you gotta knit something for Rhinebeck!



a child pinwheel sweater for wee one in Knitpicks Swish Superwash
and a new design by me in Shelridge Farms worsted

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Maybe, just maybe I've regained my knitting mojo. I brought two projects to Rhinebeck that were for me me me and I actually knit successfully on both of them. Woo hoo!

First, I started one of my favorite projects from my book, Ron's animal crackers hat. Last year I dyed some bulky wool I got at a yarn swap in some fun colors. Turns out I've got the right number of colors with similar variations as in the animal crackers hat. I had no idea when I was dyeing it, but the yarn is perfect for this hat!

On the drive up and sitting in the author tent, I managed to make it a little more than halfway through the colorwork around the bottom of the hat. I can't wait to get to those crazy fun braids!

Next, an actual me-sized sweater: Frances from Laines du Nord "Simple Knits 5". I fell in love with this sweater as soon as I saw it. I think it'll be flattering and has the cute button collar which is crucial while I'm still nursing. I cruised through all that ribbing in the car in the dark and am now on to the stockinette. This is fabulous no-brainer, fool-proof knitting!

The yarn is Jaeger luxury tweed that I found at a Wild & Wooly clearance sale. It felt nice in the bag, is a lovely pink, and was on sale - can't beat that! But now that I'm knitting with it, I'm loving it even more than I thought I would. It's an alpaca/wool blend and the alpaca makes it all soft and snuggly and the merino makes it all sproingy and squooshy. It's so cool. And best of all, it's just for me!

Mojo back, knitting on.

What a beautiful weekend we had at the sheep & wool festival in Rhinebeck! Sunshine and warm temps meant that knits were mainly for shade.

Wee one never needed to wear her pinwheel jacket and I certainly didn't miss my failed Rhinebeck sweater. Me and wee spent Saturday casually touring the barns and occasionally playing on the grass with the Knitsmith gals.

We drove up with Johanna and her baby and met up with Lisa, Dana, and Dani and a whole busload of Bostoners that Peta drove up on the Yarn Safari bus!

I didn't take many pictures at all (see why below) and absolutely none of yarn. It was funny to look back and see what I actually decided to snap a photo of.

A cutie patootie dog sweater display.

The llama lovables at a stand that always has cute things (I took a pic of their bunny slippers two years ago).

And one of the lovely quilts that many of the vendors had in their booths. That's it. That's all my photos from Saturday. I did buy some yarn though.

Handspun, colorfully dyed angora/merino from my favorite vendor, Jamie Harmon. Looooove her yarns! This should someday become a little poncho-ish something for wee one.

And this fun hat from Morehouse (can you believe that they're closing the store - only online after this year - so sad). I bought this for me, but I have a feeling that the boys will want one when I'm done with mine.

On Sunday, there was the big author book signing sponsored by Merritt books. What fun! So many cool authors. I really hope they do this again every year. I got my book signed by Ann & Kay and saw all the amazing samples from their incredible book. I saw Clara, who had the loveliest booth ever (everything she does is lovely!). I had to visit Stitchy's booth, which was intentionally a bit less attractive with all of her hilarious kitschy stitches finds like beer can crochet hats. Wee one was strangely drawn to one of those ridiculous and slightly creepy yarn clown things on her table. Yikes! At my booth, I sat next to Sharon Turner of Monkeysuits (still one of my favorite kids' knitting books ever - and have you checked out her latest monkeysuits patterns? so cute!!) and Teach Yourself Visually Knitting and Teach Yourself Visually Knitting Design. She was so cool!

I had all my samples out and wee one wore one of the elf hats and yelled for folks to stop by. My favorite thing was when kids would wander into the tent with mom or dad and glance disinterestedly at the tables until they saw mine - 'oooh, I love Harry Potter!'. The samples and books were repeatedly mobbed and mauled by little gangs of preteens. It was funny. I enjoyed getting to meet all of you who stopped by. I'm glad to hear that so many of your are enjoying the book.

So did I find my lost knitting mojo while in Rhinebeck? Report tomorrow....

PS - Wee one found and broke the camera the day before we left for Rhinebeck, so I had only the cell phone, which had no reception up on the fairgrounds and kept telling me that its picture memory was full (too many pictures of wee one on there, I guess) and the old camera, which takes crappy pictures (thereby necessitating the purchase of the now-broken new camera). So please excuse the minimal quantity and quality of the pictures here in this post and in the near future. Thank you!

Fact: my Rhinebeck sweater is a failure. The body (and that crazy green color - aaaaah!) just won't work for me. Poop! I've still got some ideas and more Shelridge Farm yarn to make it work, but not for Rhinebeck.

Fact: all my recent (and best) finished knits have all been for wee one. Exhibit A: the pinwheel sweater. Exhibit B: the wee hallowig. Exhibit C: the baby viking hat. Exhibit D: the baby shrug. Need I say more?

Conclusion: The little cutie may look innocent enough, but she has clearly stolen all my knitting mojo. And if I can't get it back this weekend at Rhinebeck, I'll have to resign myself to knitting only fabulous baby knits from now on. I know, not the worst fate ever, but still I haven't given up yet. I've packed two new projects in the knitting bag for the trip just for me!

Hey, come visit me in the authors' tent at Rhinebeck on Sunday! I'll be working on a project from Charmed Knits and would be happy to sign your book, talk Harry Potter, or just knit with ya for a bit. I should be in the tent around 11:30 for about an hour and again at 2:30, so stop on by!

You may have heard there will be a few other cool authors there like Yarn Harlot, Mason Dixon's Ann & Kay, Sharon Turner of Monkeysuits, and Clara Parkes of Knitters Review. Can I just say that Clara's new book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn, is awesome!! What an incredible book. I wanted to give you a nice, long review of it yesterday (because there is so much in it to tell you about) but yesterday was about wee one's worst day ever and I didn't get anywhere near the computer, so let me just real quick say that you should definitely check it out. And if you're at Rhinebeck on Sunday, you can get Clara to sign it for you, then use it to figure out what to do with all the amazing yarns you bought. I'm bringing my copy!

See ya there....

My Rhinebeck sweater is back on track. And just in time - how did it get to be October already??!

Here's about 7 inches of the body, worked in the round. Can you believe that that's just ONE skein of the Shelridge Farm worsted?! And what's really cool is that in juuuust the right lighting, you can see very subtle color variations in the green. Now I have to jot down some design notes of my work so far and do some math so I can keep knitting. Only 19 days left!

And only 30 days until Halloween. (And you thought Christmas was a busy time to be a knitter!) I started wee one's baby Viking hat but I'm knitting it along with my beginning knitting class and I can't get too far ahead of them so I couldn't knit too much more on it. Instead I moved on to making the wings and the braids.

Only one more week of hat class, so I should be able to have this done in time for a reveal on Leif Erikson Day. Then I can focus on the boys' costumes. I may knit hats for them to wear with the costumes I'm sewing. These Mac & Me hat patterns (thanks for the link Zelda Zunk!) are so funny, I feel like I've got to make at least one. The ghost hat would be a perfect way to top off B's ghost poncho. And S's Spongebob is going to need a Krusty Krab hat, no? Take off the big black eyes, add an anchor and a bill and it's perfect.

Only 30 days....

... is for green, but it's also how I'm feeling about my Rhinebeck sweater right now.

I mucked up the sizing. Doh! Oh well, out it goes.

Double grrrrr.... I had such a busy week last week that I'm about 10 days behind in emails! If you've sent me an email recently, please know that I hope to get to all the emails this week. Sockapalooza may be needing a few more sock saviors, so check back at the end of the week!

Ah yes, knitting! It's been a long day today with no school and a handful of errands to do and then I've been doing so much sewing, you'll forgive me if I forgot.

Ah yes, my Rhinebeck sweater. Well, my forearms, at least, are ready for Rhinebeck. The rest, not so much.

Hey, you going to Rhinebeck? I'll be there both days and doing some book signing on Sunday. So be sure to stop by and say hi!

Here she is, the wee pinwheel.

I love it! The colors came out looking beautiful together (I claim no great color sense; they were in this order on the Knitpicks color card!) and the loopy edge, which I wasn't quite sure about at first, is a really sweet touch. It took no time to knit the actual sweater. If you're planning on making this be warned that the main sweater part is just about a third of the work. That loopy edge takes another third of the time (okay, maybe a little less time, but definitely more energy!) and then those sleeves go surprisingly slowly. I used practically no yarn from all but the last two colors. Seriously, the skeins look untouched! But I only had a scant couple of yards left of the last color. I was sweating bullets worrying that I wouldn't make it around that loopy edge! Overall, it's a pretty easy knit once you deal with magic loop or the dpns you need to get the early part of the circle done. An easy knit, so of course, I kept making mistakes! I managed to lose the starting point somewhere early on and started working pattern rounds for a round and a half. Ugh! Then after fixing that, I managed to place the sleeves in the wrong place (I'm going give at least some of the blame for that to the pattern writing there). And finally, where the pattern switches to garter stitch, I managed to lose one of the final yarnover increases and had to spend thirty minutes finding it and reworking the garter stitch. I hate to think how fast I could have knit it if I hadn't been so incompetent the whole time!

A few notes on the changes I made. After swatching, I found that I really liked the Knitpicks Swish Superwash on a US7 needle, so my gauge is a leeeetle bit smaller than called for in the pattern. The child size is supposed to go from 9 months to about 4 years, but mine fits my 6 month-old wee one great right now and should last her at least until she's two. I really like the fit that it has now and consider the gauge change a lucky accident. The second change I made was in the sleeves. I was suprised by how much I liked that garter stitch edge in the last two colors of the body of the sweater. It really transforms the circle/blanket looking thing into a proper looking jacket. So I decided to do the sleeve edging in garter stitch as well instead of in the rib called for by the pattern.

It rolls up just as well and will have a neat bell look when wee one is older and wears it rolled down. There's one more pic of her wearing it yesterday before blocking. She's napping right now, so you'll have to wait until Rhinebeck to see her modelling it again!

Now on to my Rhinebeck apparel....

First, we found our way out of a maze. We made our annual trip out to the Davis Mega Maze to get lost and have some fun!

Wee one was amazing for the two and a half hour hunt for the exit.

We love this place. If anyone out there is a Boston local and hasn't visited this awesome corn maze before, I really recommend it. They make it especially fun to do with the kids.

Speaking of the kids, the very next day the boys learned how to ride bikes! They got bicycles with training wheels for their birthday back in July.

Suddenly last week, B started saying that he wanted a bicycle. I said, 'you got a bicycle for your birthday.' He said, 'nooooo, I mean one with two wheels.' I explained that the little wheels on his bike were training wheels that could come off when he was ready to ride without them. He said, 'I don't want to wait for that. I just want a bicycle now.' I think he thought the training wheels were like baby teeth or something, falling off when "it was time." I kept explaining that daddy could take them off anytime and he kept insisting that he couldn't wait. So hubby got out the wrench and voila, B gets a bike. After a couple of falls, he was off like he'd been doing it forever.

S couldn't let his brother have all the glory, so he took a few tumbles and then set off on his own.

And while all the boys were out with the bikes, I was at home making friends with magic loop. It's not like we were enemies, but I hadn't ever warmed to it. I like my dpns. I like doing socks on dpns. A couple of years ago, everyone talked about the magic loop like it was some sort of great revelation. I tried it and there was no epiphany, so I went back to my dpns. As I started wee one's pinwheel jacket on dpns - it's knit in the round from the center out - it was looking like crap on a stick (well, crap on three sticks actually!). So I snuck into the (napping) baby's room to get different dpns, but in the dark all I managed to find in the right size was a long addi circular. Desperate times and all that. I gave it a shot.

Hey Mikey, she likes it!

I might even consider doing socks this way. As long as I can get me some of those fab Addi Lace needles! Hee, hee.

Oh yeah, and then I finished the pinwheel sweater.

Yes, it's all done, (the other sleeve too, you skeptics!), it fits and wee one likes it. It's blocking now, so I'll see you tomorrow with all the finished pictures.

That's enough for one weekend, don't you think?

Wee one! And she should be sporting a new sweater! I just got the yarn...

It's KnitPicks Swish Superwash for a baby Pinwheel Sweater. I'm so excited about this project. It can be my go-to project when my own Rhinebeck sweater has issues. Which it's having now, so let's cast on for the pinwheel sweater, shall we?! Hee, hee.

I'm working with this green Shelridge Farm worsted wool (yummmy!). I've swatched and swatched and swatched and changed my plans over and over.

If I can ever get things to synch, this should be a design for the sweet sheep and something new for me to wear to Rhinebeck. Man, where is Tim Gunn when you need him? "Make it work!"