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!

Gnomes

We had some insane storms yesterday, so I spent a bit of time moving from place to place at work, watching the radar and staying away from windows. Everything turned out just fine for me, although there were some tornado touch downs in other areas.

When I finally did get home--after staying late because a second cell of storms was coming through right over our heads--I realized I'd forgotten my knitting at work. Last night we planned to watch the final Inspector Lewis, so I went to the yarn guest room to pick something to work on.

I remembered that a friend showed me a picture of a knit gnome and gently hinted that she and another friend would both adore them. I dug out some scrap yarn, size 3 needles, and some poly-fil from the linen closet. Today, Gnome came to work with me to do a little exploring.

He hung out in my plant.

 He approved of a flower left from an event we had here.

He approved less of the bird. It alarmed him a little bit.

Travelling Gnome (mine ravelled here)

He's about 4" high. I have no idea what yarn I used. I just searched for the correct colors. I converted the pattern to knit it in the round, and I used black French knots instead of safety eyes. I knit the beard together with nine stitches of a round in the face color instead of sewing the beard on. The little guy took about an hour to make.

Today when I got to work someone had set my knitting bag on top of my desk. I'll now go back to my regularly scheduled knitting.

Gnomes

We had some insane storms yesterday, so I spent a bit of time moving from place to place at work, watching the radar and staying away from windows. Everything turned out just fine for me, although there were some tornado touch downs in other areas.

When I finally did get home--after staying late because a second cell of storms was coming through right over our heads--I realized I'd forgotten my knitting at work. Last night we planned to watch the final Inspector Lewis, so I went to the yarn guest room to pick something to work on.

I remembered that a friend had shown me a picture of a knit gnome and gently hinted that she and another friend would both adore them. I dug out some scrap yarn, size 3 needles, and some poly-fil from the linen closet. Today, Gnome came to work with me to do a little exploring.

He hung out in my plant.

 He approved of a flower left from an event we had here.

He approved less of the bird. It alarmed him a little bit.

Travelling Gnome (mine ravelled here)

He's about 4" high. I have no idea what yarn I used. I just searched for the correct colors. I converted the pattern to knit it in the round, and I used black French knots instead of safety eyes. I knit the beard together with nine stitches of a round in the face color instead of sewing the beard on. The little guy took about an hour to make.

Today when I got to work someone had set my knitting bag on top of my desk. I'll now go back to my regularly scheduled knitting.

Sparkles for the Five-Year-Old

I was never a big doll fan as a kid. Stuffed animals? Yes. My Little Ponies? DOUBLE YES. Dumping my giant box of crayons out on the floor simply so I could then put them back in organized by color? A THOUSAND YESES. Dolls? Not really.

But my five-year-old niece is, and therefore:

American Girl Lace Dress (mine ravelled here),

knit in Universal Yarn Star Light, color 101

It's knit from the bottom up in a simple lace pattern. You decrease a bunch of stitches for the bodice and knit that in stockinette.

There are two tiny buttons on the back at the neck. The pattern says to crochet loops and sew them on, but I just did simple yarnover buttonholes in the edging. It works great and you know how my crochet skills are.*

The pattern also calls for poofy sleeves knit in the same lace pattern. I chose to do simple short sleeves, edged in garter stitch to match the bottom of the skirt (and hopefully keep it from curling).

Here's a closeup of the lace:

There are tons of patterns written for this size doll, and something in worsted weight would have gone a lot faster than light fingering weight. However, I decided that all dolls need a sparkly, lacy dress (the white has sparkles in it that you can't see in these photos), and I might as well go big if I was going to do it at all. Well, not big-- go small.

You know what I mean.

One Christmas present down!

*Practically nonexistent

Couldn't Be Helped

It's not my fault that this happened.

Easter Peep (mine ravelled here)

I KNOW I said two days ago that I wasn't adding anything more to my To Knit For Christmas list, but the sock yarn hasn't arrived yet. Clearly, I had no choice.

Chicken Little

Here's a Christmas gift I made that is safe to show since the recipient doesn't read my blog:

Spring Chicken knit in odds and ends yarn

My cousin raises chickens and has some chicken decor in her home, so I thought this would be a nice Christmas gift.  Everyone needs a stuffed knit bird, right?

Can you say no to this face?

I thought not.