A Pig as a Present

This season I decided to knit people their favorite animal as a birthday present. In May I knit a pig for Nyssa.


And here is a picture of Nyssa with the pig. Doesn't she look delighted? She was just coming out of a concert where she had played with the wind ensemble. The pattern is from the book The World of Knitted Toys by Kath Dalmeny. The yarn is Caron Simply Soft Eco.

A Busy Time

The past few months I have focused on fixing things - a number of knitted items do not come out the way I wanted - so I have focused on altering them to improve them.



This is an entrelac shawl that used to be a sweater. I had knitted a cardigan with pockets from Marble Chunky that did not turn out well. It stretched and stretched and was almost to my knees. So I frogged it and knitted a shawl instead. I had learned entrelac technique at a knitting retreat in October, so I just casted on and started in. No pattern, no plan.

Then I found a cool copper wire shawl pin on Etsy and struggled to figure out how to wear it. The shawl is heavy and soft and smooshy. More of a cool weather shawl. Certainly not light or dainty.

Leaf Socks

At long last, I finished the leaf socks that I started this summer. The yarn was dyed at a class at the Shuttle Shop in Warsaw and because of the beautiful fall shades I knew that I needed to knit a leaf lace pattern. This pattern is called Embossed Leaf Socks from Winnter 2005 Interweave Knits Magazine.

The cast on is slightly too tight and the feet are slightly too loose and I redid the toe of each sock at least once. But they are warm and soft. Now if I could just remember if the yarn was superwash or not. I had better assume it is not. :)

More Baby Things

So a colleague's wife called me and asked if I would knit some items for her expected grandson. She knew the baby would be a boy and she asked for a sweater, hat and booties. These are made from Red Heart Eco-Ways, which is a blend of acrylic and recycled polyester. Pretty soft for a synthetic yarn. So here is a kimono from the Mason Dixon book - probably the 4th one I have knitted so far. The hat is my own pattern and I think the curls on top make it more than adorable. And the booties are the same pattern as Nika's booties in the previous post. Barbi and Brad are very pleased and the baby was born yesterday and really was a boy.... Woo hoo. Maybe some day I will get a picture of the baby wearing it all.

Christmas booties

This Christmas almost all my friends said not to buy them anything, but when there is a baby involved, who can resist? The newest baby in the extended family/friends is Nika and mom asked for booties, saying that pink and brown were the dominant colors in her wardrobe. Amazingly I found a variegated cotton yarn in exactly the right colors. This is the result, from Cotton Tots Yarn. I knitted about 4 or 5 different models of booties. I found that all of them are strangely shaped and assume the babies have really fat feet. I suppose that they actually do have chunky feet, as the pictures below show the booties on Nika's feet. The pattern is from a book I own - Knitting in Plain English by Righetti.
Ok so she is not so good at posing for nice pictures and she is sitting in great uncle Fred's lap and he is not helping much. :)

Busy Semester

This semester has been flying by, with me under a pile of grading. I knitted a lot of preemie baby hats for the friend of a friend. I got a bunch of students to help me and we knitted 50 hats in a short time.

Thed a colleague asked me to knit mittnes to give as a gift. She wanted fingerless gloves with a mitten cap and had a pair she had purchased in Austria that she showed me as an example. I took a ton of measurements and asked a lot of questions. Here is the result in vintage wool by Berrocco.
I sure hope she likes them and that the gift is well received.


There was a sale recently at Knitting Off Broadway in Fort Wayne and I bought some cashmere. It was a little more than I planned to spend, but I think I am worth a pure cashmere scarf. The picture below is the result.
Been running behind keeping up with this blog and with my Ravelry entries as well. Maybe the holiday will afford some time. Ha.

Adventure in Dyeing

Having taken a handpainting/dyeing class at the Shuttle Shop in Warsaw, IN about a month ago, I decided in was time to try it for myself. I bought several skeins of fingering weight bare white yarn from KnitPicks.com and a starter set of Jacquard Acid Dyes. There are six colors in the dye set - two blues, two reds, yellow and black. The blues and reds are one cool and one warm hue each.

I took the yarn, which I have in merino only and also a merino silk blend (70/30) and cut them into one yard lengths. Soaked in cool water with a splash of vinegar. Mixed up a variety of colors, using careful measuring and taking copious notes -- good thing I am scientist and like experimentation. The results in the first picture are merino on the left and the merino silk blend on the right.

Still want to find a good purple, cranberry, and aquamarine.


Then, since it was so much fun, I dyed some more samples - the ones below are all merino only - with a focus on greens and diluting to see how low I can go on concentrations. The first set (above) are all about 1% dye. Some of the ones below are 1/4 and 1/16 of 1% dye. The reds on the second row have some black in them.
Meanwhile, the semester has started and my knitting time is decreased. Of course there are meetings to attend and I have done a lot of simple knitting.... but the ability to work on more complex projects is lessened. Below is the leaf lace sock from the original handpainted yarn from the class I took..... Finished the heel and decreasing in the gusset. Not sure I am looking forward to the second sock.
Been spinning a lot - hoping it will calm me. And knitting some baby hats to help with a specific donation project. I will post about that tomorrow.....