Month of Husband Knitting: Olympic Hat

Finally the second project of my Month of Husband Knitting is done.  I say "finally" because it felt like I worked on this project for a long time, despite it being a week.  Maybe it's been a long week.

I used the Olympic Reindeer Hat pattern available on Ravelry (it is a reproduction of the Polo hats worn by the US Olympic Team in 2010) and made it out of Swish Worsted Weight from Knit Picks (in Serrano, Dusk, and White). A number of people reported having problems with the decreases for this pattern, but I didn't have trouble with them.  Using stitchmarkers at the quarters seems to have helped.

Overall this was a good pattern (read details on Ravelry here) though I cut a number of rows and the hat is still a little bit too tall.   I like the colors and the reindeer, though.  I actually made this as a way to use stash yarn leftover from another project, which worked really well.  I would recommend having some experience with colorwork before trying this pattern because it has some very long carries that are hard on tension.

I think the hat looks nice (though I still need to block it to even out the colorwork) and will be very warm.  All good things in the upper Midwest, where the weather makes winter accessories both a necessity and a fashion statement.

Month of Husband Knitting Update

On this Valentine's Day, I thought I would take a minute to update how my month of Husband knitting is going.  I have one project finished and another started, though it is going a lot slower than I had hoped.  I completed a pair of socks (read about it on Ravelry here) this past weekend and was pleased that they fit (though I did measure his foot and everything, you never really know until they are on).  They weren't a surprise or anything, but I was glad to get them done by Valentine's Day.  I also started a reproduction of the Team USA 2010 Reindeer Olympic Hat for Husband this past weekend.  It is mostly made out of stash yarn, so my major concern now is having enough yarn.  Getting it done by the end of the month would also be nice.

It seems sort of sad that I set aside an entire month (albeit a shorter one) for knitting Husband projects but halfway through have only finished one.  Normally I can do a pair of socks in roughly a week, so two weeks for these socks is well behind my average.  My regular full-time job has been crazy lately, though, and my extra job of teaching has also taken a lot of time.  It is amazing to me how a few extra hours of work every day can impact every other aspect of my life (like knitting and sleeping).

Right now I am planning on seeing how long the hat takes and going from there.  I have gloves hibernating that might get pulled out too.

New Class, New Project!

I enjoy taking classes.  Yes, this includes college and grad school classes, but those days are behind me now.  The classes I mostly take now are craft classes. 

I'm a bit of an ADD crafter.  Everything seems like a good idea when I am standing in the hobby store.  Mostly I find this to be expensive, but there are some definite bonuses to being this way.  Like I took a class on making Chain Maille jewelry and have a container of the supplies in my craft room, which means I can make my own stitch markers whenever I want and in whatever color I want/need.  And my own stitchmarkers are much cheaper than what I would buy in the store.

But so far I have had very good luck with classes and learning new crafts.  Once you start branching out on the craft spectrum, there is actually a lot of overlap.  I have quilted since I was 12, so piecing together my own stained glass patterns was no problem at all for me.  When I wanted to learn colorwork, I tried the YouTube route (I am overwhelmingly a visual learner) but still couldn't quite get it right.  So I took a class in it and now am in love with stranded colorwork.  I have heard that some people have trouble picking colors, but after years of quilting, sewing, and knitting I don't really.  

The newest class I took on is two-fold.  It is dedicated to teaching the process of dyeing yarn and then lacework.  I am pretty interested in dyeing, since I love color in my knitting.  I also am intrigued by lace knitting, though it's a tough sell for me.  I am not, in general, a lacy person and I don't think I have ever worn a fashion scarf or shawl in my life.  I like them, but dedicating the time to making something I know I won't use is tough.  But lace patterns and the things they produce always look so pretty, so I thought I would give it a shot.  I just need to find someone to give the finished product to.

Anyway, I dyed the yarn last week and it is now dry and ready to wind for use.  The process itself was pretty easy (prep yarn, apply dye, heat-set dye, rinse and cool).  My only wish was that I had thought out my colors a bit more before I started dyeing, but this is all pretty new to me so I basically just hope the yarn looks OK knitted up.  I dyed two hanks, one lace-weight and one fingering that I plan to use for lacy socks.  The lace weight is on the right and the fingering is on the left.  I decided that I will make a scarf and it will be out of the yellow-orange-green laceweight for my mom.  We'll see how this goes.

Cables and Eyelets Mitts

I posted another pattern on Ravelry today!

Months ago, I made a hat in the style of Hermione Granger's hat in the fifth Harry Potter movie (the one with eyelets and cables).  Since I don't like to give just a hat to people, I worked out a pattern to make matching fingerless gloves.  The pattern can be found here: Cables and Eyelets Mitts.

Happy Knitting!

February: Husband Month

I am pretty organized about my crafting (with the Google Docs spreadsheets to back that claim up) but I do tend to over-commit myself.  Case-in-point, this year I organized my Christmas crafts in July, but still ended up scrambling the week before Christmas because I added 4 new projects in December (which needed to be done on top of the regular baking, cooking, cleaning, wrapping, shopping, and visits that accompany the holidays).  I tend to have to cut projects and, inevitably, the projects that get cut are those for myself or my husband.  As of now, I have made myself a hat/scarf set 10 years ago and that is it.  Yes, that is the last project I completed for myself.

Husband fares slightly better.  I made a hat for him 8 years ago and just finished another hat a few months ago.  But I have a lot of spreadsheet lines dedicated to projects for him that aren't crossed out.  So I decided that February is light on projects, I should take this month to see how many of those undone projects could be done.  I'll let you know what all I get done.