I Know Why They Call it the Hemlock Ring Blanket

Because it makes you want to drink Hemlock like Socrates.


What is this, you ask? It's the stitch count for the 8 different sections once i got to the second to last repeat of the pattern. As you can see, it's off by a bit. Four of those sections had the same number of stitches, but not one section had the same number of stitches it was supposed to have. This occurred the Saturday before Christmas. So I started tinking back. I didn't know how far I was going to have to go, and since my markers were all in the right spot, I figured that tinking was the best option.


I put the Hemlock Ring Blanket on a bit of a timeout and while I was tinking I made myself a cowl.


It's from Knit 2 Together. I absolutely love it. It's knit out of Malabrigo Worsted and it's the warmest thing. I could live in it for life. I might have to knit a couple more of them so I can wear it with each coat (I just bought a new bright orange snow jacket for when Stan and I go snowboarding in January).

Finishing the cowl gave me enough motivation to get back to the Hemlock Ring. In total, I tinked back 36 rows I think. Here's what my diagram looked like after the fact:


So, I moved inward every time I got back to a row that was right before a decrease row. Good thing I only had to tink back that much, otherwise I'd have to re-do the chart. You'll see there are three sections in the middle that are circled. They're all off by only one stitch so I said to myself "fuckit, I'm just going to fudge that one part." Fudge it I did, and I think it turned out ok. I've been on the right stitch count now for quite a while and I'm almost back to where I was when I noticed things were awry.



In the meantime, I've gotten a little antsy. I realized that now that I have this bright orange snowboarding jacket, I need a hat that will match. Something about light blue and sparkles doesn't seem like it will go well with the orangeness. So I stopped by Knit One, Purl Too in Wakefield, RI when I was home and scored some Elsebeth Lavold Classic AL to knit up into a hat. I found a Lucky 7 hat pattern on Ravelry and cast on. I've got two repeats out of 8 done, and while I was hoping to get it done yesterday on the ride from RI to NY, dawn was way too late and I didn't get a chance to. So I'm still chugging along on it.


So that's all I've got now. I'll leave you with some photos of the Red Sox Socks I knit for Beth. I've given them to her for Christmas so it's safe to post them! I'll probably post some sort of 2008 wrap up soon. It's the best way for me to keep track of what I knit every year. Then I can re-set the status bars on the sidebar.

I'm Made of Awesome

That's my "OMG Do you know what this means" face!

What does it mean? It means:

I'M DONE WITH ALL MY CHRISTMAS KNITTING!

That's what it means!!



They're the Urban Necessity gloves (Ravelry link) from old school MagKnits (the designer is offering the pattern on her website). I used size 8 needles and Misti Alpaca Chunky. I have a whole hank and a quite a bit of a cake left (I bought three skeins) and I'll probably use that to make a cowl out of.

I hated this pattern. It had nothing to do with anything. I just don't like knitting gloves and mittens. They turned out quite well though and I don't think you can tell how much I hated knitting them. I should mention that the pattern was quite easy to follow.

So this is the status (I just like showing that things have been crossed off, I'm not trying to gloat really):

• Socks for Stan's Mom
• Dairy Queen Hat for Stan's Niece
• Jacques Cousteau hat for Stan's Nephew
• Half Socks for my brother's girlfriend
• "Almost A Mystery" project for Beth
• Flap mittens for my boss
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Sarah
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Rebecca

Jenn vs. Christmas
Jenn: 8 Christmas: 2

JENN WINS CHRISTMAS!

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So what am I going to do with myself? Well, I'm preparing myself mentally for knitting with the luscious Malabrigo I picked up back in October. I'll be turning it into a nifty little Bog Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around. I've been waiting so patiently to get done with all my Christmas knitting so I could get around to this project. Now I'll just make myself wait a bit longer until I can get the Hemlock Ring blanket to a nice size.

I took the Hemlonck Ring Blanket workshop at The Point. I'm way far away from being close to even halfway done with it, but I think it's coming quite nicely.







I wasn't sure if the marled colors were going to show off the design of the blanket, but I think it's turning out ok. I really couldn't decide if I wanted to knit it in grey or if i wanted to knit it in brown, so I decided to knit with a color-way that had it all.

Woohoo!

One more gift down. Looks like I've only got one more left! I'd show you photos, but I know that Beth reads this damn thing. She reads everything, man!

• Socks for Stan's Mom
• Dairy Queen Hat for Stan's Niece
• Jacques Cousteau hat for Stan's Nephew
• Half Socks for my brother's girlfriend
• "Almost A Mystery" project for Beth
• Flap mittens for my boss
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Sarah
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Rebecca

Jenn vs. Christmas
Jenn: 7 Christmas: 2

So on I go to the final gift: The mittens for my Boss. Now, funny story, my boss just got an amazing new job and as of mid next month will no longer be my boss. I'm still going to knit her mittens though. I feel like she's been a sort of mentor for me over the years. I guess it's my way of thanking her. Also, knitting mittens always feels so magical.

More Christmas Productivity

Newly finished today:
The Dairy Queen Hat for Stan's Niece:


I did a bit of finagling on this one. I had to make it much smaller than it was supposed to, but it should fit her now.

The Puff Daddy for my Cousin Sarah:



The Puff Daddy for my Cousin Rebecca:



The Puff Daddys were so much fun to make! They literally took an hour, and barely any yarn at all. They're perfect for stash busting! That being said, I took these gifts as an opportunity to buy a couple more skeins of yarn at Brooklyn General. Sarah's is knit out of Misti Alpaca Chunky in the Sushi Colorway. It was so soft to knit with. I can't wait to knit another one out of it! The one of Rebecca was knit out of Malabrigo Chunky. Also a totally decadent yarn to work with. I have a lot of both of these left over, so they're either going to become a whole series of Puff Daddys or something really creative is going to have to happen with the rest of it.

So where are we now?

• Socks for Stan's Mom
• Dairy Queen Hat for Stan's Niece
• Jacques Cousteau hat for Stan's Nephew
• Half Socks for my brother's girlfriend
• "Almost A Mystery" project for Beth
• Flap mittens for my boss
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Sarah
• Puff Daddy for Cousin Rebecca

Jenn vs. Christmas
Jenn: 6 Christmas: 2

I think it's safe to say, however, that I'm winning Christmas. :)

Christmas Photos

Time to show you all the Christmas presents thus far:

Socks for Lucille:


Jacques Cousteau hat for Georgie:


Halvsies for Kristina:


I decided that the best way to solve the Dairy Queen Hat problem was to use Ann Bud's book of patterns, figure out how many stitches to add and all that and to just work the pattern a little smaller than it should be. Time will tell if it works!

Snag in the Christmas Plan

I'm not ready to give Christmas one more point yet, but I have run into a slight issue. I realized a couple of things while looking at the pattern I wanted to use for Stan's neice's hat. Firstly, the gauge is so large, it more than likely won't work with the yarn I've picked out. I think Lamb's Pride Bulky really wasn't made to be knit at 2.5 stitches to the inch. Maybe this means I go out and get some Twinkle yarn, but that means buying more yarn and I was so excited to be using the yarn I have.

Also, the Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern for the Dairy Queen hat doesn't really do kids sizes. I thought this might be perfect, maybe I'll just knit the Lamb's Pride Bulky in the right gauge and it'll be smaller. By my calculations, however, the hat would be TOO small if I were to knit it like that.

So, fellow bloggers...anyone who reads this...Does anyone know of a pattern that would fit a three year old that I can knit out of Lamb's Pride Bulky? I want it to be kinda different. A little funky instead of just a plain ribbed hat.

I'm doing a ravelry search too, but I wanted to know if anyone maybe found something that I overlooked (I'm really good at overlooking things).

RHINEBECK Recap, Memes and Christmas Progress

Woa. That's a lot to cover in one post!

Let's start with Rhinebeck! It was really awesome wasn't it!? Saturday I went with some folks from NYC SNB. We met up with some other SNB chicks there. I met a bunch of awesome knitters (though, if I'd gone to the Ravelry noon meet-up I'll bet I would have met more). I got some amazing yarn. And met Franklin and had him sign the awesome book he wrote.

After getting all the yarn out of the way on Saturday, I went back on Sunday with Stan and friends of ours. It was nice to be able to go and just take photos of knitters or fall upstate and sheep and alpcas. It was a great introduction to Stan of the whole knitting thing. He got to experience Rhinebeck without thinking that I'm some sort of yarn crazed knitter (seriously, I kept it under control the whole day!). We watched the Pumpkin Chunkin' contest, wandered around some of the barns, got some lamb, checked out the museum of old stuff, and we found some amazing Vodka Sauce in the food barn (Uncle Pete's!). They had fun, which was awesome because I was worried that the Sheep and Wool Festival would be boring if you weren't there for yarn. Here are some photos of the weekend:

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Alright now, and on to the Meme! Bread and Badger tagged me in a meme about two weeks ago. I'm finally getting to it!
7 Weird Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me

1. I <3 synthesis. Anytime I can blend things together that I like I feel efficient. This is especially true for blending groups of friends together.



2. I'm right handed but often eat with my left hand.



3. I'm incapable of doing nothing. Just ask Stan. Last weekend we were hanging out and I kept poking and annoying him.



4. I speak french fairly well when I'm drunk, but if I start speaking french when I'm drunk, I start thinking in french until I get sober.



5. I get motion sick REAL bad. Especially on long trips.



6. I feel nauseous if I eat eggs alone first thing in the morning.



7. My iPod has over 5,000 songs on it. It also has tons of different genres from trance, polka, pop, house, drum & bass, heavy metal, bhangra, brazilian, country, lounge, french, middle eastern belly dancing music, classic rock...etc...

Oh, according to the rules I have to tag 7 people. So here are the folks I'm tagging:

1. Illanna
2. Beth
3. Kara
4. Rebecca
5. Ruth
6. Claudine
7. Heather

Enjoy it kids!

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So let's see where we stand on The Big Christmas Push 2008 ™:

• Socks for Stan's Mom
• Dairy Queen Hat for Stan's Niece
• Jacques Cousteau hat for Stan's Nephew
• Half Socks for my brother's girlfriend
• "Almost A Mystery" project for Beth
• Flap mittens for my boss
• ^NEW! Puff Daddy for Cousin Sarah
• ^NEW! Puff Daddy for Cousin Rebecca

Jenn vs. Christmas Jenn: 2 Christmas: 2 Yup, I've gotten a bit done. I'm about 3/4 done with the half socks too. I should probably finish them this weekend if I don't get too drunk tonight or too distracted with blogs and Guitar Hero World Tour (those video games are killing my knitting time!). I have, however added a couple of things. Seriously, who can resist the call of the Puff daddy. I certainly can't. Since I saw that last week, I've felt as though I have to knit like fifty of them and keep quite a few for myself! Now to just find a nice bulky pink yarn with a bit of silver going through it. I'm still thinking I can get all of this done by Christmas. Seriously, I've got about two months left, and I've already gotten through half of it. The things I chose to knit for folks this year are pretty small items and since I've been knitting on the subway (I usually read on the Subway so that I can maintain that obsession as well) I've found that I'm pretty quick at knitting stuff!

The Big Christmas Push

Ok. This year, for some reason, I decided that I'm going to knit Christmas gifts. Largely, these gifts will be given to various members of Stan's family.

• Socks for Stan's Mom
• Diary Queen Hat for Stan's niece
• Jacques Cousteau hat for Stan's nephew
• Half socks for my Brother's Girlfriend
• "Almost a Mystery" project for Beth
• Flap mittens for my boss

All of the yarn for these projects has been acquired except for the last one, which is a new addition to the list (as of this evening actually). We shouldn't mention that I still need to seam the blanket that my colleague gave me to seam up for her last year. She says she keeps forgetting I have it, so I'm hoping that as long as I get it done by the end of the year it should be ok. So I think I'm goign to add a little thing to the bottom of my posts that say where I am vs. Christmas. Just so we can all be on the same page.

HOT off the presses, however, are the socks for Stan's Mom. So hot, in fact, that I don't even have FO photos for you. I knit on them so much this weekend with Beth in DC that I managed to kitchener this evening while I was waiting for the Yarn Harlot to sign my book. Yup. I kitchenered standing up! I'm awesome. :)

Also, I should mention that I'm going to Rhinebeck. I'll be there all day on Saturday checking out the fiber and all that. Then Stan and I are heading up with friends on Sunday. I'm actually pretty excited about the second day. I can check out all the stuff that's NOT knitting related (like, anyone know what Pumpkin Chucking is?) and really take my camera out and give it a good go! It's bound to be a great weekend.

Jenn vs. Christmas
Jenn: 1 Christmas: 0