It was a very busy fall so I didn’t get a whole lot of Christmas knitting done. My ruby red Juneberry Triangle for my grandma and this project were the extent of it actually! And what do you know? I knit another Brooklyntweed pattern for my other grandma (it’s all about the symmetry). I decided to knit my grandma the shawl version of Girasole and I wanted to work it in a very cheerful color – thus, yellow! When Emily visited a couple of months ago we went to Webs (yes, I actually live sort of close to the store now!!) and I fell in love with a beautiful golden Madelinetosh sock called Winter Wheat. Once the idea of knitting Girasole for my grandma formed in my head, the Madelinetosh sock was the only yarn that would suit.

Knitting the shawl version of the pattern was very different from the giant blanket I knit for Emily and Eric’s wedding a couple of years ago – mostly because you don’t have to lug around such a mass of fabric when you’re knitting the shawl as opposed to the blanket! I think I fell even more in love with the pattern this time around and I am resolved to make one for myself! The shawl was also a lot easier to block than the blanket (which ended up, like, 9 feet in diameter).

I think the sunflower pattern looks amazing in yellow and I’m so in love with how it turned out! The Madelinetosh sock was the perfect yarn for the shawl, and after blocking it has the most wonderful weight and feel. Love, love, love.

I’ve designed this pattern so that it can be made for a man or a woman, with optional waist shaping for the women’s pattern and different lengths for certain parts of the sweater depending on whether it’s being knit for a guy or a girl.

The pattern includes sizing for chest measurements of 30, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58, and 62 inches and calls for Knit Picks City Tweed Heavy Weight (mine in Brocade and the men’s sweater in Tabby).  You will need 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 11 skeins for the above sizes.

The gauge for the sweater is 15 sts/20 rows to 4 inches in Stockinette on size 8 US needles.  Just like Baby Sophisticate, the sweater is knit from the top down, with a raglan yoke, and the button band and collar are picked up and knit after the body is finished.

That’s Sophie helping me out with my photo shoot.

The pattern is available for 6.50 (USD) as a download in my Ravelry Store or through Paypal.  Just click below!  If you do decide to knit Sophisticate, I always welcome feedback and questions, so please let me know how you like it!

Purchase through Paypal:

Purchase through Ravelry:

]]> http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/sophisticate/feed/ 2 stockinette DSC_0850 DSC_0854 DSC_0886 DSC_0882 DSC_0810 DSC_0818 http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/hourglass-throw/ http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/hourglass-throw/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:20:25 +0000 stockinette http://stockinette.wordpress.com/?p=1321 Continue reading »

I mentioned in a previous post that after ticking a few things off of my summer to do list, I was able to think enough to pick up my needles again. I decided to get back into the game with another Brooklyntweed pattern – actually it’s an Anne Hanson pattern for Brooklyntweed’s “wool people vol. 1” – the hourglass throw.

The pattern calls for Brooklyntweed’s Shelter yarn, but I wanted to go with something washable and decided to use Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Cobblestone Heather.  The yarn is nice and lofty, so the cables really pop.  I tried out steam-blocking for the first time with this pattern and I can’t decide if I like it better than wet blocking or not – it’s easier for me to get the blocking wires in when the project is dry, but I don’t feel like the pattern opened up as much this way than with wet blocking.  Any opinions on wet versus steam?

The stitch pattern looks really complicated, but there isn’t actually that much cabling (only the small cables contained in each hourglass and the two on each side), so once I got the pattern memorized the knitting went pretty quickly.  I really like the little cables running up the side, and also the idea of ribbing on a blanket.

Believe it or not, this is actually the first blanket I’ve knitted that will be staying in my home!  I’ve knitted a few blankets for others, and pretty much enjoyed every pattern I tried, but once the blanket I was gifting was finished I never really felt like taking on the same pattern again.  Now I’ve knitted a new blanket pattern for the first time and it’s all mine!  Of course it had to be gray.  I knitted the medium size throw from the pattern, so it’s just big enough for me!

P.S. Sorry for the kind-of-dark-and-blurry photos – it’s been overcast here for daaayyys, but I really wanted to post about this project so I just decided to go for it!  Maybe I’ll update later if I get a chance to take some better pictures.

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I started out thinking that I would just knit a generic mug size and let Kristin put them on whatever mugs she wanted, but after looking at a few mugs I realized that there may not be such a thing as a generic mug size.  So I decided to pick up a couple of these cute white mugs and make the jackets to fit.  I used Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Squirrel Heather, which I liked for this project because I think the color goes well with the white mug and the yarn is nice and lofty so the smocking looks great!

I think my only modification to the pattern was the increase rows for the base of the jacket – instead of working the offset increases described in the pattern, I just knitted one more stitch between increases on each round until I had reached 80 stitches.  Oh, and I used knit through front and back of loop increases the whole time.  I wet blocked the jackets on the mugs by fitting them on their mug and placing rubber bands over the jackets to hold them in the shape I wanted.

Full disclosure – I will be receiving some hot chocolate from Kristin in exchange for these mug jackets.  Sounds like quite a fair trade to me!  :)

When Sasha and I were visiting his family over last Christmas, we of course went yarn shopping and I scored some ruby red Wagtail Yarns Fine Kid Mohair. I originally planned to make the Willoughby scarf from Brooklyntweed’s Made in Brooklyn, but once I started knitting that pattern, I realized the mohair wasn’t the right yarn for it – the bobbles weren’t anywhere close to full enough! So I decided to save that pattern for later and use the Wagtail yarn for a different Brooklyntweed pattern – the Juneberry triangle shawl.

I’ve been wanting to try out this pattern for a while, and this yarn seemed like the perfect color for it. Since my grandma loves red, I decided to make this one for her.  The pattern has some complicated lace in it, with the pattern worked on both sides, not just the right side of the work.  There is also a wide knitted on edging that creates this beautiful sort of faux cable pattern (with a bobble!) and a pretty open lace edge.  I love knitted on edgings – they seem like the perfect way to finish anything like a shawl or blanket – and this is the loveliest I’ve ever worked.  I’ll definitely be using it again, maybe as a fancy edge to a simple garter stitch throw.

The mohair yarn worked nicely with the pattern, although it’s still not quite lofty enough to make big, full bobbles.  I like the sheen of the yarn and the color is perfect.  I hope grandma likes it!

It’s spring here!  The redbuds are blooming and the color just happens to coordinate with my latest project (which isn’t really springy at all though, oops).

Over the Christmas holiday I got to go to a lot of yarn shops with Sasha’s mom, and made quite a few great finds.  The most impressive bargain was found by Sasha’s mom, who through admirable persistence made it to the tiny sale room of a little shop called Sunflower Samplings in Crystal Lake Illinois.  I had given up making it through the packed little hallway to a tiny closet that always seemed to have someone already browsing in it, and was looking at a sale basket in a more open room when she came out saying there was just enough fuscia Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed (50% off!) for me to make a Rossan, from Debbie Bliss’s Donegal Tweed book.  I think it took her approximately 2.5 seconds to convince me I needed to knit this pattern (it helped that I had already seen hers out of a different color in person), and we were both excited for the rest of the day about the find.

I started almost a soon as we got home from the shop, deciding to knit the body in one piece and work seamless set in shoulders (I thought they might be more flattering than the original drop shoulder).  The yarn is very chunky and the cable pattern is easily remembered, so I sped right along on the body.  After working the sleeves to the underarm, I joined them to the body and worked a similar set in sleeve to the one on my beatnik.  The sleeves have a little bit of a bump at the shoulder and if I were to knit it all again I might stick with the original sleeve from the pattern.  I still like my sweater coat, but I just wonder if maybe I was over-thinking it.  Oh well, live and learn (not to mess with Debbie Bliss patterns)!  :)

I loved working with the Donegal Tweed and I love the bright pink!  I think this is a great first contribution to what I’ll call my developing “Boston ready wardrobe”.  Woolly sweaters may be the name of the game for next winter.

Here’s a quick Valentine’s Day project if you’re feeling lovey but haven’t had a chance to craft anything to express your feelings! :)  I think a bunch of these little hearts would look adorable strung up as a Valentine’s Day decoration. I used up some blue sky alpacas cotton and a size 6 needle for my heart, but I think it would look cute in many different sizes.

Valentine’s Heart:

Repeat Rows 15-18 for the other side of the heart.

Starting at the bottom point, work half double crochet in a contrasting color around the edge of the heart.

]]> http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/happy-valentines-day/feed/ 0 stockinette DSC_0901 http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/honeycombs-and-horseshoes/ http://stockinette.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/honeycombs-and-horseshoes/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:48:32 +0000 stockinette http://stockinette.wordpress.com/?p=1240 Continue reading »

We’ve had a couple of snow days here in Oklahoma (although whoever invented remote desktop connection really killed the whole ‘snow day’ fun for me), so Hugo and I have been hunkering down (like the rest of the country, right?). Oh look, here he is enjoying the snow!

At least I can combat the cabin fever a bit by telling you all about my latest project, which I am completely in love with. You see, Sasha is having to face some pretty cold temperatures when he’s in Boston and he doesn’t have a matching hat and scarf set in the charcoal gray family (one of my favorite color families)! I haven’t made anything for him in a while, so I wanted to make him something really nice. We went to a couple of shops to find the perfect yarn and finally settled on Rowan Felted Tweed Aran in soot. After looking around at hat patterns for a while I remembered this scarf knitted by Brooklyn Tweed a year ago.

Once I had this pattern in my head, I couldn’t find anything else that appealed – luckily Sasha really liked the pattern as well! I started knitting the scarf to see if I could get the cables right, then once I had the pattern established I started working on the hat.

I love how the pattern looks in the Felted Tweed, and it’s really soft and warm. Sasha’s been wearing the hat for a couple of weeks so far without any complaints, and I just finished up the scarf, so we’ll see how that works for him. The hat required a little more than 1 ball of yarn, and then I ended up using 6 balls (+what was left over from the 2nd ball for the hat) for the scarf. The scarf is really long – like, 6 foot 6 inches, which is good since Sasha is tall. I used my blocking wires to get perfectly straight edges, and to even out the puckering of the seed-stitch borders.

Brooklyn Tweed’s original scarf was based on Beth Walker-O’Brien’s Aran Cashmere Scarf from Simple 1-2-3 Knitting. I don’t have the original pattern, but was able to create something close enough to satisfy myself (and Sasha). Oh, and for my non-knitter readers (mom), the title refers to the honeycomb and horseshoe cables in the pattern. :)

So handsome.

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I guess I’m on a Noro-roll these days because I’ve also knit myself a cowl. While in Chicago for the holidays, Sasha’s mom and I visited many yarn shops (yay!) and at an especially nice one called Mosaic Yarn Studio we both fell in love with Noro Kogarashi (which was a new yarn to me!). The shop had a cowl knitted up in one of the colorways (#7), and I liked it so much (and it was obvious that I liked it so much) that Sasha’s mom bought me a skein so I could have my very own. And now I do! I cast on 80 stitches, worked an inch of 2×2 rib, knit until I only had one color change left, then worked another inch of 2×2 rib.

And while on the topic of awesome acquisitions made in Chicago, we went to a great store downtown called Loopy Yarns and I got my first hank of Madelinetosh Lace in Baltic – it’s gorgeous, and very different from anything else I’ve got in my stash. I can’t wait to use it! Any pattern suggestions?

Here’s one final photo of the new Noro scarf joining part of the handknit scarf/shawl/cowl family by the door.

My grandfather told me earlier in the year that he might enjoy a simple knitted vest to keep him warm, so I decided to take on the project as a Christmas gift.  I combed the vest patterns on Ravelry and settled on a free Berroco pattern called “Peter Easy” (which I thought was sort of a weird name, until I discovered the original “Peter” is the same vest with some complicated colorwork, so I guess “Peter Easy” applies).  Anyway, it’s a simple stockinette vest with two-by-two ribbing at the cuffs, neck, and arms. I chose to use Berroco Vintage in Crimson, and I think the result is quite nice.  This gift ended up being one of those where the recipient opens the box and says, “Oh! . . . Yarn! . . . And . . . some fabric attached to knitting needles . . . “, but I redeemed myself by getting it finished about a week after Christmas!

Continuing in the red theme, I knitted a berry-hued beret for Kristen using Melissa LaBarre’s Crooked Paths pattern. I love the lace pattern, and how the decreases are worked at the crown. I liked it so much that I wanted one for myself as well, and luckily I had enough Araucania Nature Wool Solids left from Estelle to make two! I think it looks very Christmas-y, and my only wish is that I had the courage to wear a beret outside of the house. Someday!

I blocked both hats (mine and Kristen’s) over a 10″ dinner plate to get the beret shape (which appears to be the accepted wisdom).

The final Christmas gift of this year was a request from my brother – more Warm and Cozy socks!  He loved the pair I gave him for Christmas last year so much that he asked for another pair.  So, I made him two more pairs using the same Encore Worsted yarn as last year.  Here are the two new pairs next to the old pair – it looks like he did actually wear them quite a bit!  It’s always nice to see the things you’ve knitted for others appreciated! :)

And that’s my little 2010 Christmas gift roundup!