Honey Ribbed Cowl

Last Christmas I custom-knit a Honey Cowl for a friend of mine to give to his girlfriend. She wanted an 'infinity scarf in two colours and I thought this pattern would suit. I didn't get a photo of her wearing it but this is what it looked like ready to wrap.

Months ago I started one for me with Sandnesgarn Alpakka yarn. I picked it up last week to finish while I was riding the train into The Big City and was able to finish knitting it on the ride home.

I modified it by knitting three rounds of stocking stitch between groups of 3 stranded rounds. I liked the variety of texture.

I actually wore it like this when we got off the train as it was really nippy on the walk to our car.

When I went to weave the ends in I discovered 4 holes in the fabric which I had to mend by a sort-of duplicate stitch. I guess we must have had a hungry moth in the house this summer. Funny, the only items I've knit that have ever developed holes (assume by moths) were 100% alpaca.

The down-side of the alpaca cowl is the fibres shedding onto anything remotely sticky. My coat is a slippery fibre but I'll have to watch what I wear when I use this cowl.

The Honey Cowl is a really easy knit and certainly a faster knit than I made it.

Christmas Traditions

I was shopping at the discount store (that rhymes with FallMart) and found a bunch of different Christmas kits. The one that really caught my eye was this one:

Of course I had to buy it but it was mostly for the sweater cookie cutter. I have already made a bunch of Christmas cookies but will need to make another batch for Christmas giving so will do a few of these as well.

Last week Skip and I went to the local farmer's Christmas parade which involved them decorating their tractors with lots of lights and in most cases towing a trailer/float. It lasted about 15 minutes which is about all one wants to be outside in the dark and cold.

My intrepid companions (Skip in the foreground and Owen and his grandpa in the background) eagerly waited for the start of the parade.

 Finally the tractors appeared - each with a generator to light the lights. There were reindeer on this one - front


and back.

Here was a load of presents for good girls and boys.

On this 'float' were Scooby Doo and a festive teddy bear.

This was one of the 'minimalist' floats.

This one was drawn by a couple of horses.

Across the street was a large group - several families, I suppose. I think it's an annual tradition for them as well. In between floats, the peppy young boys played in the snow in the ditch.

Finally Santa arrived - driving his own tractor!

And then it was done.

Once we got Owen back in the car, he conked out for the ride home.

Last night we attended our local town band's Christmas concert. They are celebrating their 150th year of operation. My buddy and classmate from university (a few decades ago), Glenn Ward, is their conductor.

A couple of rows ahead of us, this woman was sporting a sweater with an interesting pattern - a tree of life in a diamond cable. I had to sneak this shot.

The tractor parade and the Christmas concert have become annual tradition for Skip and me. They combine festive events with spending time with friends.

And Then There Were Mitts

My knitterly friend, Mo (Maureen Foulds), recently published a sock design, "And Then There Were None" based on the renamed Agatha Christie novel. Another Ravelry member who doesn't normally knit socks told Mo she bought the pattern for the cable design as she wanted to turn them into fingerless mitts.

Mo quickly got going on a clever design which incorporated long cuffs (gauntlets, really), the cable pattern from her sock design and a long ribbed section that covers the fingers. It folds back easily due to a knit round that creates a 'crease' in the fabric that flips back when the wearer wants to sent a message on their smart phone, pick up change, type, etc. She named her design, "And Then There Were Mitts". Click here to see her blog post or here for the pattern or here for a great photo.

And the coolest thing? She released the ATTWM pattern today on Ravelry and got to Number 1 on the "Hot Right Now" section of the Patterns page!!! That's #1 out of over 146,000 patterns on Ravelry!!! Number One! It may be the loneliest number but it's pretty freaking amazing to be a Hot Right Now number 1.

Isn't that just the coolest?

And the pattern is free on Ravelry until this Wednesday, December 11.

I hope Mo remembers us 'little people'.

Obsessed with Cables

Since returning from Ireland, I've been obsessed with cable knitting. I'm designing a sweater and have been swatching and knitting for it and other cable-y projects.

Winter is upon us and I thought a nice hat with cables would be in order. I found Declan's Hat on Ravelry and thought it would be a quick knit.

I used some Evergreen Aran yarn from my stash and in short order I had finished. I knit the medium size because the instructions said the adult large size made a hat for a very big head. I have a small head. The circumference wasn't the problem. It was the depth of the hat.

I should have knit another couple of inches of ribbing before starting the cables or improvised an extra cable.

Oh well. Maybe I'll be able to find a child who would like a great cable-y hat.

I did learn a trick for knitting cables from the knitting workshop I took with Carol Feller. Sometimes the first stitch of the reverse stocking stitch after the cable is loose and sloppy.

Carol suggested wrapping the yarn the other way (clockwise) on this first purl stitch after the cable. Wrapping the yarn this way uses less yarn than wrapping the other way, hence eliminating looseness. The stitch in question will be oriented the wrong way on the needle with the left 'leg' in front but when you encounter it in the next row or round, just re-orient it and knit as usual. Try it!

It really tightened up my cable knitting.

They Can Now Be Revealed

I completed a stealth knitting project a while back. It was a pair of custom-knit mittens in Cascade 220 Superwash DK yarn.

My friend, Francey, wanted a pair of mittens with the Colorado State University mascot, Cam the Ram's symbol on the palms and CSU on the back of the mittens. Those of you with a discerning eye will note the ram is a modified version from my 'Rams and Yowes' blanket. She found the colour of yarn she wanted and mailed it to me while I was in Ireland. The package with the yarn was waiting for me when I got home. 
The plain mittens knit up very quickly. For such a small amount of the white, I just duplicate stitched the ram and letters with the white yarn. Basically you are duplicating the path of the yarn that you are covering. It is fairly easy to do and works well on small amounts of colourwork. The stocking stitch fabric also remains quite stretchy.

I swatched with this yarn and the needles and figured out how many stitches to cast on. I then improvised a cable pattern for the cuffs as the rest of the mittens were just going to be in stocking stitch.

The mittens are big on Francey as I made them to fit my hands, but she wore gloves under them today in Colorado when it was so bitterly cold and her hands were nice and toasty.

It's nice when someone you know is knitworthy. :-)

Cool Cables

The other day I saw a cool teapot advertised in the local paper. It had cables! AND it was available at a local grocery store (Loblaws Superstore).

I went out today and picked one up. It comes as a set with a little teacup and saucer. The teapot holds about 2 cups. The teacup about 1 cup.

There also were cabled coffee mugs.

I picked up a couple of those, too.

Second Sock Done

I got the second sock done last night.

The dyelots were the same -  they just look different.

I liked knitting the stripes.

I think it would be cool to knit a pair of stripey socks with random yarns kinda like this. But I would  alternate darks and lights.