for all your 2005 parts



Sophie bag in Cascade 220, yarn trim from Habu

see also the scarf file and feather and fan archives for more!

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A little bird told me that the Dana Farber Institute was collecting Caps for Kids (see page 2 of their January newsletter for info on last year's drive here), so I pulled out all my stash yarn and got to it!

I realized I already had this orange hat that I made for myself last winter. It came out a little snug, so I never wore it. Well, it'd be perfect for a child! Then I remembered that there was an almost finished kid's hat (in leftover Rowan Magpie) in my knitting bag that I always use for demonstration purposes when I teach my beginner's hat class. I could easily finish that up and donate it.

Then I decided to try to make a hat a week in the remaining two weeks of my beginners' hat class. The first done was the Hogwarts striped hat that I showed you last week. I was tempted to make a second and keep them for the boys, but now that they'll be getting kool aid caps that they helped dye themselves, I can give this hat away, as intended. Then I quickly knit up another with a sort of marled look, knit with scraps of Elann's Peruvian wool and Rowan's soft baby held together. It is amazing how soft that soft baby makes the hat! And it's soooo warm.

I've got one more hat (a girly one!) already in the works and if the boys help me dye some more yarn (we bought some Crystal Lite orange which I'm curious to try), I can donate a kool aid cap too. I'm enjoying inventing new hats and the boys are having fun trying them all on for me. Plus, it's using up stash. That's enough of a good deed already, isn't it?!

I got mine.

Which one did you get?

S is for super funky scarf

My handspun scarf is fun-ky! I've knit almost all the handspun I have, so I'll have to wait until I get more to keep knitting this one. I hadn't meant to knit it all so quickly, but the power went out again last week after yet another intense storm and as it was only 9pm, I wanted to knit. But what can you knit in the dark by candlelight? Not my lace shrug. Not the short row scarf. Uneven handspun in uneven stockinette was perfect.

And you know what will go perfectly with the funky scarf? My new funky hat.

Minne Pearl, watch out!

I didn't knit it. It was an older store model that was on sale since the store doesn't carry the Cartoon yarn anymore. I slipped it on when I saw it and simply couldn't take it off. It's so fun to wear!

Speaking of funky hats...

a mutual love of funky hats will not save your marriage

I've been watching reruns of The Amazing Race on GSN and I'd totally forgotten about all the knit hats that some of the teams wore in the second season. They all must have had the same idea about wearing a cool hat to cover race-hair. Tara's hat is by far the funkiest, with all kinds of different yarns all mixed together. The hat her ex-husband, Wil, wears is practically gourd-shaped, which does as much to make him look like a joke as the producers did in their editing. My favorite hat however is Paige's. It's got this sort of subtle spiral thing going on that's way cool, see? One of the winners, Chris, also often wears a knit hat, but I wouldn't call it funky. Oh well, I guess funky wool hats don't count for much in a race. Even when the finish line is on a sheep farm.

I've been winding yarn. Some handspun yarn, to be exact. Not spun by me, of course. Nope, winding is as close as I'll ever get. The handspun balls are two little mini-skeins of wool from misshawklet, that fellow Knitsmith Lisa found at the Bizarre Bazaar here in Boston, and a skein of angora/merino by Jamie Harmon that I found at Downtown Yarns. I had this idea of collecting a few random skeins of handspun for a long, funky scarf. I'm still looking for one or two more, but after seeing these fun yarns sit on my desk for months, I couldn't wait anymore to wind them up and get started.

And check out this neat new knitting t-shirt from knitiot that we just got in at my LYS.

They have lots of other funny knitting tees and they are sooo cool. We sold three on the very first day we had them in!

New project alert!

It's the beginnings of a Jilly scarf (the pattern is in the Free Pattern Archive for Rowan subscribers). My mom picked out the yarn, Manos Cotton Stria, last year on my first trip to Downtown Yarns. She loved the look and feel of the Stria and got a kick out of the red and the white together. We instantly thought candy cane stripes and I remembered that I had at least one pattern for a nice, stripy scarf (besides this one, there is a chunky-gauged version in Rowan Junior). We excitedly purchased the yarn. Then, as so often happens, it got tucked away for a year (to ripen? to cure? who knows what it does while we neglect it?). I did think about starting it several times, but have to admit that the thought of winding all those hanks into balls led me to tuck it away again and again. Now that the boys LOVE winding yarn (in fact, I like to have some yarn ready for winding in case the boys start to get wild and need a way to redirect their energies) and mom's birthday is once again approaching, it is time.

It doesn't hurt either that I've absolutely fallen in love with long scarves. This one should end up looooooong, since I have about a foot so far and have barely made a dent in the first two of six balls. This is so much fun!

You didn't think she was all done, did you?

Yes, those are scissors. Yes, I am cutting sophie. No worries, I simply cut some slits evenly around the edge, so I could slide some pretty yarn through to bring a little color to my plain black sophie. (I got this idea from a pretty little bag we have at the store: the Felted Jelly Bag from Designs by Shelley.)

For the trim, I used the fun, retro-colored i-cord yarn I got at Habu last year. I never quite knew what to do with this neat stuff. Glad I got some though, because it brightens up sophie just perfectly.

Final pictures, for the felting spectators:

before felting

after felting

Thanks to Julie for her wonderful pattern. It's definitely my go-to bag pattern.

birthday cake

birthday burp

birthday smile

sophie - felted and blocking

Wishes really do come true.

There's even a new edition to mommy's week-old birthday present pile: a sophie bag all ready for felting.

Look what's new on my needles. It's a Sophie bag!

Who starts a felting project in 90 degree weather? Well, after finishing the Harry Potter scarf and Clapotis, I realized I'm left with only cotton yarns on the needles. That just won't do. I've had this plan to knit a quick black bag for myself for a while, as my little black felted Gap purse has started to have holes in it from its five years of use. The Cascade 220 has been sitting on my desk for months waiting patiently and as I went to put the needles for the Harry Potter scarf away, it caught my eye, and I decided it was time.

So, I'm knitting along on the bag and my almost 4-yr old son, S, comes up and asks me, "mommy, is that going to be a sweater?" Awwww. "No, it's going to be a bag," I reply. --"A hat?" --"No, a bag." --"A hat?" --"No, a BAG. --"Oh, a hat." --"Okay, yeah, it's a hat." What can you do?? His twin brother, B, came up a few minutes later. "Mommy, what's that?" "It's going to be a bag." Having learned from my earlier discussion with S, I added, "for putting things in." B said, "Like Legos?" --"Sure, like Legos." --"Oh, okay, I'll get some."

After working on the sockapalooza socks on tiny needles so much that I'm getting little cramps in my hand, I decided I could use some big needle knitting. Lion Brand Landscapes and mom's un-punk backpack to the rescue.

The knitting on this one's going to be a breeze. But it's no quick knit. Once the four rectangles are knitted, then comes the seaming, the lining, and the zipper. I'm already feeling the finishing procrastination.

After working at my LYS for a few hours this weekend, I came home with a little bag of goodies.

Rowan Denim for Leigh's tasha bag. After seeing Sandy knit a couple of these, I've decided I gotta have one! I have a feeling that denim is going to be my next big crush. One of the Knitsmiths is making some denim baby overalls, which are so sweet! And I've got some denim jackets planned for the boys for spring.

Some Crazy sock yarn, which makes such neat little stripes. I started the crazy socks with my sock class last night. They're sort of my reward for all the socks I've made for others recently.

Simply Noro, cause Klaralund is next on the chopping block and I'm gonna transform her into something completely different! Don't worry, I haven't given up on Klaralund - I plan on making another one in a different yarn that will be softer directly against my skin.

Another trip to the craft store with the boys! After the now traditional discussion in the backseat of whether we were going to the crap or the crack store (S: "it's crack"; B: "no, it's crap"; S: "crack!"; B: "crap!"), we arrived without resolution at the A.C. Moore. Can you tell that the boys like shopping for yarn at the craft store?

I heart Red Heart

While they were browsing the Red Heart, I was looking for something for the fry up bag. My plan was to turn the purse into a backpack (a la the punk backpack from Stitch 'n Bitch), cause my mom, the only person I know kooky enough to acutally use a fry up bag, doesn't do purses. Then I saw the new Lion Brand landscapes yarn.

I remember seeing Libby's cloche hat a while back and thinking how cool the yarn looked, so I've been searching for an excuse to get some and try it out. And I recalled that mom loves the rainbow colors all mixed together (from some recent online sock yarn browsing). So I got it instead.

That'll be one fry up, but substitute a pack for the bag and hold the breakfast foods!