WIP Wednesday: Marching Along

We had an impromptu KAL. Surprise! The last Quidditch event of the Winter 2015 term of the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry was a speed event. We were given a list of patterns and could choose to knit or crochet one of the patterns as fast as we could within a given time frame. The faster you completed your item the more points you earned. I decided a couple days into the race to participate so I stalked Cyprienne to see which pattern she picked from the list. She picked the knitted hat pattern, Barley. I love knitting hats so I decided to go for it. Every day, something happened to keep me from working on the hat. You can read about my adventures here if you are so inclined. This hat pattern is simple and would have been a quick knit if I hadn't run into so many personal difficulties. Will I knit another? Maybe but probably not. I would say it's a good pattern for someone knitting a hat in the round for the first time but I have other hat patterns I'd rather knit multiple times.

The Barley Hat was barley'd on my end as well -- for some reason I decided that stopping everything else in the world and making a hat was an excellent idea, so I got finished in a day with much less drama overall!  Slouchy hats make me look like some sorta goiter tried to grow out the back of my head, so I cuffed the brim to turn it into a beanie; the gray is quite pretty and the hat was very quickly stolen by my daughter... she has yet to return it.

I managed to finish (!!) my Rosebud shawl, but I don't have many beauty shots yet, so you'll have to forgive me.  The weighing of the yarn proved to be foolproof and I was able to squeak out an extra Chart B repeat before edging and binding off with seven grams to spare -- phew!  The red is just so gorgeous.

AND the Hooded Cape of DOOM continues a-pace as my sole project for as long as I can stand it.
My finish-before-April desperation ramps up daily...

Taciturn Thursday: Month Three

~ it's like Wordless Wednesday, but a day later ~

 

WIPs Wednesday: February Edition

I have a bit of a theme happening for me this term . . . . I was working on my Rosebud shawl the other day when two things happened. First, I realized I was accidentally slipping all of my stitches purl-wise instead of knit-wise to knit stitches together. Second, I made a mistake and when I went back to fix it, I accidentally dropped a critical stitch that quickly turned my work into an unfix-able mess. Sigh. I decided I might as well frog it and start over so I could do it right. This means my progress photo today is just a few rows, 6 to be exact, past my cast-on photo. Time to knit like the wind!

 
February is more than halfway over and I'm still being thrown for a loop, slightly off-kilter, as they say.  The knitting is going, but I keep getting interrupted by projects for my daughter, who has decided that everything that can be knit should be knit. for. her, so she can show her friends all the one-of-a-kind stuff... very flattering, but very time-consuming.

I love knitting on my beautiful Rosebud shawl, and I'm reaching a decision point: how many repeats of Chart B should I do?

a Valentine of flowers in KnitPicks Gloss Lace, colorway Fiesta

I've been strategically weighing the remaining yarn, and I keep flip-flopping between going for that extra repeat (with the potential for running out of FIESTA!) or knitting the shawl as written (and wishing it larger when finished).  Stay tuned, fair reader, for the exact moment when I lose my nerve!

Let's not forget about the hooded cape WIP -- we're still having a knit-along, but it's asynchronous now!  I'm beading and beading and beading and beading and beading and beading and

it seems like it will never end.

Taciturn Thursday: The First Two Months

~ it's like Wordless Wednesday, but a day later ~

 

 

 

 

 

FO Friday: January Edition

The month of January has just flown by! I suppose that's what happens when the month is full of Good Things. :) 

First, the bad news: My epic NEWT cape is just not going to happen this term. I never did frog and cast back on and the sensible side of me decided it would make the most sense to withdraw my proposal try again another term. That is much more sensible than me losing sleep and hair while working on unrealistic goals. Look at me, being reasonable. Go me!

Second, the good news: I completed my cowl and I LOVE it! It's so soft and squishy and I've already received compliments. I'm so happy with my yarn/pattern combo. It's definitely going to be my go-to scarf/cowl for the rest of the winter season.

So what's on the horizon for the month of February? Very soon I will be casting on my Phoenix project. I'm confident that since I ditched the NEWT project, I should be able to complete this Phoenix project in time. Stay tuned for a Phoenix Cast On post. :)

knit with more than five skeins of madelinetosh A.S.A.P in colorway Farmhouse White

Welp, my NEWT cape is still on the go (closing in on the 75% mark), but mostly I'm just sooo glad to be done done done with this monster cowl.  I don't usually knit with super bulky yarn these days, so I did some deep stash diving for the fabled Lemongrass... turns out, I'm allergic to it (!) and so took the necessary precautions while plowing through the almost-500 yards of fiberstuffs.  Please let this not be a theme for this year.  I put it on myself just once for an arms-akimbo photo shoot, but even during that limited time, having it so close to my face simply solidified its status as "Infinitely Giftable."

You ready for this?  I'd make you promise not to laugh, but that's asking a lot:

knit with 4.5 skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in colorway Lemongrass

Suffice it to say, between the it's-eating-my-head nature of the cowl-haircut combo and my inescapable wool allergy, this lovely cowl has found another wonderful home, far away from me.

And on to the next!  See you in February!

The Fluted Cowl pattern is available for free from the Purl Soho website -- check it out!

WIPs Wednesday: January Edition

Winter blechs and various sicknesses have hit Chez Cyprienne, so things are all thrown off every which way!  The hooded cape is ready for the crazy beaded knitted-on edging; I'm terrifically scared about it -- much more than I should be, considering I've done similar things before -- and the only way I can hope to feel better about it is watching Downton Abbey and marathoning Gilmore Girls.

 

 

bad lighting makes for pretty colors / winding skein 5 of 7

Lemongrass Fluted Cowl is at 6" and holding -- it could be that I'm allergic...
or maybe the pattern moves me to openly weeping with its simple elegance.
Anything's possible?  I do really like the pattern.

An apple a day will stop me from wheezing?

Life, well life for me has been busier than expected. Busy in a good way. :) This has led to a delay in the whole, frog and start over on the NEWT cape plan. I am, however, almost done with the Fluted Cowl. At this point in time, my plan is to quickly finish the cowl over the next day or two then frog and re-cast on the NEWT. Once I start over on my NEWT, I plan to make some serious headway before casting on any other projects this month. By the way, I'm really enjoying the cowl pattern. It's simple enough that it's easy to memorize but interesting enough that it's not boring. It's been incredibly cold where I live which is why I've been in a big rush to finish the cowl as opposed to working on my NEWT.

The NEWT that's full of errors. 

(Please excuse the scrape on my hand.)

The Fluted Cowl that's almost finished.

Our Headstart: Capes of Good Hope

We see some pretty amazing projects while participating in the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup. One such project is idoicaniam's modifications to Celestarium, making it a hooded cape as can be seen here. Amazing, right?  Well lucky for us, she was looking for some test knitters.  And so it was decided we would test knit versions of her hooded cape for our NEWTs this term (NEWT is a fancy word for a project that takes four months to complete).

Honeyspoon's Hooded Cape
My plan is to use Celestarium's sister pattern, Southern Skies, as the base. For the border along the front of the hood and the sides of the cape, I'm using this cable pattern:

For yarn I'm using madelinetosh merino light in the color, ink, and the beads I will be using for the star charts are glow-in-the-dark beads I bought at a yarn convention type event a year or two ago. It's going to be epic. My complete NEWT proposal can be found here.

According to the NEWT schedule, we were allowed to cast on at the start of December. I did in fact cast on and knit several inches however I ran into a hiccup with the flow of the cabling along the front edge of the hood. To do this right, I'm going to have to frog it and start over. I'm bummed but it will be worth it. This project as a NEWT was already a bit of a stretch for me. Now I'm really going to have to knit like the wind. Can I do it? We shall see.

Cyprienne's Hooded Cape
Just thinking about a hooded cape makes me want to write some free-verse poetry for children...
Capes are for superheroes!  Capes are for the opera!
Capes are for witches and vampires and magic!
I'll wear my cape to the grocery store!
Okay, I'll stop now.

Beads, beads, beads, bacon eggs and beads... hasn't got much beads in it...

170 beads down, something like 2000 to go!  Rather than cable on the front edge, I've been incorporating beads into the per-pattern seed stitch.  There will be a crazily-beaded knitted-on lower border, because anything that's worth doing is worth overdoing, amirite?

I'm using seven skeins of KnitPicks Gloss Fingering yarn in colorway Bordeaux and some 6/0 Czech glass beads in a mix of reds.  My complete NEWT proposal can be found here.

 

Knitting along together over webcam -- Happy New Year!