Hello Knitty

Something I made and something my sister made have joined forces in a cataclysmic explosion of cute.

Sadly, I can only take credit for the hat. The boy is all my sister’s doing.

This is my nephew, Brady. He’s two, and his favorite thing in the whole world is going to Home Depot to look at lawn mowers. He lives far away in Wisconsin, which I think is a shame because his parents deny him daily exposure to my charm, sparkling wit and potty mouth. I would totally make up for that last one with lots of free babysitting, which apparently isn’t good enough because he still remains 1500 miles away.

If we’re being truthful here, I am a sucky aunt because this is the first thing I’ve ever knit for him. And making him a hat wasn’t my idea, my sister asked. Sorry, sis. Please don’t take it personally.

Since I can’t do things like a normal person I modified the Turn a Square hat by Jared Flood instead of finding a toddler hat pattern. I made it a little big so hopefully it will fit him for more than one season. The yarn is Valley Yarns Goshen, a wonderfully soft cotton/rayon/silk blend in Black and Silver Lake.

A big thank you to my sister for taking the photographs. She’s pregnant again and has wised up with this one and two minutes after telling me the fantastic news handed me some yarn to make a hat for the baby. Smart move.

HelloKnitty’s Hat for Brady – Ravelry Link

I feel like I owe you all an explanation for my absence, but beware: it’s not an interesting one. Here it goes – my knitting got boring and I didn’t want to talk about it and then my life got busy and I couldn’t find time to talk about my knitting, even though I really wanted to.

Snore, I know.

Life is good though. Great, in fact. I haven’t fallen off of the healthy lifestyle wagon – I’m still eating right and exercising and have now lost around 95 lbs. My sister and her family visited from Wisconsin. She hadn’t been out to Idaho in nearly 20 years so this was super exciting. My husband got a fantastic new job and spent most of June in training in Seattle.

I went to visit him for a long weekend, and I hope you enjoy this picture (taken on top of the Space Needle) because it’s the only one I took on my entire trip. Which is not at all an indication of the time I had in Seattle, because I had a ball and would move there in a heartbeat if my husband liked large cities.

And I’ve been knitting.

That’s a sneak peak of one of my finished projects – there are three I need to show you!

And I’ve been designing. The second sleeve is nearly finished, then it’s on to the button bands. I’m so pleased with how this is turning out. I hope you love it because I really, really do. I don’t want to give away too much yet, but I will tell you this: it’s a cardigan.

I have been kicking myself for letting the blog go for so long without a word. Now that my husband is home and things have slowed down a bit around here that should change.

During my kinda-sorta spring break last week I managed to finish up all my projects that were laying around, the last of them (and quite possibly my favorite) being my Tea Leaves Cardigan.

You wouldn’t think the simple gathered yoke would be all that exciting, but it really knits up beautifully. I am such a sucker for this sort of pattern: a cardigan that only buttons at the top with a detail around the yoke. My Ravelry queue isn’t filled with million sweaters like this, and I’m not really sure why because they’re so wearable.

As usual, the yarn deserves a lot of credit in making the cardigan look so nice – it’s MadelineTosh DK in Oxblood, a color I absolutely adore. When my Mom saw this sweater, her first comment was about how soft the yarn is. And she’s right. It’s gorgeous in every way.

I knit this pattern exactly how it was written, except for adding in another button hole and picking up less stitches for the button band. But if I were to knit this pattern a second time there is one change I would definitely make – for my tastes, the neck is a little too wide. It still turned out nicely, and it’s not anything that would make me not wear the sweater, just a personal preference.

HelloKnitty’s Tea Leaves Cardigan – Ravelry Link

My Thorpe is so very North Idaho. As proof, my husband and I went on a hike two minutes after this photo was taken, and ended up here:

It fits right in, doesn’t it?

Thorpe was knitted out of a South African Fine Merino handspun I bought from Pigeonroof Studios. The color is Forest, and it’s a heavy worsted weight.

This poor little hat sat unfinished for months as I tried (not very hard) to figure out what to do with the edging. I was going to ask someone to crochet the edging on like the pattern called for, but I felt so guilty asking someone to do what I should have gotten around to learning years ago. But since learning to crochet isn’t anywhere on my list of things to do, I ended up picking stitches up all around the brim and earflaps, purling one row, and binding off in the knit stitch. I think it ended up working perfectly!

HelloKnitty’s Thorpe – Ravelry link

Adelina is finished!

This lovely sweater is the newest design from Stash, Knit, Repeat. The pattern should be available sometime this month – I promise I’ll let you know as soon as it’s out. I’m stealing this description of it from Amy, the designer, because she says it way better than I could:

Adelina is a classic, fitted V-neck sweater with a bold stripe of color to give it a modern, figure-flattering edge. The stripe is continued around the hips and (square) neck on the back, but not vertically. The sleeves and hem are done with fairly deep 1×1 rib, there are princess seams for shaping, and there will be both 3/4-length and long sleeve options.

Since this was a test knit I made very few changes to the pattern. My only modifications were to knit the bottom hem out of the same size needles as the body (all the other rib was done with a needle size smaller), and I changed the gauge to accommodate my yarn choice – I knit a size 32″ to fit a 36″ bust.

My version is knitted out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL Sport in Meet Brown, Joe and Rose Quartz. I held two strands together because, although I could get gauge with a single strand, the fabric was lighter than I wanted. If you remember, I was a little worried about the yarn irritating me, but it’s doesn’t. It’s incredibly soft.

HelloKnitty’s Adelina – Ravelry Link