Since Bryan’s hat turned out so great and I want to perfect my fair isle skills, I am going to make myself a hat in the same pattern. I went to the yarn store to exchange some yarn (practice what you preach, always buy the same dyelot) so now I have enough yarn to make myself a hat very similar to Bryan’s. When I was there I asked about how to deal with my fair isle pattern pulling in and she suggested instead of carrying both yarns in my left hand that I carry my contrasting color in my right hand. So now I’m very intrigued by the idea that I could knit fair isle and not have it pull in when working a pattern. So this weekend, in the little time that I will have, I’m going to start my hat, it will be without the earflaps, of course.

I felt really bad about this. I made the hat for Bryan hoping it would be the hat to end all hats. I thought it would be the warmest hat he’s ever owned. He’s completely bald, partly by choice, so he needs maximum warmness in a hat. Unfortunately, the hat still let’s too much air through. So one of my projects over the next few weeks is to make Bryan a doubled hat, which is basically a hat with a lining inside. I’m going to try it out of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride. I think if it’s two hats in one then that may solve his problem. I’ve already knit him three hats and none have been warm enough for his bald head. So he usually wears the cashmere hat I made him with a wool hat over it to keep warm. I’ll let you know how it goes. By the end of February, I may be so sick of hats for a while. :)

Last night, I had my beginning class. I taught them how to purl, unknit and fix a dropped stitch. The student that was really struggling last week came in with a lot of stuff knit. She was trying out different yarns. I couldn’t believe it. I figured she would do okay, but I was so impressed.

I was so tired when I got home last night that I didn’t even sit down except to quickly write out some checks for bills. Then we went to bed.

Today at lunch, it was a relief to have some time to sit and knit. I got six rows of the ribbing around the cuff of Bryan’s sock done. I should have the ribbing done within the next week, as long as, I spend some time working on the socks within that week. :)

Have a great weekend!

I read RoseByAny’s blog everyday. She’s currently working on a shawl that is quite a project. So I decided last night to work on my Barbara shawl. I was sitting in front of the tv anyway watching Alias and American Idol, I didn’t feel like working on Pagan so I figured, I would work on the Barbara shawl.

In a matter of an hour and a half, I worked three rows. I’m at 280 stitches per row and increasing four stitches each row. Before I started the Barbara shawl and was dreaming about it, I thought it would so rewarding to knit. Then I started it and I got a lot done in a few weeks because I didn’t have a lot of stitches on the needles. Then as time has gone on, it’s grown and it seems to take forever to make any real progress, I’m starting to think that I’ll never finish it in my lifetime or at least until I’m 50 (I’m 31 now).

The last time I worked on the Barbara shawl in December, I was really frustrated because the yarn kept breaking. Last night, I didn’t have any breakage. I put a lot of Udderly Smooth lotion on my hands last night hoping that the lotion will help the yarn get through the row without breaking. It might not have made a difference, but hey I got through three rows without the yarn breaking. Now if I could just get myself to work at least four or six rows a week on the shawl. I was just looking at one of the photos that I took in September 2002 and I now realize that I’ve made some progress, about 30 rows, since that photo was taken.

Tonight, I’m teaching the second week of my beginning class, it’s a six week class. I’ll teach them the purl stitch and start them on ribbing.

During lunch today, I had to run to the yarn store to buy a pair of needles for a student and while I was waiting for the store to open, I was able to knit four rows of the Pagan sweater. I’m about two rows away from where I’ll start increasing. I had forgotten how quickly Rowan Calmer knits up, it’s really nice to work with.

I got home last night after another long day of work. It’s been very crazy and I was so fed up with a project that I’m working on that I left at 5:15, which is early compared to the last few weeks. I’m so tired when I get home in the evenings, I just want to sit on the couch and knit and knit, which is what I have done the last two evenings. It feels like a lot of work just to heat up dinner that Bryan made earlier. Then in the mornings, I should be getting up earlier (I made a commitment to Bryan that I would get up earlier) to exercise in the mornings but that has only worked out twice in the last two weeks. Last night, I was so tired and I was going to go to bed early, but I didn’t because I wanted to get my wedding photo page updated and then when I finally got into bed, I wasn’t tired. So I read for about 1/2 an hour and when I turned my light out, I was asleep really quickly. Tonight, I’m going to go to bed EARLY. Bryan, if you’re reading this, I’m going to have you hold me to this.

In my knitting adventures yesterday. I finished the crocheted edging around the edge of the Fair Isle Hat (see post below of photo). When I came home last night, I worked about 1 1/2 cm (0.6 inches) on the Hobo sweater. The I picked up Pagan and worked about three inches of it. I’m finished with the decreases at the bottom and have about four rows until I start increasing. I’m taking my time with Pagan but I want to finish it before it gets warm outside, I have another three good months before anything sleeveless will be appropriate so I think I have enough time. :) My goal is to have the first part of Hobo finished by the end of May. It seems like a long time, but it took me an hour to do the work that I did on it last night and that was just six rows. I have another 72 rows (or about 12 hours of knitting) to go before I can bind off the bind and just work on the sleeve.

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fairislehat2, originally uploaded by knitgrl.

This is the Fair Isle Hat with earflaps worn by its rightful owner. The neck ties will be done soon.

I finished the second earflap for the Fair Isle Hat.
Hat prior to earflaps.

I started crocheting the edges of the hat and, hopefully, will have that finished tonight. I’m crocheting in two colors, a new experience for me. It’s not that difficult but it’s time consuming and definitely worth the work as it looks really great.

I’ve been teaching a co-worker how to knit. She’s had two 10-minute lessons on the purl stitch and the knit stitch, and has completely gone to town on a scarf with combinations of garter and stockinette stitch with about 24 inches finished. I still need to teach her how to cast-on and bind off. She crochets and picked up on the purl stitch extremely quickly, the knit stitch has been a bit more trouble for her, but she’s getting it. I’ve noticed that my students who are crocheters tend to hold their yarn in their left hand and want to hold their yarn way out on their index finger. Then they end up with uneven stitches. Some students, I try to force them to use their right hand just to keep from getting confused between crocheting and knitting, which seems to help. With the woman at work, she seems to be doing fine holding her yarn in her left hand, she just needs to figure out her tension. Every morning when I walk into work she says, “Come see what I did last night.” It’s really fun to have someone so excited about it.

Now I have another co-worker who is really itching to learn how to knit, too. I find it especially funny that the second woman wants to knit since she used to tell me, I don’t have the patience to do that. Now that she’s seen the other woman doing it, she’s really excited to learn. :) It does help that there is another woman at work that knits very simple things. She comes to me every so often for advice on how to fix a mistake or how to read something in a pattern. So I may be creating a group of knitters in my department. :) Now, if I could just knit in meetings without people thinking I’m not paying attention.

A few photos to share:

Bryan modeling the scarf for my six-year-old nephew, Michael

Snow outside our window on Saturday. The snow didn’t start to fall off the birdhouse until Monday as it started to warm up.

Then the weather sends me snow, I must knit. And knit I did! Let’s see two hats in two days. :)

The snow started Friday night, oh what a night it was. More on that later.

Saturday, I stayed home while poor Bryan ventured out to work. I started Meredith’s brown hat, a replacement for one she lost, Saturday morning. By 1:30pm, I was finished and has finished sewing the seams by 4:30pm. I figured I was done for the day, but then we decided to watch Spiderman 2. I had to find something to work on and the yarn that I bought for the Fair Isle hat was not just calling my name, but screaming very loudly demanding to be knit. So I started the Fair Isle hat thinking, oh I’ll be lucky to get the first inch or so done. Nope, I got half way through the main pattern around the head. Sunday, I thought, I’ll just finish up the main pattern and do a little bit more. Nope, I finished the entire hat. And I knit one of the ear flaps. So the hat that I figured would take me a few weeks took me two days. If I figured it out in hours, I would say about 8 hours. I have all of the common symptoms of Fair Isle knitting that have always bothered me. Where the pattern is the knitting pulls in a little bit in comparison to the straight knit. I even knit it inside out to correct some of that. Thank goodness when the hat is on, you don’t see any of the pulling in. But I don’t know what to do if I do a sweater, which will probably be easier to control. Any tips would help.

So now Bryan will have a lovely new hat by Wednesday. I love the hat so much that I might just be making myself one with the leftover yarn. I was so brilliant when I bought the yarn – “Well, the yarn it calls for is 105 yards and the yarn I am buying is 100 yards, I might need two balls of each color.” So now I have a lot of extra yarn to return. Even if I return all of the extra balls of yarn, I’ll still have enough yarn left over to make myself a hat. How cute would that be, husband and wife with the same hat, different color combinations of course. :)
I’ll post a photo of my Fair Isle hat later.

It’s a very sad day for the world. The inauguration (or better coronation) of George W. Bush is taking place. I just read that wearing a white ribbon today is a a symbol of mourning for democracy, freedom, and all casualties of Iraq–including Iraqi civilians and American soldiers. United for Peace and Justice is encouraging people to wear the ribbons. Of course, I didn’t know this until today, so I’m putting a white ribbon on my blogs for today.

We can only hope that the next four years are better than the last four years. We and the world can’t afford to live with another four disastrous years of Bush policies. We are working our way backwards with the fundamentalist right working their agenda forwards. They talk about having to fight militant Islamic fundamentalists when they are militant religious fundamentalists.

Okay, enough politics for today.

I started the second of Bryan’s socks last night. Yeah! I worked about 12 out of 32 rows of ribbing around the cuff. Most of my evening was spent putting together my class materials. I always am reworking them for every class. Yesterday and today before I left for work, I also managed to knit about 4 rows each day on the Hobo sweater. I’m now at about 40 cm. Every time I measure, I have fewer centimeters than I had the last time I measured. It doesn’t help that I’m trying to measure on the couch cushion. :) I have 20 more centimeters to knit for a total of 60 cm for the body. Then I get to cast off a lot of stitches and just work the sleeve. I hope to have the end of the first piece done by the end of February. Then it’s time to start the second piece, which, hopefully, will not take me another three years to knit.