The Recurring Persian Dream

About two and a half years ago, I found and fell in love with the Persian Dreams pattern.

WildJen's Persian Dreams (on Ravelry here)

That one is the one that really knocked me on my ass. I could not resist it. It remains the most beautiful piece of knitting I have ever seen.

A month later, I had a Come to Jesus with myself and decided I was crazy enough to knit this BUT not crazy enough to make all the color changes called for by the pattern. Solution: Self-striping yarn left from my Felici obsession. The amount remaining from knitting a pair of socks was enough to make one hexagon.

Two and a half months later, I was on block 6 of 24 and had redevoted myself to it.

Two years later, block 7 wasn't even close to being finished.

You know what's coming: DEPTH YEAR.

(mine ravelled here)

Yesterday I finished block 7. 

It took me the entire portion of the non-eating part of today's lunch break to get here: 

I didn't have a crochet hook, so I had to learn a new circular cast on. In case you ever find yourself in a similar predicament (and let's be honest, why would you?), I recommend this video. 

Even if I didn't have the cast on delay, let's be real about this project. It's going to take for-freaking-ever. There are 24 blocks. All of those blocks have live edges--288 stitches of live edges--that will be kitchner stitched to adjacent blocks.

I've thought about the best way to do this without plunging into the Pit of Despair. 

I thought about blocking the hexagons when I have a third of them done, and grafting those eight together. Maybe breaking up the project into smaller bits would be helpful. I could try to convince myself that things unfold as they should and trust that each hexagon was created at the right time in the right pattern with the right yarn. Just take a deep breath and work in tiny bits and believe that it's going to be gorgeous at the end.

I miss you so much, President Obama.

So, after giving this a lot of thought, I've decided there's only one path to completion here: Abandon any hope of completion. Lean into it. Accept that the rest of my life will be me knitting stranded colorwork with fingering weight yarn. If by some miracle I get finished with that before I die, the remainder of my life will be kitchnering together said pieces.

At the end, there has to be some sort of border around the whole thing--some way of dealing with the remaining live stitches. Lots of people have done i-cord rather than the 20-row border. Since I will never get to the border, I'm not bothering to think about it.

If I'm not enjoying knitting this, then I should quit. There is no reason to keep doing it in hopes of a finished product because it will never be finished.

Here comes block 8.

Depth Year

I'm doing a Depth Year this year. It's based on the idea from this blog post: https://www.raptitude.com/2017/12/go-deeper-not-wider/. I've joined a Facebook group built around the idea, and I've enjoyed reading how other people are interpreting it for their own lives.

Here's what it means for me:

• Shop the stash. Start with stash and search for a project to go with the yarn instead of the other way around.
• Buy no yarn except Felici, yarn for donated items, or if very specific gift requests are made that cannot be fulfilled by stash yarn.
• Try at least a pillowcase of Yumiko Higuchi embroidered flowers. Unless it makes me miserable, set the goal of embroidering the pillow and the linen picture.

Regarding the first two goals: This may come as a deep shock to you, but I own a lot of yarn.

I know. I'll give you a minute to recover.



Better? Good.

Because I work at a computer, it is easy for me to take a break by looking at yarn, which leads to buying yarn. I'm particularly weak in the face of a sale. As a result, I own a lot of great yarn.

Now to knit that great yarn.

The way this has taken shape these past few weeks is that I've been working on projects whose raw materials I've owned for an uncomfortably long period of time. I knew exactly what this yarn would become, but I'd just never done it.

First up: Mr. Banana Foster, the sock monkey

Mr. Foster Sock Monkey (mine ravelled here),

knit in Knit Picks Essential (discontinued--I told you it's been in the queue a long time)

I bought the kit for Mr. Foster in 2012 to make for a friend. The pattern seemed fussy, so I didn't do it. Now it's done. (Spoiler alert: It was fussy.) He's supposed to have a robe, but I decided life was too short to knit it. Plus, a robe would hide his adorable butt flap. That seems like a tragedy.

Then there came Mawata Mittens. You take silk sheets that are nearly translucent in their thinness, stretch them out until you get something that sort of looks like yarn, cut the loop, and knit with it. It's strange and delightful.

Basic Mitten (mine ravelled here),

knit in frabjous fibers and Wonderland Yarns Silk Hankies, Spilled Ink colorway

Next up were thrummed mittens. Thrums are weird and wonderful. You take roving, cut them into bits a few inches long, and knit them between stitches. The outside looks like this:

Classic Thrum Mittens (mine ravelled here),

knit in Fleece Artist Blue Leicester Aran

The inside looks like this:

The thrums are supposed to felt some with wear, creating a nigh-impenetrable mitten. I've already worn them hiking this winter.

Nocturne adored both the yarn and the roving for these mittens.

Mine? Mine.

The strange thing is that these three projects took very little time. Granted, I can be an obsessive knitter, and I knit a lot, but still. It left me puzzled why I had put them off for so long. I'm feeling motivated to clean up my Ravelry queue!

The Year the Not Knitting Wasn't

I was ready for the Not Knitting. Every January, it seems that I lose the desire to knit. Instead, I read. I've gotten used to it, and it no longer scares me that I'll never want to knit again and will have gajillions of dollars in yarn that I won't use.

I was mentally prepared for it this year. I worked to get physically prepared as well. I checked out extra library books. I bought an embroidery pattern. I read up on British mystery series I might want to watch.

Then this happened:

Christmas Diagonal Ribs (mine ravelled here),

knit in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in 989 Candy Cane

And then this happened:

Plain Socks (mine ravelled here),

knit in Blue Moon Socks That Rock Lightweight in Wavelength

And now this is happening:

Simple Skyp Socks (mine ravelled here),

knit in Mineville Wool Project Super Sock in Winter Sunrise

Oh well. If the Not Knitting comes late this year, I'll still be ready.

Stripy, Stripy, Stripy

I don't even quite remember how it happened. I think I saw this cowl somewhere (ravelry? pinterest?) and fell in love. Then Knit Picks was having a sale on some of their Chroma. Then I was talking with a friend and we were discussing possible colorways.

Anyhow, this happened.

Bad Blood Cowl (mine ravelled here),

knit in Artist's Palette Smoothie Sock in 1079SS

and Knit Picks Chroma Fingering in Dear Diary

I used just over one skein of the Smoothie Sock and not quite two balls of the Chroma. The pattern suggests just knitting until you run out of the 100 gram skein of each, but I knit a bit more than that to get it the length I wanted.

It's an easy pattern. It starts with a provisional cast on of 107 stitches (which I can do only if I watch this video every single time I need to do the cast on), then has 2 rows of the first color and 2 rows of the second color for 10 repeats, then 3 rows of the first color and 3 rows of the second color for 10 repeats, then 4 rows and so on until you have 8 stripe rows.  Then you graft the two ends together to make a cowl.

If you are ready for this step at your lunch hour and realize you don't have another circular needle, you may be tempted to try various other bits from your knitting bag, such as stitch holders and shawl pins. These will not work. You should then remind yourself that it is July, and you do not need to be in a rush to finish a cowl on your lunch hour. Furthermore, remind yourself that you can't kitchner 107 stitches together in a lunch hour anyway.

I like the cowl a lot. It's long enough to loop twice around my neck.

I have the yarn picked out to make another one for a friend. This time, I'm going to avoid the tedium of progressively wider and wider stripes and start with the 8 stripe sequence and decrease down to 2. I know that it's exactly the same amount of knitting, but I'm betting it won't feel like it. Score one for brain trickery!

Coasters

Remember how I had that list of projects I wanted to do but had never done, like Grandma's knitting bag? Another project on that list was i-cord coasters.

I'd seen an article in Interweave Knits Summer 2015 magazine about a little doohickey that makes i-cord. I've knit my fair share of i-cord, and it's tedious, if by tedious you understand it makes me want to poke my own eyeballs out with a dpn. With the Embellish Knit doohicky, you feed the yarn through the top, do a bit of futzing at the beginning to get it either behind or in front of metal pegs that look like tiny latchhook hooks, weight the bottom of the yarn, turn the handle, and voila! I-cord. 

It takes 3 i-cords roughly 6' tall to make a coaster. Once the i-cords are made, you braid them together tightly, then sew the braid to itself in a spiral shape.

This means we now have another use for scrap sock yarn. Angels are singing, and they are singing about the joys of using up tiny balls of fingering weight yarn. The harmony is glorious.

Sock Braided Yarn Trivets (mine ravelled here)

I've made 6 of these. They tend to pucker, but soaking them and then blocking them under something really heavy makes a big difference. (That also could be solved with more practice. It has something to do with the way I sewed the braid to itself.) I made 2 for me and 4 to give as gifts. I don't have any desire to whip up more at the moment, but it's a nice trick to have for when the scraps begin to get me down.

HANDSOME: Yeah, You Are

Exciting news! Pamela Wynne's latest genius project, HANDSOME, is now available! As Pamela says, "Handsome: Man Sweaters for Every Body is an e-book collection of six menswear sweater patterns designed to fit every size, shape, and gender of adult human."

She's not screwing around. I did one of the test knits for this, and there are options. The specific sweater I knit has narrow/average shoulder option, A-line shaping option, and custom-length sleeves with the cute thumb hole. There are also custom calculators so you can make sure you knit yourself a sweater that actually fits well.* She wrote these patterns using real people for measurements, and the lucky devils who modeled are now the owners of sweaters knit specifically for their body.

I knit the pieces for the blue Kale pictured above, and Pamela did the finishing. That fabric was glorious, and it fits the model beautifully. I would wear one of those sweaters in a heartbeat.

Check out the lookbook here. She's running KALs for each sweater and has a Ravelry group for the patterns.

These aren't just for men. Men's knitwear is an underserved market certainly, but these sweaters are good shapes, well-designed, and easily customized so they can fit anyone. We all got lucky here.

I'm thinking gray, but I always think gray.... Wouldn't a gray Kale be lovely? In my head, I'm already curled up with a book in my new sweater.

*I'm going to work hard at not thinking about the sweaters I knit that I don't wear because I don't like how they fit. Spilled milk and all that.

Grandma's Bag

A couple weeks ago, I was feeling plagued by projects I had told myself I wanted to do but had never done. Let's pause a moment and recognize what a gift it is that I have a life that can be plagued by my hobbies instead of real problems.

Amen.

So, I emailed some smart friends about it. Lynn asked if maybe I was just tired of making things and needed a break. I sat with that for awhile and decided that I just hadn't been in the mood to do new things. A tenth pair of diagonal rib socks? Yes. A project that I couldn't do while zoned out on the couch? No.

Mysteriously, that was what it took to get unstuck. 

I don't remember my grandma knitting, but she did it a lot before she had Parkinson's. Parkinson's is terrible. 

Grandma's old knitting bag had sat in a garage for years. It was badly, badly torn and frayed, held together in places with safety pins, was disgustingly dirty, and contained some dubious black things that made me shudder. I cut the material off the wooden frame and washed it. It was worth the risk of it falling completely apart in the wash. There was no way I was using it for a template as it was.

Once clean, it sat and stared at me judgmentally for months.

I was off yesterday, and I spent it at home working on one of the bag. It started with a list and some math.

I had already purchased and washed the material I wanted to use for the project, a canvas for the outside and a satin for the inside. In addition to the bottom of the bag, there's another flap that goes under the wooden frame to hold it in place. Since that and the long seams on both sides that go over the handles had to be done with the frame in place, there was a lot of handsewing. 

I tried to be Zen about it. I only sort of succeeded.

I measured my notion bag and made a pocket for it in the lining. It's possible that pocket is wrong side out, but I'm sticking to the story that it depends on your perspective. My perspective says it's fine.

Seven hours, a bobbin refill, a bent sewing machine needle, far more handsewing than I anticipated, only one shouted outburst of, "FOR FUCK'S SAKE," and it was finished.

I learned some things, certainly. I would have done the lining differently if I had it to do over, but thank God I don't have to do it over. No 4-H judges will ever look at it, and it doesn't matter that there are some wonky areas. I'm pleased with it, and I'm thrilled to be able to use something that was grandma's for a hobby we share.

Last night I loaded it with a mostly finished hat that just needs a pompom, a matching, long, worsted weight cowl in progress and the 6 balls of yarn the cowl requires. It all fit, which makes me think this might be related to Mary Poppins' carpet bag. 

Thanks, Grandma. I'll think of you whenever I use it, which will be a lot.

Blues

Some yarn is harder to work with than others. Most of the time, I can figure that out by looking at it and avoid it. Sometimes I can't.

Diagonal Rib Socks (mine ravelled here)

knit in Regia Hand-Dye Effect in 06552

This yarn is splitty, and got VERY thin in sections. I am not a fan, and I'm not sure how they'll wear. The socks look pretty, and the pattern, as always, is great. (I think this is my 10th pair of this pattern. Ann Budd knows what she is doing. I knit mine slightly differently than the pattern, but just because I'm odd and not because there's anything wrong with the pattern.) I'm just grateful to be finished and moving to a yarn that isn't so difficult to work with.

And I'm praying I didn't buy another ball of this, but I'm too scared to check the stash to find out for sure.

All the Loopiness

Yesterday I took some pictures of the Loop. It's a lovely bit of knitting.

Loop (mine ravelled here),

knit in Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Fingering in Spectrum 

and Good for Ewe Sultry Steps in Gray 98

The Spectrum colorway is my very favorite. Each stitch has the possibility of an unexpected pop of color, but all the colors look lovely together and not at all like clown barf.

The edge is garter stitch.

Then an i-cord bindoff that is a Zen meditation. Breathe. Accept what you are doing. (Abandon hope of ever finishing, but that's where my Zen broke down.) It's beautiful when it's done.

I enjoyed myself so much that I knit another.

Knit in a mysterious sparkly gray from the stash

and Knitpicks Chroma Fingering in the Roller Skate colorway

(ravelled here)

I love this one just as much as the first one. I was worried about how the long gradient of Chroma would behave, but it's lovely. Chroma is unspun enough that I think this pattern is a great use for it. It won't get a lot of hard wear wrapped around my friend in a fetching manner.

Pretty, right?

For both of them, I did a modified garter stitch tab as suggested by a genius on Ravelry and also did a yo between the first two and last two sts on each right side row that I then dropped off on the wrong side. This kept the edge from being too tight. I'd love to take credit for both those ideas, but the truth is that I got both ideas from the Ravelry projects for this pattern.

Loop, Backward and Forward

I was surfing Pinterest, like you do, when I fell upon a gorgeous photo of Loop by Casapinka. I was discussing it in depth via Messenger with a friend, like you do, when she casually told me she bought me the pattern and it was waiting in my library.

No, you can't have her. She's mine. 

I was not deeply committed to the laceweight sweater I'd just started (because, duh, laceweight), so I decided to cast on.

And then found myself completely flummoxed by choices.

After dithering longer than I care to admit, I chose Madelinetosh in Spectrum, my very favorite colorway in the entire universe, paired with Knitpicks Hawthorne Kettle Dyed in Blackbird. I began.

And promptly screwed up. Those two colorwork rows should be the same. The pattern clearly states that you hold the yarn in the back when you slip stitches. As you're working a wrong side row, the back is the front of the work. I was thinking about the wrong side as being the back, held the yarn in the wrong place, and, well, crap. I can't blame that on anyone but myself. Rip.

That fixed, I trundled ahead. I loved Spectrum. 

I did not love the pooling in the black.

In a move I'm incredibly proud of, I stopped and considered. I didn't like the pooling. Could I learn to like it? It probably needs better light. I went to bed.

The next day I took it to work, spread it on my desk, and glanced at it from time to time.

Pooling.

Yep, still pooling.

Sigh. Still pooling.

Besides the fact that my time is precious, because we all know I've knitted something I hated despite the truth to that, this colorway is too precious to use it in a project that screams, "I'M POOLING!" at me every time I see it. Rip.

I went back to the stash. One of the grays I had initially rejected was Good for Ewe's Sultry Steps. It's a great gray*, but it was fuzzy and monochrome and I wasn't sure I'd like it in this project.

I was wrong.

Loop (mine ravelled here),

knit in Good for You Sultry Steps in 98 Pewter 

and Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Fingering in Spectrum

Onward, again.

*For me, a great gray doesn't have brown undertones. Brown undertones make me sad.

Gradient Hat

I used some of the hand-dyed gradient yarn to make a hat.

Ombre (mine ravelled here),

knit in Ella Rae Classic Solids (hand-dyed)

I've had this hat pattern in my favorites for a long time. (Check out the pattern photos here.) I love the way this hat turned out, but you wouldn't think it was the same pattern. Changing the colors so they're a gradient makes dramatically different fabric than choosing lots of contrasting colors.

I imagine I'll knit another at some point, esp. since it's a good way to use up scraps. The only problem, and it's a big one, is that it's too small for me. I'll go up a needle size and perhaps even add more stitches the next time. I'm thinking about giving this one to my 7-year-old niece.

The Stillness of January

I stop knitting in January.

I'm not sure why it happens, perhaps something to do with the mania, the colors, the frenetic activity of the holidays, but after every New Year's I find myself looking at my knitting and then turning to something else.

This year it's mystery novels. Probably most years it's mystery novels.

It doesn't really make sense to me. January is quieter than December. There's more free time, time that in December is filled with card writing and present wrapping and food eating. In January, I breathe a sigh of relief that things are normal again. Normal means knitting.

But somehow not in January.

The end of December often brings tempting knitting presents, new yarn or needles or patterns, and one would think that would get me excited.

But it doesn't.

Plus, January is cold. And dreary. And often gray. One would think sitting on the couch in the evening with bright yarn in my hands would be irresistible.

But it isn't.

Thankfully, this has happened enough times that I recognize it for the temporary state that it is. I wait it out, reading and not worrying that a lack of interest signals an end to my hobby.*

I think I'm nearing the end of the Not Knitting now. I think this is what's going to do it for me.

Gradient yarn dyed during my class at Nomad Yarns,

paired with black Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Worsted

*Terrifying. What would I do with all that yarn?

Christmas Knitting

A few photos of knit Christmas presents!

Brandy requested a kitty hat, modeled here by me:

Cabled Cat Ears Hat (mine ravelled here),

knit in Loops & Threads Cozy Wool, Granite colorway

These seemed to go with the hat:

 Cat Wrist Warmers (mine ravelled here),

knit in Knit Picks Mighty Stitch in Ash and Cascade Heritage Solids in Pink

I gave a couple of presents from this post, the Gummy bear socks and the Turn a Square hat. Deanny looks awesome in the hat.

Turn a Square hat (mine ravelled here),

knit in leftover Noro Silk Garden in colorway 252 

and Knitpicks Swish Worsted in the Cobblestone Heather colorway

And then I went on the Book of Faces and saw this!

Holly's wearing her hat and cowl (and I'm going to believe she's wearing her mittens, too). I love love love seeing photos of knitting in the wild. It's great to see people wearing knit gifts going about their day-to-day lives.

My nephew went shopping with us one day and picked out yarn he liked and requested a hat. When a junior in high school requests knitwear, you can be sure I'm going to oblige. I can't predict how long this will last.

Squarshy hat (mine ravelled here),

knit in Loops & Threads Facets

I hope you had a Merry Whatever, too!

Santa Mouse

It's been a long time with no posting. The longer I go, the more I begin to doubt whether I should still blog, or whether anyone reads it, or whether I need to catch up on All The Things.

That's silly. Let's just talk about something fairly recent.

I made a Santa Mouse.

Santa Mouse (mine ravelled here),

knit out of random bits and bobs

Family lore has it that my oldest sister checked out Santa Mouse, Where Are You? from the library as a first grader. From that point forward, Santa Mouse has been a tradition in my family. Because I am a pusher, it is now a tradition in Andrew's family and in one of our little circles of friends. Remember?

Santa Mouse travels with Santa in his sleigh. In the book, he accidentally falls from the sleigh, and he is able to make his way to a home to wait for Santa because he sees that home's Christmas lights glinting off a yellow ribbon on a package. As an expression of his immense relief at being rescued, he now leaves tiny packages nestled in the Christmas tree, all tied with yellow ribbon. Not gold ribbon, mind you. YELLOW. This is important. Do not screw up the Santa Mouse ribbon or a hole will develop in the space-time continuum and you'll find yourself playing the accordion in a pizza parlor for the rest of your life.

I briefly had thoughts of knitting Many, Many Santa Mice to give away at Christmas. Then I realized they were fiddly and not all that fun. December is too stressful and busy to be knitting projects that are fiddly and not all that fun. This Santa Mouse is nestled in our Christmas tree, and I'm glad he's not lost in the snow as in the book.

I hope your traditions bring you happiness, too!

Embarrassment of Riches

A portion of my excitement over Persian Dreams is that I can use up a smidgen of my scrap sock yarn. I have a lot.

That may or may not be all of it. Don't judge me. 

I think epic knitting projects like this one benefit by a Come to Jesus conversation with myself. It went something like this:

This is a blanket knit out of fingering-weight yarn. It's going to take a long time. Pause and make sure you can accept that.

Accepted? Lovely. This is a blanket knit out of fingering-weight yarn in stranded colorwork. Pause and make sure you can accept the additional crazy.

Ready to proceed? Good. The pattern as written uses 14 different colors. Stop and think about the number of ends that is to weave in and the amount of yarn changes that is. Do you want to do this?

...No, I do not. 

Line thus drawn, I went to the stash and pulled out self-striping possibilities. As you all know, I love me some stripes. The stash reflected this.

Then I pondered the stripes. Some had very distinct colors, and some were so subtle as to almost lose the striping altogether.

I put all the strong stripers on the bottom row, the ones that had brown (plus sad Christmas) on the second row on the right, and the ones that I worried were too subtle on the top and second row left. There are 24 pieces to the blanket, so I decided to use the strong stripers and do 3 pieces in each color.

I started to knit.

Persian Dreams (mine ravelled here)

knit in Knitpicks Palette in black and Knitpicks Felici in Gummy Bear

After I knit a piece, I realized I wouldn't have enough scrap in any color to do 3 pieces. I got another opinion about the colors, decided to try to incorporate some of the subtle stripers, and plunged ahead. I should be able to figure out pretty quickly if I like the mix of subtle and not-subtle pieces.

And if I don't? I have options.

I feel a little embarrassed about how much Felici I own, but just a little. 

Certainly not enough to actually get rid of any 

or not buy more when it comes back with new colors.

Know thyself.