I did finish Mario, by the way

Here's Mario.




Here he is on his first outing to Starbucks to visit my knitting group.



And here he is being opened by my 7 year old son - this was his birthday gift, and I made the squares in front of him but did all the seaming and finishing while he was at school. So the blanket was a huge surprise.



He was a little lukewarm at first, because he thought I was giving him a learn-to-knit kit. Oh, honey.... this is crochet. Totally different. He does love and appreciate it, now.

This blanket is one of nine items I entered into the fair this year. I'm curious to find out if the blanket will be up on the wall or skirting a Christmas tree off in the corner, but I won't find out until Saturday (unless my incessant scouring of media for pictures yields a spoiler). Winning ribbons would be great of course, but I'm hoping for some feedback on my handspun yarn. Well, that and of course beginning my quest for world domination at the spinning bee on Saturday.

Project 38: Traveling Woman

This project was completed in May, 2011.

Traveling Woman is a very popular pattern that's been around a while. The designer re-released the pattern with a host of matching patterns and directions for making the shawl in other sizes and yarn weights. I used the free version to make my own, at long last!





It's a nice little shawlette, and the yarn really makes it. It was also a quick knit, taking me only three days to complete.




Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante (the free version; there is also a pay version available)

Yarn: Alina Shea Creations Vines in "dancing in the rain", the club yarn from February 2011.

Needles: US 7 (4.5mm) nickel-plated Knit Picks interchangeables.

Rav Page

Mods: I did 3 repeats of Chart A. it's been a while, so not sure if that's a mod or not....

Project 37: Deathly Hallows Illusion Dishcloth

This project was completed in May, 2011.

This dishcloth was my first try at illusion knitting. Very cool!





Pattern: Deathly Hallows Illusion Cloth by Jenn Bragg

Yarn: Natural color is a Peaches & Creme cone of cotton in Ecru; blue is Lily's Sugar & Cream in cornflower blue. I used 34.4 yards of ecru and 38.4 yards of blue.

Needles: Size 8 (5.0mm) boye aluminum circular needles

Rav Page

Mods: none

Project 36: Dane Shawl

This project was completed in May, 2011.

Another lovely free pattern on Ravelry! This is called Dane Shawl.





It's supposed to be a shallow triangle, based on traditional Danish heart-shaped shawls.  I blocked mine to more of a triangle and less of a heart shape.



I think every comment about this shawl in person has started with the colors.  It's all in the yarn, Plymouth Zino.  It's a sock yarn, but it's a fingering weight single (just one ply) and it just seemed like it really would work well as a triangular shawl.



Pattern: Dane Shawl by Jane Tanner (free)

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Zino in color "8", all 436 yards of it

Needles: Size 6 (4.0mm) nickel-plated Knit Picks Options

Rav Page

Mods: I liked the written bind-off but ran out of yarn with about 3 inches to go. So I tinked back a bit and switched to a very loose regular old knit 1, pass old stitch over new stitch, repeat bind-off. I had enough yarn left from that to weave in as the tail, and that was that.

Project 35: The Golden Snitch

This project was completed in May 2011.

In the HPKCHC this term, Quidditch was split into four quaffle matches between houses in May and later hallows or horcruxes in June and July.  The first quaffle match was to make a golden snitch.

Near instant geeky gratification!

Pattern: The Golden Snitch by Melissa Mall (free pattern)

Yarn: Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep in honeycomb and Red Heart Super Saver in soft white, roughly 15 yards total.

Needles: Boye crochet hook, size G (4 mm)

Rav page

Mods: None that I can recall!

Project 32 and 33: More Quidditch Hats!

On the last day of the Winter11 HPKCHC term, I finished up two more charity hats for Quidditch.  This time I pulled out all my wool scraps and worked on making scrappy but fabulous hats.

Errrr.  Well.  They look better in person.

This one used up as many blues and purples as I could coordinate together - lots of my little bits and bobs of dyeing practice over the years:



and this one got pinks and earth tones:



To turn them in on time, I was up late and the camera was not cooperating so we got camera phone pictures. But, I managed to make two impressively not ugly in person hats using up roughly 435 yards of yarn that will warm some heads on the other side of the world.

Project 31: Emily Shawl

This project was finished in March 2011.

I love how this shawl came out.  It's an unusual construction, which is how it became part of my Nerd Wars dissertation last spring.  The yarn is a silky, drapey thing that I only regret I do not have more of. It blocked nicely and looks great as a yarn and pattern match.  I almost - almost! - wish I hadn't given it away!






Pattern: Emily Shawl by Mandy Moore, published in Knitscene Winter/Spring 2010

Yarn: Alina Shea Creations Grassy Feet (65% superwash wool, 35% bamboo) in Summer Fun, the June 2010 yarn club offering



Needles:  Size 7 Knit Picks Options nickle-plated interchangeables

Yardage: 324 yards

Rav page

Mods: none

I enlisted the help of then-three-year-old Spike to photograph the back.  He did it well!



Sigh.  I might have to make another one of these.  In addition to being part of my Nerd Wars dissertation, I turned this project in to the HPKCHC for Charms, March 2011.

Project 30: Paul's Saturday Morning Not-Hoodie

This project was completed in March 2011.

I finally finished my first sweater!



Like the first sweater I ever started, lo these many years ago (2005 I believe), this one is for my husband.  We saw its humble beginnings in my Muggle Studies OWL proposal last January.  Despite the name, he did not want the hood. I dove in hoping that I'd figure out how to not have a hood later, and as you all can see - I managed!



I just picked up stitches for the collar/buttonband as I would have around the hood, except there was no hood.  Shockingly, it worked.  And now Paul has a sweater!  And it actually fits!


Pattern: Saturday Morning Hoodie (free pattern from Lion Brand Yarns)

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky, only 807 yards (I still have 6 skeins and some change left! Incredible!)

Needles: Size 11 and 13 Knit Picks Options nickle-plated interchangeables.

Notions: six recycled plastic buttons purchased at Jo-Ann's Fabrics.

Rav page

Mods: I didn't knit the hood - see text above.

I still look at it and wonder if I really made such a thing.  It looks like real clothes. And I made it.  I'm impressed!

Project 29: Charity Scarf

This project was completed in March 2011.

I finished a third and final scarf for the same charity as the fluffy pink scarf before I boxed up my scarves, leftover kits, and some yarn to donate and sent the box back to California last week.  The short answer as to why I didn't make all the kits is that I found no joy in crafting these scarves for this charity anymore, so I fulfilled my obligations of donating postage to the charity, donated some yarn I thought they might find useful, and returned the scarves and kits I had.

Here's the last one!



Now I can direct my energy to others in need.

Projects 26, 27, and 28: Challenge Hats for Quidditch

These projects were completed in March 2011.


One of the Quidditch challenges back in March was a duel where you set the terms between you and your partner, and my partner and I decided to make as many hats for charity in one day as we could.  She beat me, soundly, but I still made three more hats for charity than I otherwise would have.



The purple hat and the green-purple-blue hat are my own hand-dyed yarn.  The orange hat is from wool I inherited so I don't know what it is.  The pattern is my own (same as this project) but as of yet unpublished.

In total, I estimated 404 yards were used in these three hats.

Project 25: Celeste Shawl

This project was finished in March 2011.

Last Christmas my parents were up visiting and as usual I got out my newest pattern books for my mom to look though.  She saw the Celeste Shawl pattern and fell in love.  The picture in the book has the shawl on a hanger and it's hard to tell much about it, but a quick look through projects on Ravelry helped.

Shawls are very popular right now, but this is a shape you don't see all that often.



But it sits nicely on the shoulders,



and floats nicely too.

Yarn: Sliver Moon Farms 65% superwash wool, 35% bamboo fingering weight yarn purchased at Rhinebeck in 2009

Pattern: Celeste Shawl from the book Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders

Needles: US 7 (4.5mm) Knit Picks Options, Nickel-plated tips

Yardage: 543 yards

Rav Page link

Mods:  I left off the beads in the edging.

This project is the finish for my Care of Magical Creatures OWL, which I successfully completed last March.

Project 24: Fluffy Pink Scarf

A while back I discovered a charity called Handmade Especially For You.  They provide handmade scarves for abused women in shelters, originally in California but chapters have sprung up all over.  They also have a lot of donated yarn, so the people who run the charity set up yarn kits for garter stitch scarves already with doubled yarn wound up to match on both ends.  This scarf is from one of their kits.



The organizers want every scarf to have something "fancy" and, having several of these kits, I guess that fancy means furry.  Hey... why not?  Fun fur is fun, after all!

Estimated 120 yards, doubled, so 240 yards of yarn.  Even though these kits are not yarn that I consider mine, I do work with the yarn and so I am counting the yardage as yarn out.  It is going out of the house!

Project 23: Patchwork Square #29

Surprise!  One last square was squeezed into February.

Pattern: Square #29, Alternate Spike SC, from 63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches

Yarn: Red Heart Giant, aran

Needles: Size I/5.50mm crochet hook

Yardage:  92.4 yards by weight

Ravelry page (for the whole project)

Mods: none!

Project 22: Four Stitch Markers

I finally get to show off what I did with my new crimping tool!!



Stitch markers.  They are fun to make and I'll be making many more now that I have beading wire and a crimping tool to properly crimp the bottom.  It's so much easier with the right equipment!

Project 21: Dangley Earrings!

Since my beading stuff was already out for the Pink Girl Necklace, I found 1.5 earrings and finished the pair. The second earring only needed to have the .... errr... dangly part..... attached to the hooky part.  As you can tell, I am not an expert.  But I did make them!

Project 20: Snowman Mouth

After the last snowstorm, Spike and my husband were outside playing in the snow.  After a while, Spike came bursting through the front door with a request for, "Eyes and a carrot!"  I pulled an unlikely-looking carrot out of the deepest depths of the fridge and looked around until I found some eyes - bottlecaps.  But the mouth was trickier, so I grabbed a hook and some leftovers and whipped up a solution!



Spike and his snowman.

Yarn: Red Heart yarn, probably classic? worsted weight acrylic in a small skein, held double

Pattern: I made it up!

Hook: size I/5.5mm

Yardage: 7.3 yards by weight

Rav page

Project 19: Patchwork Square #13

Guess what?

It's another square!

Pattern: Square #13, Bushy Stitch, from 63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver, country blue

Needles: Size I/5.50mm crochet hook

Yards:  70.3 yards by weight

Ravelry page (for the whole project)

Mods: none!

Project 18: Patchwork Square #62

Squares.
Best idea ever.

Pattern: Square #62, Basket Weave, from 63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver, soft navy

Needles: Size I/5.50mm crochet hook

Yards:  76.3 yards by weight

Ravelry page (for the whole project)

Mods: none!


This was a nice stitch pattern.  I'd definitely use it again, although it does eat yarn!

Project 17: Pink Girl Necklace

The parts for this little necklace have been knocking around the house for about a year, but I finally got all the pieces together in the same place and made it!

The necklace clasp:



The strands:



Finally, the necklace:



Yarn: DMC Six-strand Embroidery Floss, not sure about the particular shade of light pink but it was from my giant box of floss.  I used two strands of the six.

Pattern: Based on the Infamous Beaded Necklaces Tutorial, by Devon Clement (Rav link)

Needles: tiny little stainless-steel crochet hook.... size 7?  5?  Somewhere in there.  Not too tiny.

Yardage: Hmmmm..... not a whole lot.... maybe 4 yards or so, using only two of the six strands.

Rav page

Mods: I still haven't found the material called for in the tutorial, so found some pink beads that coordinated nicely and used the cotton embroidery floss

Project 16: Camilla Mittens

Oh my, these were a fun knit!!



Just to be contrary, instead of knitting a plain thumb in a single color, I continued the pattern on one side and alternated colors every stitch and offset them every row.  Just to be contrary.  The end product was nice, but it was a little fiddly (especially considering I have made only two pairs of colorwork mittens before).  I've put project notes on the thumb alterations on my Ravelry project page.



The snow was pretty.



I needed to mail these off in a hurry, so instead of washing them and shaping to dry as blocking I steamed them, which did help even the stitches and smooth the surfaces.  I took them outside immediately to photograph them in the fresh snow, and although it's not something I really planned, throwing hot mittens into cold snow really snugged those stitches up!

The perspective in some of these pics is a little misleading, as the two mittens really are the same size.  Really.  They are.  I know this because I had to work to make it happen.  I knitted one mitten and thumb and started in on the second mitten.  Knit knit knit knit.... I got almost up to where the thumb eventually goes on the second mitten when I couldn't look over the problem any longer - they were just not the same size.

Look at the lighter pink designs on the first, finished mitten (looser) and on the second mitten (tighter).



First mitten, size 1 (2.25mm) needles, 10 stitches per inch.

Second mitten, size 1 (2.25mm) needles, 11 stitches per inch.

You really can't tell, even stacked on top of each other, just how bad it was.  That one stitch per inch made a pretty big difference, though.



With much growling and gnashing of needles, I ripped the second mitten back to the ribbing and started the colorwork again with my next needle size up, size 2 (2.75mm) double-pointed needles.  This time it went well although I was careful to keep knitting tightly on the 2s to hit the same gauge I got on 1s before.  It's not like I knit these months apart, either - I went from one straight into the other.  Knitting is full of surprises.  Beware!  Gauge strikes again!

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette (2-ply, 100% Peruvian wool, fingering weight) in cotton candy (the lighter pink) and fucshia (the darker pink)

Pattern: Camilla, by SpillyJane (Rav link; free pattern)

Needles: Size 1 (2.25mm) double-pointed aluminum needles for the right mitten and size 2 (2.75mm) double-pointed aluminum needles for the left mitten.  I did,  however, switch back to size 1s for the thumb on the left mitten and tried to knit loosely.  

Yardage: Final weight was 45g, which is 208 yards of yarn.  Based on remaining weight in skeins, I can estimate that I used 104 yards of fuchsia and 97 yards cotton candy which does not add up to 208...  So, somewhere in there.

Rav page

Mods: The thumb patterning was my big modification, but I also used the same shaping on the top of the thumbs as called for in the mittens.  I also grafted the mitten tops with 6 stitches left on the top and bottom (total 12).  This cut the mitten a little bit shorter than the pattern called for, and involved grafting, but I wanted them to be a little less pointy at the tip.

Some clever people on Ravelry have adjusted this pattern to worsted weight yarn, which I might try too!  

SpillyJane's contest with these mittens required people to email her a picture of the finished pair of mittens in February and she'd send a free pattern of our choice.  I emailed my snowy photo and the free pattern I chose was her adorable Swedish Fish Socks - so look out for those, eventually!