I am so tired tonight, I can not even talk about it. Instead, I am going to show you what’s been going on in my knitting life because for the most of last week or so, Sophie’s been sleeping during the evenings again – Yay! – and I have had some time to get a few things done. We will not talk about Sophie’s sleep habits during the late night and early morning hours.
First, a little finished project. I took these pictures a few days ago, right after these pants had been washed. I was going to put the pants on Julie the next morning and get another picture of her wearing them, but somehow they have disappeared. I wonder if they somehow got stuck back in the dirty laundry, but I’ve searched and can’t find them. You’ll get a picture on the model when they turn back up.
These pants are part of one of Julie’s favorite outfits, an outfit that I bought for all of about five dollars at a garage sale last spring. That’s the way it always works. The cheap stuff she wants to wear every day, the outfit from Gymboree that matches her sister’s she avoids like the plague. In this case, someone else had already loved the heck out of these pants, so much so that after a few months of heavy wearing Julie wore the knees right through. I either needed to find some new pants to go with the matching tunic, or somehow patch the old ones up. These pants are so perfectly cute with their little flowered fabric, I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a good substitute. Plus, the dress just barely fits her now – it would be silly to go and buy new pants to match a dress she won’t be wearing much longer, and which would cost more than the initial investment. Kelle from my Wednesday morning knitting group suggested knitting some patches, and I just about died with the perfection of the idea.
They turned out alright – luckily, I had plenty of sock yarn scraps on hand from which to choose. Of course, a little mitered square:
And, just for the fun of it, a log cabin square. I really should have done another layer of stripes on this one, but I was getting bored. Now if only I could figure out where the heck those pants went…
Next, a partially finished project. I am disappointed that nobody at all tried to guess what the mess hanging from my knitting machine was going to be. Well, I’m doing my best to duplicate Julie’s Christmas stocking. I made hers a couple of years ago in a different sleep-deprived fog, so it took a little knitting forensics to figure out the pattern, but I think they will eventually come close to matching. We can’t have to different-sized Christmas stockings around here with two little girls, or we will inevitably have arguments about who got more stocking stuffers. Here is the original on the left, and the one I just knit up on the right. Same yarn, same number of rows and stitches, same gauge settings on the machine (I hope).
Pretty freaky, huh? Of course, my laundry-timing is all off again. I had just finished something like my sixth load of wash right before I finished seaming it up. I had to scrounge around a bit today for a load of towels, and here is how it looks after a run through the washer on hot-cold and then the dryer till the towels were half-done. I have a very limited supply of this irreplaceable yarn (20-year-old Pomfret), and the last thing I want to do is singe it in the dryer!
There has been quite a bit of shrinkage, but there is lots of stitch definition left to shrink up yet. I’ll give you more updates as the dirty laundry piles up once more, and then we can have some fun needle-felting on Sophie’s name.
While I had the machine out, I whipped up this swatch:
It’s Woolly Stripes yarn by Nashua, and has been in my stash for over a year. I love this yarn – it is incredibly soft and beautiful. It would be lovely to knit by hand, but it would be even more lovely to actually wear. Self-striping yarn like this really does look best in simple stockinette garments, perfect for machine knitting. I’m in love with this swatch, and I have a picture in my head of how the sweater is going to look. I forced myself to put the machine away and wait a while, though. There are too many other Christmas related projects on the burners at the moment, unfortunately mostly non-knitting ones. I need the space to set up my [gack!] sewing machine. But I promised myself that as soon as the Christmas chores are out of the way (probably some time in January) I get to knit up this sweater.
A couple of people asked questions about my machine, and I want to answer them, but it’s a whole other post. I started writing about it and it’s too long and rambly. I will write about it, but I’m too tired tonight. Machines are cool, but an entirely different beast in many ways from hand knitting.
In much the same sleep-deprived fog, so no rush on the machine answers; I probably don’t even have the energy to read them!
Cute patches!
I thought that was a stocking in the machine, but for some reason I didn’t comment. Perhaps I thought I hadn’t gotten around to reading your post soon enough. (Life is a bit hectic right now.)
How nice to have such a quick project. I have taken 2 weeks to complete a seaman’s scarf and am having trouble finishing the first sock of a great pair made from Trekking. I don’t know if it gets any easier to find time, even now that my kids are all teenagers! Happy felting! – Cindy