Springtime IPA

As part of my birthday gift this year, my HLM gave me some really cute pint glasses to enjoy my homebrew.  The lighting might make it hard to see that they say "Special Brew" on them and have some hops and barley in the image.

Today I decided to try my latest brew in them, a seasonal IPA that the fine people at Mr Beer put out for the spring.  It's pretty hoppy (as one would expect from an IPA) and pretty heady and about a 6.5% abv, which is making me pretty happy on my day off work.  And it tastes even better in my birthday glass, while sitting out on the balcony with my feet up.

The New Weaving Project

I finally got my loom Miss Bennet warped for my new weaving project, and did some sampling yesterday to make sure it was going to work out all right.  All was well, so I did the hem (the blue stripe at the bottom) and then started the weaving proper today.

It's a set of dishtowels, three in total.  A nice deep royal blue for the warp, and the weft will be a different colour for each of the three.  This one might look fairly white in the photo, but it's actually a baby blue.

So far it's going pretty well - I have the beat figured out so it's turning out nice and square, and the pattern is showing up just as I'd hoped.  One repeat done, with six repeats per towel.  A good beginning, with a long and enjoyable weaving road ahead.

Lil' Punkin

When I recently saw a friend of mine, who is about to have a baby, my mind went where a knitter's mind invariably would: wee little baby knits!

Since she is due in a week or two, I didn't have time for something big like a blanket, so I settled for something adorable.  EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket is one of my standards, because it is so quick and simple to knit and ends up so darn cute.

I chose a semisolid black (technically Victorian Gothic) for this one because of the mom's style, and also her colouring (which one can assume will have an effect on the baby's colouring.)  I went with Madelinetosh Sport, rather than a fingering weight, because I wanted the jacket to be a bit bigger - unlikely a sweater will get a ton of wear over Edmonton's hot summers, so hopefully it will still fit the baby in the fall.  Unfortunately I ran out of the yarn with only two rows and the bindoff row left to go.  Sigh.  Thank goodness I had some Sweet Georgia DK in Charcoal left over, which was a very close match.  Finished and seamed it and topped it off with five very cute pumpkin buttons, to commemorate the parent's wedding, which took place in a pumpkin patch.

Maybe it looks a bit Hallowe'eney, but that's ok, too.

Unicorn Mermaid Socks

I think it must be springtime, because I have a hankering to start a million new projects, while established ones are languishing on the back burner.  I have new knitting, new weaving, and even new cross-stitchery (!) on the go, with plans for much much more, but never fear, even old projects are getting some time dedicated to them, including my ongoing stockingette sock series.

This is some beautiful Koigu KPPPM that I've had for about as long as I've been knitting (I'd say about three apartments ago.)  Another example of one so beautiful that I just couldn't imagine what would do it justice.  I bit the bullet and cast on the stockingette socks and once again was so enchanted by the perfect little stripes that appeared.  I do love knitting with Koigu, so these ones were a joy from start to finish.  And the colours... to dye for.

Striped Cotton Hat, Redux

Many years ago, I saw a hat pattern by British designer Kim Hargreaves, which was a little reverse-stockingette striped slouchy hat, in cotton yarn.  Even as a new knitter, I knew it wasn't worth buying the $30 pattern book for it, so I just went out and got some cotton yarn in natural and charcoal and faked it.

The hat turned out super cute, but the band (since it was also in reverse-stockingette) curled like crazy.  It made it really hard to wear, since it tended to want to curl up my forehead and disappear.  Despite loving the hat, I barely ever tried to wear it because it was kind of frustrating to try to make it work.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I saw the hat sitting in the closet, all cute and springtimey, and was sad (again) that I don't wear it much.  Then I had an insight - knit a lining for the hat band so it won't be able to curl anymore!  A couple of hours and a bit of knitting later, and my hat band has a lining and actually works as a functional hat!

This one will be getting a lot of wear this spring & summer, to make up for all those years it was neglected.

(p.s. upon taking another look at the Ravelry pattern page, it appears that she has re-released this hat pattern, in bright colours and in regular stockingette, rather than reverse (which I feel takes away a bit of the charm but hey) and it mentions that the band is in garter stitch, which obviously wouldn't curl.  So if you decide to fake this hat, too, do the band in garter stitch and save yourself some heartache.  Just remember to go down a needle size (or two) since garter stitch is wider than stockingette.)

Hopey Changey Socks

As part of my ongoing project to knit up all my variegated sock yarn into plain and simple stockingette socks, I found another skein that's been in my stash for five years or so.  I got this one in a sock yarn club way back then, and while I liked the colours, I assumed it would knit up as a crazy variegated blobby mess.  Imagine my delight when I started to knit it up and realized it was going to make stripes, instead!  All those years of wondering what to do with it and it worked out perfectly without any effort.  Lesson learned.

This yarn is Zen String Lotus Toes fingering, a thin little superwash merino, and the colourway is called Hope.

Only four more variegated skeins and this little project is finished.

Even More Rainbowy

I finished another quarter panel of my Hue Shift Afghan, last night.  Where the first panel only used half of the colours of the design, this one incorporates all 10 colours in it, which makes it a lot more fun and interesting.  The third panel will be the same idea, but in a different order, and then the final panel is just the blues/greens.  I am still loving every minute of this one.

A Knitting Rainbow

Quite a while ago, I saw a pattern on Knit Picks for a mitred-square afghan.  To be honest, mitred square projects haven't really appealed to me very much, in the past, but the colours and design of this afghan really drew me in, and I was immediately determined to make it.

Also good news - the website allows you to put together a kit for this project that uses their acrylic blend yarn, which means the yarn only costs around $35, which is pretty awesome for an afghan.  This is the first time I've used this yarn, and while it was a bit squeaky on my acrylic needles, once I switched to wooden needles, it's not squeaky at all and more like just any soft synthetic yarn.  Of course if I had my druthers (why oh why do I so rarely have my druthers) I'd be making it in wool, but obviously that would be both more expensive and not machine washable (or even more expensive, to get machine washable wool.)

I ordered this kit thinking that I would knit it up in the end of May, when my mom & my sisters & I are taking a little girls' vacation to the mountains, but when I realized that each square will take about an hour to knit, I had to face the sad fact that I won't be able to fit 100+ hours of knitting into a 5-day trip.  So I decided to start it early, and leave myself the last panel of 25 squares, plus the sewing and the border, for the trip.  That's pretty reasonable, I'm sure.  I might even have to bring a pair of socks, just to make sure I don't run out of knitting.  Or two.

Two Friends are Better Than One

One of my most awesome work friends (hi Kate!) is super fun and crazy and always makes me laugh.  She isn't a fiber-crafty lady, but she good-naturedly puts up with my own craft insanity.  Recently she pointed me toward a cool crafty blog by another friend of hers from BC, Fig Cottage.  Turns out the lovely lady who writes this blog recently posted her first published pattern, a cute little toque called Kitimat.  I decided it might be a neat idea for me to knit one for myself (newbie knitwear designers gotta look out for each other, after all) but then I had an even more brilliant idea: why not knit one for Kate, then it's like a crazy mashup of two of her fibery friends, one who designed it and one who knit it.

I used Patons Classic Wool - when I saw this fantastic greeny yellow colour (called Lemongrass) I couldn't say no to it, and I thought it looked pretty awesome (dare I say "modern"?) with the dark grey mix.  Of course a huge pom pom is a must.

What matters most is that Kate loved it.

Serenity Now!

So I've had this Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn for probably four or five years.  I used other skeins of this yarn for other socks, and had some issues with pooling and flashing, so I was waiting to imagine the perfect design that would make some beautiful socks.

However, since I've started my new pledge to find peace with the random designs made by a bunch of stockingette socks in variegated yarn, I pulled these skeins out and just knit 'em up to see what would happen.

Turns out that 68 stitches on 2.25 mm needles makes some pretty cool stripes.  Once I did a few increases to accomodate my large instep and calf, all hell broke loose.  There were some definite blobs, some fat ol' stripes, and they definitely ended up more fraternal than identical.

The name I chose for these socks is Serenity, partly because the sock colourway is called "River" which makes me think of River Tam on Firefly, and also because of the crazy way they turned out, which makes me think of the Costanzas.