. But my fiancé kept saying "Oooh, I like socks!" while watching me knit the socks for my dad, so I thought he'd appreciate them. It's difficult to knit a secret project when spending most hours of the day with the recipient, however; when he got off work for the holidays I had to be creative about hiding away and knitting for a few minutes at a time... I finally finished the socks on Dec 23rd - not bad timing, if I do say so myself.


we don't actually have a dramatic sloping floor in the flat

Sadly, they are a bit short. He doesn't seem to mind, but next time I'll make the foot longer. I offered to unravel the toes and add a little more length, but he got all protective and said I couldn't take them away! A good sign?

See more Friday FOs at Tami's Amis

FOs for the men: part 1

Next gift on the list: socks for my dad.


(pictured on my dad's feet)

 Pattern: Mr. Pitt's Socks by Kaitlyn Wong

Yarn: Schoeller+Stahl Fortissima Socka Mit Bambou, light gray overdyed with various combinations of Wiltons icing dyes.

Mods: I cast on 72 stitches instead of 80, since 80 seemed huge and my dad's feet are not wide. It seems to be the right width. I did these two at a time - if I hadn't, I would have gone mad with boredom. This is not the most thrilling pattern - k3, p1 all the way through - but it serves its purpose for plain socks.



The photos I took before sending them show the colour a little better, but not much: just imagine it is a very subtle semi-solid purplish gray.



From what I can tell, the reaction was positive... but I won't promise anymore manly socks to my family again right away! I'm sick of ribbing. (Ask me again in November and I might have a different answer).

Gift FO revealed: socks for mom

The first pair of socks I ever knit was for my mom, and pretty much ever since I've been thinking of making her another pair. The first ones were not superwash, and you can guess the outcome of that misguided yarn choice. (Though even slightly felted they were still wearable, my mom claims.)

I hope this second pair fares better.



Pattern: Bavarian Rockstar by Diana Gates

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label in the "mallard" colourway



Mods: I knit these two-at-a-time, using Judy's Magic Cast-on for the toes, rather than doing a short-row toe as written. I also manipulated the charts a little - this might have been a bad idea. I thought it would be easier to do them two-at-a-time if the front halves and back halves were exactly the same, so I set out to knit it like that. Then I realized that this would put cables right next to each other in a silly way, so I fudged it to have enough ribbing/purls between those cables... And ultimately made things more difficult for myself. It all worked out in the end.



I'm pleased with these to a certain extent, but I think the little braided cables get lost in the yarn. In addition, I think I should have done the main cable pattern in twisted stitches because my knit stitches look a bit exploded. Small quibbles - they're good enough really. This was my first time using TFA yarn, and I loved the experience, so next time I'm in Canada I'll try to find some more.

The above photos show the socks on my feet, but the photo shows the recipient's feet.

2010: a year in knitting

Happy New Year, blogosphere! In 2010 I knit my first two lace shawls, more socks than I ever had before, and a surprising lack of sweaters.

Here is a mosaical round-up, not including the Christmas gifts. Excuse the tacky font - I'm still on holiday without photoshop or anything, so I'm playing with photobucket's silly editing tools.



Left to right and top to bottom:
1. Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
2. My So-called Scarf by Allison Isaacs
3. Norwegian Snail Mittens by Adrian Bizilia
4. Flora by Margaux Hufnagel
5. Sugar Maple socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes
6. Skew by Lana Holden
7. Lavalette by Kirsten Kapur
8. Top-down Shoulder Warmer by Laura Chau
9. Delicious Knee Socks by Laura Chau
10. Herbivore by Stephen West
11. Selbu Modern by Kate Gagnon Osborn

Plus, three pairs of socks and one pair of mittens that I'll blog about soon!

I don't really make resolutions for new year's anymore, since I figure I might as well make changes as they are necessary, whatever month it is. That said, I do have some knitting plans and goals for this year. First: knit a few sweaters, since I didn't knit any, other than a shrug, in 2010. I also want to act on some of the design ideas floating in my head, and maybe learn some more techniques. We'll see!

Adventures

Just checking in quickly with a few photos. Thanks for all the lovely comments about my selbu modern. I have been wearing it a lot the last little while, while away having adventures. We headed south to train delays and more snow.



Snow on palm trees in "sunny Exeter" make me giggle, although I shouldn't laugh since snow in these parts causes chaos.

Then on to London!



This was the first time I'd seen a West End show, and it was very exciting. Les Mis is such an established production, but seeing it for the first time was pretty cool.

Back soon with more knitting! Happy holidays, everyone!

FO: Selbu Modern

Pattern: Selbu Modern by Kate Gagnon Osbourne

Yarn:
The yarn I used was some old, discontinued fingering weight that claims to be Schaffhouser Wolle Mona - but yarn by that name in the ravelry database is clearly different yarn. I found it in Lewiscraft while they were going out of business, and excited about the cheapness bought skeins of light pink, magenta/fuschia, and green. I dyed some of the obnoxious magenta with Wiltons Royal Blue icing dye, and it turned a lovely Western purple.



Notes:
I used 2.75 mm needles throughout, not bothering with smaller needles for the ribbing. This turned out bigger and slouchier than I thought it would; notes from many projects on ravelry suggested the hat usually runs small. However, I didn't swatch, so I only have myself to blame.

Knitting this took me ages. AGES. I started in September and only finished this week. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest is that I didn't work on it very often because I never printed out the pattern. Only working on the project while near the computer is, it turns out, a terrible idea for me because the internet is so distracting. Haha. Lesson learned. I'm also pretty slow at colourwork and it wears out my hands if I do too much at once. Case in point: when I got to the decreases and saw the end in sight, I worked furiously, and couldn't knit for days afterwards. Bad idea: will not push myself like this again.



I like the result, but I have mixed feelings about wearing it. The pattern is so beautiful, and I've admired it for a long time, but when I put it on I immediately felt ridiculous. My desire to knit the pattern quashed any inkling I might have had that hats of this style don't really suit me. The crease from blocking it on a plate makes it stick out in a weird way on my head, and I felt like this hat could be high maintenance. If I have to stand in front of a mirror and mess with it before leaving the house, it might not be worth wearing.



Then I got stubborn and decided to wear the hat anyway, even if I look stupid, and after wearing it for a few days I feel much better about it. Still, I might steer clear of slouchy hats for a while.

Check out more Friday FOs at Tami's Amis!

so much butter

I have fond memories of baking an array of tasty treats with my mom in December, but mince pies weren't part of my holiday fare. Since meeting my dude, for whom mince pies are an integral part of Christmas, we've made pies together a few times, though we seem to use a different recipe each time. It's extra fun because this is one of the only things he gets excited about baking.

We made our mince pies using this recipe for pastry, and sort of this recipe for mincemeat, which we made a few weeks ago and kept in the fridge. (I say sort of because we used some different proportions of dried fruits, used butter instead of suet, and generally disregarded the recipe - as I generally do. But we were inspired by this recipe. It worked.)



They are tasty, but this is easily the most butter I've ever used in one time. Ever. Holy crap. We had to interrupt our baking to pop to the grocery store to get more butter because we didn't have enough. I am unapologetic about substituting things for butter in most recipes, but for shortcrust pastry like this vegetable oil probably wouldn't fly.

We halved the mincemeat recipe, but still had enough for double the pastry recipe, and ended up with 24 pies.



Mmmm pie.

some sort of wagon

Pinterest, the website that lets one create virtual bulletin boards, has been sweeping the knitting/crafting/blogging/shopping/internet world lately. Guess what? I have pinboards, too. It's pretty fun, though it brings out my covetous side. Haha. If you like, you can check out my boards here.

Wanted: a replacement cardigan

I looked in my sweater drawer and realized with shock that I no longer possess any pullovers. How strange. I left a few behind when I moved, and I haven't missed them until now. Maybe it isn't that strange; I am a big fan of cardigans, and I find them much more versatile than pullovers. (Though I still plan to make more pullovers in future!)



The issue at hand today is my standard go-to cardigan, Basic Black by Glenna C.

I finished this in July 2009. It was my most standard, useful cardigan, and I've worn it a lot. Surprisingly, the yarn hasn't pilled at all. Alas, I have to relegate this cardigan to the bottom of the drawer. The neckline is sagging terribly and falls off my shoulders, and it's generally shapeless and unflattering. It is no longer suitable for wear outside the house. Too bad! To be honest, it never fit as well as it should have: the waist-shaping was a bit wonky, the seams were badly executed in spots, and the sleeves were an awkward length - too long to be 3/4 sleeves, but too short to be long sleeves. But it was super useful and warm and wonderful, so I want to replace it with something equally versatile and simple.



Since I love cardigans, I have many in my queue already, but I have specific criteria for this cardigan.

1. Worsted or Aran weight yarn
2. Buttons all the way down, or modifiable to do so
3. Fitted, with waist shaping, or at least easy enough to add waist shaping
4. Simple, not too many cables or lace or whatever, but not TOO boring.
5. Full-length, not cropped
6. Readily available, i.e. online

Here's the shortlist:

1. Amelia by Laura Chau
2. Garter Yoke Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre
3. Monday Morning Cardigan by Laura Chau
4. Emerald Isle Cardigan by Melissa Wehrle

I'm leaning towards Amelia, because I love twisted stitches, and many people have modified it to button all the way down with great success.

What do you think? Any suggestions?

Sock Rank

I never thought I'd become a sock knitter, but here I am: proud owner of several pairs of handknit wool socks with many more queued up for eventual knitting. Although I come from a cold place where wool socks are useful, I've found that I'm wearing my wool socks more frequently since moving to Edinburgh. This is partly because I get to pay for my heating now and the flat, though modern, isn't very well-insulated; but probably more significantly, I have more handknit socks now than before, so of course I wear them more often. 2010 was the year of sock knitting for me - I knit 3 pairs for myself, bringing my handknit sock collection up to 4 pairs. That doesn't sound like much, but technically it's a 300% increase. (Is it? I'm math-dumb.)

Here is the round-up.


(made with the BigHugeLabs mosaic maker)

Clockwise from top left: Delicious knee socks, Skew, Jaywalkers, and Sugar Maple

Skew are a bit too tight and the yarn is turning to fuzz and fading fast: I dyed some cheap-as-hell sock yarn with Easter Egg dyes, so I only have myself to blame.

The jaywalkers and the knee socks are both fine, and I like them, but as it turns out, the Sugar Maple socks are my favourites. From 2-at-a-time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes, these are the most comfortable and I want to wear them all the time. I'm surprised that I like them so much, given that I didn't particularly like the yarn while knitting, and I'm not a fan of the dye-job. I said I wouldn't use this yarn again. But they are so soft, and yet they are holding up pretty well despite frequent washings/wearings. I like when knits defy my expectations.

Do you have favourite socks?

blue paper packages tied up with ribbon

Look what came in the post today!





And inside....



I wanted to snag an Elijah kit from Ysolda's holiday store, but they were all gone by the time I got my credit card out, so I bought the project bag instead. Augh the cute. I'll make Elijah one day, but for now I'll have the bag to carry around with me. :)

Made it!

It's the end of November, and I can stop pretending. Blogging every day was interesting, and I managed better than last year. Despite managing to post every day, I'm not convinced I pulled off QUALITY posting every day. There's just not that much to show for my life these days! I feel much better about blogging when I have something to say or show. Next year maybe I'll try to knit a sweater in the month of November instead.

Here. Have a badly lit picture of some delicious cookies.



Mmmm. I might take a few days to recuperate and not think "what the heck can I blog about today?" constantly. Ahhh.

Snowed in? Not.

Perhaps if I had a long commute or had to rely on a car I would have been snowed in today. (Or perhaps if I wasn't used to navigating snow and slush, things that are ubiquitous in Canadian winters). So, I trudged along getting things done today, despite the fact that most of the things I intended to do today had been cancelled because of the snow. I probaby wasn't the only one who perhaps naively thought that the snow would keep people away from the shops, though: John Lewis was as busy as ever.

This weather reminds me of London (Ontario) during the first semester of my MLIS. In London, the sidewalk plowing was woefully inadequate for the amount of snow that fell constantly, and because it wasn't too cold, it all turned to slush rather quickly. There's plenty of slush here now, and I saw a crew of four or five men in fluorescent yellow valiantly shoveling a path along the pavement by hand in an effort to keep up. No little sidewalk snowplows here, I imagine. Poor guys!

If I'd been snowed in, I would have done more knitting, of course. These are on my needles at the moment.


Despite appearances, selbu modern has progressed since my previous WIP picture.


Idlewood has noticeably more progress, although I still have 5" to go before I finish the cowl. It feels like I'm knitting a sweater body, since it's so massive! I'm really looking forward to finishing this. Eventually.

living in a Victorian Christmas card?

As predicted, we got dumped on again last night, and the snow is approaching Canadian proportions. Ah, makes me nostalgic. Despite all the white, it wasn't too cold out. A jaunt up Calton Hill was in order, and snowballs were thrown.


Arthur's Seat really looks like a proper mountain in this weather!




These views make me feel like I'm in a Christmas card.

I didn't build this guy, but it is by far the best snow person I've ever seen. An unfortunate waste of fruit and vegetables though.

told you it snowed

The snow survived the night, and we're set to get more tonight. Even though I come from the land of ice and snow, I still find the first snowfall exciting. The presence of snow makes everything seem so much brighter, even when the sun sets before 4.


A dusting on the giraffes


A snow-capped mountain in the middle of Edinburgh



Bring on winter!