I’ve been making hats for the cancer clinic where I get treatment and this week I finished one that was so much fun and so entertaining that I wanted to share it with you.  It’s similar to the Chunky Long Band Hat but I used worsted weight yarn on size 7 US (4.5 mm) needles.

I started by knitting this cable band to about 18” in length and then by picking up each cast on stitch and knitting it off (and binding off) with the corresponding stitch still on the needle.  This gave me the main body of the hat; it was about 4.5” wide.

Then I grabbed another color and picked up the stitches along one edge, adding a few as I went for ease as this would be the area where you would normally use ribbing.  I wanted it to be flexible enough to be able to pull on easily, but snug enough to hold well - you know, since I wasn’t actually doing ribbing :)

I did 5 rounds of that and it was enough - but when I do this again, I’ll probably add another couple of rounds just to be safe.

Then I picked up the stitches on the other edge.  I fudged these too, adding enough to get a multiple of 8 to simplify the decreasing mathematics (80 stitches total).  I worked about 5 rounds in stocking stitch and then did a bobble every 10th stitch.  On the next round, I started the decreases - K8, K2tog through the back loops.  This made an obvious decrease, but I thought it might be interesting as a design element, so I decided to use it, alternating a decrease round with a knit plain round - except that the stitch over the decrease I also knitted through the back.  I was tickled at how it came out - it seems to have a certain festive air :)

I finished it up at about 8 o’clock last night and you know what - it was a lot of fun.

This isn’t a difficult thing at all but you do have to like picking up stitches (I’ve got no problem with this) or at least not mind it much.  The construction means you can do pretty much anything your heart desires.  Make the center panel lace, do a baby cable rib for the base and maybe carry the baby cables to the top as well.  You can tailor the length of the center panel to the size of the head you’re knitting for and, if it pleases you, you can cast on provisionally and graft the edges together to complete the band.  Me, I don’t do grafting so I did a modified three-needle bind-off but you don’t even have to do that.  You could cast on and bind off in standard fashion and just sew the ends together.  For the bottom band you can, again, do anything you like - ribbing, garter stitch, seed, etc.  Switch to a funky, fluffy yarn and knit a band that looks like fur or fleece.  For the top, you do have to remember that you’re going to be decreasing and factor that into your considerations - but there’s still lots of latitude to play around.

The thing is, you can start with any gauge of yarn and any color you like, any stitch pattern(s) that please you and just fly by the seat of your pants.  In this case, I had bits of yarn I wanted to use up so what I wound up doing was only limited by how much of each color I had.  I really did make it up as I went along.

You can too :)

First off, two new additions have been made to The Dye Pot - Rusty Venture

(which you already know about) and a newer effort, Respighi’s Pines.

There’s one more dye job drying in the kitchen, and the possibility of yet another effort…maybe tomorrow?  Maybe next week…

I wanted to see what the Lion Wool was like to work with so I made another Owl Hat.  I usually work hats with the Magic Loop method, but this time I knit on a 16” circular.  It worked just fine, but man, did my hands complain about it!  I’ll probably be sticking with the Loop thingy from here on out.  It’s just a whole lot easier for me to manipulate :)

While the yarn felt a little rough to me in the ball, it turned out to be quite comfortable to knit with and the fabric created wasn’t uncomfortable on the skin.  The stitch definition was excellent…

...and it wasn’t the least bit splitty.  Because I have poor co-ordination and even poorer aim, I find most yarns to be splitty to one degree or another :)  This one surprised me.  One ball was more than enough to make the hat,  but this is a larger than usual ball - 85 grams/158 yards.  I have no idea how it will wear (will it pill or won’t it?) but in general, I was very pleased with it’s performance.  Oh, there was one knot in the ball. 

My only real sticking point is the price.  It’s not completely out there, running between about $4.50 and $5.00 a ball.  Given that, I’m not sure, were I planning a project - especially a substantial one, I wouldn’t go with a proven work horse like Cascade 220 which is about the same price-per-yard, but comes in more generous skeins (100 grams/220 yards) and many, many more colors. 

Chatters is on for this evening - come one, come all!

I’ve had a surprisingly productive couple of days which seem to have been spurred by something utterly ridiculous :)

Please totally disregard the incredibly disreputable sneakers in the above photo.  They need desperately to be replaced but until I can find a nearly identical pair (wide, comfortable toe, inch-thick sole) these will probably get worn until they fall apart.  Oh, and they also shouldn’t cast $60 or more…  It’s the laces to which I wish to draw your attention :) 

I was getting dressed the other day and there was another break in the original shoelace.  There have been a couple already and, lazy slob that I am, I just knotted the ends together and went on.  This time there wasn’t enough shoelace left to do that again and there were no spare laces around.  What?  And give up room for spare yarn?  Gracious, no! 

So I needed to come up with something and what I came up with was a crochet hook and some worsted weight cotton :)  I do have some white - quite a bit, in fact - but I thought the blue would be more fun and would go with my jeans, besides.  Using the old lace as a guide, I just crocheted a chain to the proper length, laced up the sneakers and bob’s your uncle!  Didn’t take any time, solved my problem and added a bit of amusing funk to what’s left of my sneakers :)  It also occurred to me that you could make several pairs of laces in different colors if you were so inclined…

This seemed to set off an urge to do some real work so on Sunday, I got out my aunt’s mitts.  I’ve been doing a little on them (a pattern repeat) every day - and that’s usually as much as my hands can take of making bobbles with fingering weight yarn on size 1 US (2.25 mm) needles.  And yet, once I got into the rhythm of things, I just kept going.  In fact I got about halfway through the thumb gusset before my hands crapped out.

I finished them yesterday, but not before the yarn totally messed with my head.  I got within about six rounds of finishing and came to the end of the first ball of yarn.  You may recall that the mitts were being made with sock yarn that I had dyed - yarn that came in the standard 50 gram balls.  So I went to the basket in which I usually keep current projects (and their necessary components) to get the second ball.

Not there.

I looked everywhere, in every bag, box, closet and cabinet - including re-checking the basket at least three times.  Eventually, I decided that since I had dyed this yarn at my father’s house, I must have lost that second ball somewhere between his place and mine.  With much pissing and moaning and gnashing of teeth, I took some Peer Gynt DK weight which was a very similar color, and peeled two plies off about 8 yards of the stuff.  This left three plies which was roughly equivalent to fingering weight; I spliced it in and went back to work.  I brought the mitt out to the kitchen so I could look at the color junction in natural light.  It was essentially undetectable; the new yarn was just a hair darker and a hair redder than the old, but I’m probably the only one who would notice and probably only then because I dyed them both.

Going back into the living room, I had been thinking about another project I could probably finish up once I was done with the mitts and for which I needed a specific ball of heathered blue yarn.  I knew I had seen that very yarn earlier in the day, so I checked the basket for it.  Care to guess what I found?  Yup - the second ball of sock yarn.  I swear it was laughing at me…  Even so, I was more than glad to rip out the substitute and to be able to finish up with the real deal.

These were based on the Dana Victoria mitts and I made a couple of modifications to size them down.  I will add those modifications to the pattern.  I’m very pleased with how they came out and I hope my aunt will enjoy them.

Okay, the mitts were complete, but I wasn’t ready to stop knitting, so the second project moved up in the queue.  But I still had to find that blasted blue yarn.  Again, I looked everywhere - only this time I knew it was around because I had seen it earlier in the day, when I was chasing the second ball of sock yarn.  It was maddening, but eventually I located it in a bag that was living in an unusual place.  Yes, it was snickering at me too :)

But I did get these done…

...and lovely and toasty they are too :)  My feet were cold yesterday and when I finished weaving the ends in on these puppies and put them on, I swear I could feel my toes smile!  These are the Endless Knot socks.  I did a matching pair (instead of a yin/yang pair) this time and used the knot color for the heels and toes.

They’ll go nicely with my new shoelaces :)

Stupid - I know this is stupid.

There’s an ad running on TV, I’ve seen it a couple of times now.  It’s set in a school lunchroom where three little girls are opening up their lunches and getting ready to eat.  It also happens to be Valentine’s Day, and each lunch has been “enhanced” by mom in honor of the occasion.

The chubby little blond girl pulls out a piece of fruit that her mom has decorated with stickers.  The second girl pulls out a sandwich which her mother has trimmed into the shape of a heart. 

The third girl pulls out an envelope.  In side is a Hannah Montana card with a pre-recorded message from mom to her little “rock-star”.

The ad closes with a shot back on the little blonde who looks, not just wryly disappointed, but absolutely shattered.

It makes me really uncomfortable.  I would under no circumstances purchase this card or anything like it - and I can’t help but feel that this isn’t quite what the marketing department had in mind with this commercial :)

I’m getting stuck with my knitting, which is a little depressing, but was predictable for the time of year.  I’ve got several projects under way but don’t want to work on any of them.  It always seems to happen around now - the beginning of the new year.  I have also acquired some beads that I want to incorporate into some lace knitting but can’t decide on what I want to do with that and have the sneaking suspicion that if I start something new, I’ll get bored with it as well.

Ack - I suppose it will pass…

Chatters is on for this evening.  Bring your knitting (or whatever you’re working on) and join the conversation!

I had chemotherapy yesterday and am feeling kinda crummy today.  Eh, it’ll pass - which is what I keep telling Myria as she hovers concernedly :)  But I am using it as an excuse to indulge in what is probably one of my least healthful and therefore most enjoyed food choices…

There’s always a can on the shelves for emergencies and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t absolutely love the stuff.  I love lots of things - salads, fresh fruit, flaky croissants, soups (stews, chowders - that whole class of food served in liquid of some kind - can’t get enough of them!) - but when I’m feeling punk…

...only the Chef will do.  For one thing, he requires no preparation except for opening the can and heating :)  On a day like this, that’s a serious advantage - and I still needed help to open the damned can!  This was mostly because our can opener has been futzy for quite a while now and needs to be replaced.  Since we don’t have the shelf space for an electric model (I told you our kitchen was tiny!) - are there any recommendations for a good, sturdy hand-operated item?

I got the notion (Charlotte - this is your fault, I think!) to make cards for the friends I will be seeing on Friday.  I haven’t done this in many years and didn’t even know if I could hold the pencil (or the paintbrush) steadily enough to do the job…

Well, it’s not Hallmark, but it’s better than I’d hoped :)  This one, as you can probably guess, is for a knitter/cat person.  I have the concepts for the other two, but haven’t drawn them yet.  It’s been that kind of day.  It’s now (EST) 4:52 PM and I’ve been working on this post, incrementally, since about 8:30 this morning.  Some days are just like that :)

These (plus a third item that I have yet to make) will go into the cards.  I didn’t do the knitting actually on the toothpicks - they’re just too short to manipulate.  I knit the swatch and then transferred the stitches.  You may be interested to know that the toothpicks are the equivalent of size 0 US (2 mm) needles - in diameter, if not in length.  I hadn’t knit on size 0s before but it wasn’t too bad.

The cotton for the snowflake (Susan’s lovely Southern Snowflake) is Lily Sky-tone which I stumbled across in a thrift shop a couple of years ago.  I know it is old, possibly as old as I am - but oh, it was lovely stuff to work with, soft and not at all difficult on the fingers with a lovely sheen to it.  I’m going to be sad when it’s all gone because Lily hasn’t made this for a long time now.  On the bright side, there’s most of a ball of white (slightly age-tinged) left and a partial ball of the most lovely, soft shaded pinks.  I tend to use them sparingly :)

Jade has been loaded for bear all day.  I have no idea what’s gotten into her but she’s been prowling and meowing (and meowing and meowing…) since early this morning.  The pose in the above photo is her “Come play with me” invitation - but you have to careful.  Jade has no governors of any kind and while I don’t believe she means any real harm, she sometimes removes quite a bit of skin just from not knowing better.  Better to wait until she’s calmed down a little :)

The weather here is dismal; it has snowed all day (again!) and is currently dropping ice on top of everything, just to add insult to injury.  Tomorrow, whenever we can get out, we have to head over to dad’s and get him dug out too.

Just as well to get out I suppose.  I read a recipe this morning for savory oatmeal!  This was made with soy sauce and scallions and though it sounded truly odd at first (Myria made quite the face when I told her about it), I find I can’t quite put it out of my mind.

So I need to pick up scallions :)

Okay, let’s see if we can get back to something like normalcy around here :)  I’ve been running around, getting dad to his doctor’s appointments in Boston this week so what free time I have had has been spent mostly vegetating.  However, there has been some knitting going on!

I have finished the first mitt…

This pattern is one of my very favorites but let me tell you, it’s slow going - at least for me.  I knit at a reasonable pace but there’s so much going on here (and at such a small scale) that I have to slow way down to make sure I get things right.  However, slow though it may be, it is also incredibly gratifying to see the admittedly rococo pattern emerge.  I am truly enjoying this :)

Because I eliminated two stitches from the purl ditches, the leaf/vine motif enclosed therein does something interesting.  It hides when the mitt isn’t being worn.  When the mitt is donned, suddenly…

...there they are!  This was unanticipated, but I think it’s very cool :)

Featured in the same sale from which I acquired the sock yarn for the mitts was Lionbrand wool.  I hadn’t tried it before but since it was an excellent price, decided that now was the time.

I know, I’m supposed to be branching out from pinks and purples.  Eh, I do still like purple and because of the sale, only a limited selection of colors remained on the shelves.  I only got two balls of the stuff because, really this is a let’s-see-what-this-is-like exercise.  On the good side, it’s a larger than average helping of yarn since the ball is 85 grams (rather than the usual 50 grams) and 158 yds.  The yarn feels very rough to me though.  I will have to work up a swatch or a hat or something and see how it feels after it has been knitted and washed.  If it still feels too scratchy to wear, I’ll toss it into the blanket stash for future use :)

I started another cowl last night - hopefully a gift for a friend.

This a Paton’s Classic Merino of which I am growing more and more fond.  It works up nicely (for both knitting and dyeing purposes), has a decent hand, is easy to find and isn’t terribly expensive.  What more could you ask of a yarn?

Clearly my brain has been fried by doing the little teeny bobbles on the mitts.  What can I say?  I like bobbles :)  I must say, they’re a lot easier (and faster) at standard worsted gauge than at fingering weight and I envision bobble sections set off by seed stitch bars.  This is being worked end to end rather than in the round and will probably get buttons or clasps when its finished.

I saw the inaugural proceedings Tuesday, waiting with my father at the VA hospital.  The room was jammed with people - not only patients, but receptionists, nurses and orderlies - anyone who had a few minutes to spare.  I watched an elderly woman who was moved to tears and a young man who removed his hat for the opening prayer and recited the Lord’s Prayer (sub vocally) with the reverend.  I also saw several expressions of doubt and skepticism amongst the group.  But none of these reactions were specific to an age or a race.

It also occurred to me that if we, the people of the United States) can elect an African American to the highest office in the land, perhaps we aren’t as bigoted as I had feared.  While I am not in any way a political person and have no opinion on what kind of leader President Obama may turn out to be, I am heartened never the less.

Onwards!

Chatters is on for tomorrow evening.  I have missed our little sessions and am looking forward to hearing about everybody’s projects for the new year.

Hope to see you then!

Well, we’re finally home - and not a moment too soon either.  The cats were beginning to feel like they’d been abandoned, except for the hour or so we visited every day to feed them and tidy the litter box.  The degus and the gerbil didn’t miss us so long as they were fed.  To rodents, personal attention isn’t nearly as important as toys and treats :)

Dad is doing better - much better.  He can navigate around the house reasonably well now (even into places he shouldn’t be attempting - like down the cellar stairs) and can manage to look after himself again.  In true dad fashion, the better he felt, the more disagreeable he became.  I do understand that facing the fact that the extent of your freedom may be limited to the energy you can supply to the effort may be very daunting - especially when you have managed 85 years without any real problems.  And I know it’s hard to have things done (like washing dishes, cleaning clothes, general upkeep and so forth) in ways other than you’re used to.  Still, we were there three weeks and I’m pretty sure all parties involved were breathing relieved sighs at the end.

I did do some knitting, but nothing was finished - I was just too tired and stressed to be able to focus enough.  I did do a dyeing experiment though and it came out just fine.

After Christmas, Michael’s had a sale on (among other things) Patons sock yarn.  When I checked it out, the only solid color they had was a natural cream.  I had been hoping for something a little more interesting as I wanted to make something for my aunt, dad’s younger sister.  She had been calling every other day just to see how dad was doing and had been over to visit several times always bringing something delicious and homemade with her - apple pie, peach cobbler, blueberry pie, etc. I wanted to do something nice for her so on her last visit, when she admired Myria’s Dana Victoria mitts (she said, jokingly “Did you make these for me?”), I knew what to do!

Now dad doesn’t have a crock pot - at least that’s what he said when I asked him.  I did discover one lurking in the basement later on but…  So, as this was washable wool/nylon, I decided to hazard doing the dyeing in a pasta pot on the stove top.  Okay, I had the pot and the yarn - all I needed was some Kool-aid for the dye and some sort of acid to make it stick to the yarn :) 

My next trip to the store provided me with 4 packets of Kool-aid - 2 Black Cherry, 1 Strawberry and 1 Orange.  Now all I needed was acid.  Dad did say there was white vinegar in the cupboard which is what I normally use.  But I know my father well enough to know he would never have stopped complaining about the smell if I actually did use it.  So I read the Kool-aid packages carefully and discovered that all of them contained both citric acid and ascorbic acid.  Hmmm…would that be enough to enable the yarn to take up the dye?  I decided to maximize my chances by brewing some strong tea - 6 teabags worth in about a quart of water - to add some tannic acid to the party.

I wound and tied the two balls of sock yarn into a big hank…

I could have done this at dad’s, but I brought it back to our apartment on one of our cat-feeding visits.  Being able to use the swift made this job a lot faster and easier and I just tucked the finished skein into my purse for the return trip :)

Then for the soaking…

I would ordinarily soak wool for 30 minutes to an hour.  Because this stuff is machine washable, however, I felt free to squeeze it in the water and jostle it around because there was no danger of it shrinking.  It was completely saturated in just a few minutes.

Then I combined the tea with the Kool-aid and dumped that into the pasta pot, adding water (and stirring to make sure everything was well combined) until the pot was about 3/4 full.  And then I added the yarn.

I turned the heat on and let the liquid come to a boil, then lowered the flame so the pot was just simmering along.  It only took about an hour for the dye to exhaust and this was what I had at that point - ‘scuse the steam :)

You can see pretty well that all the color has moved from the liquid into the yarn and that the liquid is pretty much clear.  Yippee!!  The combination of citric, ascorbic and tannic acids worked beautifully in enabling the yarn to take up all the color.  I’m going to have to remember this when dyeing with Kool-Aid in the future - I probably don’t need to worry about adding vinegar.

Next step was washing, the mandatory roll in the towel (the yarn you saucy girls, not me!) and hanging it up to dry.

Side note:  Does anyone know what the ideal humidity for a home should be?  Is there even an ideal humidity?  Dad’s house is so dry that Myria and I both had sinus problems all the time we were there - not to mention we had to practically bathe in lotion to keep our hides hydrated :)  It was good for the yarn though - it pretty much dried overnight :)

This is what I wound up with - and while the picture’s a little fuzzy, the color is accurate and I’m calling it Rusty Venture.

And this is what I’m doing with it…

I had to modify the pattern somewhat because my dear aunt has little tiny hands - as opposed to the hooves that both Myria and I sport.  So I cut back the repeats of the pattern, going from 6 down to five.  That changed the stitch count from 72 to 60.  I actually cast on at that point and began the first mitt, but the more I looked at it, the less I felt it was right.  So when my aunt visited the next time, I measured the circumference of her hand (ruining any chance of making this a surprise gift) - just over 7”.  My hand measures 9”.  So I checked my gauge and decided that the purl troughs didn’t need to start with a width of 5 stitches and subtracted 2 stitches from each one.  Then I frogged the first attempt and cast on again with 50 stitches this time.

This is going to work very nicely :)

Thank you all for your kind thoughts for Myria and my dad - we appreciate them very much.  For myself, thanks for your patience - I’m back and, hopefully, will stay back for a while.

Oh, and if you’re interested, Chatters will be open again on Saturday night!