Throwback Thursday: Green Cabled Hat

I had a plan back in October 2007. I'd been doing cables and enjoying them. I'd been using Malabrigo Worsted and really enjoying it. So I needed a hat with cables out of Malabrigo. I picked a pattern that looked pretty and pretty easy: Cabled Force by Kimberly Lewis. My yarn was a pretty green color (Verde Adriana). I had circular needles. I was ready to go.

I don't really remember much about the actual knitting of this hat. I don't remember if I thought while I was working on it that it seemed to be small. But I sure did a lot of thinking that when I finished the hat. Intended for myself, this hat was instead a child-sized hat.


Yup, I was a victim of not checking my gauge. This was still early on in my knitting life and although I had heard about gauge and knew that it was something I should pay attention to, I didn't listen to that voice inside my head telling me to "save time by stopping to check gauge."

This was the project that made me realize that I am a tight knitter. After a bit more experience, whenever I didn't feel like checking gauge, I just automatically went up a needle size from what the pattern listed (because even when I checked gauge, that was what usually happened). After knitting more hats that actually fit me, I know that a certain number of stitches in worsted weight yarn on size US8 needles is just right (I used 7s on this too small hat; I think at that point, going up to 9s would have been best).

Now that I use Dyakcraft Darn Pretty needles for almost everything, I have discovered that the material the needle is made out of really can affect gauge as now I sometimes do get the gauge listed in the pattern with the listed needle size. But I still knit my worsted weight hats of size 8. Using anything smaller always brings this project to mind, and I shy away from having this happen again.

What happened to the hat? I gave it to my nephew who was a toddler at the time. And truth be told, it was almost too small even then! But I'll always have the memory of the hat to remind me of how important it is to check gauge. And I do listen. Sometimes.

Fiber Week in Review: February 16-22

Knitting: Mostly this week I worked on my Arcite Cowl. I'm almost finished, but I ran out of yarn! Ack. My 175 yd skein of King Arthur is just not quite enough to finish the cowl (I have 2.5 rounds and the bind-off to go). Good thing I just dyed another skein in the same colorway. I'll use it to finish the cowl and then I'll knit the matching Palamon Hat. I want to make sure that both projects can be made from two skeins of King Arthur. It should come out just fine, but before I sell the yarn, I want to be absolutely sure.

Is that it? Wow, I need to work on getting more knitting time in next week. This is not enough knitting!

Spinning: Alas, none to report for this week.

Stash Enhancement: I was very close to picking up some madtosh tml but resisted the urge. No other personal stash enhancement (I did get a big shipment of undyed yarn).

Designing: I released a new pattern this week, the Brangien Hat. It calls for fingering weight yarn and has a cable panel and then double moss stitch on the rest of the hat. On sale through February 27 using coupon code LovePotion on Ravelry. (I still need to post it on Patternfish.)

The Arcite Cowl KAL continues and this week saw two of the participants finish their cowls. So pretty! It's not too late to join (runs through March 6) if you're interested!

I have a test knit going for a new cowl (Brynhild) and have been pushing that one through so I can get it ready in time for DFW Fiber Fest.

I'm working on a baby blanket as well, so look for that test in the next month or so.

But after that, I didn't have any solid plans about the next design(s). Some vague sketches and ideas but no plans. I've been so focused on Round Table Yarns lately that I haven't been swatching and thinking about what's coming up next. So I took some time this weekend to do some of that and now have some more solid ideas for a few more designs, which I'm excited about getting started on. I think the next one will be a shawl, but I have some more cowls (as usual), a hat, and a stole in mind as well.

I also did a lot of thinking this week about my designing. In the back of my head, I've been worried that I'm "just" designing accessories and not garments (sweaters, cardigans, etc.). I've been struggling with the thought that I'm not a "real designer" until I do garments. And this week I had a lightbulb moment. I've been listening to Tara Swiger's podcast and one of the things she said (although now I can't remember exactly what it was or which podcast) got me thinking about my purpose in designing. And I realized that "just" designing accessories is not a bad thing and it's "okay" for that to be my specialty. I realized the type of knitter I am--yes I've knit garments, but mostly I knit accessories. And that's because of the type of yarn buyer I am. I always see beautiful yarn and can't resist so I end up with just 1-2 skeins of all this really great yarn, which is not enough to do garments. So I make lots of accessories. And it allows me to use a lot of different types of really pretty yarn and get to experience different colors and yarn bases and dyers and companies. And I like that. But sometimes it's hard to figure out what to make with that one skein of hand-dyed yarn. So that's what I'm doing. I'm helping knitters like me (because I know I can't be the only one whose stash has grown this way) find patterns for that special 1-2 skeins of yarn. It's truly who I am as a knitter and therefore really informs my designing and makes it more "real" for me. So I am a "real designer" after all!

This doesn't mean that I never knit sweaters or that I'll never design a sweater, but now I feel like I don't have to design a sweater. In other words, I won't design a sweater just to say I've designed one. I'll design one someday if I get an idea that I really want to work with and feel like I just really need to design a sweater. Taking that sweater design class did get me excited about designing a sweater, so I'm sure I will want to do it someday--that someday just doesn't need to be right away (unless I get truly inspired). This revelation has taken some weight off my shoulders that I didn't quite realize I was carrying around.

Dyeing: I've dyed all of my first shipment of undyed yarn and after taking an inventory and thinking about samples and some skeins that didn't turn out as intended (which are therefore Quest skeins), I realized that I don't have quite enough for what I want to take to DFW Fiber Fest. So I ordered more undyed yarn. It arrived on Friday, and I sat down and looked at what I've already dyed and what I have in the new batch of undyed yarn. Then I made a dye plan, listing out which colors I plan to dye on which bases. It feels really nice to have a plan! (I've also left back a few skeins of each base for experimentation/new colorways.)

Other than that, I've been getting into a groove with dyeing, and have been making steady progress toward building my inventory. But I have to admit that it's difficult to dye the same colors because I want to try lots of new things. So I think I may, every now and then, do an experimental skein to help scratch that itch. But I want to be able to offer repeatables and have multiple skeins available, so I'll keep going with the colorways I've already created. And I do love them (Tintagel is my favorite, which is in large part why it is named Tintagel), so it's not like it's a bad thing to keep seeing these pretty colors come out of the dyepot!

Reading: Okay, not fiber related, but I finished a really good book this week and wanted to recommend it. It's called Kissing Midnight by Laura Bradley Rede and is a mashup of fairy tales (mostly Cinderella and Bluebeard) but is a completely new and inventive story with some great characters.

For next week, I hope to have a lot more to post about in the knitting and spinning sections!

Throwback Thursday: Irish Hiking Scarf

Now that I've been knitting for 10 years, I have a number of knitting projects under my belt, so I'm going to talk about some of those past projects on Thursdays. Today's post is about a project that was a first for me in many ways and is very special as a result.

When I first started knitting, I thought that places like Hobby Lobby were where you went to get yarn. I didn't know about local yarn stores (and there was an amazing one in the town I lived in at the time that I didn't discover for a little while) or about some of the great online shops. So that's where I went to get my yarn, but I wasn't particularly happy with the acrylic yarn. At that time (pre-Ravelry for me--if I remember right I was on the waiting list to join the Ravelry beta for something like seven or eight months, ultimately joining on September 10, 2007, as Raveler #10163), I did find the knittinghelp.com forums and I started reading about yarn that other people were using for projects.

There was this yarn that everyone was going crazy for. They even had a bit of a nickname for it--Mmmmmalabrigo (the number of m's at the beginning being variable based upon how you were feeling about the yarn at the time). This was Malabrigo Worsted (now Merino Worsted) and knitters were raving about how soft and wonderful it was. I had to try some. But I didn't know where to get it. So I turned to the online market I did know--eBay. I found a seller on eBay who had quite a bit of Malabrigo for sale. After carefully looking through all the colors, I picked a pink one (Pink Frost) and ordered two skeins.

I'm not sure where I found the pattern for the Irish Hiking Scarf. Perhaps that also came through the knittinghelp.com forum, but I remember that I was loving the projects with cables that I had seen, but I had never tried cables before. They seemed like they might be really difficult, but I wanted to make projects that looked like some of the pictures that I saw so I was determined to figure it out. And this pattern looked like it might be somewhat on the easier side and would also give me a lot of practice with cables. And I was right. And you know what? Once I started doing the cables I realized that cables are one of those deceptive things in knitting. They look a lot harder than they actually are. And my love of cables has continued.

So I was cruising along on my cable scarf with this luscious yarn that was everything everyone had said it would be. It did take me a while--according to my Ravelry page, I worked on it from August to November 2006 (but since the project itself was pre-Ravelry, I'm not sure how accurate those dates are). And I was having fun with the cables. I do have one mistake in the scarf--a place where I knit two extra rows before starting the next cable, but it's not a super big mistake and overall the scarf turned out really great. This was the first project I was truly proud of.

So this project has a special place in my heart. It was my first non-acrylic yarn. It was my first cable project. It was my first time challenging myself. And when I joined Ravelry, a picture of the beginning of this scarf was my first Ravetar (and the one I used for a very long time--I actually use it here on Blogger still).

I don't wear this scarf very much these days. Not for any particular reason about the scarf but because I prefer cowls to scarves right now. I really should get it out and wear it again. Because that Mmmmmalabrigo is so super soft and squishy. And to this day, it's still one of my favorite yarns to work with.

Fiber Week in Review: February 9-15

I've been blogging sporadically--basically whenever I feel like it and sometimes I feel like blogging but don't have a lot of time and don't do it. So I'm going to start a series/schedule of blog posts to help me do more of what I want to do (blog) and have it as part of my regular routine. I'll still have sporadic posts at times, but I'm going to start with two scheduled items.

On Mondays, I'll review what I've been knitting, spinning, or dyeing during the past week.
On Thursdays, I'll do a Throwback Thursday, where I take a look back at one of my knitting projects from my first few years of knitting (I've been knitting for 10 years).

Since today is Monday, it's a week in review post. And since it's the first of these posts, it'll cover a little more than the past week just to get a bit caught up.

The new year started off great--I had two designs come out in January (Palamon and Arcite) and I learned that dyeing yarn is awesome and set off toward creating Round Table Yarns. And then I got sick. Sick enough to knock me out for over a week and take away all the momentum I built up. And then just as I was getting back on my feet, my husband's grandfather died. So we took five days to travel to Houston to spend with his family and attend the funeral. I definitely don't begrudge that very needed family time, but it was still something that held me back from getting back into my routine. While on that trip, my son spiked a fever and after taking him to the doctor after we got back home, it turns out he has strep throat and an upper respiratory infection. And now I have the sniffles. So it's been challenging to make any progress and I feel like as soon as I'm able to move forward a little, something happens to make me take a few steps backwards.

With all that being said, I have accomplished several things, especially in the past week or so. First, I finished a project that I started right before Christmas. As part of the Indie Design Gift-a-long, one of the patterns I bought was High Plains by Melissa Schaschwary, and I went to Madtosh Crafts to get yarn for it. I wanted to make the smaller size so I bought four skeins of tosh vintage in a beautiful grey (Tern). Then I started knitting. The pattern calls for a US 10.5. I dislike working with these larger needles and once I started knitting I also disliked how loose the fabric seemed. So I went down to a 10. Still not liking the larger needle but the fabric was better. But the gauge was wrong. So I decided to use the numbers for the larger size which with my current gauge would get me the dimensions of the smaller size (of course I didn't account for washing/blocking which in the end made my gauge much closer to the pattern's gauge). I started knitting. The first panel has a lace pattern at one end. But then it's stockinette. On large needles. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then another whole stockinette panel with no lace pattern. I have to admit that I was completely bored with knitting those panels. But I got through them.

And I was also going through my yarn pretty quickly. In fact, I used almost three entire skeins just for the two panels. I looked at the pattern and the instructions for the border and at my lone skein of yarn and worried that I did not actually have enough yarn to complete the project. I was going to be back at the madtosh store for a knitting class the first week in February, so I thought I'd just pick up an extra skein while I was there. Ha ha. Once I was there, I remembered that I had picked up the remaining four skeins back in December and sure enough there was no more Tern in stock. So I looked at several online stores. No Tern. I checked Ravelry. One lone knitter in Canada had one skein of Tern for sale. Yay! I contacted her and in the meantime got busy on the border. Knitting and knitting and knitting and watching the yarn run closer and closer to the end. I didn't weigh it as I went because I honestly didn't want to know that it was going to run out. I was hoping that if I did that thing where I just knit faster and ignored the rapidly decreasing ball of yarn that I would magically have enough. Yeah, like that works.

Except it did work this time. I ended up with just a tiny bit of yarn left but I had enough to completely finish the project! Knitting miracles do happen. (And the knitter on Ravelry was very gracious when I let her know that it turned out that I didn't need the extra yarn after all.)

I have a truly horrible bathroom mirror picture of the finished poncho, but if you were to see this in real life, it's so much nicer and so very soft and warm. (Finished February 10)

While I was in Houston, I brought the yarn and my rough ideas for a baby blanket and started working on that. I figured out the stitch patterns I wanted to use and their placement and stitch count, setting up charts and a quick pattern outline so I could knit a sample. And then I cast on nearly 200 stitches. Long tail cast on. Bet you can guess what happened. Yeah, my knitting luck was all used up on High Plains. I ran out of yarn less than 20 stitches from the end. Rip out and start again. This time way too much yarn left but oh well. I started knitting. After several rows I measured the width. Ack! Much much wider than I had wanted. Back to the drawing board. Rip out what I'd knit. Replan pattern. Cast on again. This time the knitting gods were with me and I had a perfect length after my cast on. Knitted past the border and into the pattern.

Loved how one section was turning out but the other section wasn't looking quite right. But I kept knitting. Finally after a full pattern repeat, I had to admit that it was not at all turning out like I had planned. I double checked my scribbled notes and I was doing what I had written down. But I was away from home and couldn't check to make sure my notes were accurate, so I put the project down and worked on something else for the rest of the trip (socks).

Yesterday I took another look at the baby blanket and confirmed that what was coming out on the needles was not what I wanted. So once again, I redid the plan and ripped out everything I had done. Another long tail cast on, this time with way way too much yarn leftover. *sigh* But I'm back to work on the border and this time I think it will turn out as intended -- at least according to this third plan. (Third time's the charm, right?)

Then on Friday, the Arcite Cowl KAL (it's not too late to join!) started and I began my own Arcite for the KAL in my King Arthur yarn (Ganieda colorway).

And I'm continuing to work on my Purplicious socks (name of colorway, dyed by Brazen Stitchery). One sock finished on the road to Houston and the second sock started while there. Loving the colors and the stripes!

I did do a tiny bit of spinning this week--just plying the remnants on two remaining bobbins. Both are undyed fiber so I plan to dye them and them turn them into keychains. I actually dyed one today. I was doing my Morgan le Fay colorway, which is a red and the dye wasn't exhausting completely, so I tossed in one of the small handspun remnants and it sucked up the rest of the dye to make it a pale red/pink color. It's still cooling so no pictures yet.

As for stash acquisition, whenever we visit my in-laws in Houston, I go to Park Avenue Yarns, which is a very nice LYS. This time I found some Baah! yarn which I had recently heard about, so I had to pick some up. I got Sonoma (DK weight, 100% merino) in the Lilac colorway. Super squooshy! And even though I can get madtosh locally, I ended up with three skeins of madtosh vintage! In Ember and Moorland (which I plan to use together) and in Logwood. Here's the Baah!

So that gets me caught up with what I've been doing in the fiber world lately. I'll be back on Thursday with a look back at one of my first projects, the Irish Hiking Scarf, which was a first in several ways.