Sunday, December 12, 2010

Knee deep in holiday knitting

But first, a digression in craptastic costume sewing.  Monkey1 & her class did an "in-house field trip" called A Walk Through the American Revolution, so she asked me to make her a costume.  Unfortunately, when we were Thanksgiving vacation in the Sierras, we kept having power outages.  I had to rush towards the end and there are a lot of crooked stitches in there.


We also had a little debate on what color fabric her mobcap & shawlette were supposed to be, so I did two.  The dusty pink she eventually chose to wear during the "play," and the muslin set that I felt was a little more authentic.


At least my sister's layette set is done.  The Austermann Mosaico blanket swatch actually survived the washer & dryer fine, so she'll probably get the blanket too.


Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease (the baby is a tropical one)
patterns: Baby Yoda Sweater, Kiddie Cadet & Waves of Babies Booties
needle size: mostly 8's
Sweater mods: body in the round 'til armholes.  Sleeves picked up & knit from the armhole.  Applied i-cord edging to the vertical edges.


I'm done w/the teacher gifts, but I'm waiting for the fog to burn off before I can take a pic of Monkey1's teachers black mitts. But first up, Monkey2's teacher's hat in Cal Bears colors.  Hard not to like a teacher from my alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley.

pattern: Cascade's Pittsburgh Steelers hat
yarn: Knit Picks Swish worsted in Dusk & Semolina
needle sizes: 9 & 10 KP circs
no mods


By the time I got to the Cal hat, I started to improve on my colorwork.  The first one I did, the Norwegian Star Hat, unfortunately came out too small for the adult recipient.  (No gauge stated in the pattern & I guessed wrong on the needle size I needed to get the gauge I think I needed.)  It barely fit Monkey2 unblocked.  While it loosened up a little after a wash & block, I still did another one.


This one was much better once I went up on needle sizes, but I also had to switch stash yarns since I was too anxious to wait for another Knit Picks order in the mail.


This took me forever, but my second-to-last pair of holiday socks (yup, I've got one more!) are done for a college friend of mine.  Though technically it's not a gift since he's going to trade me one of his art pieces for it as part of our negotiated agreement.  He actually wanted a sweater & my other college buddies who knit & I are still saying no.  LOL!

Pattern: Nemesis
pattern size: Large
yarn: Zitron Trekking Pro Natura 
needles: size 2.50 mm


And for a little holiday fun while we sat around during the power outage during the day. (No knitting in the pitch dark at night of course.):

yarns: bits of Knit Picks Palette doubled
needle size:  KP 5 circs

Hope everyone has a nice holiday season!  And see you on the post-holiday knitting recovery side.