You Can Leave Your Hat On

The local knitting guild decided that this year’s knitting exchange would be hats. We exchanged yarn at the last meeting. Everybody is excited and looking forward to the December meeting when get to see each other’s work. I looked at the yarn I was given and I’m starting to get some ideas.

I decided to knit a few hats to get in the mood.



The first hat I knitted was a “Simple Fair Isle Hat”. I knitted it using TLC heather yarns from my stash. It is a fair isle hat in name only as there are only 2 rows where more than one color is worked. Still it is a nice pattern and a good looking hat.



The other hat I knitted was based on the mathematical Fibonacci sequence. I knitted this hat using Lion Brand Wool-Ease. I think the numerical sequence created a pleasing pattern of stripes. I’ll be using the Fibonacci sequence later on a sweater that I going to knit with Araucania Blue and Orange Nature Wool.

I like knitting hats; they’re quick and easy.

Can't Sleep Con Will Eat Me

5 September 2005

Well, I didn’t quite make my deadline. I had all the pieces knitted the night before the first day of AnimeFest. But I still didn’t have the sections sewn together and all the loose ends weaved up. And for some reason, I thought it would be nice to get some sleep before working registration. Go figure.



As always, I had a good time at con. I visited with some old friends and made a few new ones. I saw some good anime, spent way too much money, and did a lot of people watching. I am always amazed by the amount of work people put into their cosplay. I snapped quite of few shots, which can found in my Flickr account.

A large number of Fire and EMT personnel heading out to New Orleans to help with the post-Katrina relief efforts were bivouacking in the hotel where the convention was held. Units from as far as Denver were there. The con staff was nice enough to allow these hardworking men and women to enter the dealers’ and video room for free while they were waiting to be shipped off.

That evening, when I got home I started sewing. I took longer than I expected. It was 2AM before I finished weaving in the last loose end and dragged my tired butt off to bed.



But it was worth it. I got some real nice comments. And as I made Kumo in cotton it was nice and warm, which was fortunate as they keep the video rooms cold enough to hang meat. Granted due to the usual hot, humid Texas summer weather, I had to take it off when I went outside.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue

As of Wednesday morning I have 5 1/4 inches of the last sleeve still to knit. The going got faster when I finished the section with the garter stitch border. Now it is straight stockinette.

Mad props to my friend Mark who lent me "Clerks" and "Clerks: The Animated Series" DVDs.

And yes my cat Dante is named after the character in the movie. Although his personality is more like Randal.

Like sand through a hourglass...

As of Tuesday morning, August 30, I still have 14 inches of the last sleeve to knit. Fueled by Dr. Pepper and aided with my Ipod and Monty Python and Ren and Stimpy DVDs I should just make my deadline if I keep up this pace.

Hey! You! Get off of my cloud!

For the last month I have been frantically knitting the Kumo pattern found at Knitty. I’m trying to finish it before AnimeFest starts on Sept. 2.

It is a relatively easy pattern. It is mostly a series of rectangles knitted up in stockinette. Some sections have edging done in garter stitch. And the front panels have some shaping to them, produced by knitting some simple decreases. The most involved portions of this project are the cloud patterns done in intarsia.

Being cheap… That is to say, thrifty, I am knitting it up all in cotton. I used Sugar and Cream for this project. I felt that using cotton would produce a durable garment that would get softer with each washing. The downside to this is that the garment is going to be relatively heavy.


As of Monday August 29, I have the back panel, both front panels, one sleeve, and the belt knitted up. The remaining sleeve is about 1/3 complete; I need to knit 21 inches by Wednesday evening so that I can stitch the whole thing together. This is my first really large knitting project that I have tackled. And in such a short time period. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Hey Rocky! Want to watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?

Last week, I was going through a Rubbermaid bin full of yarn and found this unfinished scarf.


I got the pattern from Ozyarn. (Unfortunately Ozyarn is out of business and the pattern is not in Google's cache.) It is an illusion scarf with a heart pattern. I was working on it at our local knitting guild meeting. The members were so intestered about the scarf, we worked it up into a program of illusion knitting.

If you have never seen illusion or shadow knitting, the first time you see the pattern pop out is like magic. Looking on the pattern straight on, you see only stripes. But when the pattern is tilted...

The scarf is about half finished. Now I just need to finish it so I can give it to my girlfriend.

Now I just need to get a girlfriend.

Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

This is Agate. She is a Cornish Rex. Like other rexes is cold natured and is happiest snuggled up to a heat source.

So I decided to knit her a sweater. The pattern I used was modified from one on the Lion Brand webpage: www.lionbrand.com/patterns/kff-dogSweater.html

As she is not barrel-chested like a dog and shaped more like a tube, I made the back piece straight with no increases. Plus I didn't add in all the frou-frou. The hardest part of the whole procedure was getting her to stay still while I took her measurements.

Here is the completed sweater.

Here she is voguing in her new sweater.

She hates it right now. But once the weather turns cooler we’ll see what she thinks about it then.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

After many years of knitting scarves, hats, dishclothes, and mittens, I finally decided to knit a sweater. But being a cautious person, I want to knit a mock-up to work out any problems I would encounter knitting the full size project.

I decided to use the pattern for Nora’s Orange Sweater with a simplified fair isle pattern. I picked this pattern as the sweater I want to do in the future is knit from the waistband up and in the round. I used a simplified snowflake motif, as it is my first attempt at knitting fair isle.

Here is a picture of the sweater when the body and the sleeves are partially finished:

Here is picture of the finished sweater:


I general, I think the finished project turned out nice. There are two things that I’ll to work on: collar shaping and fair isle on double pointed needles. The shaping of the back collar went well, however the problem came when it was time to pick up stitches along the edges. Incorporating this shaped section into the knitting introduced small holes in the pattern. They’re not bad, but noticeable to a seasoned knitter. A friend suggested picking up an excess of stitches along the edge and k2tog to decrease the number of stitches along this section to avoid getting these holes. Second, I think I got too tight working the fair isle portion of the sleeves. I tend to tighten up working on double pointed needles as I’m trying to avoid having the work come off the needles.