Knitting hats and UFOs

I have been knitting up a storm and really cranking out the hats. I've found an earflap hat that I love. I've made 7 of them from Wool-ease with several variations. I'll try to get some photos up soon. It seems like I can't get either of my counters to the end. I keep adding hats to my hat counter and finding new UFOs to add to that counter also. I found a ripple afghan in the attic that I am turning into a Christmas present. I always liked it, but I made it for a friend and before I could get it finished, they moved and had a completely different color scheme. The new recipient has just bought a new house with lots of space to fill up, so this is perfect...a gift I love for people I love.

The earflap hats are going well and they have a lot of space to do colorwork on them, so I just keep adding recipiants that I think will like them. I figure I have about 4 more of the earflap kind and a couple of Aran type that I have been wanting to make for ages. I'm making a hat and boa out of some eyelash yarn for my 4 year old grandneice, and I am hoping I get used to using that yarn. So far, it hasn't been all that great, but my sister assures me that it gets easier. For the little grandnephews, I want to make these balaclavas. Then I have a vest to make (It's half done), 3 crochet bags (1 finished today), some ipod carriers...one looks like a hoodie and is so cute! There's a Star Wars hat and sweater that isn't even started and 2 children's Arans and 1 Gansey half done. I think I am going to have to learn to knit while I sleep! Thank goodness some of these are UFOs and are already well on their way. Pictures will be posted and a new list made.

New Knitters

Monday at Kofe Haus, I taught two young people how to knit. That makes 4 this month. These 2, one male one female, are recent college graduates who can't find jobs, so are going on to graduate school. Like many, they would like to earn a little money before starting grad school, but since they can't, they are trying to make good use of their time.

It is so rewarding to me to introduce people to this wonderful ancient craft. I can't help but think of all the rewards knitting holds for them. I picture them going into yarn stores and feeling the rich texture of the yarns, picking out projects, knitting for others and knitting for charity, which just happens to be why one of these young people wants to learn. I also think of the wonderful stress releaser knitting is and how it can see them through a world of troubles. Now there is a Harvard study that says what we knitters have always known.

Maybe this won't happen for them, but it's a start. Most of us who have knitted for any length of time bless the person, or people, who taught us to knit. We recognize the importance it has in our lives. We know of the enjoyment of knitting with friends and relatives, of knitting when our hearts are broken and knitting at night waiting for a loved one to come home. We enjoy the felowship we have with other knitters and love the variety of people we knit with. We love making something special for someone we love and making something special for a person we will never know. When we see trouble and tragedy in the world and want to help we know that there is some organization that will help us reach out to others with our knitting...or we can start one. I know that we could go to Walmart and buy hats, mittens or blankets for the homeless, but it says so much more when the gift is from the hands and heart of someone who cares and took the time to invest in a stranger. We could purchase soft hats for people in chemotherapy, but how much better it is to send a soft hat in beautiful yarn or an intricate pattern.

And if these kids get wrapped up in grad school and jobs and they put aside their knitting, they can be like so many who learned once and only need a few minutes lessons to pick it back up and let knitting work its magic in their lives.

Kofe Haus Meeting

There were 3 of us at the Kofe Haus meet-up this morning and as different as we are, we found lots of things in common. We have a retired teacher and librarian, an archeaologist waiting to get into grad school and a writer and mother of two; two female, one male. I think that is what I like about knitting meetings. They bring together such a wide variety of people who start out only having a love of knitting in common, but we grow by interacting.

I also love the "knitting in public" movement. People stop by and chat about knitting and I am amazed at the people who say that they always wanted to learn. Some say they'll do it when they retire and others take up the hobby because they need an island of calm in the midst of a chaotic life. My mom says that she thinks better with her knitting needles and I find that to be true for myself also. Knitting calms me and grounds me. How often do you see and adult just sit down in a chair and think? We always need to be doing something and so often the thing that we are doing takes up too much of our attention to really think. Not so with knitting. I can sit in a chair and just knit and as I do, bits and pieces of my life seem to sort themselves out.

Christmas Knitting

I can't believe it is almost November! I have hardly begun my Christmas knitting. Fortunately, there are a few things on my UFOs that are presents, so I am already halfway there for some gifts. I live in Florida and it is hard to think about Christmas when it is still near 90 degrees. There isn't that sense of urgency you get when you feel the frost in the morning and see the leaves turn beautiful colors. My poor air conditioner ran all week.

I tallied up my Christmas knitting and I have a lot to go. I'm making Aran and Fair Isle hats this year with scarves or mittens to go with them for my extended family. I have a number of Arans I want to do next year and I thought I would just make swatch hats using the various patterns. It's a lot of work for a hat, so this makes it do double duty.

I also got another "ticker" and updated my UFO ticker for the holidays. They seem to help motivate me. I found 2 more UFOs that are perfect for Christmas presents, so I changed my UFO ticker to 22.

I'd like to make some of those beautiful Scandinavian mittens this Christmas, but I should have started them this summer. Who could think of mittens when was almost 100 degrees and we hadn't rain in over a month? As usual, I will be still knitting Christmas Eve.

My additional UFOs are:

9. - Lovely red Aran size 4 - sew together
10 - White novelty yarn vest -finish fronts

More Organizing and Charity projects

I am making some inroads into my stash. Here are some more charity projects that I finished this month. The burgundy and green chemo hats are so easy to make so I always have a hat on the needles. The green hat and scarf set was made from some yarn I never thought I would be able to use here in Florida, but I think some homeless person will like it. I made two of those hats in one evening.




Some things take on a life of their own. Now that I have started to organize my stash and projects, I find now that I need to set up a place to take photos AND I see that my camera is old and leaves a lot to be desired. I never realized how yellow the light is in my apartment until I started taking these photographs. I got out my Ott light, but then I didn't have a good place to lay out my stash and projects. Nothing is ever simple. I never thought about all that goes into getting organized.

One More Finished

My nephew's caveing socks are finished. I think I have perfected this pattern. This hunting season will be the final test. When I went to do the kitchener stitch, I cut the yarn to short and had to go back 2 rows and add a new piece(: I added the piece in on the top of the foot and I hope he can't feel it. I could have kicked myself. I just wasn't paying attention.

Charity Knitting

This is a little blanket I made for "From the Heart," a charity shop in Richmond, VA while I was up there for the summer. It's a wonderful place where you can go to get donated yarn, needles and patterns for your charity projects. They also have comfey chairs and sofas so you can sit and knit. The first time I was there, there were about 15 second grade students there, boys and girls, all knitting. They had already contributed squares for an afghan for the homeless and someone had put the squares together for them and brought the finished afghan for them to see. They were working on another one while we were there. The school bus picked them up after about an hour to take them back to school. What an inspiration!

They had a need for preemie blankets and I found the mock cable in and was trying to make a blanket 24" x 24," but the pattern is actually a ribbing and the cable draws the fabric in. I can't remember what I cast on, but I calculated it from the gauge.


I learned a few things from this project; cast on about 10% less stitches than you want so it won't ripple at the ends and use some short rows in the side borders about every 3 inches to keep it from drawing in. The cable is really easy to do and you don't need a cabling needle for it.

Pictures from Summer Knitting

I taught Eli, age 8, to knit this summer and she finished a scarf for her mother, some coasters for her daddy and the red yarn is for a trivet. When we watched some movies, she went and got her knitting just like her grandmother, great grandmother and aunt:)













I've had these socks in my UFO box for a long time. The first one worked up quickly, but I made a mistake on the second one and couldn't remember where I put the pattern.






I finished the Crayon sweater for Charles and had enough yarn to make one for Addie also. They're bright and colorful and made a big hit, even though you couldn't tell it from Charles expression. I have two more of these sweaters left to make.



Here are some chemo caps I made. I have made about 12 of the ribbed ones, but only one of the 2 color which is what I really wanted to practice this summer(two-handed stranded knitting). Right now I am looking for a truly jogless seam. I do intend to keep working on the stranded hats this year until I am proficient.
Crayon Sweater

Organizing My Knitting

For the last few days, I have been entering my knitting books and magazines in Ravelry and bringing some organization into my knitting world. Spurred on by my success with UFOs this summer, I have been eager to bring everything together in one place and evaluate what I have. For years I wasn't able to knit much, but still managed to accumulate stash, so now I have a gold mine to dive into.

For anyone who doesn't know, Ravelry is a great website for knitters. In fact, it probably is a little knitting corner of heaven:) On Ravelry, I can type in the name my books and magazines and most of the time up pops a picture of what I have. I can then click on the picture and most of the time I am taken to a page with photos of all sorts of projects that are featured in the publication. The next thing I do is look at all the many variations made by other knitters and read their comments. But that is only the beginning! From there I link to the project page by marking it as a "fave" and if I really like it, I put it in my queue which is on my "notebook page."

I've had my grandson bring down all sorts of yarn from the attic and I am working on adding photos of my stash and linking them to the projects I've picked out. I had some ancient Bucilla Glace that I was going to just take to From the Heart in Richmond. I clicked on the yarn and found a great idea for it. Knittindiva made a beautiful shawl using the Glace as one of the anchoring yarns and added bits and pieces of other scrap yarn.

This is part of my resolve to get order in my knitting life. Actually, my doctor recently put me on a stronger thyroid medicine and I am feeling so much better that tackling it seems much more doable now. I am trading back and forth between working on the computer and actually knitting the projects I am working on now. The success I had this summer has fed upon itself and I am ready to go.

Also, to keep up the energy, I have contacted two women who were also on Ravelry and live in Fernandina and we have already had one knitting session in our local Kafe Haus. It is so much more inspiring to have someone to look at what you have accomplished so far or to have a "show & tell" deadline than to just knit on your own...at least, it seems so for me. I got really spoiled in Virginia with all the great folks in my sister's group.

What projects are left?

I'll get photos up as soon as I find that charger cord, but here's what is left:

1. Baby vest - started for Charles, got off count somewhere and couldn't fix it. Now I am making it for Jonathan.

2. Lavender fluffy sweater for Addie. This one is just lacking the sleeves. It just got put on a back burner for a while - no problems.

3. Knit red coat for 18" doll - sew together

4. Knit blue coat for 18" doll - sew together

5. Knit green sweater and skirt for 18" doll - sew together

6. Red ruffled baby sweater - sew together

7. White baby sweater - sew together

8. One green hunting sock

AM I SEEING A PATTERN HERE???

Charity Knitting - more projects done!

I am on a roll. I got 2 more chemo caps done and finished an isolette blanket. I'll upload some photos when I find all the cords and things I need to download my photos. Nothing is going to happen if I can't get the camera charged up again and that cord seems to be elusive.

For the isolette blanket I used a tiny mock cable that I frequently used years ago. It is such a sweet pattern for baby things and it is so small that tiny fingers don't get caught up in it easily.

I met a knitter from Ravelry this morning at the Kafe Haus in Fernandina. We had no problem picking each other out of the crowd...who else is dragging bags with sticks sticking out and balls of color peeking over the edge. I hope we can get a few more knitters to meet with us. I did the finishing on the charity projects I had with me and then picked up a sweater for my granddaughter out of lavender Fluffy. That was in my UFO basket also, so I am looking forward to counting that in my list of finished projects.

I am making some progress on my project to inventory all my books and needles. I entered some more on Ravelry, but I find that I have to take photos of some of my books and, of course, I need the camera. I have also gathered a number of old projects and put the yarn and pattern in the bag so I am ready for the next one when I finish.

I am trying to do my UFOs in an 80/20 ratio. I work on UFOs 80%of the time and new projects 20% of the time. I am only doing this for one year and if I make it, I get to go with my sister on a Virginia Shop Hop next spring. Even my 20% should be from my stash unless I find a really good sale; We shall see.

How do things get to be UFOs?

There is something that I wonder about in knitting. I see a pattern and grab some yarn and start to work on it with great enthusiasm. I like the way the yarn looks, every thing is going along nicely and suddenly, I loose interest. Sometimes it is because I have a problem with the pattern, but a lot of times there is no reason. I tuck in back in the closet where it reproaches me each time I see it. I try not to look too deeply into the closet while I do my best to keep thoughts of the cost of the yarn and the time invested. Yuk! I do not want to do this project.

AND then... one day, I look at my knitting and fall in love again. Now the color is lovely, the pattern is interesting and I am raring to go. Has the yarn changed? No. Has the pattern changed? No! Obviously, the knitter has changed, but how? I swear I am the same person who looked into the closet a month ago. Is it hormonal? Have my biorhythms changed, is Venus in a different house (whatever that means)?

Now, if I could find an answer to that question and turn it into a potion, I could get rich!!!! Just think...upon nearing the closet, you take a pill and slowly approach. Wow! You can't wait to get back to that pattern you started in the 70s! (Well, perhaps not the 70s. Some fashion eras do not bear repeating.) Now you love your project and can't wait to start knitting. Think how much money you would save!! Maybe you could even use the pills for other things that have been started and not completed. If only...

Back in town

Yeah! I am back in town again in my own little house..which is now a mess because I am starting a project to gather all my needles and hooks and take an inventory. That means getting out more unfinished projects and evaluating them.

I GOT EVERY UNFINISHED PROJECT I BROUGHT WITH ME TO VIRGINIA FINISHED!!!!! What a high! I made 4 pair of hunting socks, 2 pair of regular socks for presents this Christmas, a vest for my granddaughter's friend, 3 mittens (one for spare), Charles' sweater, a novelty scarf, a baby sweater, and ??? I can't remember, but I photographed them and will upload soon. Every single project had something wrong with it, which is how it got to be an UFO in the first place.

I also made about 10 chemo caps for From the Heart, a sweater for Addie which I didn't bring quite enough yarn to finish the last sleeve, 2 more baby sweaters, designed and started an incubator blanket and an Aran sweater for Eli.

I can hardly stand myself I am so tickled! I accomplished this marvel because I had my mother and sister around me to talk to while figured out what was wrong, unknitted the mess, corrected the problem and finished the project. If I was at home, I would be mumbling about the yarn, the pattern developer (mainly me), the fickle knitting goddess etc. I also brought these projects in their own little bag and when I went somewhere, I only took that bag...no other choice:)

So now, I am going upstairs to sort out some more projects and see how well I can keep this up. I did bring back some beautiful fall colored sock yarn that I am going to make for myself and I am trying to decide if I start it before Addie's sweater or after. Since I live in Florida, I think I will finish the sweater first so Addie can wear it (if it ever gets below 80 degrees!)

Knitting UFO's

I came up to Virginia for the summer to spend time with my folks, my sisters, my son and my grandkids. When I packed I got together a big bunch of UFO's and took them with me. So far, I have finished one scarf, a sweater for Charles, 1 pair of socks for a Christmas gift, 4 pair of hunter's socks, a shrug, 2 pairs of woman's socks (blue and carnival) and I am almost finished with a knit vest for my granddaughter's friend. (I also completed two cross stitch projects too, but that's for my other blog.)

As I struggled with each UFO, my sister commented that I was sure having a lot of trouble with my knitting. So why do you think they got to be UFO's in the first place? There was the sock that had the toe section perpendicular to the body of the sock, and the pair I was grafting and messed up and couldn't get the grafting unpicked. Then there was the pair of hunting socks that didn't match. One had a 2/2 rib cuff and the other a 1/1 rib. I added a matching sock to each and now have 2 pairs. There was the vest that started out a cardigan and then I added 3 cables up the front and skipped all that buttoning business. I was having problems figuring out the new neckline and then I hated the shoulder sewing. I ended up taking it out and making short rows for the shoulders and using a 3 needle bind off. It looked much better. The hunting socks I made changes to the basic pattern after my nephew gave me some suggestions. I ended up with a sock design that I am really pleased with. I'll be adding photos of all these very soon.

What I have left: another pair of blue socks and a pair of pink camo mittens. I can't believe I am almost through with my UFO's. Surely another will turn up somewhere. If not, I still have plenty at home. I also have another pair of hunting socks to do because I got my son to try the sock on for my nephew and they fit him so well, he wanted a pair. That's not exactly a UFO, but a cousin to one:)

Bringing them up here with me proved to be a great idea. Not only could I not just chuck the thing in the bag and start a new, non-problematic project, but I was also knitting and visiting with my relatives so all the picking out and problem solving didn't seem so tedious.

Packing for Virginia

I'm getting ready to go to Virginia to house sit for my sister when she goes on vacation. Actually, she is going for 3 separate vacations and I am thinking about staying up there all summer. I'd like to spend more time with all my family up there and help out with the care of my folks and grandkids.

I'm getting out the worst of my UFO's and bringing them along. I know we be sitting around knitting and chatting and maybe the conversation will keep me from grousing about all the problems I am having with these UFO's.

I seem to have a lot of socks in various stages. There are several toes that need to be grafted and some that have to be unpicked and grafted correctly. I am definitely going to make the next socks the toe-up variety. I haven't so far because I decided I was going to make socks until I was comfortable with grafting...or at least could do it tolerably well.

I'm sure I can find a lot more projects to keep me busy and I am going not going to work on anything new until I have these done;)

Eli's sweater - finally done

The sweater is finally done and I managed to find some "spider" buttons for this little nature girl. Amazingly, her class is presently studying spiders. I would not use this yarn for a cardigan again. It is lovely yarn and very soft, but it was hard to put in the button band. I finally made it doubled and lined up the button holes. I am not sure how well it will wear, but it is exactly what Eli wanted and she is pleased with the results, so that makes me happy. It really did turn out cute.

Knitting trip

Today Mother and I drove down to Irvington, VA to look at a new yarn shop...or at least new to us. We had such a great time and got a lot of inspiration. We didn't buy much which made us feel very virtuous, but I did get something I really needed. Years ago I gave Mother a hanging organizer for circular needles and I have meant to get one for myself sometime. This is the first time I saw one in a store. Usually you have to order them. This should help me with my organizing project. I promised myself, as a New Year's resolution, to sort through all my knitting needles and project bags and organize ALL MY STUFF!!! As soon as I get home, I am going right to it and I am actually getting psyched up about it. We shall see!

Finishing Eli's Sweater

I can't believe it has taken me almost a year to get this one sweater done. I've made some socks and other thing in between, but this was the project that I wanted to get done most. Since I am about 650 miles away from Eli, and I had to have her try it on periodically, it has been slow going. It's a good thing I made it big. All I have to do now is make the garter stitch button band and sew on the buttons.

I did have one great success...the yellow buttons. I found a great place to order buttons...buttondrawer.com. One set of buttons had a black widow spider on it and that was what she picked. Eli is our nature child and she loves all sorts of things that creep and crawl. I ordered several sets, but I had a feeling that was what she would choose. Hopefully the buttons will arrive soon and the sweater will be on her by the weekend.

I know I knit something!

Where has this year gone? I know I have been knitting all year, but I seem to have so little to show for it. I have knitted sox and I have to remind myself that the guage is very fine and that means that, although they are small, there are a lot of stitches on the needles.

I've also been trying to rescue some old projects or reclaiming the yarn when that is not possible. I have been meaning to do this for a long time. I have a nice bit of yarn that once was a sweater for my son when he was little. It is in watch plaid colors and I have tried to reclaim it and knit something for his son. That hasn't been going well. I've tried several things and it just doesn't seem to work right. I hate to admit it, but the yarn may just be worn out. I don't mean it has breaks in it or anything like that, but it just doesn't seem to have any life to it. I think I am going to try one more time and after that, it goes in the trash if I can't work it out.

Knitting Eli's sweater

I feel like I have knitted this sweater at least 3 times. The yarn is soft and lovely to work with, but counting rows and measuring has been a real challenge. I finally ended up sewing the sweater back and fronts up to get the bind off for the armholes.

That worked and then I started looking for yellow buttons. That was a joke! I finally began looking online and met with some success. It was certainly cheaper than driving all over the state.