The Finish Line

That Hat

turtleknits — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:17:03 +0000

My talented niece is an expert knitter – check out this hat!

Argyle Vest For The Win

turtleknits — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:05:46 +0000

I had the delightful opportunity to make a vest requested by one of my favorite young men. He picked the pattern and colors:

It’s my second time doing intarsia and it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the duplicate stitch embroidery.

It’s too big for me, but should fit him fine.
Details: Cascade 220 in grey and purple, plus some vintage Brunswick Germantown in natural. The pattern was a highly-modified Alberta by Jared Flood – I did not knit in the round with steeks, I just knit a front and back using the number of stitches specified in the pattern. The argyle chart came off a vintage Caron leaflet. The inspiration was the Hyland Argyle Vest in “Men in Knits.”

2 Pairs of Gloves Update

turtleknits — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:58:27 +0000

I just received this wonderful picture of my gloves being worn. That is a knitter’s favorite kind of picture — or, at least, this knitter’s favorite kind of picture:

2 Pairs of Gloves

jillnj — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:32:41 +0000

2 of my friends are young men who have trouble buying gloves that fit well. I had a lot of fun knitting these unique gloves, even if I did need to do quite a bit of rework to get them right. (Well, I hope they are right – I haven’t seen them worn yet.)

The first pair is for a student who’s high school colors are orange and black (the Panthers).

The second student’s school colors are red and white – the Wildcats.

Occupy Wool Street

turtleknits — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:28:18 +0000

My dear friend Aimee of Compassionate Conversations told me about Occupy Wool Street, an effort to provide warm clothing for the Occupy Protestors. Occupy Wool Street started in Chicago, but I decided that I’d rather keep my items a little closer to home, so I sent these things to Occupy Boston. After a bunch of research, I found there’s a Ravelry group for Occupy Boston AND a Facebook group for knitters who support them.

I mailed them a warm wool scarf I made

as well as 2 headbands / earwarmers that were in my UFO pile and really needed to be finished and donated to someone with cold ears:

The Occupy encampment in Dewey Square was broken up on Saturday morning, but I am hoping someone picked them up from the OB PO box a couple of weeks ago and someone got some good use of them. A little support from a couch potato [wink].

Designer Knows Best

turtleknits — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:38:36 +0000

Well, I found a cowl that I really liked and wanted to make. As usual, I made a few “tweaks” to the pattern, and by “tweaks” I mean I COMPLETELY CHANGED IT. It’s the Amanda Cowl and it’s knit in the round with a lovely stitch pattern.

I decided I wanted it knit flat, with buttons, instead of being over-the-head. Which means I needed to convert every other row. Usually very easy, in this case, I made a couple of mis-steps, and had to restart it twice. Normal for me. OK, so here I am:

and it is biasing like crazy. Guess I should have kept this particular stitch pattern in the round. Guess the designer knew what she was doing when she wrote the pattern, eh?

Will it block into a rectangle? We’ll see…

It’s intended for a gift. If it doesn’t block well, I can always sacrifice (cough-cough) and keep it for myself.

Warm the Children

turtleknits — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:54:08 +0000

Here is a collection of hats I made for the local Warm the Children.

The boys’ school has a “mitten tree” every year to collect warm items. I can’t believe how many of the items this year (other than mine) were handmade!

This is Cascade 200 Superwash Handpaint from Metaphor Yarns (random pattern out of my head).

This is an earflap hat made of Wool-Ease, a free pattern on the Lion Brand Yarn site.

Here’s another Wool-Ease hat, this one made out of “Thick & Quick” left over from my mom’s sweater (another random pattern).

The third random hat is made from Wool of the Andes Bulky.

This isn’t a great picture, but the hat is quite cute. It is made from Luisa Harding Kashmir Aran using the pattern A Hat Fit for a Fella (AKA Men’s Cabled Hat). This is one of my favorite yarns, very soft and sqooshy and extrememly warm.

In case you are wondering, the tags are care tags. All are machine washable except the Wool of the Andes hat.

Spring and Lambs in Western Massachusetts

turtleknits — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:22:43 +0000

One of the things I like most about our new state is that we are only a few towns away from Sheepgal, the Shelburne Shepherd. Lambing season has just ended and she always shares lovely pictures and videos of the little ones on her blog.

Last fall, I had a chance to visit the farm for an open house, and got to meet several of her wonderful animals.

You should check out these pictures of the last 2011 lamb, Crispin (all the lambs were named after apple varieties this year) and while you are there, you can enter a giveaway for some wonderful Foxfire Fiber yarn.

You might just get addicted to her blog, like me.

Sock Monkey for My Favorite Monkey

turtleknits — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:35:54 +0000

I made this hat for my favorite little monkey, to keep his head warm this winter:

The pattern was the Sock Monkey Earflap hat from Trappings and Trinkets.

The brown and cream yarn was Cascade 220 Superwash; the red is Minnow Merino Superwash.

The only modification I made was to crochet round eyes and sew them on instead of using buttons.

This was a fun and fast knit and I may just have to make another one in my size!

Winter Giveaway

turtleknits — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:38:58 +0000

Head on over to Sheep Gal for a chance to enter this fabulous prize:
“The lucky winner will received 4 delectable skeins of Foxfire Fiber’s Wool Alpaca Twist in snowy white and a copy of my book: Teach Yourself Visually Hand-Dyeing (prize total value of +$72), so you can dye them any color you wish.”

But, do it right now, since the contest ends tomorrow.