purlsandmurmers

2021 In Review

All in all, 2021 was a good year for knitting, certainly the most productive I've had in quite a few years.  I finished eleven projects, only 4 more than in 2020, but that makes this the most productive year since moving to Knoxville at the end of 2011.  In 2011 I completed 12 projects.  Part of me wants to say here's to beating that, but really it is not about the number of things I knit but rather the process of purposeful making.  Sometimes, however, I have been known to miscalculate.

More specifically, I knit:

    1. Four objects for the home, of which two were deconstructed from one larger blanket, reassembled and partially reknit. Both were given away.  

    2. Three cardigans

    3. Three scarves

    4.    One hat.

 

Two of the scarves, and one of the household objects, a thick wool hot pad for use with a rectangular baking dish, were constructed out of remnants and left-over bits of yarn.  Somehow this makes them feel like bonuses, almost like creating something from nothing, even though I know this is not quite true.

 

My plans were admittedly more ambitious.  I planned to finish more garments, at least one if not two blankets, catalog my yarn stash and make significant inroads to the UFO pile. None of that happened.  I also bought more yarn than I actually knit.  I don't know how much yarn exactly, although I see it piled up in a basket in by my television chair.  At least I only bought enough extra yarn that it still fits in that basket.  I didn't catalog the yarn as it came in, although that was my intention.  Cataloging fell by the wayside.  I did catalog yarn as I started projects however, so I know that I knit 47.25 skeins.  I am happy with that.

 

l already know I want to finish at least one blanket in 2022, fully aware that bigger projects also mean fewer finished objects.  But as I said who cares.  Most of us, at least most of us who read this blog, really are not in need of anything much, myself included.  I can buy a blanket or a sweater if I need one.  I would rather knit.  

 

All I ask of 2022 is that I take the opportunity to seize onto what makes me happy.

 

 

 

In-Flight Knitting

I needed something to knit on a flight, perhaps on vacation as well, but definitely on a flight.  The Stephen Wests shawl was not going to be my project of choice.

Enter two skeins of String yarns cashmere, Milan, and a simple hat pattern.

I started the project on my way to Tucson to visit my step-son and family over Christmas.   I managed to get the ribbing knitted, which was in and of itself a challenge, simply because the needles I brought with me, the red ones shown in the picture were too short and keeping the stitches on the needles, especially considering bits of air turbulence, was challenging.  I transferred the knitting to the longer, green, needles as soon as I finished the ribbing, which, alas, was not until after I had arrived.  Notice the difference?  

 

In fact the whole thing was a lark and might well have been a miss.  The pattern, which arrived with the yarn in a box from L'Atelier, calls for size 5 needles and a 16" circular.  Anything that can be knit on a circular can be knit on double points, although I will admit that longer double points would have been nicer in this circumstance.  I didn't have a size 5, so the green needles are size 4, which I figured would probably work because I often knit loosely.  Notice that I am flying by the seat of my pants here.  

 

Was there a gauge swatch? No.  The hat itself was the swatch. In fact the red needles, which I used for the ribbing are not size 4, or even size 3, but size 2.  That was not intentional.  I honestly don't know how it happened, but by the time I realized my error I was already in Tucson and I figured what the heck.  I could always rip and reknit.

Then the hat languished until the return flight.  I knit most of the body of the hat on the flights home, alternating knitting and reading.  In the photo above the hat is about 8 inches in total length,  The pattern specifies 10 inches, but one of the hats I knit last December, the one knit in Malabrigo Rasta was knit 10 inches and it is too long.  I feel like there is a big bubble on top of my head, and the hat tends to fall down over my face. Of those two hats, it is not worn as frequently as the pink one, knit in Franca, which is shorter. 

I knit to just shy of 9 inches before beginning the decreases; it could have been shorter, but the tighter ribbing seems to keep it from slipping down onto my face. I am happy with the finished hat, and will wear it frequently.  I should probably knit another as my hair will probably remain pretty short for the duration of the Knoxville Winter.

 

Simple Hat.  Needle sizes 4 and 2.  78 grams of String Yarns Milan cashmere.  Happy Knitter.

 

Two Hats

I finished the hat very early in the morning on the 26th I wore it that day for my morning walk with the dog.

Saturday was spent working on another project, one of many, one of what feels like an interminable and endless backlog, but I am determined to get through it, either finishing or frogging the entire mountain.

Sunday was reward day, and I knit a second hat, using the same pattern.  This time I used another Manos del Uruguay yarn, Franca, which is a soft, squishy, single ply.   The color is called blush.  This required a little more attention to knit as it is easy to split single ply yarns, but the hat is also lovely,  There is more than enough yarn remaining to make a pom pom should I choose to do so, but I have a gray fur pom pom in the studio somewhere and think I will see if that works first, or I will leave the top of the hat plain.

Both hats were knit on size 13 needles, and gauges were similar. Both hats fit perfectly well, but you can see the differences in the yarn.  The purple hat, knit in Rasta, is firmer and does not stretch quite as much as the pink hat. which is soft and stretchy and cuddly.  Both are perfectly comfortable to wear although I might say that the purple hat is ever so slightly warmer.  Both will see their share of wear.

 

This the Season for a hat

An impromptu knitting project:

Malabrigo Rasta i color 120 Lotus.

 

I am knitting the sidewinder beanie by Aspen Leaf Knits.    I desperately need a warm hat and this should be pretty close to instant gratification, except that I have already ripped it out twice.    This third attempt seems to be going well though.  It is a simple pattern and there is no reason for messing up except that I seem to have done so.  At least now I have memorized the pattern, and I also have a better understanding of how to rip back when i have made an error.  

 

Hopefully no more setbacks, and easy enough for Christmas knitting.