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prEmiE hAT Pattern

Free pattern I've designed to make the premie hats:


It's knitted into a rectangle, then stitched together with stitches running sideways from bottom to crown.
FINISHED MEASUREMENTS:
Circumference: approx. 12 inches unstretched (stretches really well though)

MATERIALS:
These hats were made using leftover balls of acrylic yarn in my stash. Acrylic yarn is better for little preemie baby heads, since wool can be irritating. Don’t dis acrylic so quickly, there is some pretty nice softer acrylics. Other good choices are cotton or bamboo yarn (so soft!). I combined a sportweight yarn with a DK yarn to get the thicker worsted weight combination.

Suggested materials:
Red Heart Mystic Purple (SUPER SOFT acrylic);
Icicle light blue sportweight acrylic baby yarn

1 set US #8 dpns
1 set US #10 dpns
Tapestry needle

GAUGE
14 sts = 4 inches in garter stitch

PATTERN NOTES
The longtail cast on is used for this pattern. If you are unfamiliar with this technique, excellent instructions can be found at knitty.com.

This pattern was worked with two strands of yarn held together throughout.

DIRECTIONS
Using the long-tail cast on method, with #8s and MC, CO 25 sts.
Before knitting row 1, add second yarn if using two strands of yarn held together.
Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Knit
Switch to #10s
Repeat rows 1 through 3 eight more times (so you end up with 27 rows)
Switch to #8s
Row 28: Knit
Row 29: Purl
Row 30: Knit
With only MC, bind off; leaving a long tail (about 10 inches long).
FINISHING

Thread yarn tail on tapestry needle.
Fold right sides of hat together and stitch up each side,
using each yarn tail on a tapestry needle – using a back stitch about ¼ to 3/8 from the side “selvage.”
Weave in ends.
Turn right sight out and you’re finished.
Enjoy copyright Hilda Erb 2006

Socks

So. It's the day after Christmas, and on the needles this morning is my very, very first sock ever. I've just spent 2 really cool hours learning and practicing the Magic cast-on for toe-up socks.

Even though I've never knitted socks before, I think it will be okay to start with toe-ups, rather than learning the usual "first way" by starting at the cuff. I'll take it slow.
So cool using such fine needles (size #2s and #1s) and working with this wonderful yarn from 40 years ago: fingering weight wool with 20% nylon in a classic beautiful dark steel grey-blue color with very subtle flecks of plummy grey in the yarn.

I kept thinking about my mom when she used to describe learning to sew handkerchief hems when she was eleven; and I was also remembering Brenda Dayne talk about her first sweater knitted as her first knitting experience. So I didn't want to baby myself on this experience, but rather take on a few real skills and master them from the first sock.

In fact, I was listening to Brenda's podcast from last spring, during her Muse series. The episode was about the Muse Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Probably my favorite Muse.
And it's ironic, but I find that the less serious I take my knitting, the more I enjoy learning and practicing it's finer techniques and taking the process slow.
It's just not frugal or important to make ones own socks. And still, its so important that I make these for some reason.
(QUICK NOTE: any knitter reading this, you must listen to Mike Bryant – Knitta Please - JUST DO IT, funnnnnny and oh so well crafted too).

So, like alot of knitters (or really alot of non-knitters) who've seen women knitting their own socks, I used to think "huh?"
Cool scarves I get. old fashioned looking mittens from nice wool - yeah. Felting bags and clogs - oh yeah.
But I've done them.
I've done the sweaters too.
And fair isle - which is really the best and my favorite knitting to get lost in.
But now I get it - this stupid sock knitting.
The smallest needle I'd used up to now were #5s, and that was for the miniature hats I had just done this Christmas. Previous to that, I was really a bulky-knit enthusiast who had many pairs of 10s and 13s, on up.
#8s got me onto hats and the fair-isle passion.
But the #5s knitting little doll-size hat ornaments made me want to keep going smaller. That and the recent fetish for socks in general.
So Christmas eve, at the family dinner and party, I started swatching with #2s and fingering yarn and oh-my-gosh, watching those fine little stitches and feeling their softness.
So now I'm making the first sock.
It's the Happy Sock pattern from MagKnits, with alot of help from Knitty for the excellent tutorial on doing the Magic cast-on for these little toe-ups.
Taking it slow and really reeling in the little moments sitting on the couch just doing increase rows right now and seeing the toes form.
Thrilling.

A favorite blogger YSOLDA has another dream project planned for the spring:
Stuffies!
Oh, and I must write about the book I am reading now. It's like what Twyla Tharp was describing in her book "The Creative Habit," where she writes about spending hours at the New York Library studying pictures of Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan and getting lost in their poses, gestures and attitudes. Like this sock knitting, with the hours of patient studying, stitching and mastery, I also feel like I am "earning my ancestry."

And finally. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this until now. But Christmas really pushed good blogging around. THE book I've loved the most this winter is John Murphy's STUPID SOCK CREATURES. Wow is this book inspirational. Ever since I got this book a couple of months ago, I've been stashing and watching people's old socks to make a couple.
Now that Christmas is over, I can.
Really.

Miniature Stocking Hat Ornament PaTTeRN

It's Christmas today, late afternoon, Christmas day. I am typing this while I gather my thoughts about the knitting I've done these past weeks and the knitting projects set aside waiting to cast onto the needles.

Now that gifts are given and secretly done things are opened and seen, the following can be listed.

Grandpa Frank's sweater was frogged and the following were knitted and given to the family in memory of him, my dad Frank:
Using a slight variation on Susan B. Anderson's pattern posted on Craft Insanity, Miniature hats were knitted for each one of us in the family. The hats are so adorable on our Charlie brown tree.

Everybody received a little miniature santa hat to hang on the tree and keep forever to hang on trees of their own in the future. MAN these are soooo cute hanging on the tree. I'll try to post a picture of that too.

His sweater was knitted up from Bernat denim yarn - a super soft slub of yarn with a mix of cotton and acrylic (grandpa couldn't take wool, but this was a really nice yarn to work with in spite of its acrylic ness).

The pattern for the santa hat:

SIZE
Hangs nicely on a Christmas tree
will also fit a 12” doll

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS
Circumference: 5-1/4 inches / 13-1/2 cm
Length: approx. 3-1/2 inches/9 cm without folding up bottom brim


MATERIALS
Either worsted weight yarn (the hats I made came out beautifully when I combined a yarn that was almost dk weight, together with a string of lace yarn throughout).


1 set US #5/3.75mm double-point needles
Tapestry needle for weaving in ends.

GAUGE
16 sts = 4 inches in stockinette stitch

PATTERN NOTES: These hats were knitted in the round. You can knit as a flat hat though, purling the even numbered rows (except row 2); and then seam the hat along the back.

DIRECTIONS
K2 tog = knit two stitches together.

Cast on 16 stitches

Row 1: p1, k2 to last stitch, p1.
Row 2: k1, p2 to last stitch, k1
Rows 3 through 6: stockinette stitch
Row 7: k5, k2 tog, k6, k2 tog, k1
Row 8 (and all even rows after this): Knit
Row 9: k4, k2 tog, k5, k2 tog, k1
Row 11: k3, k2 tog, k4, k2 tog, k1
Row 13: K2, k2 tog, k3, k2 tog, k1
Row 15: k1, k2 tog, k2, k2 tog, k1
Row 17: k2 tog, k1, k2 tog, k1
Row 19: k2 tog 2 times
Row 20: k2 tog
Bind off
Weave in ends.

OTHER cool completed things (long!):
For Ty, a hat with the yarn from franks sweater, combined with some grey wool. It's cute, soooo cute. And Robin got her hat with franks grey slub ply'ed together with some really nice baby-soft white yarn that she likes alot. The pictures don't really show much difference do they? Practice this camera some more, I should.

I was also lurking sites for some patterns and stumbled on a really neat idea for a beer cozy. My brother Johnny is a funny story teller, delivers jokes masterfully and comes up with memorable riddles to tease the children at the dinner table. I blame Frank for inspiring this talent in Johnny. Johnny got the knitted beer cozy from Frank's sweater. BIG super thanks to girlontherocks for inspiring me to do this after sharing her KING BEER CAN COZY pattern. Her pattern has a cable pattern in it that I still want to do - good summer knitting idea with cotton. (wouldn't it be cool if there was a neoprine yarn?)

Other coolness. Wow. The barbie knitting machine came through with Ty's snake scarf from the leftover Red Heart Camoflage yarn. I hardly used some of this yarn, which I needed for another project, so I just threaded it onto the barbie knitter and let it go to the end of the skein. The end product was this super long tube that just said "snake" to me. So the eyes and mouth were stiched on and Tyler finally got his first scarf (he really wanted one - he'd keep asking for a scarf and would take from Robin's collection alot).

This IS your granny's knitting

A thrift score fell into my Christmas daze.
There is a little hospital thrift store where I used to score oodles of yarn donated by families of patients. It's sort of a surrogate attic for me, digging in there once a month for any new 25 cent balls of vintage wools and interesting left over oddlots.
Last June, I'd driven to this thrift shop and there was a sign taped up in the window, telling how it was closed for refurbishment.
No problem, I'll wait.
And hope it isn't opened up too polished and the 25 cent balls aren't charged way more.
2 days ago, I had driven by there, on the way to a friends house.
Big Orange Sign: SALE.
No way!
Okay kids, just five minutes.
Five minutes.
5 minutes later I had a really nice haul of anything which read "wool" on the label. Grab, grab, grab.
How much are these balls (there were so tiny, these little vintage balls of sock wool from the 60s, judging from the labels).
Twenty-five cents.

$7.00 later, I was so friggin psyched.
this morning I looked at them.
Many double skeins have I, including a favorite non-wool heathered blue 80%wool/20%nylon that's way cool. I think these will be my first sock - something really nice to practice with.

Yeah. It's that Good.

Also dreaming of stripes or fair-isle to use up the single skeins, in the massive amount of socks I can practice on with these. AND Thea at That Yarn Store just email'd me about a Kool-aid dye-ing party on the 5th of January, so I've grabbed some packets of grape, cheery and lime to play with the lighter shades in this thrifted haul.

All you living in Los Angeles into thrifting (and so many of us are!) check out the Glendale Adventist Medical Center Thrift Store.

And so, this leads into my major yarn purchase of the season too. Soon, I hope, to be in my hands and on the needles Violet's Pink Ribbon.

Lime & Violet is a favorite podcast of mine. It's two girls, in the midwest, who are truly yarn-crazed. Yarns are rated by their nipple-worthiness (uh huh) and lickability (yeah).
Violet needs help with a little more than a nipple right now, and Lisa Sousa created Violet's Pink Ribbon, to raise the funds and help her out. I'm there.
Love ya Violet.
sigh.

Shhhhhhh. Christmas is coming.

If you can read this, you're not knitting.

Busy, are we?
I want to post so many little WIPs, but they are all part of a secret plan. I'm making alot of little somethings this year for Christmas, from a big something. Each for family members, so I cannot talk about just one.
After Christmas I'll post pictures and patterns.

Right now, I'll talk about my first Mrs. Beetons!

In part of an email from Amy from Creative Mom Podcast she was telling me how easy this pattern is, so I decided to give them a try. As I caught up on her past archived podcasts, I found she also gets a little passionate about these wrist warmers.

I love the idea of wearing something frilly with my jeans, tees and jackets. Just a little something to keep my wrists, and therfore myself, warmer.

The original pattern from Ms. Dayne calls for laces and beads. I dove in, though, with a tweed mix I'd plied up out of some thrifted yarns which were fingering weight and tweedy. Dipping the goldtweed yarn with flecks of red and yellow, into mixes of brown and green dyes created a really nice autumnal variegated yarn. Instead of the little beads, I cast on with a contrasting baby blue yarn plied with a twist of variegated (hand-dyed) string.

The overall effect was better than expected. The top bell used a mix of some frosty light brown lace yarn with tiny specks of gold threads mixed with the overdyed tweed fingering yarn.

The ribbed portion of the wrist used all three parts of the different ply yarns in the bottom bells.
One Beeton is done, the other are on the needles.

I just want to wear this Beeton a l l the time. I'm also dreaming of making some light blue tweedy ones now, using the yarn that edges these. It's a beautiful mix of light blue lace yarn with more of the nubby cotton "thick string" which I had handpainted in variegated shades of taupe, so the Beetons would have a colorway of power blues and variegated mauves.

AND, I have a bag of raw silk that might make some really interesting Beetons. About 6 skeins which I had eBay'd two years ago. All raw silk, that's both soft and nubby when knitted up. I'll start digging for a "ply" yarn and top bell to go with the silk.

This is all being dreamed up while I promise myself to make my first socks in January, along with a first spinning class.

And the yarn I'm lurking? It's called Gendarme
I keep clicking for it, dreaming of the socks this gorgeous colorway will make. Handpainted - $15 for a 4 oz skeins, so one should do the pair. Wow. Pretty, hay?

Oh, they'd make nice Beetons too.

Knitzella in That Yarn Store

Knitting for charity.

Preemie hats.
Okay.
Preemie hats.
Yeah. Got it.
Afghans for homeless.
Huh?
Just a square.
A square?
Yeah, 10" by 10". It'll go into the afghan with all the other squares.
Oh. Okay.

About 5 years ago, Nine ladies in our Stitch n Bitch group stitched up an individual patch each (15" by 15") and gave them to Vicky. Vicky stitched them together into the baby blanket and sent it to me in a surprise package. I was floored. I folded up the afghan and put it on a shelf to look at every day.

Then, when Tyler was born, it got used. Used, used and used.
We just used the hell out of it.

Last week, I saw him snuggle into that blanket. Ty grabbed it after a long day at pre-school, still adjusting to a full day without napping now. I thought about those ladies. Vicky, Shannita, Ellen, Faith, Allison, Karen, (and damn, maybe I shouldn't be naming names because I'm not remembering a few after all these years. I would be so happy if you are one of them and called me on this!)

So, I was thinking how each one took the time to make a patch. A 15" by 15" square. How one of them, must have loved practicing that lace pattern in that square, and how another did some cabling which inspired me to learn cabling and practice it. How they must have planned this and laid out the color scheme of blues and grays - all wonderfully muted and working together and each picking out the fiber from her stash, or perhaps to try something cool in a shop in this 15" swatch. And how Vickie chose the blue print flannel to back it with and then wrapped it and shipped it to me. How much each part, done individually, meant to the whole piece.

Man, I just wanted now to really carry this forward.

I'll start with preemie hats to keep babies warmed and loved; imagining a nurse tending a newborn preemie with the warmth of a hand-made hat. The nurse would pick up on some good vibe while placing it on a newborn babe's head. And the babe would pick up on this tenderness and be warmer.
Or,
to knit a rad beanie for some older child, from a rough inner-city street life, who's hitting the mountains and seeing of what they're capable. Some of these kids can get a handmade hat made by some lady like me who wanted the kid to have something just for being there and trying something better. To put it on and get warmer.

So I took off and dug into the stash and knocked out a hat this week real quick. Then took off onto preemie hats. Oh wow.

Then . . .
today, I met Bug at That Yarn Store.
Bug knits and gathers knitters for KNITZELLA. She gets the word out so that people can donate their time knitting, or yarn so others can knit, things for people they don't know. Hats for those girls hitting the trails, in heavy backpacks, hiking, walking away from the city and discovering that they can do this.

When I gave Bug the hat I made, she handed me a purple little tag to label it. She told me that the girls really dig the tags and keep them on the hats while they're up there. They read each other's tags and start up conversations like "who's Karen?" or "what's alpaca?"
I'm buzzed by this. That my hat is going to this kind of thing. I want to make way more now.
Everybody, try this.
Really.

So many ladies showed up there today. Seating got scarce and there were little pamplets from "Stitches From the Heart," to give us ideas on making more baby stuff. I was making some preemie hats and pledged to make 2 by December 31. It took me 2 hours to finish both of them; so really . . .

By the time I had to leave, I swear I was gushing to Thea at That Yarn Store. The store has a homey nice relaxed air about it. Interesting mix of fiber and yarns including some bamboo in a really nice colorway that I had to swatch to see . Royal Bamboo from Plymouth Yarn. This yarn is incredibly soft and durable. The draping is like a drapey linen with a silky feel to it. The site recommends #8 needles. Use #5s. Really. I saw this yarn and figured it to be DK weight at the largest, maybe sportweight so I immediately went to my #5s and really liked the results. Tight but still drapey. Perfect for Baby things since it's natural, non-itchey and super duper soft.

I tried #8s (I wish I scanned this so you could see). Really not good.

The store can order other colors and they're really helpful here. They like knitters to stop by and knit awhile. I could tell. Just an easy going way. Softly playing in the back was some of the coolest spanish folk music. I almost felt like I was visiting my brother in Guatemala (and get this, they do sell, um, acrylic, but it's straight from Guatemala and I had to have some translating done to read the label. Not the hard yucky, with a slight sheen of acrylic looking type of acrylic. It looks more like the kind of yarn you see done in the yarn work pieces done from Guatemala. A great find for anyone who wants to do some South American folkwear and would like to get some of the real stuff used down there.

Anyone new to knitting or crocheting is invited to come by on Sundays at 3:00 pm and make their first scarf with them. But come by at 11:00 a.m. and sit around the radio for GARRISON KEILLOR'S Prairie Home Companion. More at their site for stuff they're always arranging. No charges here.

If you want to pay them some money, they'll gladly have you at one of their workshops as well. I'm diving in with spinning in January. Cool.

If you meet Evelyn, ask to see her yarn dolls. They're about 2 or 3 inches tall and incredibly cute in real life. This picture only hints at their cuteness.

Painting with Yarn

I was listening to Episode "Green" (#12) from Brenda Dayne's Cast-on podcast.
It was gratifying to hear her talk about "painting with yarn."
In the section where she describes the sweater she's wearing, she doesn't.
She instead, tells of the mittens she had made.
She was knitting some mittens which used alot of different colors. As she described the process of looking at the picture she worked from and substituting colors she had, she experienced, for the first time, "painting with yarn."
Of just picking up a color that "just goes next" while following a "colorway" of lights and darks in the mittens; a theme which had inspired Brenda in the original mittens she was working from.

This was so cool to hear while I was trying to describe and relate my way of knitting. I've only realized lately that I am an artist. The light bulb went off after all these years (decades!) that I just was. I didn't have to be an artist anymore. Or try to be an artist. My colors came out of sentient emotion.
Whether I was adding a color because it followed an emotional colorway or added the color to be irreverent or experimental.

This reminds me of my brother Johnny and several friends who have told me how much my music mixes use to blow them away. That they never would have had the guts to mix into a part mix snatches of Mose Allison, followed by Bronski Beat, then with pop Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Genesis, Tom Waits and make it all work. Like painting with music, I loved to throw it songs just because the next one seemed right or to change up the mood irreverently.
That's what carried over into my fiber arts.
And now I can call myself an artist.
Whew.

This was something I was really trying to ponder and express as I described the process of my granny square blanket from stash scraps.
Or in the Process of my Fair Isle blanket in progress.
Or in the freestyle crochet boots which I was inspired by a 70s book "Creative Crochet."
And many more projects I can know go back to, photograph and discuss.
Come back.
You'll hear how I describe alot of these.
And other frugally minded moments of alchemy.

oOoooh. Shiny.

Toothpaste for dinner, again.


Can I ask you all? How do you keep up? Blog, blog, Blog, Blog, Blogs.
I love knitters, sketchers, creative types and artists.
I love being one, I love reading from other ones.
I love to read your thoughts, see your works in progress and follow your prompts and blank-alongs.
You show some gorgeous alpaca or sock yarns, cool drawings (amazing drawings), links to a pattern or six.
I follow the links. And follow links on those links.
I read the comments and chase even those links.
Who's commenting and what are they like on their site?
While my knitting doesn't get done.
Unless there's a nanosecond lull in the download. but after turning the row I look up again.
click
click
oOoooooooh.

Like just this weekend:

The Panopticon
So Queer
Cast-On
CreativeMomPodcast
Knit Mongrel
Now Norma Knits
Yarn Harlot (don't you know already?)
Crazy Aunt Purl
Lime & Violet

And these are just the starting points. They all link well.
Stop now.
Jeopardy's on. Robin's on her 114th origami crane.
I'm going to step away from here and frog the grandpa sweater (more to come later).

Okay. Back.
Um. What I did do this weekend was make Robin some mittens. She r e q u e s t e d them.
Yes.
"Mom, I need some mittens, can you make me some purple ones."
It was such a moment. She wanted me to Make her something.
After searching some really great patterns on the net, I chose the Gifted Mitten by Kate Gilbert. Kate's fabulous classic design called for chunky yarn and #13 needles.
Robin can't wear wool. Yep, no Cashmerino, for her (sigh).
She wanted soft purple fuzzy mittens like her soft fuzzy (acrylic) socks.
I had to face the soft fuzzy acrylic yarns row at a shop that was not my lys.
No, this was everybody's mys (main yarn shop aka michael's yarn shop).
But I don't knit acrylic anymore . . .
oOooooh. Shiny.
We found something.
Soft and fuzzy.
Yes, acrylic.
Yes, Red Heart.
But not like the itchy, spongey acrylic I'm trying to forget.
This was a soft mohair-ish acrylic that had only the slight acrylic sheen.
Just really slight. Only the ladies who Bitch would notice this.
But this Mystic Purple shade of marbled grey could almost pass for pure mohair.
From a distance.
It even felt like it might have some real mohair in it. 11, maybe 12%.
Yes, I could handle this.
I knit the mittens in the "large child" sizing of Kate's pattern.
The first mitten fit Ty perfectly. Okay.
Nice swatching.
After finishing the second mitten of Ty's pair, I set again to knit Robin's pair from this Mystic Purple cloud and the size 6s.
Following the largest size (Men's) actually worked. They fit her perfectly.
She wore them to school today.
The friends all want a pair.
They ran up to me and told me so.
It was Sally Field time all over again.