Here is the sweater on display at the State Fair. This photo is courtesy of Arctic Knitter, who was able to do some fancy tech work and put in Winston's Mom on the label instead of my full name. She entered a BEAUTIFUL pair of socks that I have pictures of, but I don't have the technological know-how to take away her name and put Arctic Knitter. So, check out her blog, the socks are there, you won't be disappointed. As far as the fair goes, the sweater did win third place, which is pretty cool. I really didn't like the way they displayed it, it was folded and in a cubby, not easy to see at first. They had other sweaters on display on manikins that were nice, but didn't have the colorwork that my sweater had and so I felt a little disappointed because I didn't feel that the real strength of the sweater - the colors - was on display. And the sweaters on the manikins were monochromatic. I'll have to learn more about how this State Fair stuff works.
Here are Arctic Knitter and myself at the Fair - her socks are in the background behind us, they are honey colored. Trust me, they are lovely. Her socks won second place! Pretty fantastic!
Here's the sweater one more time with its ribbon after I got it back from the fair and returned it to mom.
And here I am with the ribbon. I have to admit, I'm pretty darned proud of the sweater and that the first time I submitted something to the fair it won third place.
After the sweater was done I wanted to do some totally mindless knitting and I had a vision that I needed to fulfill. So, I started some work on socks for my beloved in the colorway of his favorite football team, the Oakland Raiders. I don't have any in progress photos, but I do have these:
Here they are, his Oakland Raiders socks. They are not anything particularly fancy, just K3P1 ribbing on the instep and up the leg. I did a short row toe and heel, because I knit them toe up, but only one at a time because of the size. They are big socks because he's got big feet. They are something like eleven inches long or more, I forget and they are in the neighborhood of fourteen inches high up the leg, my sweet darling likes his socks to go high up his leg.
Here's a side view. The colorway really is perfect for the Raiders. As I said these were part of a vision I had, so immediately upon finishing these I started on the next part of my vision. I have a work in progress photo for these.
These are San Francisco 49er socks, representing my favorite football team. As you can see I knit them two at a time from the toe up. I only used one skein of yarn for mine and I used two for Dave's, so my socks are not as tall, which is fine with me.
Here are the finished socks. I did the same K3P1 pattern on these that I did on Dave's and did the short row toe and heel. They are very cozy and I like them a lot. Now for the vision:
Here is the vision! A family photo of each of us wearing our team's sweatshirt and the homemade socks for our respective teams. No family photo would be complete without Winston in the middle because he's always in the middle of everything. For those of you who receive Christmas cards from us, you can expect to see this photo or a photo very similar coming on a Christmas card to you very soon!
As soon as I completed my vision, Christmas knitting began in earnest and is still going full steam ahead. I started it in September with a couple of distractions along the way. The first, and most demanding by far of my holiday items is this:
This is the very start of a lace scarf for my Aunt Frances. I'm knitting it using a pattern from the book Arctic Lace, so it is an Alaskan native inspired pattern. I'm not knitting it out of quivet, mainly because I don't have that kind of income. I am knitting it out of cashmere, which is not cheap, but isn't as expensive as quivet. It is a complex pattern, it has a 56 row repeat on it, so there is no memorizing this bad chicken and working on it at meetings and things like that. It takes focus, and because I'm not a fast knitter it is going to take some time.
Here's where its at today. I've completed to repeats of the pattern and started the third, I only have to have nine repeats and the scarf is done. Sigh. I need to dedicate some more time to this project.
Aside from the lace scarf I've been on a bit of a hat kick this holiday season and the first hat is actually one of the diversions I spoke about.
This is a little baby hat that I knit for a colleague who had a baby girl on Halloween. I knit this before Halloween. I used some left over sock yarn I had and it is just a really simple hat knit in st stitch and then every fifth row or so I purled it. I did a little i-cord on the top. She loved it, so job well done.
Next is the tale of two hats. The hat on the left I knit first. I told my DH that I was going to knit some hats and I showed him the book Hats On by Charlene Schurch that I intended to use to get my patterns. He flipped through it and said, "I want that hat in blue and white", pointing at the Norwegian Star pattern. He actually also pointed out a couple of other hats he wants, but this is what he gets for now. I measured his head and decided that a medium would work and knitted it up, I even added a few extra rows at the top for height. It was too tight. So after a silly argument about the color blue and available yarn I bought a bunch more of the blue and white yarn and knit the hat on the right. It is a size large and I did two repeats of the extra lice pattern that is recommended so that he could get the height he likes. He loves it. It is an early Christmas present. Both of these hats are knit out of Cascade Dolce yarn. It is very soft and is a little silky too, very nice.
In between the two Norwegian Star hats I knit my second diversion, a hat for me. It was part of my response to the silly argument over the color blue. I don't know if others of you out there ever experience silly arguments with your significant others, but occasionally DH and I do. It's always over something stupid. Why I didn't go on to another Christmas knitting project I don't know, I guess I decided to make something for someone who I knew would appreciate it, me. It is the Turkish Cap pattern. I made the size extra large for my big head but I wish I'd done the height for large because it is a little too long for me. But I don't care, I love it. It is perfect when my hair is in a ponytail, which is often. I also love how the pattern goes to the crown.
Not the greatest photo, but isn't that cool! I knit this out of Cascade 220 Superwash. I love the colors!
Next is a hat for one of my nephews. I have twin nephews who are age 6. They are both getting a Tassled Fez hat, sans tassels. They were pretty clear that they didn't want tassels. K-man's favorite colors are red and blue, so here's his hat. I love the three points at the top.
Isn't that fun?! I think he's going to like it. A-star's favorite colors are orange and green, so I'm working on his now and I'm about half way done.
Looking good so far. A-star's hat is knit out of Cascade 220 Superwash (I'm a huge fan of Cascade yarn in general). K-man's hat is knit out of Plymouth Encore which is a 75% acrylic and 25% wool blend that makes it machine washable and dryable. Important when making hats for little boys. The hats, including mine, have this cool herringbone cuff, but it keeps rolling up and I haven't figured out how to stop that from happening. Oh well.
The last piece of knitting news I have to share is a yarn coup. I went to the Christmas craft fair this past weekend and got this. You are looking at just under 2500 yards of hand dyed laceweight in 100% Superfine Alpaca. I paid $75 for this. What a steal! I find it hard to find laceweight yarn in this town and to get that quantity for that price is pretty amazing. The company I got it from is Far North Fibers, the woman who dyed it is a weaver. That is why she makes such large batches, she needs more for weaving. This yarn is so lovely. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with it, but I just kept coming back and looking at it and decided that I should buy it. I have some lace shawl patterns, maybe I'll do something with that.
I've decided not to renew my membership in the Rockin' Sock Club next year. Mainly because out of six pairs of socks I've managed to knit one. I have so many other projects I want to do and I will knit the other five pairs, I just don't know when, so why continue. I've loved getting the patterns and the yarn though.
Arctic Knitter and I are returning to Madrona in 2009. We are not doing the entire five days though, we're just going for Saturday and Sunday. We weren't planning on it but then we saw the class list and there was a lot that spoke to us. So, there's something to look forward to in February. My apologies for the crazy long post - I have been knitting. Next installment of "What the Heck Have I Been Up to" will be on travel because there's been a bit of that too.
1 comments:
Holy Knitting Bat Man! As I've said before - the hats are awesome! Thanks for the kind words about my socks - you are so nice. :0) Well - I have to get back to my holiday knitting...
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