Crafty but not mine

I have mentioned my son here before, he is a madman and a great deal of fun. Well, this past weekend I received the most awesome mother’s day gift ever.

One turtle to rule them all.

I don’t know that there is a better turtle ring out there. The husband did really well this year. He used an etsy artisan who specializes in taking drawings by kids and turning them into jewelry. I think it came out awesome and am totally in love with this ring.

Sometimes I get a bit down on etsy, but then you find an artist like this and remember what etsy is really about. If you are careful and vet the store carefully you can actually support a small artist just trying to do their art.

Another thing I was thinking about. With this post I have strayed away from my main subject of knitting. How do y’all feel about that? I have no intention of turning this into a “slice of life” blog, but would y’all be interested in hearing more about other projects I might have?

One might have recently acquired 8 new mouths beaks to feed … there could be pictures.

Curiouser Mitts

Let’s talk about fingerless mitts. I am a huge fan of fingerless mitts, the one pair that I have made for myself is probably my most worn knitted item. They are imminently practical and are usually fun, quick knits. You can easily get a pair out of most any single skeins of yarn or partial balls you have left laying around.

Easy and fun, but there are things about some of the available patterns that I do not care for – and please know that these are just my personal preferences and not meant to cast aspersions on the design choices of anyone else.

1) I love the look of “reflected” mitts. Where there is a distinct left and rightness to the hands. Unfortunately this usually means that you have two sets of instructions for the two mitts – which makes the knitting process less fun and easy. Then, once they are made you have to make sure you get the right one on the right hand.

2) Picking up the thumb. While I do not care for the “hole to stick your thumb out of” method of creating thumbs (vastly preferring a gusset) I also do not like transferring the thumb stitches to waste yarn, picking up the stitches later and then knitting the 4 – 5 rows of both thumbs creating thusly four new ends to weave in.

3) One size fits all – but mostly all women who have relatively small hands.

So, obviously when I set out to make a pair of mitts to match …and Curiouser, I had an agenda.

Curiouser Mitts – one skein of Finito

I used a gusset, but worked it up to the point where it covered enough of the thumb to get away with simply binding off – it does not provide full thumb coverage, but you can always transfer to waste yarn and add your own thumbs if that is what floats your boat.

See the thumbs? No extra ends to weave in!

The pattern as written is designed for a medium hand with instructions to make it smaller for the petite and larger for, well, the larger. I like a little positive ease in my mitts – so these fit me perfectly. My husband has long thin hands and they fit him also.

Somehow these are pretty darn unisex

For the reflected patterning – I TOTALLY CHEATED. If you look carefully you will see I lifted the lace, cable and seed stitch patterning out of the shawl to make the pieces match, but it is the positioning of the elements that is the cheating. The cable is situated directly opposite of the thumb gusset with a stockinette/seed stitch gap separating the two. When you put the mitts on you instinctively scootch the thumb around so it is offset towards your palm. This rotates the cable around to the pinky edge of the back of your hand providing the illusion of reflected patterning without any reversing of the shaping or fiddling with the position of the thumb.

And, when you put them on it doesn’t matter which hand they go on. In my wacky brain I think of them as ambihandrous. 

As with …and Curiouser the original mitts were made with one skein of Malabrigo Finito worked at a fairly loose gauge. With these mitts it makes a big difference on the softness, but it also creates a situation where if you use a tightly spun sock weight yarn you will end up with a rather holey looking fabric. Now, if you have small hands you can simply go down needle sizes until you are happy  -  you will simply have smaller mitts. But if you are looking to keep the size (or even size up a bit) it will be better to substitute a Sport weight yarn.

Working on the Iphone, a perfect application for fingerless mitts

The mitts pictured that I made for my husband had just such a substitution. I had a partial skein of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz Bugga! left over from another project and I used that at the same gauge. It worked beautifully. Unfortunately the colorway has been retired – but if you really like these, the lovely dyer of Cephalapod Yarns has been known to resurrect colorways if she receives enough requests.

So – are you going to make a pair for the man in your life or for yourself? (I am aware that there is a distinct possibility that the man in your life is yourself – rock on guy knitters!)

and Curiouser

Stitches South!

Let me explain … no, no, no, there is too much. Let me sum up …

Crazy, and crazy fun. While it is no where near as enormous and overwhelming as Rhinebeck was, it is still a whirlwind of activity. I had a ton of fun and saw a ton of awesome textile based stuff. Unfortunately I left my camera in my hotel room so you will have to take my word for it.

This was my third year at Stitches, but the first one where I wasn’t working the floor, which made for a different experience. I had expected it to be more leisurely, but I was mistaken in that assumption. I still ran around like  chicken with my head cut off. Unlike previous years, I managed to take a class. The talented Candace Eisner Strick taught “Two hands, Two Colors, Two Ways” and packed a huge amount of learning in the 3 hour class.

I learned how to tension the yarn in my opposing hand (right for me, I am a continental knitter) and knit with the yarn held that way. Then we knit with yarn in both hands. Then we knit backwards with the yarn in both hands. Really! Backwards! No flipping over and doing return purl rows. The final, mind bending, trick was to weave in long floats along the way. In both directions. It was b-mazing.

And then, of course, the market floor was a treasure trove of STUFF. I managed to restrain myself with regards to spending, but I got a few – choice – items. All in all I purchased 5 skeins of yarn and 4 books. 3 of the books are in languages that I cannot actually read. But more on all of that later, now I need to tell you about my newest pattern that debuted in the Market. It is a piece that I worked on with a local yarn store for them to sell in a kit.

…and Curiouser

The whole time I was knitting Curiosity it kept whispering to me cables, lace, you know you want to … but I was trying to keep things simple and elegant. So I was hard on myself. But when the idea of doing this kit came up all bets were off. This shawlette is designed to make the most out of a single skein of Malabrigo Finito, which is only 200 yards of fingering weight. But what luxury is packed into those yards! Lofty and soft I chose to knit it at an open gauge to let the yarn achieve it’s full softness potential.

A detail of the lace and cables

The cables are slip stitch cables to help break up the more variegated color ways and the lace is a one-liner. Once you get into the rhythm, it isn’t a particularly hard pattern. And, as with Curiosity, it is amenable to yarn substitution. You can use anything from lace weight up to DK and still have a lovely drape (based on your gauge) and you can knit for as long as you feel like knitting. If you would rather have a full sized shawl then just keep adding yardage. Then there is an added bonus of button holes built into the lace pattern – to help with keeping the wrap all wrapped up.

So many ways to wear this piece!

Ever unable to leave well enough alone, I had a second skein of Finito so I made a matching pair of mitts – which are also now available. But this post has gotten long enough. More on the specifics of these lovelies later, I will probably mix it in with more Stitches South.

So, what do y’all think?

Irulan: elegant, beautiful and fit for a Princess

Quite some time ago I gave you a hint as to which was the next subject of my Dune inspired series. It has been a long time coming, but Irulan is finally here. First off, I was lucky enough to work with the talented Dani at Sunshine Yarns and she supplied the absolutely gorgeous yarn for this shawl. UltraLuxe Light is a single ply, fingering weight, Merino/Cashmere/Silk blend and it is truly a yarn fit for the Empress of the known universe.

I just had to take an arty shot to be dramatic

I seem to be completely smitten with the crescent shaping for a shawl, but they just sit so nicely on the shoulders. Staying on without fuss is something I value in an accessory. But Irulan has a significantly different construction from the crescent shapes in the Atreides series. Those shawls are defined by what I call a “winged crescent” shape – in tribute to to the Atreides eagle. All of them have the garter “wings” that stretch around and hug the shoulders.

I would have never thought of draping it like this. Yay models.

Irulan, on the other hand, maintains the edge shaping on both right and wrong sides and the internal shaping is integrated into the lace work. In this way I have avoided any of the distinctive and visible shaping elements that can be found on many shawls.

Look at the drape of that yarn!

Not to pat myself on the back, but I am really pleased with how the subtle details of this shawl came together as a whole. From the front you have these chevron motifs descending from the edge of the shawl and surmounted by the curved texture of garter. It looks as if it could be your traditionally structured shawl with a large garter top trimmed with a lace edging.( Also, see how the second motif in hangs almost precisely from the point of the shoulder?)

Surprise – not a plain back.

But when you see the back you are presented with these large, ornamental diamond motifs set off in stockinette and garter. The outside edges of these motifs follow the shoulder lines, framing the back and showcasing the yarn and lace. The larger of the trim lace patterns, fall not in the center of the shawl, but framing the center – which provides unexpected visual movement.

I love it when someone can pull off “bandit” style.

All in all I am smitten with this shawl. With regards to nuts and bolts – it is a low yardage shawlette, you can get away with less than 400 yards depending on your gauge. Because of the large chunks of stockinette & garter, it should work well with tonal and variegated yarns. The pattern is both entirely written and extensively charted, so hopefully everyone will be happy.

What do you think? Are you ready to feel like the ruler of the Universe when you wear this?

A bit of this and that

Last week was eaten up by my inaugural Sinus Infection/Bronchitis for 2013. As much as I think y’all might be amused by me posting while on codeine laced cough medicine, I decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea.

Remember Curiosity? You will not believe what happened! The fine knitters in the Malabrigo Junkies group on Ravelry selected Curiosity as one of the knit-a-long patterns for Malabrigo March. I am beside myself with happiness. Malabrigo March is a cast-on fest for all things Malabrigo. There are contests and KAL’s and all kinds of fun stuff going on over there. Would you believe that someone has already finished a version of the shawl in Twist? It is lovely and, judging by the notes on the project, HUGE. 80 inches long with 2 skeins.

If you like to play with yarn and are a Malabrigo lover, I highly recommend popping over. I will most likely be donating some prizes to the overall festivities and I am sure plenty of other prizes will be distributed.

Next up is the YEAR OF SOCK

We start at the very beginning.

I have started my first pair of socks for the year, and to be properly motivated I have joined a KAL. This one is in the Wollmeise Anon group on Ravelry. The idea behind this KAL is that it is a Cold-dead-hand along, in the vein of You will get this skein of yarn when you pry it from my cold dead hands. You are encouraged to wind up and knit with a skein of WM that you have been hoarding and petting and defending against all incursions.

Since pretty much all of my WM falls into that category I was able to pick out the color shown above. It is a We’re Different Rattenscharf. The regular version of this color has a great deal more red in it and the red goes into much brighter territory. I love this skein because it is all black and red, with the black almost predominant.

The flip side – you can really see the color.

Would you believe I had to go down to zeros to get gauge(ish). The pattern I chose is Scylla and so far so good. I am actually considerably further along than shown. I have made it though the heel flap and have one more repeat on the leg before I need to switch to cuff. But I haven’t gotten a picture of that.

Finally, I have revived my Facebook page. I still have … issues … with Facebook and their complete lack of regard for anyone’s privacy settings, but so many people use Facebook it seemed silly to continue to be a stubborn cuss. So if you want to check me out over there feel free to poke around. I don’t really know what people are looking for out of a FB page so if you have suggestions please pipe up. I believe I have it set up so that anything I post here automagically shows up there – but we will see in a few, eh?

Anyone got anything exciting going on for March?

 

 

 

 

No Mr. Bond

While it is a stereotype that “men” do not particularly care about fashion, the popularity of certain celebrity/fictional dapper dressers belie this belief. Of all of these icons of both masculinity and fashion one is my favorite.

Bond, James Bond.

He is also a favorite of my husband, so I decided to make a scarf in his honor. Long enough to secure beneath your bullet-proof overcoat so that you do not loose it when you have to jump out of a diving plane, it is knit in a luxurious silk and baby llama blend that will gently cushion the cheek of a beautiful lady as you comfort her in her distress.

For the on the go, yet stylish man.

Imagine this scarf whipping behind you when you leap from the steps of the Russian opera house onto a conveniently located snowmobile in high speed hot pursuit of a dastardly villain. Yet it will be appropriate for when it is necessary to escort the Queen to high matters of estate.

Now, I know that not every man can pull off such a bold statement, so for when it is necessary to be undercover it is possible to work this piece using more subtle choices. I worked up a swatch in a more textured yarn with a subdued color palate and it worked out beautifully too.

Rowan Lima – alpaca is awesome.

So if you need something for you or your date to wear to the upcoming Oscars, this might just be the ticket.

“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

Appropo of Nothing

And completely unrelated to knitting …

A Month of Letters

I think I am going to give it a whirl. It looks like a lot of fun and I have always meant to do more letter writing. There was a point where I was going to write letters on a daily basis to better learn calligraphy and I might resurrect that idea. I have all the stuff to do calligraphy and I should work on it.

My normal penmanship leaves a great deal to be desired. And that is putting it nicely.

Anyone want to join me? Anyone want a letter from me? If you do please shoot me an email to tumpedduck@gmail.com with your address and I will put you on the list. Don’t worry tho, I won’t do anything else with the address. It’ll be our secret.

And the winner is …

ME!

Well, not specifically that I am going to give myself the prize, but I think I am the big winner here. I am completely floored by the response to this and deeply humbled. Thank you all for your kind words and support. I wanted to reply to every single reply here – but then realized it would make figureing out the whole drawing thing a complete PITA.

You know how many total commentors there were? Bear in mind that I was prepared to be pretty excited if I got between 25 & 30. But nooo, y’all are too awesome for that! My final list had FIFTY EIGHT names on it. 58.

I think that is amazing for my little blog and really, thank all of you.

Enough blathering  – it is cutting to the chase time.

For the Runner Up – who gets a copy of Curiosity for themselves and one that I will gift to the knitter of their choice:

It is like the Magic 8 ball of the Interwebs

Congratulations SherryG! Based on poking around in the new members of the BBD Rav group I believe that this is SherryGlover1. I will be sending you a Rav message to confirm and discuss which of your lucky friends gets a copy!

And for the Grand Prize of the skein of Arroyo in Marte, the Curiosity pattern and two for your friends:

Sweet Sixteen

Congratulations MJ, MJLegg on Ravelry! You also will be receiving an Rav mail from me to discuss shipping & stuff. I hope you are ready to knit with this yarn.

Look! Bonus number!

Why lookee there – I just happened to draw one more name. I love playing with the Random Number Generator. Since I had such great response I thought I would give away one more pattern. so tmeelliott – you will be getting a surprise Curiosity pattern in your Ravelry Library.

Again, thank you all for playing this little game with me. The response has been great and it encourages me to try and cook up more for the future. I hope that those of you who found this as an introduction to the blog stick around, and those who have been here a while – you are why I keep writing all of this babble!

So, what’s next on y’alls list to knit for the Spring? What is exciting you? Socks? Shawls? Monsters? I would love to know.

 

Liberated Yarn

As with many transactions, when working with a yarn company the process starts with a proposal. The designer (moi) sends a fleshed out idea, usually with a swatch or two, to the yarn company and politely asks if the yarn company thinks it would be a good match for their yarn. With the Quickies program Malabrigo has created a more formalized process that allows things to be a little less “shot in the dark”. You know that someone at the company is actually looking forward to seeing your proposal and will give it serious consideration, as opposed to it going directly into the “circular file”.

Then, at some point in the process, you get asked – “What yarn do you want”? And let me tell you, when Malabrigo asked me what yarn I wanted to work with I was like a kid in a candy store. Of course I want it all but all wasn’t really an option. Although Curiosity will work in just about any yarn we decided to go with sport weight and I adore Arroyo. It has the wonderful Malabrigo softness and color with the added bonus of being super-wash. Beautiful and easy care? Yes please!

It’s an arty shot of Curiosity

And then, how do you choose a color? So many colors to choose from. But in the end I fell head over heels for Marte. I really cannot begin to describe how happy the rich colors of Mars make me feel. In the end I think it was the perfect choice. Interestingly, at first I was unsure how big the shawl should be. I was pretty sure that a single skein would be enough, but because of the strange shape I wasn’t 100% confident. When I expressed this uncertainty to the lovely lady of Malabrigo she had a logical solution. She sent me two skeins. More yarn? It would take a stronger person than I to say no to more yarn.

But in the end one skein made a great size for the shawl and I ended up with an extra skein. Lucky for you!

Arroyo, Marte the actual skein

I say lucky for you because I am going to give one of my readers this extra skein. That’s right! A giveaway. A first for this blog, but hopefully not the last.

Now, I have participated in these kinds of giveaways before – always on the other side. And there are always silly rules. So here are mine, I have tried to make it as easy as possible:

How to enter:

You have several options as to how you can enter this drawing. Doing more than one thing will not get you more than one entry. You can:

1) Share the link (and post an image if you like) to Curiosity (either the blog post or Ravelry page)  in your preferred social media venue where you kibitz with knitters. Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumbler ….

2) Magic link to the Curiosity pattern page in the Ravelry group of your choice that is amenable to this kind of sharing.

or, if neither of these options appeal to you:

3) Join my Ravelry group (if you have not already done so) and post a hello in one of the threads.

Once you have done this, come back here and leave a comment on this post letting me know of your nefarious deeds. Please leave your Ravelry handle in your post so that I can contact you if you are the winner. Or if you are not on Ravelry please leave a method of contacting you. I will assign numbers to the entrants in the order they post and then will use a random number generator to choose the winner(s).

What you will win!

The winner will receive the skein of Malabrigo Arroyo in the color-way Marte shown above. They will also receive a free copy of the pattern and they will get to pick out two of their knitting buddies to whom I will also gift the pattern.

And because I don’t want to just pick one name, I will pick a “runner up” who will receive a free copy of the pattern for themselves and one to give away.

Deadline:

You have until Saturday, January 19th at midnight eastern standard time to enter. The winner(s) of the drawing will be announced on Monday the 21st of January.

I think I have covered everything. Feel free to ask any questions and if I have missed something let me know. Also, please feel free to pass along this give-away to anyone you think might be interested. The more the merrier (but less likely you will win – so maybe not?)

Shawl enough for a Man

Happy New Year!

OK, glad that is over with. I have never felt any significance of the turn of the year, it has always seemed kind of arbitrary to me. Who decided that January got to go first? Most likely there is a long and historical explanation, but I cannot be bothered to go suss that out. There is knitting to perpetrate! I have had quite a few things percolating and I am stoked to be able to finally get them out into the world!

Luckily I get to decide what comes first here and the first in this new year is Curiosity.

The Sport weight version of Curiosity

It is no secret that I adore Malabrigo yarn. It is quirky and beautiful and I cannot get enough of it. They are also an awesome company who puts their yarn where their mouth is when it comes to supporting independent designers. The Malabrigo Quickies program is a fantastic opportunity for designers to pitch ideas to Malabrigo and receive support if accepted. The designer gets to publish their pattern exactly the way they release their other patterns and Malabrigo gets a new pattern that features their yarn. It is totally Win/Win.

It wears great all tucked in.

Do you remember last fall when NASA actually sent a successful rover mission to Mars? In this day and age of spectacular fiction media it is kinda easy to be underwhelmed by the photos sent back by the rover – but I am totally a space geek and was stunned by the idea that we were LOOKING AT THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER PLANET. I mean really, it is freaking amazing.

When I found out that one of the new color-ways that I got to choose from for this project was named Marte (Mars in Spanish) it was perfect. Add that to my penchant for fiddling with the odder aspects of knitting Marte became Curiosity. This wrap walks the line between shawl and scarf, you get to decide what you want to make. If you use a lot of yarn, you are going to get a shawl. If you use less, you will get something that is more of a scarf.

The shape is … Curious

And you can use any yarn you want. Any yarn, any needle, any size. I had testers & reviewers work in Malabrigo Sock, Malabrigo Lace held double, Malabrigo Rios, & Malabrigo Silky Merino. Some of the projects are not yet done, I cannot wait to see how they turn out. The upshot of all of this wiggle room in this pattern is that it is truly a unisex pattern. Depending on the choices you make you can skew the results to be completely masculine, feminine or something in between.

If you hadn’t noticed, I tend to trend toward a little complicated. But for this I tried really hard to keep things simple. Garter & Stockinette – that is all that is going on here. The shape is the only thing that is a deviation from the norm. Increasing irregularly along the center line, you end up with a long and gentle curve that drapes easily around the neck and shoulders. The longer you make it the wider the trumpet end gets, eventually you end up with something that is distinctly a shawl – but for the sample in Arroyo (sport weight super-wash) I stuck with one skein that yielded something in-betweenish in size.

Wrapped a little more shawl-like.

So – what kind of Curiosity do you think you might make? Inquiring minds want to know!