Mocs

Here is another Christmas gift finally finished. Truthfully, it was knitted and felted a few days before the holiday. They just never seemed to dry out, and were still damp on Christmas Eve. I gifted these to Dad without the soles because of their dampness, and because I wanted him to try them on first, in case further fulling was needed.

It’s always comical to see how big something is before it’s felted, so I made sure to snap some photos before throwing them into the wash.

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Explosion

If you paid attention to the title of my previous post, you might guess what this post will be about… more »

Very Warm Hat

Here’s a Finished Object that I’m very late blogging. It’s also my very first EZ project. FuzzyBritches’ Warm Up the Winter gave me the perfect opportunity to knit a Very Warm Hat, which I’ve wanted to knit for quite a while now.

The yarn was left over from the Triple Patterned hat you’ve already seen. more »

Triple-patterned

As I finished up the baby items back in September, I was really craving stimulation; I wanted to knit something a bit complicated, something that required a lot of attention. I knew stranded colorwork was exactly what I needed. 

This is only my second stranded project (and fourth where I’ve used my left hand). It was a perfect opportunity for me to practice knitting with both hands. I’m sure you will be able to pick out a few problem areas in the pictures, but overall, I’m happy with the hat. (I’m not happy with how my left hand tensions yarn, however.)

I had the most trouble with the bullseye pattern and tinked quite a few times. I thought I was vigilant enough to have avoided any mistakes, but nope! I found two mistakes in the color patterning after washing and blocking the hat, rats! While knitting, I often paused to admire the floats, they’re such fun!

I love the cuff, but honestly, it seems too big and obscures much of the bullseye underneath. On the other hand, the cuff adds an extra layer for warmth. I’d recommend skipping the colorwork on the cuff, knitting a few rows of plain stockinette (or perhaps just a small motif), and then incorporating another twined herringbone to balance with the one at the cuff top. The twined herringbone is a really nice detail and reminds me of the vikkel braid used in Estonian folk knitting.

This hat is huge–I knit the largest size (22″ circumference), but it blocked out a bit bigger than that. I’ll be sending it to FuzzyBritches for her Warm up the Winter campaign.

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Treasure Hunting

This past weekend was the Second Annual “Tools of the Trade Twin Cities LYS Shop Hop.” Because I didn’t go last year, I decided to go on Saturday and asked Mom to go with me.

What I really liked about the Hop is that I got to visit five new-to-me stores. The metro area is so big and sprawling, it’s a bit of a drive to go to most places. We started at Zandy’s Yarn in Burnsville, went up to Needlework Unlimited in Minneapolis/Edina, west to Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior, then north again to Amazing Threads (but we got a bit lost trying to find this shop), east to Sheepy Yarn Shoppe, and south to The Yarnery in St. Paul, and finally 3 Kittens Needle Arts in Mendota Heights. We left the house at about 9:30 AM and got home just after 4 PM! (Christy of Purling Away made a Google map that shows the shop locations.) Of these 7 stores, I’ve visited only The Yarnery and 3 Kittens previously.

I think Needlework Unlimited was my favorite; there was a TON of patterns, and we spent about 20 minutes there browsing. Amazing Threads was smaller than I expected. Coldwater Collaborative was crowded (bad timing on our part). But overall, all the stores were very nice with a varied selection. (The most common overlap I noticed were the new Marie Mayhew felted kits. The Yarnery recently opened their online shop and have them available for anyone interested who doesn’t live in the area. NAYY; I think they’re pretty cute!)

To prepare for the Hop, I researched each store’s website to see if I could find certain brands or items that interested me and might generally not be found at the other shops. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money or buy a ton of yarn, so I made a shopping list. I managed to stick to it pretty well; I found about half the items on my list, plus a few extra patterns. I set myself a budget and didn’t go over, so in all it was a successful excursion.

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Beauties

May I distract you today with a couple of beauties from my mom’s garden? : )

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Remind me

That it’s normal to buy too much yarn once in a while. Even though I added quite a bit of yardage to my stash, I actually didn’t spend too much, so it evens out, right?

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Sock Yarn Obsession

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