the good stitch

Supplies:

Shopping bag
Recently finished knitted hats
Glass vase
Balloon
Digital camera
Fresh batteries
Keys
Pooper scooper
Plain brown paper lunch sack
Dog
Leash
Tennies
Ponytail holder

Instructions:

Open shopping bag. Place all supplies, up through keys, in shopping bag. Place pooper scooper in plain brown lunch sack. Place leash on dog. Place tennies on feet. Place ponytail holder on ponytail.

Depart. Generally, this is best accomplished on a bright, sunshiny day. Progress towards the park, stopping often to sniff random objects low to the ground. Watch carefully for cars when crossing streets. Pass through the park and proceed to the gazebo at the end of the track.

At the gazebo, tie the dog’s leash to the railing, preferably at the far end of the gazebo from where you’ll be shooting. Blow up the balloon to roughly the size of a human head. Place the first hat on the balloon, and balance the balloon on the opening of the glass vase.

Place the glass vase on the wooden floor of the gazebo in the shade. (Note: If you attempt this process on a weekday evening after work, you may get everything packed and get all the way to the gazebo to find that the sun is low enough on the horizon to ensure that there is no longer any shade in the gazebo. Sucks to be you.)

Use the digital camera to photograph your hat in both standard and macro mode. Watch the edges of the viewfinder to make sure that no sunny spots get in the shot to interfere with the exposure. Repeat with all hats. Swat dog repeatedly if he attempts to sniff, knock over, or otherwise disturb the hat.

Repack all supplies in the shopping bag. Untie the dog from the railing and proceed back down the track and through the park. If your dog is as old and rickety as mine, this will take a considerable amount of time. Just pace yourself.

Both hats are from Knitting for Peace, which was a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law. The top is the ChemoCaps Eyelet Hat in lavender Classic Yarns Bamboo Soft 100% bamboo. The bottom is the Caps for Kids Swirled Ski Cap in red and white Debbie Bliss Stella silk/cotton/rayon.

• Tuesday, July 31
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My boss is super g33ky. He’s highly intelligent and technically proficient, and can just about run the Technical Services department by himself. Also, he knows everything there ever was to know about Star Wars. Super g33ky!

When I saw this binary hat pattern a couple of months ago, I knew it had to be his birthday present. The pattern is from Redshirt Knitting, the yarn is my favorite — Mission Falls 1824 Wool in gray (003) and green (016), and I knit it on size 8 circular needles while on a four-day weekend trip to my cousin’s wedding.

My boss totally geeked out when he found out that the stripes spelled out his name in binary code. I was really pleased with how it all came out, too. Next time, though I might skip the extra 1″ of solid stockinette suggested for the boy version. I think it woulda been just fine without it.

I love this hat, but the next project I have to show you is the coolest thing I’ve ever knit. Stay tuned!

• Sunday, June 24
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Last summer, everyone at work took on a nickname (except me, and I’m ok with that), and Rick’s was Ghetto Bunny. He even had a gang sign (the peace sign, with a hopping motion thrown in). So when Rick announced that his wife was pregnant with their second child, it was pretty clear what kind of baby gift I needed to knit.

A quick Google search turned up a pattern, I found some Blue Sky Organic Cotton, and the hat knitted up pretty quickly. I love the picot edge, which was a new skill for me, and getting the ears sewn on so that they stick up was a personal triumph.

• Wednesday, May 30
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You may recognize this charming fellow from Knitty. One of my friends in the engineering pit at work found a post about the nautiloid pattern on BoingBoing and IMed me, “I didn’t know people could knit COOL stuff!”

Wouldn’t you take that as a challenge?

I had the dark teal Classic Elite Yarns’ Bazic Wool in my stash and thought it would make a lovely shell for stuffed sea creature. Since it’s dark yarn and would be stuffed with white fiber-fill, I knit it super tightly on size 4 dpns. It was a bit tricky to start, but was a fun quick knit.

The face and tentacles are knit in sage green Mission Falls 1824 Wool, a super-soft, durable yarn which is currently my favorite. Its particular twist doesn’t make great i-cord, but other than that, it’s perfect.

The eyes are black two-hole buttons sewn on with white yarn. The stuffing just used up the never-ending sandwich-sized zip-lock back of fiberfill that Lee gave me ages ago (which also stuffed three small cats and a robot!).

I was so pleased with how the knitted pieces came out that I took extraordinary care with the finishing. The instructions didn’t really say how to sew the face onto the shell, and I knew that because there was a lot of contrast between my color choices, I had to be careful. I didn’t want sloppy finishing to ruin everything.

After some experimentation, I decided to use the dark teal yarn to do the sewing. It was counterintuitive, but provided the most invisible stitches. The pattern says to leave a few rows of the shell out so they create a rolled edge. I started from the inside of the shell, putting my needle behind a shell stitch and pulling the yarn through. Then, from the outside of the face piece, I put my needle behind a face stitch and pulled it through. I made sure that, on the face piece, my sewing was on the first row of knit stitches. That ensured that the cast-on edge was nicely hidden.

Nautie ended up being a really charming little fella, and I’m enormously proud of him. I gave him to my friend, Ali, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to make another nautiloid for myself.

• Wednesday, February 21
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You’ve seen this pattern before, but each time I knit it, I’m more happy with the results.

It’s the Tri-Color Stocking Cap from Hip to Knit. This one was for Randy’s birthday. I used the same yarns as I used on Alex’s hat, a burgundy 1824 Wool for the cuff and an antiqued brown Blue Sky Worsted Alpaca for the hat. I knit it one inch deeper than the pattern calls for, and the decreases are a little neater this time, too.

• Thursday, February 15
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This scarf was an excuse to do two things: first, to buy Plymouth’s super-luscious Baby Alpaca Grande that I’d been fondling in HCW for months, and second to learn how to knit Continental-style, picking my yarn instead of throwing it.

The first twelve inches were mind-numbingly slow and painful – I hated every minute of it. If the yarn weren’t so unbelievably gorgous, I might have given up. I felt like a five-year-old knitting with her elbows and big toes. My left hand was doing all the work – how could that end well?

But after that, it started to pick up. I started getting the hang of it, and the scarf went flying off the needles. I’m now on my third Continental project, and unless it’s just wishful thinking, it really does seem faster. Don’t get me wrong, with the holidays and moving and whatnot I’m certainly not cranking out the finished projects, but I’m hopeful. Life is calming down, and I’m hoping that knitting will get to occupy more of my time again.

I knit the scarf (Continentally!) on US size 10 straight needles, using two 110-yard skeins of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande, color 2566 (I think…I can’t find the ball band). The pattern is French Girl Knits’ Francois, which Lee used to knit Eric a gorgeous scarf for his birthday.

Unbenownst to each other, Jamy and I were both so inspired by Eric’s scarf that we bought the exact same yarn, in the exact same color, and knit the, well, exact same scarf. She gave hers as a gift, but I greedily kept mine for myself. (Thank you, Eric, for getting on to me about never knitting for myself!)

One more finished project to go!!!

• Sunday, January 7
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This, ladies and gentlemen, is Peaches the Robot. PtR for short. He’s a charming Jess Hutch toy knitted out of Laines Du Nord Cleo Egyptian cotton. He enjoys afternoons in the park and long Xbox sessions playing Viva Piñata.

I knitted Peaches in November. He was my first project using cotton, which I may never do again, as well as my first intarsia project. He’s far from perfect, but I learned a lot knitting him:

1. Knitting with cotton makes me swear. It’s unforgiving, especially this particular yarn. It’s basically twenty or so strands of cotton thread gently twisted together, making it super easy to split when knitting. Luckily, since he’s sewn together, making a true “wrong” side, I was able to correct a lot of those split stitches from behind.
2. Intarsia is easier than I thought. It definitely pays to have separate balls of yarn going, instead of carrying yarn across the back, even for the four-stitch “control panel.” Mine looks lumpy, because I carried the yarn across the back too tightly.
3. Depending on what row (knit-side or purl-side) you bind off, your bind-off angles to either the front or the back. I read the chart wrong, so all of my bind-offs angle to the front, instead of to the back, making my finishing look terrible. Peaches assures me that it’s ok, but the next robot I knit will look much better.

Two more finished projects to post before I’m real-time!

• Saturday, January 6
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I know, I know, I’m getting tired of Jayne hat chatter myself. Seriously! It’s so last year. But I couldn’t keep this picture from you – that would just be cruel. Apparently Ronan wears his Jayne hat a lot, sometimes with denim overalls and a red shirt. Could you be more cute? I don’t think so.

• Tuesday, January 2
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