New Year's Knit-a-palooza

I'm back from my holiday, visiting my folks in Texas for New Year's. It was delicious -- just hanging out together, having four adults instead of the usual two caring about my daughter, and getting to knit. A lot.

On the bus to the airport to go there, I started a hat to go with the Ravenclaw scarf. Same colors, same needles, different design. It's undergoing major surgery right now, though, as DH figured out it's not quite long enough to keep his ears warm. I picked out a row of stitches just above the brim and added short rows around the back two-thirds or so of the crown section of the hat, to keep his ears warm without covering up his eyes. Now I just need to graft the pieces back together. Here's what it looks like now:



The inspiration for the pattern comes from the Binary Hat, a pattern I found on Ravelry. But I didn't have the pattern with me when I was knitting, so I went on my best memory of it plus Elizabeth Zimmerman's hat wisdom from her Knitting Workshop DVD, which I recently watched. I knit the ribbing on the same needles, but with yarn held double, to make it extra thick (for style) and warm (for comfort). The original binary hat says "hat" in binary ASCII code (yes, we are geeks here), but DH asked me to make his say "CPU" instead, to represent what he covers up with his hat. (Yes, we are really geeks here.) DH was kind enough to work out the binary ASCII code for me himself.

I also worked a lot on the baby blanket, which is about 15 minutes from finished, and on writing a pattern for it. I worked out an border treatment I really like. But I need to do some swatching to make sure what I wrote down for the pattern will really work, hindsight being not quite 20/20 in this case (I must start a notebook for stuff like this)! You'll find the pattern here when it's done. Here's a teaser:



When I'd done as much as I could stand on the blanket and its pattern, I turned to some sock yarn I bought just before the trip, expecting to run out of knitting. Turns out it was totally the wrong weight for the project I wanted to do. I was planning to try the Austrian Socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks (click on "view more images" and go to the sixth one shown to see the picture -- I love that Knitpicks includes pattern images in their book section!), but I got 50% more stitches per inch than the gauge. Guess I should have listened to the "sport weight" recommendation in the pattern. I ended up doing a short-row-heel, toe-up version of the diagonal rib socks from the same book. It's my first time trying traveling stitches, and I dropped several stitches early in the sock. I'm still clueless about how to repair dropped traveling stitches, but they've been fairly forgiving of my bungled efforts. Here's my progress so far:



The yarn is Reynolds' Soft Sea Wool from my LYS. It feels really yummy soft, even though it's just labeled 100% wool, not merino. I hope it wears well. I'm carrying some Wooly Nylon thread along on the toe and heel for added durability. The needles are US size 2 bamboo double points, with which I get about 8.5 st/in, so the sock is on 68 stitches in the foot, 70 in the leg to accommodate the pattern repeat. I usually knit socks on two circulars, but felt like being a little more old-fashioned this time around. DPNs are quieter and a little simpler to deal with all in all, and so far I'm not seeing major stitch ladders. Wish me luck. One of my DPNs splintered a little today, but only on one end, so I'm not sunk yet. I'm considering getting a set of Knitpicks' Options wooden DPNs with a gift certificate my dad gave me for Christmas. But I love knitting on metal, so maybe I'll order a pair each in wood and metal first and see what they're like. I've just never tried metal DPNs before, only circulars and straights. The other first here is anything but stockinette and 2x2 rib in socks. I hope they fit! This diagonal rib seems to pull in pretty well, so I'm hopeful.

An update on Simple Stripes: Many early posts to this blog showed some socks I made from Knitpicks' Simple Stripes sock yarn (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), which is no longer on the market. I speculated at the time that this was because it felt so scratchy. But after eight or ten wearings and washes (machine wash cold in lingerie bag, line dry), they are feeling great and wearing well. Still just a smidge itchy around the ankles when I'm in a warm place, but then my skin is pretty particular about wool. So if you come across some, I say give it a try! By the way, the spit-splices seem to be doing just fine, despite the wool being superwash. Go figure!