Non-Christmas gifties

I do a lot of gift knitting, and not just for Christmas. Other occasions come up throughout the year that make me want to break out the needles.

A classic one is the arrival (or impending arrival) of new babies. Especially co-workers. It is always a lot of fun to choose patterns for wee ones. So when I got word that one of my co-workers was expecting twins, well! What an opportunity for knitted fun!

My first plan was to make a set of Duffle Coats, by Zoë Mellor. This is an adorable and cosy coat that's been in my queue for ages, and it doesn't hurt that it's from a book called "Double Knits: Pairs of Patterns for Babies and Toddlers". My plan was to knit two coats in two different colours, but then to trade the colours for the sleeves and hood so that you would know they were part of a set (e.g. a blue coat with grey sleeves and hood; and a grey coat with blue sleeves and hood). I found some good acrylic/wool blends in the stash, in grey and blue, and got going:

Grey not pictured because, well, I haven't taken a picture of it

Unfortunately, although I thought the grey was aran weight, it turned out to be chunky, and not only were the two fabrics obviously very different in terms of feel and drape, but there was no way I was going to have enough yardage in the grey.

And then the mum said that they'd found out the sexes of the babies and knew they were having a boy and a girl. So that gave me a brand-new inspiration! I am therefore making a cardigan that looks like a tuxedo for the boy, and a dress for the girl. They're both coming along really well and I think they look adorable:

(Not pictured: first sleeve. Which is actually too long, I think, and I'll probably redo it with more frequent increases.)

(It's actually further along than this; I've started on the bottom edging. Also, I ran out of yarn, but fortunately my mom had given me some leftover sportweight from KnitPicks that she'd used for a cardigan for DD1 that is an almost perfect match. That's getting used for the bottom edge. I'm hoping like heck that it's not too obvious a colour difference.)

The tuxedo cardigan is L'il Tux for Baby by Judy Lamb, and the dress is Glockenblume, by Helga Torres.

And then about two weeks ago, I found out that one of my new co-workers (new thanks to our recent re-org) is also expecting! Fast forward to this week, when I had a meeting with my new team (all of whom have their cubicles near this expectant father), and asked casually when the baby was due. The answer: ANY DAY NOW. Oh, and today I found out that the work shower will be tomorrow.

Why don't people tell me these things?!?

Fortunately, I happened to have, kicking around the house, an almost-complete vest that I made as a prototype when I was working out yardage requirements for my Wuv pattern. And it's green, which is perfect, because nobody in the office knows if the baby's going to be a boy or a girl. (Except the future dad. And he's not telling; I strongly suspect this is because he doesn't want to receive gender-stereotypical gifts. Smart guy.) Two buttons and a bunch of sewn-in ends later, and we have...

Another event that gets my fingers itchy to start new projects is a birthday. My youngest turned three this past August, and about a week or two out from the big day, she confided in me that she was absolutely certain that she would be getting a rainbow for her birthday. I tried to tell her that, y'know, everybody's bought the gifts already and it's very possible that a rainbow is not one of them, but she was adamant. She would be getting a rainbow.

Okaaaaay, so she's getting a rainbow, I guess.

Pattern is I Can Knit a Rainbow, by Clare Doornbos. (Thank heavens for Knitty.)

And then, DD1 got an invitation to her best friend's birthday party. Unfortunately, despite her close friendship with this girl, she absolutely could not tell me any ideas for what we could get her as a gift. "What does she like?" I asked. "I dunno..." came the answer. Finally, with just a day and a half before the party, I threw up my hands and decided to knit something, because from talking with this friend, I knew, at least, that she was a big fan of my knitting. I used my own Flutterby Tam pattern and managed to crank it out and block and dry it in time for the party on the Sunday afternoon:

The friend was apparently very appreciative and has since worn to school it a lot. In fact, I know she's been wearing it this week specifically because it accidentally came back to our house in DD1's backpack a few nights ago. :)

Anyhoo...

So when DD1 came home at the beginning of the winter holidays with a generous surprise Christmas gift from this friend, and a request from her for something else knitted by me, I thought, oh, fine, what the heck. The new winter Knitty had just come out and I was itching to find an excuse to make Ashley Knowlton's Drogo reversible slippers anyway:

DD1 says her friend loves them. Yay!

And finally, sometimes I don't need a gift-giving occasion. Sometimes I just want to make someone something. That someone is usually one of my children.

For DD3, this week I finished Sophie Missgraindesel's Gilet noeud noeud:

And for DD1, I'm working some serious yarn-conserving magic to make her Chocolate Passion from DROPS:

(I'm actually way farther along than this; back, fronts, and sleeves are actually all done, I'm just in the process of sewing it all together.)

I made substantial mods to this one - to see what they were, you can check out my insanely extensive project notes.

Future giftie projects include a few things for DD2, including a cardigan and slippers at her request (and to her specifications, naturally). Oh, and something truly epic for my cousin, who has just announced that his wife is expecting their second child. (SQUEEEEEE!!!)

Traction: I don't haz it

At the end of May, I blogged that I'd realised I had sixty WIPs kicking around the house, assuming I finished DH's birthday socks and DD2's cardigan. Well, as already seen, I finished those socks; and recently, I finished the cardigan:

(As predicted, it fits DD1, not DD2.)

Plus I've finished some more items besides, and I now find myself with...sixty-two WIPs.

Oh dear.

And I thought I was doing so well.

I mean, seriously - in the last three months or so, I've finished a cardigan, a pair of Pemberley Slippers, three glitzy scarves, a felted purse, two pairs of socks, three cupcakes, a blanket, a vest, two prototypes of which I cannot speak, and a tank top. That's not shabby! And yet, I am further behind on my WIP count than when I started.

(Yes, I am perfectly aware that the reason for this is that many of those finished projects were also new projects on top of the monstrous pile of WIPs I already had. Someday, Mia Michaels will choreograph an emotionally gripping piece about the compelling, seductive power of Startitis and its hapless knitter victim, and then everyone will understand how this could happen to me.)

But goshdarnit, I am determined to make some inroads on that huge total. It isn't, however, going well.

• Although I'm over halfway through my latest prototype, I realised that I need to totally re-jig a part of it, which means ripping and redoing.
  
• I was making excellent progress on DH's Durrow sweater, and then ran out of yarn. This seemed odd, since I thought I had slightly overbought just to be absolutely sure, which makes me think that maybe I am missing one ball? (Unfortunately, I wasn't really keeping track as I went.) So I'm going to call my mom and ask if maybe a ball rolled out of my bag at her place. And lordy, I hope it did, because the alternative is to rip back both almost-done sleeves and redo them a little shorter. (This will fortunately not affect the fit since the sleeves ended up longer than they were supposed to be, which is one reason why I think that the last ball of yarn hasn't gone missing at all but is rather part of the sweater already.)
  
• I want to finish off all the making-up on my dad's Morgan hat but still haven't gotten around to it.
  
• I got DD2 to try on the Mythos cardigan I started for her about two years ago to see just how badly she's outgrown it. The answer: not too badly, but considering she'll probably be wearing it this fall, it needed to be bigger. So last night I ripped it out and started again, with bigger needles. I should have enough yarn even with the size increase, because the original version had sleeves which were mondo long on her. (Famous. Last. Words.)
  
• Oh, and I started a new design prototype.
  

Moreover, yarn support (times two) should be arriving soon, and I'll have to dump everything for those. (But believe me, I'm NOT complaining about that! :)

An update

Scads of knitting has been getting done, I just haven't been blogging about it. Likely because I've been too busy knitting. :)

DH's Durrow sweater has seen a lot of love:

DD3's Secret Garden cardigan is almost all done:

If there seem to be a lot of strands of yarn in that shot, it's because I have never actually broken any yarn on this project. Everything's attached to everything else. Why? Because I strongly suspected that I would be yardage-ly challenged and would have to frog some stuff. And indeed, I only have this much yarn left to do the collar and button bands:

Pretty sure I'm screwed.

I've been procrastinating on doing anything further because I'm kind of despondent about it. I don't actually want to discover that I'm right about not having enough yarn, even though I'm quite sure I don't have enough yarn. And if/when I do discover that I don't have enough yarn, I haven't come up with a decent plan about how to fix it. I still want to make this cardigan with this yarn in this size, doubled; and I don't want to have to knit it allllll over again. So I'm stalling.

I got all the knitting and weaving in of ends done on DD2's cardigan:

We also chose the buttons. I just have to sew them on and then I'm done!

I finished DD1's Pemberley Slippers.

top view:




side view:




pretend-there's-someone-in-'em view:

And I've been working like heck on a new design. This one is a labour of love, for a little boy who recently lost his sister. (He also has two baby brothers who died in infancy. I cannot begin to imagine the pain the parents carry around daily.) I can't bring her back, but I feel the need to do something, so naturally, I am knitting. The design involves a metric s**t-ton of math and I've been spending a lot of quality time with paper, pencils, a calculator and spreadsheets. But I've finally made good headway on The Final Product, and am really really pleased so far. I have a pretty idea of where I'm going to submit this, but I don't think the issue will open up for a while, so we'll see how it goes.

DD1, in the throes of a superhero obsession, and having designed her own superhero outfit for her "Whippy Woman" character, has discovered that putting pink socks on your hands doesn't really work very well and has asked me to knit her some pink gloves. I am actually considering doing it. I just need the yarn, since, me being me, I have almost nothing pink in the stash.

All of this, however, will shortly be put on hold because I have two sample items to knit. :) Can't wait to write more details about them, but that will have to wait!

Getting stuff done

Hot on the heels of my Jayne Cupcake (glad you liked it, folksmith!) I made another teeny-tiny cupcake design with Carin's wedding in mind: a Dalek cupcake.

Not quite as evocative of its inspiration as the Jayne, but still cute, I think. This design is also free. You can get more information by following the link for it in the "My Designs" section on the left, or just go right ahead and...

I also got back to work on a cardigan I was making for DD2.

This was taken three days ago, but it's much further along now - I've finished the first sleeve, and the second sleeve is well begun. Alas, it looks like it's going to be huge for DD2, but that's okay, it'll probably fit DD1 and DD2 will still get it...eventually. :)

My big triumph, though, was the completion of my Elizabeth of York vest. I don't even know how long ago I started it, but it was already in progress when I started this blog about seven and a half years ago, so it's safe to say that it's about bleeping time I finished it up! And I'm quite pleased.

front




side




three-quarters




back

So this is great! If I can just finish DH's birthday socks and that cardigan, I'll be down to just...um...sixty WIPs.

Oh.

And now for something completely different

See this?

Here it is stretched out:

This is a Baby Surprise Jacket that I started, oh, probably a few years ago now, one night at Lettuce Knit. I cast it on at the beginning of the knit night, and I think that's as far as I got before going home and never working on it again.

Today it got sent to the frog pond.

I actually love the way it looks with the striping and the combination of yarn textures. But there were a few key problems with it. Firstly, towards the end of that knit night evening, it was becoming more and more obvious that my odds of having enough red to be able to finish the jacket were pretty slim. Secondly, the fuzzy yarn was more bulky than the white and the red yarns, and it was making the blue stripes sort of bubble/bunch up.

But, flash forward to today, however many years later, and we get to the real motivation for the frogging: I need the white for DD2's blanket:

...and the red for this:

What you see there (blurrily) is the start of part of this year's Hallowe'en costume for DD1. She is going as Hermione, which you may remember she dressed up as for a Harry Potter-themed birthday party earlier this year:

However, if she is actually going to wear this costume outdoors, at night, at the end of October, in Canada, she had better be going as Hermione-dressed-for-cold-weather as opposed to Hermione-dressed-for-just-going-to-class. And therefore, she will need some extra bits of costume, such as a hat, scarf (already made thanks to her grandma) and mittens. And it is a tiny bit of the mittens which is pictured above. Eventually I will bring in the red of which I spoke, and then the mittens will have owls on them. The pattern is Owlet, by Odessa Reichel, from Petite Purls, and I have been dying for an excuse to make it ever since it came out, I love it.

And on a completely unrelated note, I could not stand having this yarn (which my LYS owner gave me to make something for DD2 out of) STARING at me from on top of the computer desk any longer!

I had to start this:

It's Gilet sans coutures de Lison, an extremely nice cardigan pattern by La P'tite Charlotte, and it has been translated from French into English over on its comments page on Ravelry. The translation is not perfect, but I have been able to muddle through so far.

Odds are, though, that it will be put aside soon as I start hitting the panic button on all the deadline knitting.