Now for Something Completely Different

I explained in my last post about all the knitting that is going on surrounding my siste-in-law and her gestating twin baby girls, right? Right. And how I gave up on the idea of christening blankets, which turned out to be a good idea as I guess my mother-in-law had been wanting to do that anyway. So I guess everyone wins...?

Either way, I still needed something to knit. I wanted it simple after that monstrosity of a lace-weight lace blanket, but still in theme. This is kind of the idea the nursery is going: 

And it just so happened I had gray yarn in my stash from my master plan of knitting for babies. So I went rooting through my Ravelry and found this pattern which seemed appropriate: Radiating Star Blanket. I figured they would need actually warm blankets, this being Michigan, and the star pattern would fit in with the theme of the nursery, color- and shape-wise. It's knit in a circle, which is great for me, and it's mostly knit stich and yarn overs, with a few decreases to keep it even. I started in and everything was going swimmingly:

Isn't the star pretty? The problem came when I left the pattern at home for a day. I figured I knew more or less what was going on with the pattern of yarn overs and decreases, I wanted to knit, so I just kept going. Whoops. 

Not a bad whoops at all. See the pattern is supposed to cut out almost rectangular sections at regular intervals, like so:

From Ravelry user jackik71's Big Star

I got the first iteration started, but missed the turn off to start the one after that. Do you follow me? So there's the little star with 8 points, then a secondary bigger star off of that, then a third after that going out, with each section getting bigger but in the same general shape. Around the 3rd iteration they stop looking like petals or points and start looking more like rectangles. I missed that bit. So now I have the central star and the first points coming out from that:

See the star in the middle and the big points coming out from each pair?

All well and good, but now I'm off pattern. Do I try to get back on pattern, just with larger and larger sections each time? NO. Man that sounds like a lot of work. What I did instead was finish up the secondary points, then continue outward with the spiraling increases that actually increase the blanket's circumference. Don't worry, all will be clear by the time I knit a few more rounds. 

Look, it makes sense to me, it keeps life very very simple for this project, and I think it will make the star(s) in the middle more distinct anyway. Until I'm proved otherwise, we're going with this. 

I also need to get started on the project I'm actually SUPPOSED to be making as part of the mother/daughter-in-law swap. In lieu of blankets, they picked out these Christmas sweaters:

Modeled by the ugliest collection of baby dolls I have ever seen.

The twins are going to be November babies, so the Christmas sweaters will be their outfits for the first Christmas cards of their lives. Sister-in-Law H picked out the Christmas tree one:

With Sad Baby Doll model

and the snowman one: 

With Sleeping Baby Doll model

These were in an attempt to be gender neutral, as at the time she didn't know what they would be. The only alteration she wanted made was a red and white striped scarf, rather than gray. Whatever. 

Since I bought all the yarn and patterns for the blankets, my mother-in-law got the materials for the sweaters:

The Christmas tree yarn. Oddly named "Army Green", which doesn't seem quite right.

And the variety for the snowman. 

The hats, scarf, and booties I have no problem with. The problem I have is with the sweaters themselves. I think they're ugly. Seriously, set-in dropped shoulders on infants? Cardigans: great idea. Larger sizing so clothes go on easier: perfect. But sewing together and seaming up a sweater that small? Come on, give me a break. I am occasionally about challenges, but as we already found out, knitting is often something I want to be easy. There's enough stress and complication in my life without my knitting being irritating. So I'm scouting around for a different pattern that has sensible raglan shaping in the right gauge. 

No one will know the difference :)

The Point of It All...

So, here on this side of the world, there's been a bit of a knitting slump.
Remember this sweater?

I was worried about not having enough of the baby blue to finish the sleeves. I tried to be smart and before starting the sleeves I split the remaining blue yarn into two balls so at least the sleeves would be more or less even lengths. Good in theory...until my house became a mess and I now cannot find the 2nd ball of blue yarn to do the second sleeve. I am currently trying to decide if I should pitch the darn thing or just put it on scrap yarn and hope the other ball turns up eventually. 

Also, remember this one?

This was the start of one of two heirloom christening blankets for my soon-to-be nieces. I foolishly picked the harder of the two to start, figuring that it would take more time. Soon after this my mother-in-law, who is a highly accomplished lace knitter, approached me and asked if I would be willing to split projects with her. She was going to make two Christmas sweaters for the babies, but lace is more her thing. We agreed to each do one blanket and one sweater, which seemed a more doable division of later. I got to the end of the border, a few rows past the picture above and was at the start of the lace pattern. We had a long road trip coming up, so I decided to wait until I had hours of free time in the car to figure out the pattern. There were many trials and travails that I won't go into, but long story short I got 5 rows into the lace pattern, of the right side lace rows, after 5 or 6 hours of work, and Every. Single. One. Of. Them. had gone wrong. Every one. Each requiring much 'tinking' back or correction in farther rows. I was heartily sick of the damn thing, and I was only 10 rows in to the 44 row lace section, of which there needed to be 3-4 repetitions for length. Crap. 

I approached my long-suffering and ever-helpful mother-in-law and gave her my options. I was contemplating ripping the whole thing out and starting over, or just giving it to her. Seriously, I hated every stitch, which is not good when knitting something for people you love. She very graciously agreed that if I was not having fun and it was becoming a chore then it would be better to abandon it and she was willing to take it on, being much more experienced with lace patterns. Seriously, she just won a lace competition, this woman is so good. Check it out: http://www.needleworktraditions.com/needlework-contest/ , it's seriously insane. And she said I could knit both the sweaters, which is more my wheelhouse anyway, so I could still making something for the babies. 

I'm not happy about any of this. It feels like failure, I suppose because it is kind of a failure. The lost yarn is not entirely my fault (even though it mostly is, but I can ignore that), but the blanket absolutely is. I gave up. I chose to be done. 

But I think my mother-in-law had a good point. This whole knitting thing, this crazy obsessive thing that knitters do, is supposed to be FUN. Whether we enjoy the making more than the created object itself, or if we like having the thing that we can say we made with our own hands, or if we like both, knitting is supposed to be fun. Relaxing. This blanket was feeling like a chore and was no longer in any way enjoyable. To complete this blanket would have been nothing but bad vibes and evil thoughts and making me thoroughly uncomfortable and annoyed. None of those things are what I want to wrap around a baby. So I can accept that sometimes you have to give up a project for the sake of your sanity and that's okay. Just as I've been coming to accept that my ability to help people or not at work is not a measure of my worth as a human, I should accept the same with my knitting. My ability to produce knitted things of any quality is not a reflection of my ability to be a worthwhile human being. That may seems like a rather extreme comparison to make, but we all judge our own self-worth by something and more often than not it's not a fair scale. 

Don't be afraid to give up on something that is not making you happy, especially when it's something so inconsequential and something that is supposed to be fun. 

Moving Right Along...

I am almost at the end of this self-appointed nonsense. 6 small baby projects done. I'm down to the 6 month sweater for my friend Fish and his wife's second son who arrived about a week ago. It's in this sort of state:

Clearly, some real progress!

Yeah...

Anyway, I was also on a deadline. We were heading to Colorado for a wedding where I would meet my new cousin-in-law W. Cousin R and J had Baby W in February, but I hadn't gotten anything done. I finished a hat really quickly and decided that 3 hours on a plane was a great time to knit.

All sorts of things

Note to self, double-pointed knitting needles are easily dropped and not easily recovered on a cramped airplane.
But sure enough, 3 hours on the plane and several long drives in Colorado, I got a small pair of mittens done.

Not going to lie, I love these colors 

So cute

So, a couple of things. One, this weekend was SO busy, I finished the knitting and didn't have time to really photograph them well. These were literally taken on the top of our rental car a few minutes before I handed them off to poor surprised mom Cousin J-F. (Seriously, why would twins R and J marry J and R, respectively? Madness. But handy, I can remember R and J's wives better than I can tell R and J apart on their own). 

Two, I actually did my first bit of crochet on this project. I wanted to make a cord to connect the mittens so they don't get lost. Making cord is so time consuming and boring and complicated in knitting. You can do I-cord, which is using 2 needles and circular knitting to make a thin tube, but I find that it pulls a lot and is irritating. You can also cast on a million stitches and then bind them all off again immediately. I've never tried this because I hate this idea just on principle, so I couldn't tell you how it looks. On the other hand, single chain crochet sounded fairly easy, proved to be, and was so much faster. 

Third, I love these colors. I love navy and green. My mother and color consultant was convinced that the frog green was going to be too obnoxious and I think these proved her wrong. 

Four, I have made too many hats. I have the pattern memorized. Multiple of 10 stitches, 1-2 inches of ribbing, stockinette stitch to length, K8 K2tog around, knit, repeat decreasing K# by one each time. Super easy. 

Five, color work, even simple stripes, on something as small as these mittens is...interesting. I was so worried about gapping at the switches between blue and green that I pulled too hard and there is an area up the side of each mitten where the green stripe mysteriously disappears, the stitches having been pulled all the way behind the blue background with the force of my tension. Ugh. Ah well. I am not a type A knitter, I am okay with these small idiosyncrasies in favor of the project being done.  

Being done with the hat and mittens, I was now able to cast on for my sister-in-law H who is in fact having twins, though we won't know genders till mid-August. This was not a problem for me as I had already announced my intention to knit christening blankets in cream or white, even though the babies probably won't be christened or baptized, dedication being more of the thing at our church. Still, it's the thought that counts and I really wanted to do something of more heirloom level. 

Plan B

Well, of course it turns out my sister-in-law is having twins.
And of course my knitting plan for all the babies would become CLEARLY overly ambitious as it went on. I might have had a fighting chance if I only had to deliver knitted things shortly before the moms delivered the kids, but that's not the way modern society works. All of the summer babies are having May showers and I am up a creek.
Well, not entirely. It's good to have back up knit things, even if unintentionally.
My plans to knit sweater for most of the expected-s went down the tubes quickly. This is the only sweater I've started:

Half finished, as you can see.

The bottom needs finishing as well.

This is the Wee Lima again, which I find to be very like the Puerperium Cardigan I like so much. It's almost 2/3 done, just need to do the grey edging on the bottom and the sleeves. This will be going to a dear friend's second son, rather than a coworker. Sorry guys, them's the breaks. 

The reason this is only still partly finish is because I had to quickly shift gears for a baby shower for Coworker K-F and her twin boys. 

I'm quite pleased.

I am not a huge fan of matchy-matchiness for twins, particularly identical ones. Sure it's cute the first few years, but man it must be hard to tell them apart. So when planning for Coworker K-F's twins, I wanted something that coordinated tightly, but weren't the exact same thing. This also turned out to be a good way to stave off boredom. For those new to knitting, Second Sock Syndrome is a proven condition where you get done with one sock and realize that you have to knit another one, exactly like it. BORING. Therefore you put off casting on the second sock, or in this case, the second hat, in favor of more interesting projects. Even though these hats are precisely the same in construction and color pattern, just switching up the color kept me interested and engaged. 

This pattern is the Dizzy Baby Hat and I think it's charming. Nothing complicated whatsoever, except for jogless stripes. So, when you knit stripes, given the vertical stacking of rows that constitutes knitting, your stripes will end up uneven at the start of the row. 

See the weird jog at the first change from gray to blue at the bottom?

There are lots of tutorials on the interwebs for how to correct for this to knit "jogless stripes". I tried this out with the Dizzy, and found it annoying to do and it didn't really work. I am willing to accept I might have been doing it wrong, but with the single stripes it just looked bad. So I gave up. Trying to find an example I had to work at finding the jog, so I don't think it's aesthetically destructive. 

Once the Dizzy hats were done (thank God), I turned my attention to the other 2 coworkers having a shower soon. As in, next week. There was no way I was going to get anything like a sweater done. So I turned to my stash of mostly-completed things:

I know, it's terribly well organized.

And found this for Coworker D's first son:

Okay, this isn't quite done either.

It's the pieces of Reversible Stripes and Dots from my favorite baby hat book. I still need to sew them together, and it's a little big for a newborn, but I'm out of time. He'll grow into it, and Coworker D is a Michigan fan, so he'll like the colorway anyway :) I remember these being a lot harder to finish than I thought they should be. See all of my raggedy silk stitch embellishing around the dots? Yeah, a lot harder than it looks to make a smoothly-colored circle. Anyway, I just need to neatly whip stitch them together and we should be good to go. 

The last one I need by next week is something for Coworker E's second boy. I originally wanted to dig out a robins-egg-blue circle blanket I knit ages ago. But it's all packed up with a remodel at my parents' house, so no dice. So I started this little number:

It's basically the Dizzy pattern with wider stripes. Dull, but fast.

Also, if you're observant you'll realize that all of the newer knits: the sweater, the Dizzy hats, and that last stripey hat...are all in the same yarns. Dear God, I am so sick of mid-gray and that freaking blah baby blue. So done. Ready for something new. Looking down the knitting plan and available yarn... a blue-grey baby cardigan. Kill me now. 

At Least They Knit Up Quick...Right?

I am at that stage in life where everyone I know is mostly done getting married and many are starting to create small new humans. Last post I was in the process of counting them all up. It's been fun trying to organize my thoughts on all of this, and to group them for easiest explanation.

Not the prettiest of charts and there is a bit of a gap as my sister-in-law just found out she's pregnant, maybe with twins, unknown genders as of yet. Oy. Unknowns are not good for my knitting schedule.
Oh yes, I have a knitting schedule. Well, a plan anyway. Mostly. I have everyone laid out in two lists: priority by due date and priority by first kids vs multiples. For example, my two cousins who delivered their second and fourth child-s, respectively, in the last month or so, are unlikely to get anything handknit for these kids at all. Sad but true. My tall hubby's cousin who delivered her first child a month ago is still on the list though, especially as we'll be seeing her and Baby W later this year. All as-yet-unborn children are still on the list to receive something handknit from Random Lady Coworker/Aunt/Cousin E.
I also have a list of prospective possible knits for each above mentioned child, based on stash yarn available for use, gender, and speediness of pattern.
It did just strike me that I may have an irrational fondness for lists of all kinds. They make me feel more organized which makes the project feel more do-able, if still daunting. Remember the gigantic sock project that was the genesis of this blog? Yeah. Here we go again.
BUT... all of these things are being knit for babies, miniature humans, so they'll knit up quicker than the funky artsy lace shawl I was going to knit for my friend's wedding, right? They also shouldn't involve any techniques I'm not familiar with, like a variety of sock heels and toes. Even if I am planning on six-month-sized sweaters since 90% of the intended recipients are going to be spring and summer babies. Shouldn't make that much of a difference, right?
ALSO... I'm almost at the point where I can check two of the people off my list anyway! Coworker K's baby shower is supposed to be this Friday and the sweater for his 2nd child and 1st girl is currently damp-blocking on my floor.

The only true in-progress shot I took. I like how the needles match the  yarn, actually.

The completed sweater.

Lots of pins to keep the edge even and mostly not-ripply. 

Isn't it so cute? I really like how it turned out. It's the Puerperium Cardigan  again, which is one of my new favorite patterns for babies. The freebie version above is in a set weight and sized for newborns. They also have the Beyond Puerperium available, which is supposed to give instructions for different gauges of yarn and bigger sizes. I'm going to have to buy it soon.

This was the sweater I was in the midst of knitting when I realized this baby was due in June, so as a newborn she may not need a heavier sweater to wear... So I made it short sleeved and decided this would be a lesson (trying to learn, see?) and Coworker K could make do. 

I also realized halfway through that I wouldn't have enough pink yarn ( Caron Simply Soft left over from a scarf for a past roommate), so I dug up some gray to stripe in for length. I really love the color combination and the slight asymmetry with the solid button band cutting across the stripes. After it dries I just have to sew on the gray buttons I bought and this sweater will be complete!
Next on my list is Coworker S who is having her first baby and first girl in late May. I wasn't sure about getting another sweater done before her eventual baby shower, especially not in a 6 month size. During a conversation with Coworker S, she mentioned that she wasn't crafty (poor girl) but had pinned lots of cute little hats on her Pinterest board knowing she wouldn't likely be able to make them. So up went my eager hand and I was set on my course to make cute, trendy hats in mint and purple, her favorite colors. My plan is to do a set of hats, one in each size up to a year. The purple newborn one is in the works now and I just sewed up the last of the 3-ish months size.

Super on-trend right now, I understand.

I think it's super cute. It's a Bow Baby Hat and is frankly kind of uninteresting. It's a straightforward stocking cap in miniature with a garter stitch bow. I picked up some Bernat Satin in the requisite colors and it was mostly done in a few days. It's a great pattern for new knitters though. Minimal purling, lots of knitting, and a great result. I may do another hat with the leftover mint yarn, we'll have to see. I have a 6 month old size hat that I knit a while ago just for this eventuality, so I'll add that to the pile as well.

Isn't it sweet?

This is the Cherry-O! out of this fantastic book:

Seriously, it's great.

I use this book a lot. It's got a lot of fantastic ideas for customizing cute small people hats with a minimum of fuss and bother. I used it a lot in the past when my desire to knit things for babies first sprang into terrible being and my knitting skill was less developed. 

ANYWAY... That's almost two projects nearly done, out of at least ten desired. 

IN REALITY THOUGH... I'm screwed, aren't I? :) Still having fun though, so onward and upward.

The Power of Not Learning

As always, it started so well...

So, for Pair O' Socks Number 3, I went to my modest library of knitting books (mostly given as gifts from well-meaning, supportive, NON-knitters) and this fantastic book:

I love that I somehow managed to give the model redeye.
Here's the pattern site on Ravelry

It really is a good book of cute and classic accessories. Useful for my purposes was the couple of sock patterns. Growing up in a house with dedicated ballet dancers, and marrying into a family with dedicated ballet dancers, the bright and adorable Tutu slipper was too apt to pass up. I bought a dusty purple yarn on sale at Hobby Lobby on Black Friday (seriously, who goes yarn shopping on Black Friday?) and got going.
Now, the great thing about toe-up socks or slippers is you can try them on as you go. Remember how I estimated  my foot length on that last pair of socks, completely negating the great thing about toe-up socks? Uh huh. I distinctly remember getting towards the end of the foot part of my first slipper and thinking, 'Huh, I should try these on and see if they fit. Well, I don't know of the heel shaping is going to add any length to this, so I better stop a bit short in case they do.' *facepalm* I did the same thing while knitting the strap that goes over the top of your foot. I was in the back seat of a small car in January with 3 coworkers. I did NOT want to take off my winter boots and heavy socks in order to try on the slipper and test the length of the in-progress strap. Nor did I want to stop knitting. So I guessed. Again.

I do still like the color.

The left one is at least done being knit. I looked up the magic loop-y cast on thing-y in order to get the seamless toe. I found out that this kind of heel, probably a short-row heel, does not add any length to the foot. I discovered that I had knit the strap too short, but could not fix it due to having finished the picot edging. Dear God, picot edging is so boring.

Cute, but it takes forever. 

The slipper is very open, so it will not stay on your foot at all without the strap and a ribbon that is supposed to gather through the eyelet row, just below the picot edging. So the left slipper just needs some finishing touches to be complete.
I tell you though, nothing is as depressing and project-completion-stopping as finding out you knit something too small and that it would take AGES of frogging to fix it. Seriously. The edging is all one piece around the too-short strap and to lengthen the foot I would have to take out the whole heel. This project sat dormant for quite a while. I finally decided to just make the other slipper and figure out the left slipper issue later.

See!? I totally cast on the second slipper...

Uh huh. I did just try on the other slipper and have decided I can make it work. I'm thinking about snipping the too-short strap and doing a thicker coordinating ribbon strap instead of a knit one, because I'm lazy and don't want to have to reknit 3/4 of a freaking ballet slipper and that bloody picot edging...
But back to the right slipper. Remember how a few posts ago I was bemoaning the human urge to reproduce? Yeah. I was already getting Second Sock Syndrome with this project anyway and then I realized how many freaking people around me were having children. It has also only gotten worse. I decided to make a final count of the ones I know about:
4 coworkers, 1 having twins, 2 with their first kids.
3 cousins, 2 have already delivered(probably out of luck on the new knitting then), and 1 with his first.
2 in-laws, both their firsts, 1 already here and 1 very long awaited and hard-worked-for.
1 friend, second kid, high risk.
11. Freaking. Babies. Dear. God.

Sigh...

I've been knitting for multiple years. I promise I have. I've made successful changes to patterns in terms of fitting and stuff. So how did it go so wrong?

My second pair of socks started out well. I picked a simple toe-up pattern, as a foil to my top-down first pair. I went with "Socks on a Plane" by Laura Linneman. I liked the little bit of cabling to keep me interested and I liked the idea of being able to try it on for fit as I went along.

Let's examine it, shall we?

Pros
1. Toe-up. You can indeed try it on as you go, and that's helpful
2. I cast on the second sock immediately upon finishing the first sock.
3. I also carefully examined the first sock and wrote down after how many cables I started the heel gusset, when I started adding some increases in the leg for more room, and when to start the cuff so I could replicate the first as closely as possible.

Cons
First mistake: Yarn. I went with a variegated yarn given to me by my mother-in-law. I've lost the ball band, but it's mostly wool and in a great colorway.



The greens and shades of blue is great. But can you see the cable in this? I can't. It just muddles the self-striping nature of the yarn.

Mistake No. 2: Estimation. I was supposed to start increasing for the heel gusset about an inch or so shorter than I wanted the foot to be. Well, whatever I was thinking when I did that on my first sock, I was off. That's pretty typical when I estimate. The foot of Sock #1 is too short for my foot.

Mistake No. 3: Doubting the pattern. I didn't understand the heel shaping instructions for Sock #1 and I interpreted it rather liberally and creatively. And completely incorrectly, clearly.

It's so ugly.

And proportionally, so off. 

Good God, it's so bad. But I didn't know what it should look like till later, so I just left it and continued blithely on.

Mistake No. 4. I then changed my approach with Sock #2's heel and trusted the written instructions. I was happy to find out my second interpretation worked, though I wasn't thrilled at first about how it looked. 

It grew on me though.

I was happy it worked, and so continued on. I held up the 2 socks to compare them. The foot of Sock #2 was longer than Sock #1, which was good. But after completing the heel of Sock #2 and a few rounds of knitting for the leg, I was decidedly closer to the leg length of Sock #1 than I should have been. I ditched most of my comparison notes and skipped to the cuff.

Mistake No.5: I cast off too tightly. I knit tight. I know this. I have a bad habit of casting off tightly. I know this. Yet I hardly ever correct for this. On this instance, I'll blame worrying about the outcome of this pair of socks that I've spent a lot of time on for my inattention. 

Mistake No. 6: Toes. I somehow managed to delude myself that Kitchener stitch could be done on two cast on edges. After extensive Internet research I have found that there is a way to do it, but when I was anxiously trying to finish these I didn't realize this. Trying to pick up stitches along the cast on edge failed due to anxiety, so I just threaded a tapestry needle and whip stitched the toes closed on both. I have also since learned that "your preferred cast-on method for toe-up socks (ex: Judy's Magic Cast On)" did not mean "just any old cast on you like", but that there are actual techniques meant for this kind of project that would not result in open toes. *face palm. 

Result

Well, they're done, anyway.

Dear God.

The upshot of all of this is that I basically managed to knit two different socks from the exact same pattern. Sock #1 is too small and so is tight and pulls disgracefully around my foot, leaving large gaps to let the wind in and distorting the design further. Sock #2 fits more nicely, especially around the heel, but I had to work very hard to get the cuff over my ankle and instep, as well as almost needing to grab scissors to get the thing off again. Sigh...

TO BE VERY CLEAR:

I like this pattern. I like the light, simple cabling and the toe-up method. I will use this pattern again. I just will learn from my mistakes and do better next time (hopefully).

These particular socks are going (sadly) in the garbage bin. Or I suppose I should frog the yarn and not be wasteful. But I'm so unhappy at these socks that I don't really want to.