Some progress

So in my last post, I called my dad's hat the eighth of thirteen knitted holiday gifts on my to-do list. Welllll...turns out I can't count very well. Because although I do have thirteen gifts planned, the hat was only the seventh completed one. Then I brought myself down to six when I gifted my BIL's socks to him for his birthday. Arg.

But things are picking up. Because I've finished my younger BIL's dress socks:

Hat heels, of course. :)

I'm really pleased with them. Of course it's hard to tell because they're black, but they're very tidy around the edges of the gussets. I've been using a different method for the gussets lately - I use a combination of short rows and increases when knitting them so that when I go to do the leg and the foot parts, virtually all the stitches I'll need running up the gusset sides are already there, no picking up needed, except for just a few right at the top of the instep. This produces a stretchy gusset edge, which was lacking in the original version of the pattern, where the gusset shaping is done by decreases and the stitches are picked up at the side edges later.

But I digress.

I also started another pair of hat heel socks as a replacement for the ones I gave my older BIL for his birthday. I've gotten as far as finishing the hat part (no earflaps yet) for the first heel. No picture yet, but I'm using this Stroll sock yarn that I got from Knit Picks a while back:

That's the same yarn (but different colour, obviously, called "Caper") as I used in those black socks above. I love it - it's deliciously squishy and smooth. Really gotta get myself some more of that.

I also finished the knitting on our daycare provider's mittens, and now just have to block them and weave in the ends. I did the second mitten a bit differently from the first one to make it a bit taller and the thumb a bit wider, to (hopefully) fit better. That means I had to rip back bits of the first mitten and re-knit it to match the second one, but the result was worth it. One of the women at my office (also a knitter, so she knows what she's talking about), who has large-sized hands, tried one of them on with the new sizing, and she said they felt perfect. Hooray! I cannot begin to describe how giddily happy I am with this design. Whether it's accepted somewhere or I self-publish it, I am going to be so excited once I get to share it!

At any rate, I am now definitely finished seven of thirteen gifts, with the eighth very close to being done. I've also been swatching for my brother's hat, and am just waiting for him to measure his head circumference so I can know how many stitches to cast on.

My 12-in-12 challenge is going rather better, in terms of progress, than the holiday knitting. As promised, I sent off my tenth submission this week (not on Monday as I thought, but still, it's now on its way), which means I have just two more to go, with three designs pretty much ready to write up and send off once the issues I want open up. I've also got a fourteenth idea for a submission call I just found out about, and I'm planning to go yarn shopping for that later today.

And finally, some lovely news - my "Beloved" baby bonnet pattern, which appeared in the Summer 2012 issue of the absolutely superb Jane Austen Knits magazine, is now available for individual purchase at the Interweave online store: linkie.

Back to business

Okay, so now that the birthday celebrations and urge to explain one more thing about double knitting are out of the way, I'm going to return to the usual (and hopefully not desperately boring) routine of describing my knitting progress.

Short version: It's been all deadline knitting all the time over here.

Firstly, the challah cover for my friend's 10-year wedding anniversary was finished in time with not too much stress. I waffled a bit on what I would use for the embroidered (duplicate stitch) words, but eventually went with my first instinct (doubling up the project yarn), and I was absolutely thrilled with the result:

And she certainly seems to love it. :) So, yay!

So with that done, it was back to the holiday knitting.

The bad news right up front: I've made no further progress on my dad's hat, my mom's socks, my brother's hat, my husband's sweater, or my toddler's cardigan. In fact, I rather fear I've gone backwards on my brother's hat, since I tried opening up the spreadsheet with the charts on it this morning and got an error, so the charts may be gone and I might have to recreate the pattern all over again, which would suck monkey balls.

However, there is good news:

• Socks for BIL2: First sock done, second sock started!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mittens for our daycare provider: Charted and begun. Unfortunately, I discovered after I'd started decreasing for the top of the first mitten that it was coming out way too short. (I'm going to chalk that up to my swatch having lied to me.) So last night I re-charted, and this morning I ripped the mitten back to the top of the ribbing and re-started. I will say, though, that I am giddy with how beautifully the motifs came out, and am therefore ridiculously excited about this design. I have no idea where I'm going to submit this, but I'm confident that even if it gets rejected initially, surely someone somewhere will eventually take it, and I can't wait to share!
  
  
  
• Mittens for DD2's teacher: Done! I'm very happy with how they turned out. And moreover, I wrote up a design proposal for the pattern and sent it off. This is my first physical (non-emailed) submission ever, so it was quite a relief to get an email at the beginning of the week that it had successfully arrived before the deadline.
  
  
  
• Fingerless mitts for DD1's ballet teacher: Done! I did indeed replace the bass and treble clefs with ballet-related motifs, and I'm super-pleased at how they turned out:
  
  
  palms
  
  
  
  
  backs
  
  
  
  
  
• NEW - Lace bolero for niece: I guess I was feeling giddy from all the project finishing...or maybe it was the yarn fumes...but I decided I was doing so well that I could add another project. (Famous last words, I know.) I was also looking for an excuse to use some sock yarn I bought on sale at Lettuce Knit a few weeks ago. So I decided that my niece might like a bolero-type cardigan, did a Ravelry search for likely patterns, and settled on Shetland Shorty, from Knitty.
  
  
  It's turning out to be really quite perfect, and the pattern is easy to resize in order to a) fit my niece and b) make sure I don't run out of yarn (I have only about 85% of the yardage that the pattern requires). I'm following the XS size instructions because they're supposed to result in a 25.5" circumference, which should fit her okay now and give her room to grow, too. It's the length I really need to adjust, because the given 13.5" is more likely to result in a full-length cardigan than a bolero! However, all I have to do is decrease the number of pattern repeats up the front and the back. The pattern says to do 17, but I'm going to shave that down to about 13 - maybe even fewer. I'll hold it up to DD1 as I go, to make sure. She's slightly younger than my niece, and probably a fair bit shorter, but even so, I think she's still a pretty accurate measuring stick for torso length.
  
  
  At any rate, it looks great so far:
  
  
  

Gifts a-plenty

So I've revised my holiday knitted gifts list down to a more reasonable level (I think), and started working on it in earnest. (Family members, LOOK AWAY NOW PLEASE!)

1. Morgan hat for Dad
   
   When last we left this, I had realised it came out much too small to fit my dad, and that I would have to frog it all and restart. I still have to do this.
   
   
   
2. Two pairs of socks for Mom
   
   One pair, as I've already mentioned, is done. And I've started the other one:
   
   
   
   
   
   Although if I get crunched for time, I'll drop the idea of making a second pair.
   
   
   
3. Hat for my brother
   
   This is a complete non-surprise for him, because he has a very specific kind of hat in mind that he wants me to knock off, and we've been discussing the details extensively. I haven't started it, but I have charted the essential pattern and found the yarn for it, which is an excellent start. Next task: find out his head circumference.
   
   
   
4. Durrow sweater for DH
   
   Haven't touched this in a while. Still hoping I won't run out of yarn on the sleeves.
   
   
   
5. Secret Garden cardigan for DD3
   
   When last we left this, I was totally stalling on continuing because I was convinced I was going to run out of yarn before finishing the collar and button bands. That's still where I am, but I am at least resolved to buy some more yarn (different yarn, same colour, which should be fine since it's probably just the button bands I'd need to use it for) if I do indeed run out, rather than ripping the whole thing back and starting again.
   
   
   
6. Socks for BIL#1
   
   Done!
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Socks for BIL#2
   
   Started!
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Mittens for our daycare provider
   
   The nice thing about this gift is that I can give it to her as a New Year's present, as she doesn't celebrate Christmas. One extra week to work on it, ha ha! But I have found some spectacular motif inspiration for this, and am really looking forward to designing it. The trick will be to resist doing that until I've made better headway on the projects which all have an earlier deadline.
   
   
   
9. Cowl for DD1's teacher
   
   Done! No pictures though, sorry. I'm hoping a magazine will like the design.
   
   
   
10. Mittens for DD2's teacher
    
    Yarn has been purchased, motifs have been decided upon, and right now I'm just figuring out gauge. I originally started with 4mm needles but I have a bad feeling that's going to make pretty breezy mittens, so I'm going to try seeing what gauge I get with 3.5mms instad.
    
    
    
11. Fingerless mitts for DD1's dance teacher
    
    Anne Neumann's Musica pattern has been in my queue for ages, and I thought it would work really nicely for this purpose. DD1 concurs, although she's asked if maybe I could replace the bass and treble clefs with pointe shoes, or some other ballet-related motif? So I'm going to try.
    

You'll notice I've dropped the projects for DD1 and DD2 - that's in the interest of my own sanity. I make them stuff throughout the year, so this is not a tragedy. And hey, if I finish everything with time to spare, I'll cast on for them. Although admittedly, if I have time to spare, I'm much more likely to cast on something for my niece instead.

I also picked up a new piece of gift knitting that needs to be finished for this weekend, which is the grand 10th anniversary celebration of one of my bestest friends. :) It's a challah cover:

It may look like I'm doing well there, but even after that lace edging gets finished, it has to be sewn to the main section; then there's a cable to be knitted that has to be sewn over the edging seam; and then there's embroidery. Things could get tight.