Category — knitting

I love Elizabeth Zimmerman and have long admired her amazing work.  While looking for something to knit with one of my new favorite yarns (Cascade’s Eco Wool!), I came across this Zimmerman favorite (named the “ganomy” hat because she was tickled by the way someone had mispronounced the word “gnome”).

I have to admit I started and ripped this one out several times.  Somehow I kept messing up the increases and decreases (which you can’t do without the hat looking like utter crap).  It is a very easy hat, despite what you might think, and once I got the hang of the matched sets of increases and decreases, it was fun and quick to make. Here’s a shot of the hat, in all its mitered glory…

This one’s for my husband and me to fight over this winter, as if we don’t have enough hats already.

I took a little trip to Downtown Yarns and fell in love with a pattern one of their staff had created and knit in Cascade’s Eco Wool.  Having washed and ruined my favorite cold-weather hat (knit by a friend in Portland, Oregon, on the fly, sans pattern), I have been longing for a replacement.  I am not a diminutive person, and I can wear a large hat.  Although this isn’t the same Russian princess shape as my last, it is intriguing on its own.  So much so that I had to make one in natural and one in dark brown.  It’s a very fun knit (unless you’re doing it in the dark with dark yarn; my mistake), and weirdly it’s the first thing I’ve ever knit with popcorns.  Loved it.  Will try to refrain from knitting more.

By the way, Eco Wool rocks my world.  One bodacious skein is 478 yards, and the colors are naturally beautiful.  Must knit mittens to match hats now….

Two Christmases ago I made a cashmere-lined ski hat for every guy in our family and many of our guy friends.  I began in January and knit like a crazy lady all year long until I had knit close to 30 hats.  Although I wish I had photographed them all together for posterity, I did come across this sampling of them in my iPhoto library…

The pattern is Whitney’s 70’s ski hat from Purl Soho.  Yarn is Cascade 220 (it’s good, it’s cheap, and I love the 70’s/80’s colors) and Jade Sapphire or Lobster Pot Yarns 2-ply cashmere for the partial lining (beautiful, but not so cheap).  I had so much fun choosing colorways for each person, and it’s a great way to make an affordable and still luxurious present since you can make the lining of two or three hats with the same ball of cashmere.

I’ve always loved cables, which look much trickier than they actually are.  Here’s a hat I finished today, on this lovely 90 degree day.  The yarn is Frog Tree merino; pattern from Linda at The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn.  It’s a perfect hat, with just the right amount of slouch.

Here’s a quick shot of a Blue Sky Alpacas cowl I knit on size 19 needles.  Although cowls always seem like a great idea, I’d much rather wrap a scarf around and around than wear a cowl, wouldn’t you?

I’ve come to the realization that I hate blogging.  So much more fun to create, rather than engaging in self-absorbed, overly indulgent blathering on and on about yourself and what you’re up to.  Having gotten that off my chest, I also admit I found myself missing “the blog” today when I took this picture of my kid, her baby doll and two new hats I made for friends….

I am infatuated with Cascade 220.  The colors are outrageously good, and you can actually knit a fab hat for under $5, which means there’s always $$$ for cashmere on another day!

I just can’t seem to make enough socks.  And, yes, I always knit during pedicures.  Here’s my latest, in progress…

OnLine Supersocke Afrika sock yarn

I have always loved plane trips–having hours of time with nothing at all to do except knit, read and gaze outside.  But everything changed with the arrival of our daughter.  The first few years of travel were all about caring for a small child and attempting to keep her happy and entertained (truly, I’m not complaining).  Now that Kate’s almost five, she’s content to draw and color for hours at a time, while I’m free to knit again.  It’s cozy and lovely, and such a great way to pass the time until we arrive at our destination.

During our last trip to San Francisco, I finished these Misti Alpaca baby cable socks, just in time for spring in New York (hah!).  This shade of green ignites my brain, and they’re soft and warm, too.

Baby cable socks in Misti Alpaca

Socks are relatively easy to make, and very, very satisfying.  If you’re planning to make simple handknit socks, Charlene Schurch gives the best instructions.  Her book Sensational Knitted Socks is the only one you’ll need (that is, until you long for trickier patterns like argyles).

On these cool and damp spring days here, I’ll be wearing these inside my rubber boots….

All week long I’ve been infatuated with the colors of this purple-spotted phalaenopsis and this incredible 8-ply Jade Sapphire Mongolian cashmere.  The orchid is Kate’s; the simple knitted scarf is a belated birthday gift for my friend Jen.

This color SLAYS me.

After weeks of browsing quilt designs and playing with fabrics, Miss Kate and I decided that Denyse Schmidt’s “Single Girl” quilt was the one for us.  I had been toying with the idea of making a twin-size quilt for Kate’s bed, yet I couldn’t quite hit on the perfect balance of fanciness (Kate’s mandate), simple design and color without being too chaotic.  Since it also had to be a happy quilt, I chose Denyse’s Katie Jump Rope fabrics.  Thirty of them, to be exact, with one brown daisy feedsack print by Windham Fabrics that Kate and I adore.

For this quilt, I traced and hand cut 31 quirky little pieces for each large circle; the quilt contains 12 large circles (31×12=quite a number of little pieces and one nearly crippled hand).  Sewing them together was zippy using the chain piecing method, and I employed Kate to cut the chain-stitched pieces apart.  She was psyched, and ran to the sewing machine with each finished piece, though not with scissors.

Here’s the dilemma–to machine or hand quilt once the top is finished?

*Katie Jump Rope fabrics purchased from Pink Chalk Fabrics, one of my new favorite online stores.  Double-wide natural muslin from Purl Patchwork.  It’s hard not to love them.*