The Polar Bear and the "In Threes" have gone...

The polar bear is done.    I really liked the way that the head was done in the version of a bear.   What did I like most of all?   The nose was knit separately and attached.   It was easier to make sure the

nose looked the way that I wanted it to look.   I also liked doing the eyes before attaching the head.  It was much easier to place the eyes and make them look nice.

Doing faces on stuffed animals is not my favorite thing to do as I am always afraid of making the animal look.....psycho.   The animal is supposed to be a friend for a little one, not the stuff of which nightmares are made.

The tail on this polar bear was cute too.   I had thought about skipping the tail but then decided

that I needed to do it. The tail is not stuffed, but puffs nicely on its own.

Helen, my sister, likes the creatures to smile.   This was easy to do as I also did this before I closed the head.   The pattern's creature used a small, straight-line mouth that just did not look friendly.   I used duplicate stitch to make a smile that would be hard to pick out.  In fact, everything was sewn together firmly to make it easier to play with the bear without killing it.

The Wendy Eider yarn that I used for the "fur"

part of the bear was really not bad to knit with.  Dropping a stitch was NOT a good idea.   This bear felt soft and very cuddly which was the point. I hope this happy bear will make Henry a happy boy.

Rory is Henry's baby sister.   If I send something to Henry, I also send something for Rory (and vice versa).  

The In Threes pattern has been on my list of little sweaters to try for a long time.    Rick had gotten really beautiful dark rose skeins of Encore for a

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different project.   I made the year old size.   When I was done with the knitting, I had maybe two yards left of one skein.

Part of the last two yards I used to sew the buttons onto the sweater so that I could have the look that I wanted.

The buttons came from a great Etsy shop and were perfect with the yarn.

This pattern has the excellent qualities of being a quick knit and very, very cute.

The Polar Bear Grows

Wendy Eider Chunky makes a very nice fur for a stuffed animal.   The yarn is not bad to knit with and has only one flaw......when one knits with it, one cannot see the stitches.

The Body of the Polar Bear

I did find not being able to see the stitches a bit of a problem, but the furry result is oh so worth it.

When I bought this yarn, I picked it up in several colors.   Toys from the Toybox patterns referred to this particular yarn and I wanted to see how it would work out.   Knitting up the rest of what is living in the stash will be a pleasure.

I do question the wisdom of giving a small boy and off-white toy.   A Polar Bear the toy must be though....so the joy Henry will likely get from this is worth the knitting getting grubby.

New Projects......and One Finished....

The Finished Cardigan

Rory's floral cardigan is finished.  I do love Bernat Floral Jacquards and wish that I had more of this and of the rose colorway.   I have a little more of the rose and may be able to eke out a small cardigan from it.   By the time I figure out where I have put it for safety, Rory will have grown out of it.

Part of the challenge of this sweater was to make sure that the patterns worked well across the body of the sweater as parts were stopped and started.  I am fairly pleased with the results though wish the sleeves were a little different.  It

Close up of the front...

would not be possible without doing so much finagling that I would likely toss the sweater rather than deal with it.

The Sweater Wizard pattern was a little odd but I persevered.  Friday night, I attached the buttons and put the sweater through the washer and dryer.   As I have said before, I am never truly happy with a project after I finish it.  This one is nice though.  

I did choose a size that Rory won't be able to wear for a bit.   The In Threes sweater that Jan has made for Jackie's new baby looked so cute that I have just started one for Rory.   I am using a rosy pinky red Plymouth Encore. 

I think I have just the buttons for this.    They came, some time, ago from one of my favorite Etsy shops.  GloriaPatreSpinNKnit not only has really nice buttons, but fabulous stitch markers and some other notions as well.    The buttons I recall are floral and would look really nice against this color.   My button stash is small but not well organized.   I am trying to use those up also.

Owen's Car Button Sweater left in the mail today.   I will say that the sweater went through the

washer and dryer beautifully.    I had some reservations about the yarn before it was laundered.  The yarn did soften up nicely.

This pattern also came from Sweater Wizard.   As I was sewing the sweater together, the sizing seemed very odd to me.  I am hoping the sweater fits Owen and that he gets some wear out of it.

Just to keep things interesting, I have started on a Polar Bear for Henry.  Henry is a little older, so I am using Wendy Eider Chunky for the bear's fur as he is past the gumming stage.   I do have reservations about an off white bear for a small boy but he loves polar bears....how can I NOT make him one?

Sara's throw is coming along.  If I work on it between things, it will be done in plenty of time.  I hope.

Startitis...

Spring must be the time in which a person's thoughts turn to starting new projects.   I have several on the needles now and am not allowing myself to start another one (a polar bear) until at least ONE project is done.

At the moment there are two active sock projects, a throw, and a baby cardigan that is actually going to fit a 2 year old.  

The throw is a good contemplative project to which not much attention has to be paid so it gets picked up and put down depending on how many paths my mind is winding at once.   As it has a June deadline, my mind should be focusing more on the throw....

One of the pairs of socks is a lovely rose color.  It is warm and happy.  The second pair of socks is vibrant and lovely and the colorway sang to me from the computer screen.  I had to have it and begin it as soon as the skein came in the mail.   This pair of socks is my traveling project right now.  The pattern emerging is addictive and one of those that I knit quickly down one more needle as the bus is coming to see what will happen.  This is the same as a mystery novel that is a little predictable but exciting anyway.

One of the other projects is a cardigan for Rory.   I did not find a pattern I wanted to use so I ran swatch numbers through Sweater Wizard.   The finished size will fit Rory when she is 2 rather than now.  I am okay with that as I do not want to rip it out.

The yarn is no longer available and came from the center of the stash.  I have several colorways but really, really wanted to use this colorway as the blues, greens, and oranges looked so cheerful.

The yarn in the skein....

The sweater is coming along nicely.   I chose to do the cardigan top-down to make it easier for the color bands to work out nicely.

This way this yarn is dyed to make little floralish patterns is one of the best uses of math ever.  When I used the rose colorway, I was enchanted.   I bought what I could find as the yarn was already out of production when I first tried it.

This should be an easy project.  It is one, though, for which very careful manipulating of the colorway to start the sleeves and the body is necessary.

Close-up of what the yarn looks like knit to the correct gauge.

 Gauge is always important...but with these yarns it is crucial in order to get the pattern that the yarn is dyed to make.

While the strips will be different widths in the sleeves, the body, and the yoke it should look nice.  I am thinking...pearl buttons?

The Tofte Hat

When the Tofte Hat first rolled through the pictures of Ravelry's featured patterns, I was intrigued.   Last week Monday, I was in the Yarnery and saw the pattern and some samples.  It was time.   The yarn came home with me that day.

Winding Malabrigo into balls from the skein can be an exercise in patience.  These skeins were little rat nests of tangles.  Each skein took around three hours to tame into a ball.  I know from experience that using a swift would not have made it better.  

The feel of the Malabrigo slipping through my fingers as I knit made the detangling worth the pain.   The hat came off the needles in less than a week from purchase.  That is a record for a short time in the stash.  I will admit to a mistake or two in the crown shaping.  By the time I figured that out....I decided and did fix the error with well placed duplicate stitching.

The Tofte hat now, on this first day of spring, rests in wait for next winter.

The Journey of a Thousand (or More) Stitches

The completed loooong scarf.

No...the journey does not begin with one stitch but with a really good swatch.

Swatching is despised by many but for me it is a necessary evil.  Not only did I need the swatch to figure out how many stitches I really needed to get the correct width, but I needed to know how loose or tight the stitches would be so that I could manage the amount of stretch the finished garter stitch would likely suffer.

This yarn is not terribly elastic.  I THINK that I knit this tightly enough to minimize stretching.  I do know that I knit it loosely enough so that the fabric would drape the way that I wanted it to.  I hope, like Goldilocks and the perfect porridge, that it is just right.

Every once in awhile, it is good to do a massive garter stitch project.  Why?  Because it gives a good chance to figure out how the finished knitting works and a lot of practice achieving nice, even knitting at varied (daydreaming happy to nutty stressed) levels of body tension.   Why do I care about the latter?  Because, when I start a project then put it down for a month or so I want the gauge to be the same.   For me, this has been an issue.

My reward for finishing this is the Tofte Hat.  I hope to knit that this weekend.

Garter Stitch.....Some May Say Boring...I Say .... Meditative

One would think that after the Pillowghan (which I now wish I had ripped back and made longer...lesson learned) that I would not be willing to do a project that requires miles and miles of garter stitch.    Miles and miles of garter stitch does not pique interest or engage the brain.  There are times in live when one wants neither of those.  Fortunately for the person who asked for a ginormous garter stitch scarf, this is one of those times for me.

One of the people at work that I like and respect, brought me a fortyish year old loooooooong garter stitch scarf that surprisingly (not) is on its last legs.    I agreed to make another if he went out and found the yarn he wanted.   

The yarn came from JoAnn's.  It is a very nice acrylic that I am actually enjoying knitting.    It is soft.  It is not splitty at all.   The color is pooling beautifully.

The yarn is Big Twist Rainbow Classic Multi.  One skein has 447 yards.   This project will take one full and one partial skein.

This is coming along nicely.  While I do have to pay attention to make sure that I don't drop a stitch in the heat of TV knitting, it is a calming project and one that I am happy to do.

Measuring the work against the old scarf this morning, it looks like there are eleven more inches to do.  As I race toward that goal, I have to decide if I will make it an inch or so shorter to allow for the famous garter stitch stretching.  I am not sure what I want to do it.   I will have plenty left to do a nice fringe to make this scarf like the original.

Will this scarf still be around in forty years?   I hope that it is used and loved as much as the first one.  Maybe it will be still around with the holes and the wear of the first.