First and foremost I want to thank all of you that left such thoughtful and interesting answers to my questions on my last post. I’ve been reading every one as it’s come in and I’m now trying to put it all together and analyze all your thoughts a bit. There are some definite trends, that’s for sure and some really interesting perspectives. If you haven’t already done so, I hope you’ll post and answer too and read some of what’s been left already. I hope to write something about all of it for Friday’s post.

In the meantime I’m happy to finally have the chance to share the first FO of 2009 with you!

Evermore Scarf

Pattern: Evermore Scarf by Nicole Whitis
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca (2 skeins)
Needles: Size 9 knit picks circs
Knit: 12/30/08-1/8/09

This was a really fun knit! S picked out a great pattern and a great yarn for it too. There’s just a little bit of cabling on this scarf and enough of a change in the knit purl sequence to keep things interesting. I think this would be a great pattern for someone who might be a little bit afraid of trying out cables for the first time. Also a good one for learning to cable without a cable needle, since you’re only crossing two stitches at any given time. It’s simple, it’s very elegant and classic looking and a fun knit! What’s not to love?! Two skeins made a very substantial scarf that is more than long enough to wrap several times, or wear folded such as S is doing in the picture above (She totally consented to the blog pic by the way! Yay!). I had a little fun sneaking it onto her desk before she came in yesterday.

And I’m very happy to report that S wore it out at lunch and said that it was quite warm and snuggly. Considering the “high” temperatures that are predicted around here in the next couple of days, I’d say I finished just in time! There is nothing quite like a well appreciated hand knit gift.

In other news, the buttons that I ordered for my Zig Zag Steeks Sweater came! Of course, being the good Picsean that I am, I’ll be darned if I can make up my mind which set to use.

Care to offer an opinion?

I think a picture is worth a thousand words.

Yep. Risa came to my rescue. She put in a nice solid reinforcement in my not so solid crocheted steeks on my worsted weight sweater. From here I’ll be able to pick up and get going on the button bands. I’m hopefully enough that I went ahead and ordered buttons. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’m working on finishing up a very special project.

I know it doesn’t look like much here, but this is a very special scarf. You see, last month (at least I think it was last month, maybe it was November) a very special thing happened. Just about a year ago we hired a new music cataloger at work. She was fresh out of library school (and the poor thing moved from Arizona to NYC in January of all the damn things!) and it would be my job to train her. As I’m sure you can guess, despite the fact that I was in on the hiring process, this is the sort of thing that could go one of two ways. 1. Fine. But we’d never speak outside of work. or 2. Quite well. Enough so that we would become fast friends and even have lunch together on a regular basis. Luckily for me, number 2 worked out to be the way things have gone. I’ve really enjoyed teaching cataloging to S and she’s been quite kind in putting up with my foibles and hasn’t been at all embarrassed by the crazy girl who can’t go a single lunch break without knitting, even in public!

I know what you’re thinking. Teach her to knit! Believe me, I’ve offered. She still contents that she isn’t coordinated enough for needlecrafts. Not one to push, I’ve let her go but the offer has always been on the table. As the holidays approached, I thought about making her a scarf. Something warm and soft and a little thank you for being so cool and making my work day just a little brighter. Then we had a conversation about the stresses of giving and recieving gifts. Hmmm. Maybe I’d just give her a card with the option that I would knit her a scarf if she’d like one.

And then it happened.

At a meeting one day I was knitting away on a pair of socks before things got going. Suddenly, S turned to me and quite hesitatingly asked if maybe, perhaps I could, maybe knit her a scarf?? Ummm… yeah!!! I had to laugh. I told her about what I had been thinking and we both got a good giggle out of it.

So last month we took a lunch break and a quick trip up to Knitty City to pick out yarn. S has good taste! She picked out a lovely creamy colored Ultra Alpaca.

I also logged her into my Ravelry account to pick out a pattern. As a librarian, she definitely saw the value of Ravelry right away! She picked the Evermore Scarf pattern. I wasn’t convinced at first, but it’s really grown on me.

More importantly, she really likes it. I hope to finish it up this weekend. It’s fun to knit for those that appreciate it!

I’m going to leave you with a little mosaic of some of the pictures I took for my various flickr projects this week that may not have made the blog. This may just become a regular Friday feature if y’all like it.

Have a great weekend!

… but if you’d been knitting them fast and furiously at the end it would have been exciting to you!

Dad’s Christmas 2008 Socks

Pattern: My usual toe up (although I’ve taken a liking to Judy’s Magic Cast on lately)
Yarn: Oasis Yarns Aussi Sock
Needles: Size 1 Knit picks
Knit: 11/30-12/10/2008

Never thought in a million years that I would finish these on time or that they would actually FIT! But both happened. I kept looking at them thinking they would be too long and narrow, but they fit perfectly. Must learn to trust even my rudimentary math skills sometimes.

I’d also highly recommend this yarn. It’s the third time I’ve worked with it and it’s very nice. It’s a superwash merino nylon blend and they seem to have a lot of good “boy” colors every time I see them. Nice twist to the yarn too. Good stuff!

The other present I got for my Dad this year was this:

It’s a handbound notebook from Rhonda at My Handbound Books. A fellow librarian, Rhonda was very easy to work with and was able to customize this for me to be just what I was looking for. It had to be small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and rustic enough to suit my Dad and his yearly adventures. I also wanted high quality lined paper and she certainly didn’t let me down (we librarians are particular about our paper!).

I’m very much looking forward to getting one of my own after the new year!

I hope you’ll check out these etsy sellers I’ve linked to in these two posts. Even if it’s too late for your holiday shopping this year, these people have great customer service and great products and I would highly recommend them. I knew I couldn’t totally get away with doing the Handmade pledge this year, but I got pretty darn close. We also got Mom and Dad something similar to this GPS accessory which we love (no sucky thing marks on your windshield to let the bad dudes know they should break into your car for a good time!). All was much appreciated.

We were also very lucky on the receiving end. We got these two ornaments:

It is Stitches’ first Christmas after all! And we’ll be doing some shopping on our way to Maine with two of these:

And the kids got some goodies from their Grandparents too!

Definitely a Happy Christmas. The weird part is, I went into work on Monday and was obviously thinking Christmas should be over and was shocked that it wasn’t when I saw all the decorations in NYC. Silly brain, there’s one more Christmas to go!

Next time, a slightly more exciting new project.

Finally! I can show you knitting again! This stealth stuff has been for the birds, but my Mom does read the blog from time to time so I just didn’t want to ruin the surprise. We had our Christmas with my parents this weekend since we will be in Maine with HWJF’s family for the real thing this year. The only thing that sucked about doing it this weekend was that Saturday was also my Mom’s birthday! She kinda gets that whole born-in-December-screwed-on-the-presents thing because of that. But I tried to make it worth her while. So without further ado, Mom’s Christmas socks!

Flame Wave Socks

Pattern: Flame Wave Socks by Ann Budd from Interweave’s Best Socks book.
Yarn: Cascade Fixation
Needles: Size 4 and 5!
Knit: 11/17-11/30/2008

These were a pretty easy knit and thanks to the big needles, they went fairly quickly. I even followed the pattern as written and knit them top down. You are shocked, I’m sure. There was definitely a moment that I thought that was going to be a mistake since I didn’t have much left for that kitchener toe, but I made it by the skin of my teeth. There was significantly more yarn in the other ball. Annoying!

This definitely isn’t my favorite yarn to knit with, but with Mom’s allergy to wool it’s one of the better solutions out there. And since it can be knit on such big needles (from a sock perspective anyway) that doesn’t hurt either!

I also knit Mom a birthday present. I really cannot believe I managed to get this one done in time. It was a feverish race to the finish. Since I wanted both Mom and Dad to have at least one hand knit to open each, and since the straight needles were *killing* me, I decided to concentrate on Dad’s Christmas gift instead for a while and figured Mom’s Scarf was a lost cause. As it was, that barely made it to done on time with his socks. More on his gift next time, but here’s what I’ve been working on for Mom’s birthday:

Morning Surf Scarf

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf from Spin-Off Magazine
Yarn: Oasis Yarn Seduction Silk
Needles: Size 6 straights!
Knit: 10/20-12/11/2008

It’s another Morning Surf scarf, this time in the 100% silk yarn that I bought at Rhinebeck. I would have liked to have spun something for this, but I knew I wasn’t going to have the time, so this had to do. It’s lovely yarn and the pattern works out wonderfully with it. I was dubious about my choice of color combo at first, but after showing it to another group of knitters I was more confident.

And by the way, this pattern, even the second time around? Still Not Boring! I don’t think I would have gotten this done if I couldn’t have said that. Scarf knitting is not my forte.

After blocking, the yarn had even more drape than when I was knitting with it and the sheen didn’t go away. The silk smell definitely came out when it was wet (it *is* worm poo after all!), but went away when it was dry.

The best part of knitting this? When Mom opened it she immediately said with a smile on her face, “It’s my hint!!” which if you look back on the comments on this post you will see. I would have had to been deaf, blind and stupid not to get that one! There’s nothing better than a happy hand knit recipient though.

I also made a couple of purchases for Mom for birthday gifts. Unfortunately, one hasn’t arrived yet, but the other two did and we both couldn’t have been happier. First, this gorgeous necklace came from Creations by Uli:

She does all sorts of jewelry made from chain mail. When I saw this one, I had a very hard time not just ordering it for myself! But I knew Mom would like it too (the love of blue is hereditary!) so I gave it to her. Uli does wonderful work and couldn’t have been more accommodating with my order. Thanks Uli!

I also ordered this from Danielle’s Originals:

It’s a key chain with Sandy painted on it! It’s the likeness to the picture amazing?!? This was a rush order and Danielle also couldn’t have been more easy to work with and more accommodating. She’s definitely got a great talent too.

Next time, Dad’s presents!

I think I’ll make it at least twice. Not so sure about the rest. Here’s the first one though!

Morning Surf Scarf

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf
Yarn: Zarzuela’s Fibers Handspun Merino, Blue Jeans and Leather Shoes colorway, less than 194 yards
Needles: size 8 straights (!)
Knit: 8/8-8/9/2008

First and foremost, if you haven’t knit one of these babies yet you totally should! This is the most non-boring scarf pattern I have knit in a long time. I seriously had to keep referring back to the pattern for a quite a while into it. I loved that part about it so much I would actually think about knitting this again (and I really can’t say that for many patterns).

I really like the way that the colors worked out on this. When I dyed the fiber most of the blue stayed to one end and most of the brown to the other. I split the roving in half along the length and spun the two lengths separately from opposite ends so that, when plied together, the colors would complement each other. I think it worked out pretty well with some of the blues meeting in the middle.

My only complaint is that I wish I had spun the yarn a little thinner so I would have had more yardage. I wanted nice squishy yarn, which I got, but that left me short on length. It’s only about 41 inches long which is just about enough to wrap around your neck and cross in the middle. This definitely isn’t going to be a scarf that will get wrapped around and around, that’s for sure! It figures, the one time I don’t spin something really thin I wish I’d spun it thinner!

Probably the funniest part of the whole project was that I knit it completely on straight needles as the pattern recommends. It says to avoid circs because of the number of YOs and the difficulty one might have getting them over the cable join on a circ. I would certainly have to agree. I *never* use straight needles and had to dig out some of the old aluminum ones I stole from my Mom ages ago. HWJF even noticed! Now that’s saying something when the non-knitter notices a change of equipment!

By the time you read this my little scarf will be on its way to its new home. I’ve hardly got time to stop and think about it leaving the nest though. I’ve still got a pair of socks to finish and over 2.5 *pounds* of fiber to spin before the Olympic flame is extinguished! I’ll definitely cross the finish line on one of the big spinning projects (pics next time), but I’m not so sure about the rest. Stay tuned right here for updates as they happen!