The "Piece de Resistance" of Last Minute Holiday Knits

This is the shining-moment piece of knitting for this season.

It is a nightcap for my dad. He mentioned that he has been wearing his beanies to bed on the cold nights and quoted the poem - "Ma in her kerchief and I in my cap". With that said, I went looking for a nightcap pattern to make him one for Christmas.

A pattern for this is not plentiful or popular. I did find a lovely one (far to fancy for regular wear for my dad) at Knitty.com. It is worth looking at if you are interested. Then I found one that is reminiscent of The Christmas Carol and similar to the one you see Scrooge wearing. This one is plain and utilitarian, mostly what I was looking for.

Of course, it was designed for yarn I could not find, so I rewrote and knit this one as an experimental model. I hope that it will fit him. But, since the pattern was done in plain colored yarn, I decided on December 13th, when I was writing the new pattern, that it needed some dressing up. No pressure, let's design a fair isle snowflake pattern to add to it. I had it knit by the 17th, record time I think.

I am very excited for him to open this gift and try it on. There will be pics posted once that happens. I have plans to make him another one once I am certain that it fits the way it should.

I hope all of you have moments of shining accomplishment this year to reflect upon!

Kitty Knits - Cat Lovers Unite!

Donna Druchunas is my kind of person. I have seen so many pet related knitting books and patterns that are geared towards dog lovers but little has been done up to this point for cat lovers.

Finally, the cat will have its day.

I saw this advertised first in the latest Knitpicks catalog, and followed it from there. The pic offered here is from her website, Sheep to Shawl, and she does a good job of sharing what is in the book.

Of course, I ordered the book and it arrived yesterday. It was all I could do to put it away in my messenger bag at work and not touch it. So far I have found at least 8 projects I must do. My favorites are the socks and the hat. Those first for fast finish projects. Then the Fair Isle pullover with cat faces.

There are also projects to knit for your favorite four-pawed friends and family members. Everything from catnip mice to cat beds embellished with needle felting to a fancy cat mat where they can dine on their favorite treats.

I am even going to use a lace pattern that represents a cat face for my yarnover swatch sample for the KIC Level One submission.

If you can't tell...I am VERY excited about this book. I suggest all you cat lovers out there go to her site linked above and have a look at it.

Hope everyone is following their dreams and passion wherever it leads you!

Fair Isle: continued

Here is the progress I have made on my Fair Isle class from my class.

I showed it with the chart which depicts an aspen leaf.

The two color ribbing was challenging, however, I think, it gives that part of the hat a little more oomph.

The real challenge was the two-color long tail cast on which I have since practiced on another sample piece just to keep it fresh in my mind. I find that is where I lose momentum is when I learn a new cast on, knit a project and move onto something else, then come back a month or so later and want to do that cast on again. Sometimes the written instruction no longer makes any sense and I have to fumble around with it or go for help.

The things I learned about Fair Isle from the class at Knitter's Kove are as follows:

1. Two-color long tail cast on must be done slowly, methodically and practiced often to retain its intracies.

2. To avoid an optical illusion, hold the MC (main color) in your right hand if you knit English, left if you knit Continental and your CC (contrasting color) in the opposite hand.

3. If you ever use a provisional cast on, use a strand of thin satin ribbon to hold the stitches. It makes it easy to rethread them onto the knitting needles.

4. Start and read each line of the chart from where the number is.

5. Fair Isle is mainly knit in the round. They say the reason for this is because no one really wants to purl back in pattern.

6. Do not stack the woven stitches, do the weaving in different spots each row. Besides hiding it from the front of the work it also adds elasticity to the piece overall.

7. And, I found that I personally knit tighter doing Fair Isle. So, if you are going to do a piece, knit a gauge swatch in Fair Isle to check your tension. I thought I would eventually loosen up as it got more familiar and comfortable, but not so. For this hat I may try the next on a size up larger needle.

8. Use stitch markers between each pattern section. It makes counting if you find a mistake so much easier.

My next hat from this pattern will be done in spring green for the MC and gold for the CC (leaf motif) for obvious reasons. I like the one I am doing now because purple with gray is one of my favorite color combinations.

I hope to be done with this hat by the weekend and will try to get it modeled for a picture. Happy pursuits of your passions!

Fair Isle Adventure

While I am working on my first level of KIC, I have to watch for classes that will help me achieve the second level when I am ready to work on it.

So I perused the offerings at my LYS's and found two classes close to home, at Knitter's Kove, one for a Fair Isle hat and the other for an Intarsia pillow top.

The Fair Isle class started Saturday and all we concentrated on for those two hours was the long-tail cast-on in two colors. For the first hour we puzzled and struggled with the cast-on. Finally everyone seemed to grasp the concept and get the required stitches on the needles, then we joined without a twist, with much discussion of moebius. Our homework assigment is to knit an inch and a half of two color ribbing in a two by two configuration. Does not sound hard on the one page pattern, however the purling with the second color in the round while I am trying to learn the two-handed technique has proven challenging. Our final class this Saturday is to learn how to read a graph and knit to it. Looks a little like cross stitch to me. The pattern we are doing is a hat with an aspen leaf motif. I am doing it in purple and gray (the picture does not show that very well, I will try to get a better one later) Plymouth Yarn Encore. It is 75% acrylic and 25% wool. Feels cozy warm yet is washable, a nice feature for a hat.

The class is not being taught as a two-handed class. That is my own desire to learn how to do it like it is shown on the Philosopher's Wool website.

So I have two more rows of homework to do on this hat then I am practicing the two color cast on for a sampler purse (pattern on PW site) and practice the two-handed method.

The instructor told us that they do not teach Fair Isle very often so I am glad I happened to catch it when I did.

While I am working on swatches and class homework I have embellished and shipped a surprise gift to a friend whose name and location will remain nameless until I am certain it has arrived.

And how does Pedro feel about all this fiber massaging that I am doing morning and evening...well, he is more interested in massaging his couch blanket and visiting with his fish buddy to be bothered by my clicking needles.

Hope you are following your dreams, spending time with the important people (and critters) in your life and staying warm this winter.