2008: A Knitting Retrospective.

Inspired by Nettie's post at Knitology, I've decided to create a knitting retrospective of my own. These are most, but not all, of the things that I made in 2008, in rough chronological order. The captions read clockwise, starting at the top left of each set of pictures. The pattern I used is listed after the name of each item.


1 & 2. Red and white felty purses, from Heartfelt by Teresa Searle; 3. Step-ribbed stole, from The Knitter's Book of Yarn by Margaret Klein Wilson; 4. Simple ribbed hat, from a pattern that I've lost. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's under my bed, but so is half of the universe, so I'm not looking for it today.


5. Baby hats, my own pattern;6. Maine Morning Mitts, from The Knitter's Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes; 7. Zig-zag hat, my own pattern; 8. Patriotic hat, my own pattern.


9. Beige and brown hat, my own pattern; 10. Light blue fingerless mittens, my own pattern; 11. Autumn arm warmers, my own pattern; 12. Lime green Alexis gloves, my own pattern.


13. Alex hat, my own pattern; 14. Jesus the Cowl, my own pattern; 15. Checkerboard scarf, my own pattern; 16. Cable-y mitts, Fetching by Cheryl Niamath.


17. Cable-y mitts the sequel, Fetching by Cheryl Niamath; 18, 19, & 20. Evangeline mitts I, II, and III, Evangeline by Michelle Szeghalmi.


21. Felicity hat, Felicity by Wanett Clyde; 22. Dada hat, Team Zissou by Janice Kang; 23. Tetocat Hat, Official Kittyville Hat by Kitty Schmidt; 24. My first sweater, Cobblestone pullover by Jared Flood.


25. Star Crossed II, Star Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson; 26 & 27. Calorimetry I & II, Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf; 28. Jordan hat, Zissou by Cheryl Niamath.


29. Christmas vest, from Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel; 30. Shaker hat, Zissou by Cheryl Niamath.

Additionally, I've knit two Star Crossed hats, several pairs of fingerless mittens, and a bunch more shit I probably don't remember. These items haven't been photographed ... yet. If you own something that I made but didn't take a picture of and feel like taking a picture of it, you surely can and may send it to me to post on Ravelry and on the blog. Hell, even if there is a picture of it up already, you can take another picture of yourself wearing something I made and I will put it up with pride. Because I am addicted to Ravelry. You should all go and sign up for Ravelry right now, even if you don't knit, just to see my beautiful Ravelry notebook.

Whew. That's it. Happy New Year, everyone.

The last day of the year.

Fact: the more pictures you take of your backyard in the freshly fallen snow, the more likely it is that you will get a few pictures that look really cool, or at least moderately cool. Case in point.








Can you see the birdy in the second-to-last picture? Try enlarging the picture (click on it). You can see Miss Teto in the third picture. The first picture also looks better when enlarged, but there are no hidden creatures in it.

Vest vest vest vest

Here it is, now with real pictures: the Back to School U-Neck Vest from Stephanie Japel's Fitted Knits. I love this vest, man. I love it so much that I'm afraid to wear it. I already fucked it up with broccoli sauce yesterday while I was still knitting it. I don't want to fuck it up with anything else. I'm going to save it for very special occasions.




My next project: SOCKS! I've never done socks before, although I have all the skills required, I believe. I must say it is freaky working with size 2 needles when you're used to size 7 and thereabouts. I feel like a giant. A giant who knits.

Aaaaughghhhhh

MY MOM REALLY LOOKS LIKE ME IN THIS PICTURE!!!


Not that that's a bad thing; it's just kind of scary sometimes. I don't really think about what my parents look like on a daily basis, so it's a shock when I see a photo of them or they make a certain face that makes the resemblance between us really clear. People have made comments about how much I look like my parents since I was a little kid - completely undermining my strong conviction, circa sixth grade, that I had been somehow switched at birth. I didn't dislike my parents, but having another set of them that I didn't know about would have been extremely awesome, especially if that second set were from a different plane of existence and had magic powers and shit that they had passed on to me in my genes.

In any case, this is my mom wearing the Kittyville hat I made her for Christmas. It's gray like my Teto.

My spoon is too big!

Actually, these spoons are just right. They belonged to my great-great-great grandmother, Adelia Kniffin Drummond, and were a Christmas present from my grandmother. There are twelve in all, but six went to another part of the family.

A Very Hipster Christmas.

We took Polaroids on the Saturday before Christmas. It was very festive.

Here's me, Katie, and Jon:


Jordan, me, and Katie:


All of us:

Merry Christmas!

I hope you're enjoying the last half hour of Christmas (or rather, the last half hour of the first day of Christmas, if you observe all twelve days). I had a great day with two sets of friends - one which arrived at 1 and left around 5, and one that arrived at 7 and stayed awwl night long. The latter set of friends and I enjoyed making up highly original songs to sing to people with the kind of common ailments you might see at the ER (use your imagination). We had three different cakes, which is about average for our holidays. We also exchanged gifts. I finally got to give my mom the Kittyville hat I made her, and I got some nice knitting books and such. There will be more on all of that later; I can take pictures of the things my family exchanged this morning, with the exception of the chickens I got for my dad courtesy of Heifer International. For now the only pictures I have are of my lovely new coat. And it's just one picture.


It's from J. Crew! And the two of us have something very special in common. Can you guess what it is? I doubt it, so I'll tell you: we're both named Madeline. If you like the coat, you should go look at it now, because it's majorly on sale. You can find it here. For all the terrible things the recession has done these past months, it has resulted in some really incredible discounts that saved my family a lot of money this Christmas. My dad was able to buy my mom a coat, a sweater, and a shirt from Boden for less than the cost of the original price of the coat alone. If you need some new things - clothes or a new house, even - now is definitely the time to get them.

This is what I wore underneath the coat: my relatively new dress, which was also on sale when I bought it. I got some money for Christmas that I could spend on shoes to replace the very decrepit ones I'm wearing in this photo, but I'm attached to them so I might bring them to the cobbler to fix instead. Do they call them cobblers anymore? All I know is that we have one in town who will glue the soles back on these shoes for about $5, which is less than the cost of a pair of new shoes. I may just continue to wear these shoes until they spontaneously combust on my feet.

Newest knits.

I've been knitting lately (surprised?). It's actually quite frustrating now because I have all this yarn that's yearning to be a sweater but I haven't been able to get out to the knitting store to get the right needles for it because of the snow, and the activities, and such. I've had to make do with what I have - which isn't too bad. My mom gave me an early Christmas present: three hanks of undyed merino wool from Hancock Shaker Village, which is pretty much the best place ever and you should go. They have a round barn, for Chrissakes. Also, merino wool, which is made from their own sheep and spun right there and everything.

I haven't made anything with the new yarn yet, but I did make these ...


Hat + flying machine card for Jordan
(Pattern: Zissou by Cheryl Niamath)


Pumpkin-colored calorimetry
+ blue button from my great-grandmother's collection
(Pattern: Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf)

On Saturday I gave a pair of medium-length Evangeline mittens to my friend Katie. My own pair are getting a lot of use. They're no good for making a snowman, though, with their exposed fingers. I'm hoping to make some legit mittens soon. I tried one pattern the other day but it didn't work out; instead of giving exact measurements in the instructions (i.e., "knit until piece measures 8 inches") it gave flaky approximations ("knit until the top of your pinky finger is covered"). Since I can't try the mittens on (the thumb goes in last, so, yeah) it's hard to tell when you've reached that point in the mitten without measuring it with a ruler. I ended up with a mitten that was way too short for my fingers, and I don't have long fingers. In any case, it pissed me off and I will never use such a flaky pattern again.

The snow's still here.

I should really consider going outside to take pictures of, um, the outside. But there are so many reasons to stay inside, like daytime TV and the kittehs. So let's compare ...

Outside:




(Edited to add: How exactly is it that my camera can take such an amazing picture of a bird mid-flight, with the bird's body completely clear and everything, and yet have such a hard time taking a picture of me from across the room? WTF, camera?)

Inside:





Inside FTW.

Through the Loops.

I just love finding new sources of patterns. It's like fricking Christmas for me. And now I need to learn intarsia so that I can knit these mittens from Through the Loops Designs. I love them. They make me want to be Scandinavian and be snowed in all winter with nothing but lots of lots of yarn. And food, hopefully. And maybe a few other people (or a cat, same thing) so that I don't end up stabbing myself with my knitting needles out of loneliness.



I like these designs too:


(Genmaicha fingerless gloves)


(Sigrid socks)


(Apollo & Artemis socks)


(Linea sleeveless top)

Snow Corgi.

The snow on Friday showed up and said to the snow from Wednesday, "You call that snow? I'll show you MOTHERFUCKING SNOW. Wahha ha ha ha ha ha!" etc. In any case, I approve of the Friday snow. It was legit snow, unlike the Wednesday snow. It snowed all day and awwl night long (actually I think it stopped before dark, but I just like saying that).



When the storm cleared, I managed to catch a glimpse of the elusive Snow Corgi venturing out into the fresh snow.