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Tag: knitting

Snook’s Hipster Cardy

As my knitting buddies know, this has actually been finished for more than a month but I’ve only just now gotten around to documenting it. This was my entry to the 2011 Sydney Royal Easter Show, where it didn’t win anything. The pattern is “#17 Man’s Cable Cardigan” by Josh Bennett for the Winter 2009/2010 issue of Vogue Knitting. (Many thanks to Reecie for lending me the pattern.)

The Snook was not initially receptive to the idea of a cardigan, because they seemed either a) too daggy and “grandpa” or b) too hip and trendy. That’s when I started calling it the Hipster Cardy. I told him that as a bicycle-riding, bearded I.T. nerd from the Inner West it was his sacred destiny to wear an ironic grandpa cardigan. So I knitted it anyway, knowing he’d like it once he had it on. He’s worn it several times now. We’ve had some fun staging photos where I tell him to “Look supercilious! Like you think my favourite band is crap!” and stuff. “More condescending! Sneer at my carbon footprint!”

It’s actually a very nice cardy and he does sincerely like it. I was worried about the ribbing along the buttons, because I had seen others that came out very wavy and ripply. The instructions say to cast off as loosely as possible, which seems INSANE. That would just make it more ripply! I did a sewn cast-off, and I’m mostly happy with it. He tends to only do up a couple buttons anyway, which means you can’t really tell.

The wool is Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in “Pumpernickel” (a nice dark flecky brown). I actually knitted on the recommended needles (4mm and 4.5mm). The buttons are vintage men’s buttons I got at All Buttons Great and Small. (Ravelry details)

And as always, the Easter Show judges can suck it. 🙂

May 22, 2011
Eyelet Yoke Cardigan

Eyelet Yoke Cardigan
One of my co-workers just had his first baby – a little girl – so I decided to knit something for him. I had some Morris Empire 4ply in #436 Bloom that I thought would be perfect. I went to Ravelry to look for suitable baby cardigans with patterns that wouldn’t compete too much with the variegated wool. (And no Baby Surprise! I am going to come out of the closet and admit that I think they’re pretty ugly. I’m going to stop torturing myself by knitting them.) Anyway, I found this Eyelet Yoke Cardigan that seemed like it would work. It was really quick to knit up, and I used less than 2 balls of the Empire (on 3.5mm needles). The eyelet details on the yoke (pic), sleeves, and waist kept it fun and interesting. For the buttons, I was pleased to find 5 similar-ish buttons (pic) in my stash all in colours that matched the wool. Hooray for mismatched buttons! (More details on Ravelry here.)

I gave the cardy to Fei this morning and he was thrilled! I can’t wait to see pics of it on his little girl.

April 21, 2011
Photo Post

Hipster Cardigan, 95% finished. That collar nearly killed me.

March 31, 2011
Knitted Royal Wedding

I am going to go on the record as LOVING the knitted royal wedding. I think it’s adorable, and billion times more clever than Jean Greenhowe clowns. Of course, I am the type of person that makes crazy ballerina sock monkeys for fun.

March 13, 2011
Shared today on Google Reader
- How do you transport pavlova? And do you pre-assemble it or not?
- Inventor Makes Fuel Out Of Brewery Waste
- Giant Knitted Squid – Amusing. I tend to prefer knit graffiti that involves actual skill and creativity, like this.
February 15, 2011
Opera in the Domain 2011

This was the fifth year in a row for our unofficial knitting meetup at Sydney’s Opera in the Domain. We had about twenty people in our group in the end, all gathered together under the stars listening to Bizet’s Carmen. I’d never seen that opera before, but the music was instantly familiar from hundreds of movies and commercials. I thought Carmen and Escamillo were great, but I just couldn’t buy Don Jose as a romantic lead. (I whispered to Rodd that the actor reminded me of this.) There were sound problems throughout the night, especially with Don Jose’s microphone. I have no idea how the people at the back of the Domain were able to hear anything! But the dancing was great, and I was bopping along in my seat to a lot of music. Too bad the story has such unlikeable characters!

Anyway, the day actually started long before that. I was the first one from the group to get to the Domain at about 12:40pm, and I could see that the field was going to fill up faster than usual. Reecie arrived not long after and we quickly set to work defining our area with blankets and shade tents. Within half an hour we were already having to defend our spot from invaders! Luckily reinforcements arrived soon and we mostly managed to fight off encroachers. (The nerve of some people! Turning up right before the show and thinking they could plop down right in front of us.) We picnicked and drank wine and knitted and got interviewed by some local news cameramen. It was a lot of fun!

Reecie had an extremely cool little pop-up sun tent. She also specially ordered an inflatable pink flamingo for our camp. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Me and Reecie, trying to stay in the shade as much as we could. We faithfully reapplied sunscreen every two hours.

The cavalry have arrived! There’s Sally huddled under a tent, while Issy and Derek guard the eastern frontier.

Tia was the mum of the group for the day, making sure we didn’t get sunburnt and handing round all the yummy food she’d made.

These cameramen came around from Channel 7 news. They interviewed Sally first, then did a shot of several of us toasting the camera. Then they went back to interview Issy and Derek.

None of our interviews actually made it onto the news footage, but they did show us all saying “Cheers!” (Thanks to Daniel for the photo.)

Self-portrait looking towards the opera stage.

It’s the Bazinga Twins! Me and Issy wore the same shirt (on purpose).

Here’s me and a new friend – Amanda (aka Ptinutz on Ravelry). She came in the afternoon and her boyfriend came later. It was great to meet her!

By 6pm it was really starting to fill up and they asked us all to take down our sun shades. Here’s a shot of the crowd. It was really getting difficult to keep people from shoving into our area!

As usual, Mazda was going nuts with the corporate branding. They handed out fortune cookies that contained lousy ads instead of real fortunes!

Just before the opera started, here’s Reecie and Lucas having a little rest.

And that’s it for the photos! Snookums turned up just before the show with my dinner (Oporto and beer – he is awesome). When the show finished, we packed quickly and joined the crowds streaming to the city. Luckily it didn’t take us too long to catch a bus home.

Thanks to everyone who came along!

January 30, 2011
Shur’tugal Socks

This was the first pattern scheduled for the “Super Special Six Pattern Sock Club” I’m participating in. The idea is that the group (which is now up to 200 members!) chose six sock patterns via a vote and throughout the year we’ll be knitting them with wool from our stashes. (You can read more here, here, and here.) I have plenty of sock wool in my stash, so in December I tucked away six special skeins for this series. On New Year’s Eve, I pulled one out at random: the Shibui Sock in “Pagoda” (a beautiful burnt orange) that I bought at my Mom’s LYS in Goshen. I wound the two skeins together into a center-pull ball and then I was off!

The problem is that I hated this pattern. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s really well-written. I’ve just found historically that I get really, really bored with tiny allover repeating patterns, especially those involving two-stitch cables. (Remember Conwy?) Plus I just could NOT memorise the pattern. Twice I picked it up at the wrong spot and had to frog back. I knitted both socks at the same time on 2.75mm circulars, and I did the larger size. It just seemed to take FOREVER. I was so thrilled to finally cast them off today and be done with it! They are pretty though. More details are over on Ravelry.

I will also admit to some irrational irritation with the pattern just because of the name. Apparently it has something to do with “dragon riders” and it’s from that book I hated.

January 23, 2011
Olivia’s Rainbow Blanket and BSJ

Olivia’s Rainbow Blanket and BSJ
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the first two projects shown on my knitting round-up below haven’t actually been blogged yet! That’s because I only just finished them yesterday. First up is an actual, honest-to-god CROCHETED item: Olivia’s Rainbow Baby Blanket. This is a project that I basically made up myself. My Mom had sent me 5 balls of “Sugar and Cream” cotton last year and I’d idly started crocheting squares based on this pattern. When my niece was born a couple weeks ago, it inspired me to join them all up into a blanket for her. I did 12 multi-colour squares (rotating the stripes each time so the squares are all different) along with 4 solid squares. I joined them all together with Cream, then crocheted a Cream border all around. Then I did a scalloped border in a different colour on each side. I’m really happy with how it turned out! I was debating on whether to back it with some fleece or flannel, but I think I like it the way it is.

Next is yet another Baby Surprise Jacket. I used some Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed that was leftover from my St. Brigid. It came out quite big, but I figure she’ll grow into it. The buttons are made out of coconut. 🙂

January 1, 2011
Sam Socks

While these turned out great in the end, I always seem to have terrible issues with Cookie A patterns. I bought Sock Innovations last year and this was my first project knitted from it. I discovered pretty quickly that there were major errors in the printed pattern. It completely omits the ribbing at the top of the leg, and it also tells you an incorrect number of leg repeats. (If you plan to knit anything from this book, I highly recommend you check the errata. There’s a LOT of it.)

I knitted these on two 2.75mm circular needles. I could tell they were going to be tight around the ankle, so I cast on extra stitches so that I’d have a full extra pattern repeat around the leg. I knitted the heel exactly as written and just left the extra pattern repeat on the top of the foot. I usually like to knit my socks two-at-a-time, but that’s basically impossible with this pattern because you are constantly shifting the starting point of each round. So I was forced to knit each leg separately down to the heel, after which I knitted both socks together down towards the toes.

The wool is a single skein of Yarntini Mint Fizz Stripe that I received in a swap from @dancingman. It was lovely to knit with. The third photo (heel detail) is closest to the actual colours: spring green, aqua, and purplish-grey stripes. I had about 1.5m left over when I finished, which was perfect. I’m very happy with how these turned out! (More details and photos are on Ravelry.)

December 13, 2010
Maile Sweater and Swirl Hat

Maile Sweater and Swirl Hat
Hey, I knitted something! It’s been months and months, actually. But last week my friend Kevin’s first child was born, and such a thing demands commemoration. I picked the pattern and the yarn before the birth, assuming that the combination would work for either gender. It helps that the father is Irish. 🙂

The cardigan is the Maile Sweater. It’s knitted from the bottom up in one piece. I actually knitted it twice: the first time on 3.5mm needle as per the pattern, and the second time on 3.75mm needles. (I thought it looked a little small so I frogged it and started over.) On the first attempt, I followed the pattern exactly including knitting the sleeves flat and joining them with no cast-off stitches. I wasn’t thrilled with it though, and the underarms had a few stitches that looked very stretched. So when I frogged and reknitted, I took the opportunity to experiment. The sleeves were knitted this time in the round via Magic Loop. When I joined them, I set aside 4 live stitches on the body and 4 live stitches on the underarm of the sleeve on waste wool. I later grafted these together (a la Elizabeth Zimmerman). It makes for a very nice finish, and it definitely made those first few rows after joining easier.

The wool is “Merino Chubby Sock” in Barleygrass by the Knittery. One skein was plenty to knit the jumper, and I had so much left over that I actually made a matching hat. The pattern is the “Swirl Hat” from Sheepy Time Knits. And I still have wool left over! This stuff goes a long way.

As usual, there are more photos and details over on Ravelry: Maile Sweater / Swirl Hat. Now I just have to wait to get a photo of the baby actually wearing them!

November 5, 2010