Scarves

Yes, I am still here. Mmm… Yarn still is, too, although I have been looking into migrating it elsewhere. Part of that process is getting into our virtual dedicated server and I got stuck on step 1 (how ridiculous) today. Now I’m waiting for an answer to my plea for help in that vendor’s forums. While I could say I am technologically competent, I work an internal help desk, meaning I answer staff members’ questions about or solve their problems with the software titles we use. And I sometimes help relatives. I am comfortable saying I am good at what I do, but I do not set up virtual dedicated servers nor do I know how to manage an existing one (any friend or family member reading this, if you know how to use a VDS, Plesk 7.5, and Linux, and have some spare time, I’d love to hear from you). The biggest part of the problem is that Mr. MmmYarn set up most of (= 95%) of our computer stuff and left behind no notes. So I slog through what I can find on the vendors’ websites or in general on the Internet and sometimes I get somewhere and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get pretty upset over it all, with being stuck trying to figure out all the stuff Mr. MmmYarn set up, and when I get upset I go for the dark chocolate or an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or some knitting or all three, not for reading complicated and usually outdated documentation (part of my job is keeping our documentation up to date, and I’m good at that, too; hear that, vendors?) that makes it just that much harder to figure out what’s going on. Simply guessing the various user names and passwords and associated email addresses has been an adventure, although vendors who are unwilling to talk to me because I don’t have the magic combination of all three are certainly very happy to accept my credit card to keep the service going while I try to figure out what it’s for. Not that I’m bitter. But I digress.

On the knitting front, apparently I came over all stripe-y one morning a couple of months ago and kept it up since then. I didn’t even notice this pattern of behavior until I viewed my projects page on Ravelry and saw them all lined up in a technicolor row. So, let’s dive right in, shall we? Do not adjust your screen; everything here is indeed striped.

First up, a use-up-random-scraps-of-yarn scarf. I sorted my scraps into color groups:

Then I bought a skein each of bright, solid wool in rainbow colors:

And whipped up what I consider the Screaming Rainbow Scarf. This weekend is Pride; I wonder if I could have sold it on the street.

Some of the scrap yarns were fragile novelty types so I had to make twisted fringe to keep them contained. Well, I suppose I could have woven in all those ends instead of making a fringe but you know that just isn’t going to happen here at Mmm… Yarn. I like that I found one fluffy skein each in purple, red, and blue as it makes for a balanced effect. This sucker is bright!

Pattern: own: 1 to 3 strands of scrap yarn held together with the Nature Spun, cast on 260 and go
Yarn: scraps held together with Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport, 100% wool; .14sk color N46S Red Fox; .43sk each color N54S Orange You Glad, color 305S Impasse Yellow, color 112S Elf Green, color N36S China Blue, color N62S Amethyst
Needles: US 8
Size: 6.75″ wide, 64″ long without fringe and 72″ long with fringe
Started 4/11 and finished 4/15/2010 (makes for a happy Tax Day)

After that came a parade of hats, starting with two opi. I like “opi” better than “opuses,” so that’s what you get: two opi. The first one is a basic hat with my usual 8-point decrease at the crown:

The second has a brim and a 4-point double decrease:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 1.75 skeins Zitron Opus 1, 100% wool with aloe and jojoba, color 100
Needles: US 5
Size: adult
Started 3/24 and finished 4/14/2010

I made a couple of spiral rib hats. This one has a textured stripe only:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Karabella Yarns Aurora 8, 100% superwash merino wool, color 1530
Needles: US 5
Size: adult
Started 4/16 and finished 4/18/2010

And one using up some yarns I’ve had for quite some time. Two colors always gives me good practice in holding one color in each hand. I usually hold my yarn in my left hand. In this case, I purled left and knitted right:

Pattern: own (3×3 spiral rib)
Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool, color 7830 (salmon-y red) and 4147B (light yellow)
Needles: US 5
Size: adult
Started 5/9 and finished 5/26/2010

I made a spiral stripe hat using the same technique I learned in my Rovaniemi mittens class. Each yellow-green stripe is one strand of yarn so there are no floats inside although I did end up with 24 ends to weave in:

I wove in the ends very neatly so the wearer has the option of wearing it either way out. Here’s the inside:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, 85% wool, 15% mohair, color M-52 Spruce and M-135 April Green
Needles: US 6
Size: adult
Started 4/19 and finished 4/25/2010

And, finally, the comparatively plain gold and orange hat:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, 85% wool, 15% mohair, color M-14 Sunburst Gold and M-110 Orange You Glad
Needles: US 6
Size: adult
Started 5/5 and finished 5/8/2010

“Why, yes, I am very happy with my hat wardrobe,” says Sancho Panza, “although the light purple one did make me feel a little less manly.” Fortunately for me, he never complains and he always holds still.

I’ll stray from hats as I expect you’re tired of them and show you the last thing I’m showing today, my Sharks socks in a self-striping yarn. This yarn traveled with me on our vacation in 2008 and came back home unknitted. It finally gets to fulfill its potential:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 2sk Claudia Hand Painted Yarns fingering weight, 100% merino wool, color: Sharks (as in San Jose Sharks, the hockey team)
Needles: size 1
Size: my feet
Started 5/26 and finished 6/17/2010

This is my first time using Claudia yarn and I am happy to report I really liked it. It’s easy to work with (no splitting or weirdness) and feels soft and spongy. The label doesn’t say what her base is but my guess is Louet Gems.

There’s actually more, even non-hat items, but I think this is enough for one day. I do need to leave *something* for my next post, whenever I decide I have time to write it. I don’t have too much of an excuse for my long silence, although about 4 weeks ago, I picked up my guitar again after a nearly 2-year hiatus and I end up playing that in the evenings instead of playing on the computer.

Oh, and I have nothing to knit for the bus tomorrow, having spent yesterday and today actually finishing stuff. Le sigh.

I nearly always have multiple projects on the needles, some easy and some requiring more thought. Things don’t get much simpler than a garter stitch scarf:

Pattern: what pattern? it’s all garter stitch
Yarn: 2.5 skeins Trendsetter Yarns Horizon, 70% cotton, 30% nylon, color 8
Needles: US size 10.5
Size: 5.5″ wide x 78″ long
Started 3/25 and finished 4/4/2010

Garter stitch is perfect for knitting on the bus. The coloring reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream, except a little pale for that. The yarn is old, not in Ravelry or Yarndex. I’d guess at least 12 years old: it’s leftovers from an old friend, sent to me in February via a mutual friend at Stitches West. Horizon is an interesting frayed-looking woven ribbon:

My complicated project was a pair of lace socks for me. With all the ripping and re-knitting, these took nearly two months to complete. Fortunately, so much repetition meant I memorized the stitch pattern very quickly so these were good bus knitting whenever I was on a roll on a particular section. They blocked quite nicely:

Pattern: own
Stitch Pattern: Little Arrowhead Lace (from Barbara Walker’s first Treasury, page 193, except I added a second purl stitch between motifs
Yarn: 2.25 ounces (skein is 4 ounces) Fearless Fibers sock yarn, 100% superwash merino wool, rainbow-dyed colorway Robin’s Egg; white reinforcement thread at heels and toes
Needles: US size 1
Started 2/11 and finished 4/9/2010

Fearless Fibers is a dyer I found on Etsy; in fact, my first Etsy purchase. She has terrific customer service. I don’t know what her sock yarn base is. It’s quite a bit thinner than what I’m used to working with. Her skeins are 550 yards to 112g (4oz) and most commercial yarns I’ve used are around 425 yards to 100g. This meant I had to work with size 1s instead of size 2s, not a big deal.

Mmm… pretty blue close-up:

In cooking news, I used the bread machine to make whole wheat pizza dough a few weeks ago. Brilliant! I don’t know why I never thought of it before. Since I was at it, I made enough for two pizzas. Here’s the result, pizza #1 on the left, hot from the oven, and #2 waiting to go in.

Yes, I cannot make a perfect circle unless it’s a shawl or hat crown.

2009 is sure wrapping up quickly. I don’t really want to greet 2010 without Mr. MmmYarn but the cosmos don’t exactly give a person a choice in these matters, so I put the champagne in to chill and bought a bottle of crème de cassis so I can make kir royale, my New Year’s Eve drink of choice. And the eve after and at least one more after, if not two, because there’s only so much booze I can drink in a sitting whether I’m trying to keep track of a pattern or not.

Now, Stollen, on the other hand, is something I can eat a lot of in one sitting. I did make my Stollen the other day and it turned out well. Here is half of it:

The key to its great flavor is to soak the raisins in rum for a week before baking your Stollen. My raisins soaked for a month so they were super-tasty. This year I added a bit of orange zest left over from the San Diego Sunshine bread and it added a subtle new flavor that went wonderfully with the rumminess:

Lest you think this has become an alcohol-fueled blog (sheesh, I had Glühwein in my last post, now champagne and rum in this one), I have to tell you I did get my exercise and vitamins yesterday. I trekked to two different drug stores, searching for contact lens solution to use up the last of my FSA dollars for 2009. The second (and final) one I went to was on Clement Street. The ethnic markets there always yield some interesting items. The market I went to had dragon fruit again so I picked one up as a treat:

So very tasty for my well-deserved snack after walking at least 6 miles, nearly half of it with a full backpack. And beautiful, too; the interior contrasts nicely with the exterior:

I don’t know how the Vietnamese (my fruit came from Vietnam, its little label said) eat their dragon fruits, but I use a spoon to eat the white parts out of the peel.

Today I’ve been cleaning up my filing cabinet. Did a lot of paper shredding. I also scrubbed my bathtub yet again, something I’ve been doing probably twice a week out of pure enjoyment since I made my own scrubby stuff. Last month I checked out “The Urban Homestead” from the library and while many of the suggestions I can’t implement where I live (no garden or chickens for me), I can use the natural cleansers. I followed the instructions and mixed baking soda and liquid castile soap into a paste, then added about half a teaspoon of peppermint extract from the baking shelf. My tub is minty fresh and sparkling clean when I’m done. My hands are minty and don’t have that horrible dry feel I get after using commercial cleansers. Plus the scrubbing part is far easier, requiring much less labor than I needed when using my usual generic Ajax/Comet-like stuff. I’m sold! Yes, the rest of the place is in the same mess it’s always in. I guess if I were to have a visitor I’d have to show the bathtub last or else it will show up everything else.

Anyway, you didn’t come here for culinary exotica or cleaning tips. This blog is about yarn and I have been knitting.

First up, a hat for a good friend who’s going through a rough time. She made herself one of these hats, then remarked to me in November that she had bought some black yarn to make a second one but wasn’t looking forward to slogging through 40″ of ribbing. I volunteered to be the slogger and she gave me the yarn.

I guess I don’t need to buy a hat form if the 8-pound exercise ball doesn’t mind being a model.

Pattern: Esprit Chemo Turban by Ann Cannon-Brown
Yarn: 2.33 skeins Cascade Fixation, 98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic, color 8990
Needles: size 7
Size: adult
Started 11/17 and finished 12/6/2009

It was an interesting knit because I rarely use an elasticized yarn. I started with size 9 needles and my gauge was far too small. I also didn’t like the feel of the yarn on needles that size. With too small gauge you usually go up in needle size to correct the problem. However, I know my knitting style so I went down to size 7 and found that got me bigger gauge and was more comfortable because I was no longer fighting with the yarn. Go figure. She says the hat fits her perfectly and I delivered it right in time for her to wear it to a holiday party.

Next up, the latest brown socks for my mom (must get better photo in daylight when I next visit):

Pattern: Sam by Cookie A., as published in Sock Innovation
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Heritage Hand-Painted Sock Yarn, 75% merino superwash, 25% nylon, color 9931
Needles: size 1 (ugh)
Started 10/28 and finished 12/12/2009

I picked this pattern because my mom wears short shoe-like hiking boots and therefore can wear socks with a heavily-textured pattern on the cuff. Any stitch pattern up the ankle would probably be uncomfortable on someone with tall hiking boots. I hear she is the envy of her hiking friends, having seamless and custom-made socks.

Pattern modifications… maybe. I don’t really know. I worked the cuff pattern as written, then stopped reading the pattern and did my usual heel and foot.

The last item for today is the Noro scarf I had on the needles for ages, modeled by Sancho Panza:

Pattern: garter stitch with a yarn over row every 5th row
Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn, 70% wool, 30% nylon, color S102
Needles: size 3
Finished size: 7″ x 68″
Started 11/9 and finished 12/18/2009

Absolutely love the highlighter pink and yellow in this scarf. I am tempted to keep it; for now, it will go in the sale box and we’ll see if I fish it out of there.

Up tomorrow: hats!

When a bird is molting, its feathers can look ruffled and scruffy until the new, smooth ones come in. So, here I give you a molting Peacock Feathers shawl:

I don’t know what else to call feathers that have gone this far off course so quickly. You’ll notice the shawl is off the needles. Sigh. A few nights ago I noticed a mistake about 11 rows back on one half. I say “about 11 rows” because I’m still not sure where I went wrong but could see exactly where I went right. After nearly an hour of tinking in an attempt to locate precisely where things went awry, I gave up and frogged. I am tonight just past where I was several days ago.

The feathers that aren’t wonky are looking pretty nice:

It has again been more than a week since I posted, and so I have a few more finished projects to share. At long last, the golden October scarf:

Pattern: own (3×3 slanting rib)
Yarn: Tausendschön Handgefärbte Sockenwolle, 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, color: Goldener Oktober
Needles: size 3
Size: 4.5″ x 59″
Started 8/27 and finished 10/2/2009

And, of course, another hat. Because it wouldn’t be a work week without a hat:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Steinbach Wolle Aktiv Effect, color 63984, held together with KnitPicks Essential, color 23696 (Ash), both 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon
Needles: size 4
Size: adult large
Started 10/2 and finished 10/10/2009

I forgot to share one more thing from when my houseguest was here. Fabulous housekeeper that I am, I pretty much piled everything that was lying around the living room in the bedroom, intending to not show off the bedroom. However, during the 3-minute tour of the apartment, she did peek in and saw, amongst papers to file and the Goodwill pile, the tub of scrap yarns I didn’t shove back under the bed (you know, out of sight, out of mind, and I’m trying to remember to use some of it every week). Her comment: “that’s a big stash of yarn.” Her exact word was “Vorrat,” which means stockpile or hoard. My reply: “that’s not even my stash, those are just the scraps.” Ahem. Perhaps I should have kept my big mouth shut.

Excuse me while I go play in what non-knitting guests refer to as an impressive stockpile. Until I post again, see if you can come up with a badass name for knitting needles. I refer you to one of my favorite Savage Chickens comics.

What I should be doing tonight is sticking more price stickers on items for my yard sale coming up this Saturday. Finally having set a date means there is actually a sense of urgency to doing something with the very large pile of stuff that has taken over our office / project room. Tonight, though, I would rather work on this hat (photo from a couple of days ago) that is using up some scrap sock yarn and a skein of the KnitPicks yarn I bought last week:

I was getting up every few rounds to price another half a box of stuff but now I got sucked into Bloglines and remembered I had more little stuff to show you here. See, if I post here, I’m not a total procrastinator tonight. Mmm… rationalizing.

My brother’s daughter turns one year old next week. This completely escaped my notice until last week so I made her a little Brittany Jumper that’s almost done. It went for a walk in the park with me over to the small waterfall:

I do wonder whether the skirt part is long enough. I trekked around for 3 hours on Sunday and again an hour yesterday looking for an off-white t-shirt for a small person, unsuccessful all the way. I finally found a white onesie that is really long compared to the dress. I made the skirt part an inch longer than the pattern dictated but the onesie sticks out the bottom quite a ways. I’ll take them both to my little knitting circle at work tomorrow for a second opinion on the length of the dress. But white… I really wanted off-white. We fiber artists never let something as basic as the wrong color get us down, right? So last night, instead of continuing to price yard sale items, I boiled up some English Breakfast Tea and dyed the onesie:

It’s now a good off-white. All the websites I looked at yesterday told me tea dyeing yields blotchy results but I don’t see blotches at all. I’ll take it out in the sunshine tomorrow to check. I plan to embroider some little lazy daisy stitches on the sleeves using the same yarn as in the dress. Thank goodness Lilli is too young to know it’s her birthday because I have a feeling this gift will be late.

And since this week’s theme was small things, I’ll show off the scarf that is my current bus knitting:

The green colors barely show up in the photo, but trust me, they’re there. All right, back to the stickers.

Edited to add: I just learned Worldwide Spin in Public day is September 19, the same day as International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Can you say YAAARRRRN?

Today I am unearthing my desk and found notes on a few small projects that never made it into the blog or up on Flickr or onto my notecards, or anywhere besides Ravelry, really. Thankfully, inputting a project into Ravelry requires just a couple of mouse clicks and I can have all the information there as a placeholder until I get around to washing, blocking, photographing, recording yarn and needle and pattern info, etc. While this is the post about all the small things, it makes for a big post.

First up, a hat for a good friend who is, I am sorry to say, undergoing chemotherapy. Mr. MmmYarn helped me pick out the yarn back on May 10 and his bald head gave it two thumbs up:

Pattern: Shedir by Jenna Wilson, as published in Knitty, Fall 2004
Yarn: 1 skein Malabrigo Silky Merino; 51% silk, 49% merino wool; color 420 (light hyacinth)
Needles: size 3
Size: adult small
Started 6/30 and finished 7/3/2009
Alterations to pattern: finished on 8 stitches instead of 4. The 4 on top made it too pointy.

I hope it serves her well if she needs it. The 8 points on the top came together very nicely:

Next up are baby booties made with the leftover orange and yellow yarn I used in the little sweater I finished in March:

Pattern: own, based on an old stay-on bootie pattern
Yarn: Wolle Roedel Baby-Merino, 100% superwash wool, color 13075 (orange) and 13065 (yellow)
Needles: size 2
Size: newborn to 6 or 9 months
Orange booties started 6/19 and finished 7/4/2009
Yellow booties started 7/18 and finished 7/20/2009

There’s not too much to say about the booties. You have seen their siblings here before. They’re quick and easy and I have my pattern memorized, so when I was finally able to knit again in late June they were the perfect project.

At Stitches West back in 2006 I hopped on the Charlotte’s Web bandwagon and bought 5 skeins of Koigu KPPPM and worked up a Charlotte’s Web:

Yeah, pretty awful, right? The extreme variegation of the yarn obscured the lace pattern entirely. I unraveled CW and set the yarn aside for a while. Inspiration struck in early May and used up 3 whole skeins but it took me a while to be able to pick up this scarf again and finish it:

Pattern: own
Stitch pattern: Sailor’s Rib as published in Barbara Walker’s A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, 100% merino wool, 1 skein each of colors P508, P137, and P431
Needles: size 5
Size: 5.25″ wide x 65″ long
Started in May and finished 8/6/2009

I cast on 43 stitches, which allowed for a 1-stitch garter stitch selvedge on each side, then worked in Sailor’s Rib, changing skeins every 4th round (of course I carried the unused colors up the side; no monumental weaving in of ends for me!) until I ran out of yarn. Perfect.

I was bitten by the crochet bug after looking sadly at my poor, burned potholders I made probably 15 years ago. They have held up well but needed to be replaced so I whipped these up with some mystery yarn Mr. MmmYarn’s uncle sent me last Christmas. Two movies and they were done:

Pattern: own
Stitch pattern: single crochet worked in the round to make these double-thick
Yarn: not a clue
Size: a little bigger than my hands
Started 8/22 and finished 8/24/2009

The pattern is essentially the only thing I know how to crochet besides a straight back-and-forth to make something like an afghan. My American grandmother taught me to crochet when I was probably 8 or 9 years old and she launched me on potholders. You make a chain a little longer than you want your potholder to be, then work single crochet around and around (forming what she called the “canoe”) until it meets in the middle. Usually I sewed them shut but this time I got smart and crocheted the seam by picking up the outer half of each stitch and crocheting it together with its neighbor on the other side of the canoe. I like this seam far better than the sewn seam.

I did try to solve the yarn mystery. I did the burn test: the yarn self-extinguished when I pulled the match away but burned into a hard black solid that did not smell of chemicals. The yarn feels synthetic and also kind of greasy, like a wool with lots of lanolin would feel. And the potholders sank like a stone when I put them in water. All in all, the clues don’t add up to anything I can decipher. They work well in the kitchen and that’s all that really matters. I crocheted up a small swatch to throw in with my next load of laundry so I can test whether this stuff is machine washable. If it is, score one for me.

Do you ever look back fondly on how big your yarn stash used to be? Mine used to fit in the container I now use for my few winter clothes. Then it fit into the under-the-bed bin. Now it dominates my closet and the under-the-bed bin holds just my scraps. Unfortunately, that bin is now so full that the bed frame itself holds the lid shut and whenever I pull the bin out, the lid pops up festively. Clearly, some scrap busting is in order. Behold, a hat made with scraps:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay, color H (brown) and 106 (rose/purple/tan variegated)
Needles: size 5
Size: adult average
Started 8/19 and finished 8/25/2009

I worked 2 rounds of brown followed by 1 round of variegated but the colors blend so nicely that it looks like I used one yarn. I used a 4-point decrease on 8 stitches:

This hat barely made a dent in the scrap bin but it’s a start. Don’t tell anyone, but I also bought a little yarn this week. I indulged in 5 skeins of KnitPicks sock yarn in neutral colors that I can use to hold together with my thinner scraps for more hats and thereby reduce the scrap bin some more.

And that, readers, is all the small things for today. I hope you’re out enjoying your long weekend.

Yeah, no great title inspiration this post. I stayed home from work with a cough and sore throat today, indulged in watching two movies that have been languishing for two months waiting for me to have time to watch them, and decided to catch up with the good old blog, too, since I have let it hibernate for far too long again.

Knitting is going slowly. The hippo is taking far more time than I expected her to. She’s still headless but the body is done. I cannot believe how long it took to evenly attach the arms and legs:

I sewed some seams and wove in some ends on my sweater this morning. But it’s really cloudy today, meaning no good photos of something that dark blue, so I present to you a refresher of which sweater I’m talking about:

I did finish another of my Rising Bubbles scarves since I last posted:

Pattern: own (Rising Bubbles, available under “Free Patterns” in the sidebar), started with 32 stitches
Yarn: 1 skein Crystal Palace Yarns Kid Merino, 28% kid mohair, 28% merino wool, 44% micro nylon, color 9801
Needles: size 4
Size: 5.25″ x 51″
Started 3/6 and finished 3/27/2009

On the needles is the start of a pair of socks for Mr. MmmYarn and I’m hoping to start the Net Duffel Bag (Interweave Knits, Spring 2009) this week. I feel I am supposed to be swatching for a baby sweater for someone who’s a few weeks old already but am feeling uninspired by both that and by the long draw drafting practice I have been doing at the wheel. Rather than sharing non-inspiration, I will end here on a cheerful and bright pink note:

Yesterday I got inspired to stash-bust a little and wove a scarf, the whole thing in only one day. It always amazes me how quickly weaving goes as opposed to knitting: Mr. MmmYarn helped me warp on using his currently unused rigid heddle loom just before noon and after about 4 hours of weaving off and on throughout the afternoon I had a scarf. Here is the weaving in progress:

I used a bunch of yarns that have been in the stash since 2001, left over from a sweater. The stash dive was interesting and inspiring. Mr. MmmYarn saw it all spread out yet again. Yes, I allow him to see it. Knitter’s Review this week made me grin, saying this about bringing out one’s entire stash: “If you live with others, choose a day when nobody else is around to witness the gluttony. This needs to be a private moment.” I reveled in the gluttony and it felt great to use up these oddballs. Mr. MmmYarn knows the yarn makes me happy so he said nothing. What a great guy!

I threw the finished scarf in the hot washer this morning to full it and this is what I have now:

Warp: Brown Sheep Nature Spun worsted weight, 100% wool, color N91 (Aran)
Weft: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride, 85% wool, 15% mohair; Bulky: color M-10 (Crème); Worsted: color M-140 (Aran), color M-135 (April Green), color M-14 (Sunburst Gold), color M-125 (Imperial Yellow), color M-110 (Orange You Glad)
Sett: 10 epi
Finished size: 8.5″ wide x 64″ long including fringe

I didn’t measure any of the weft yarns, simply pulled off varying lengths and ended rows whenever I felt like it. Usually I naturally end up doing a very exact repeating stripe pattern; this is the first time I managed a true random pattern without thinking about it. The fact that the work gets rolled away out of sight every 6 inches or so really helps with randomness.

I tied the tips of all the fringe with thin cotton thread before fulling and this kept the fringe separated while it went through the washer. Afterward, I trimmed the longer fringe down to match the shorter and removed the thread from the shorter fringe with a seam ripper, then ironed the scarf to remove washer wrinkles. All in all, I like it.

We rang in the new year well. We stayed home and made Indian food: Balti chicken and a cauliflower curry, served with one of our special bottles of Ledson wine and followed by leftover Christmas cookies and Mayo dessert wine. I managed to stay up until midnight while we watched the NYC ball drop but collapsed into bed very shortly thereafter. Mr. MmmYarn is hardier than I and stayed up a few more hours. Right now he’s in the kitchen, working away at a Corsican beef stew for tonight’s dinner and insisting on giving me a break from housework.

I saw the pile of knitting on my side of the sofa over the weekend and realized last week’s finished projects represent a basic kindergarten primary color assortment.

First up, a bright blue hat:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Wolle Roedel Universal Superwash, 100% superwash merino wool, color 835
Needles: size 3 and 4
Size: adult average
Started 11/5 and finished 11/13/2008

I designed this one for Mr. MmmYarn and he found it to be fine in the house, but outdoors his ears were cold so he requested a long, folded brim. I have re-made the hat in the same yarn, this time with a big brim. He’ll get to try it on tomorrow. I’m going to try to write a pattern for it in a couple of sizes but that won’t be ready for a few weeks, I’m sure.

Next up, a long, skinny, yellow scarf:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Schoenbuch Garne Superba 100 4-Fach; 37.5% cotton, 37.5% superwash wool, 25% nylon; color 214
Needles: size 4
Size: 4.5″ x 78″
Started 11/10 and finished 11/28/2008

Even though to my eyes the yarn reads as a yellow, it is composed of two plies of yellow and two plies of white. I didn’t do a burn test, but the yellow looks and feels like the wool and the white looks and feels like the cotton. The chevron pattern is a simple k3 p3 rib on 31 stitches that I shifted one stitch to either side on each row.

And to complete our collection of primary colors, a flash of red:

Sunday was warm so the Mystery Stole dried the same day. Does crawling around on the floor around your blocking bulletin board for an hour count as exercise? Non-aerobic, of course, but definitely a lot of bending and stretching, crouching and reaching. It must count as something as I was incredibly sore Monday morning and am still feeling the effects today.

And where’s the green? I know it’s not primary, but it’s usually included in the grouping of primary colors when a fourth color is called for. Well, the green Apres Surf Hoodie is up next after the re-worked hat. I’m about less than halfway through the hood, having ripped out a good 4.5″ tonight after finding a mistake (!) that I thought I spotted a few weeks ago but must have buried in the back of my in-denial brain. Tonight I decided I couldn’t live with that wonky row in the middle of the lace pattern and out it went!

The craft fair I mentioned a couple of posts ago was a bust this year. I sold one hat. This will in no way finance a yarn crawl at Stitches West, especially not an Mmm… Yarn- sized crawl. That’s OK, though, as work is going to try to hold a second one just before Valentine’s Day, which falls conveniently before Stitches West. I hope the day they hold it is cold enough to freeze one’s ears; I sell much more stuff on cold days than on warm ones.

It has been a rough two months here chez Mmm… Yarn, with more rough months to follow, but the knitting must go on. Blogging will continue to be sporadic.

I have been knitting on. Not a whole lot, but I managed a pair of booties and a scarf these past few weeks:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Regia 4-Faedig Jubilee Color, 75% wool, 25% nylon, color 5471
Needles: size 2
Size: newborn to about 9 months
Started 10/4 and finished 10/12/ 2008

Pattern: own
Yarn: Opal Hundertwasser, 75% wool, 25% nylon, color 19956 (Hundertwassers Werk 650, “Der Blaue Mond”)
Needles: size 3
Size: 4.5″ x 73″
Started 10/12 and finished 11/1/2008

I have also put in a respectable amount of work on Mystery Stole 2008; I’m halfway through clue #4. I have resisted the temptation to look at any finished pictures so I can enjoy the mystery as I go along.

This coming Friday is the staff craft sale at my work and I am attempting to organize for it today. My computer is being fussy today so it’s slow going. I have participated in this sale every year I have worked at this place and it’s how I fund my annual trips to Stitches West. However, something has come up this Friday that means I won’t be able to man my table, so I’ve asked a co-worker and friend, The Kneedler, to man it in addition to hers. So today I’m trying to pare down the pile to something more manageable to not saddle her with too much stuff, yet I want it to be enough that it generates enough Stitches West income. Decisions, decisions.

We didn’t make a jack o’lantern this year so the pumpkin dressed up for Halloween:

Next week it will be soup! The pumpkin, not the scarf.