Another small finished knit

I want to write more but we just got back from  five days in Las Vegas celebrating my brother-in-law’s wedding.  So. Very. Tired.

Regardless, I present another Baby Bib o’ Love:

This one is for my nephew, upon my sister’s request. She saw the ones that Kristi knit for Em (I use them constantly for drool-catching) and requested one. Her little guy is just 12 weeks old, and not that into drooling just yet, but I suspect it is in his not-too-distant future.

More knits to come.

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Embarassing Moments In Knitting; Part 1 In A Series

 The other day I mentioned that I had a bit of an embarrassment with my Fetchings. Imagine my surprise when I found that I had much more to be embarrassed about. Perhaps that series was needed after all? I’d like to think that this will be Part 1 of a one part series, but who am I kidding?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was all fired up about knitting the Viking Baby Hat, but that the pattern has been pulled from the author’s blog. The lovely and talented Needletart sent a hard copy to me (bless her!) and I got right back into the knitting. It wasn’t until I bound off the top of the hat that I noticed a problem:

My kid has a big head, but that big??

The variegated hat fits the boy perfectly. If you compare the two, the decreases for the crown don’t even start on the Viking hat until several rows after the variegated hat has been bound off. And the top of the Viking hat? A bit nipply to my eyes.

Now, without digging up the pattern at this moment (there’s a cat on my lap), I remember that I was to knit until the hat was 5″ before beginning the crown decreases. I very faithfully followed that direction.

I think I should have measured my son’s head first, huh?

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Yes! WordPress does help me knit faster!

Witness another FO:

Pattern: Calorimetry from Knitty

Yarn: Paton’s SWS (Soy Wool Stripes) in Natural Blue

Needles: size 8 cheap metal straights

Pattern modifications: Take a peek at the pattern on Ravelry and you’ll see 2605 Calorimetr’s made. Crazy, huh? There are almost as many complaints about size/gauge. I cast on 88 st, which resulted in a perfect fit for me. I was actually aiming for 100 st, but my long-tail cast on didn’t quite get me that room! The SWS is pretty stretchy, though, as the pattern calls for, which helps it keep it’s shape well.

Thoughts: The color striping both amused me and drove me nuts. I am a little annoyed that the color changes are not quite even. Maybe one more row and the perfect symmetry would have been pleasing. I keep telling myself it isn’t a big deal, and that no one will notice when it’s on my head. I do love the color, though. I’ll blushingly admit to trying to match my wardrobe to it yesterday so I can wear it.

Also, a knitter with a reasonable amount of time could finish one in a few hours. This one took me perhaps three days, or about four hours.

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Fetching X 2

Double the Fetchings today. First up is a young man wearing a quite fetching hat:

I can’t claim knitterly ownership of the hat, I am afraid. That distinction goes to Lisa, who responded generously and quickly when I mentioned to her that the boy was growing out of his hats. I know she told me what yarn it was , but I have forgotten. I just know that his head is both warm and cute, and he doesn’t rip it off and cram it into his mouth.

Fetching #2

I am actually quite embarrassed by this. I was going to have a whole series devoted to knitting embarrassments–you know, those things you have or haven’t knit that you wish everyone didn’t know about? I might just do it someday, but until then I will just come clean about these:

Hmm. That has to be the worst photo I’ve ever seen. See this post for a better shot, ok? It is surprisingly hard to photograph your hands in general, and while wearing the boy in a wrap it is nearly impossible.

The embarrassment of these Fetchings is that they were nearly done in October of 2006. 2006. I took them to Rhinebeck with me to finish and abandoned them just a bind off and thumb gusset away from being done. For 14 months they languished at the bottom of the basket because I apparently couldn’t face the end. Embarrassing, isn’t it?

Thanks to the magic that is Ravelry I noticed that I had a shocking number of projects about 90% done. (In fact, that is what led me to stop adding projects.) I am no psychologist, but I must seriously have an issue with endings.

Thankfully, last week was a convergence of means and opportunity. It finally occurred to Mr. Cygknit that perhaps I might need a break from the boy on occasion, and hadn’t I wanted to go to a local Stitch N Bitch? They were done that very night. Amen.

To end on a cute note, 2X the fetchings

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Welcome

Welcome to WordPress. Thanks for making the move with me. There is so much that Blogger wasn’t giving me that was making blogging a pain, which meant less blogging. No one wants that. I hope we’ll both be comfortable here (I still have some things to figure out, but the code version is nifty!)

I moved here in the hopes of achieving a few knitterly goals on my mind the past few months. I’d like to knit at least one swatch for the Walker Treasury Project. (I picked up A Treasury and A Fourth Treasury while in Texas, for about $5 each. And they’re both in mint condition. Go ahead and hate me.) I want to post at least once of a week; I want an easier time of it. I want to finish more projects. Ok, WordPress can’t really help me with that, but I have hopes, ok?

Thanks for playing. Knitting content soon.

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Under the wire

My last FO of the year slid in under the wire at 10:50ish last night.

Baby Bib O’ Love for Terry‘s baby girl. It was made to distract her from the fact that I have not yet finished the blanket I’ve promised her. I’m not sure if it worked. I am making a larger version of the lovey I knit for Em, close to a full blanket size. It has been an easy and comforting knit–except that I ran out of yarn. After calling a variety of stores locally AND in South Carolina, I finally stumbled upon one that actually offered to order some for me. It’s a new yarn store for me, Yarn Garden. It’s only about 20 minutes from me, and may possibly become a replacement LYS for the local one that went out of business. The 20% student discount is a powerful motivator.

In an effort to dodge the end-of-year wrap up that so many bloggers do, I’m entertaining myself with a contest from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I chose to enter option 1:

Post a picture of your recipe box (binder, drawer, whatever) on your blog if you have one. Also post one recipe from the box. Then, post a comment to this post containing a link to your blog entry, so that I can find you and link to your recipe box. (Let’s review: post on your blog, comment on our blog with a link.) TIDYING UP YOUR BOX IS CHEATING.

Here’s my box:

I didn’t tidy a thing up, including the shelf it sits on. Or dust, for that matter.

I bought my box in the mid ’90’s as a (too) young matron. I was living in Texas and working at a craft mall at the time with stalls of handmade items at my fingertips. The woman who painted this box was highly in demand. Her items, no matter how large or small, sold out within a few days of restocking. I admit to having more than a few of her pieces, though my style has changed considerably from those country-loving days.

The recipes in the box are a time-capsule of my life during that period. I was experimenting with cooking and with my role as wife. There are recipes clipped from magazines, recipes quickly scribbled as co-workers recited them, recipes won in Tupperware party games. The marriage didn’t last, but the recipe box did.

My favorite is this one, given to me by a friend’s mom years ago:

There are as many recipes for Coca-Cola Cake as there are big-haired women in Texas, and I’ve never found the perfect match to this one to fill in the pieces. I made it a number of times before it was lost, with varying degrees of success. It’s a bear to make, but so rich and so filling that it’s totally worth the work. I miss it some days.

I’ll share this one, then, in honor of the New Year. It is a Southern tradition to make black-eyed peas for luck. There is little else in this world that goes with them then a fine cornbread:

Click for big, if interested

The only instructions? 8×8 pan, 395* for 28 mins.

Happy New Year from all of us at the CygKnit household

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