Knitasha von Stashenskeins

Blown Away (almost)

Yikes! After starting out the morning with a thunderstorm, we are getting some ridiculous wind in Northwest Ohio today.  There are branches down everywhere.  I had to stop on my way to work while a little front-loader tried to wrestle a fallen tree out of the street.  It was a struggle, but the front-loader prevailed in the end.  Then I got a photo from a friend of her husband's truck with a giant tree limb crushing the roof and smashing the windshield.  Kermit and I were happy to get home in one piece with all four wheels on the ground.  

M's stocking is all done.  I think she will be happy with it. As requested, it is enormous.

Pack of cards included for scale.

I used duplicate stitch for her name.

To prevent the Christmas loot from stretching it out of shape, I used some red jersey fabric to make a lining and then I hand-sewed around the top to hold it in place.

Now L wants her stocking lined as well, which won't be too hard.  At least she doesn't want me to start from scratch!

The endless charcoal stockinette is complete and I have moved on to the happy land of striped yoke with raglan decreases.

I'm quite certain it is going to look good, but I'm a little worried it might be a bit...feminine?  The recipient is not particularly macho and always appreciates my hand-knits, but ever since M rebuked me for making him a Purl Bee Bandana Cowl last Christmas, I second guess my ability to choose gender-appropriate patterns.  Any supportive feedback welcome!

Monday Night Football awaits.  Maybe next time I will show you some of the things I've been sewing!!

Pooling It

I finished weaving the kool-aid warp that I dyed.  I wanted to accentuate the colors without washing them out, so I used Comfort DK in a light brown for the weft.

I wish I had put the orange where the yellow is.  Some of the orange was lost to loom waste and the yellow is kind of meh.  Oh well, I finally accomplished a pooling scarf and now I have a reproducible method to make more.  I have enough of the dyed yarn for a second scarf - I might try a black weft for that one.

M's new Christmas scarf is getting bigger.  

That little strip of yellow is waste yarn for an afterthought heel.  Since stockings always hang so you see the side, I think I will rotate the decreases for the heel by 90 degrees so it looks more like a toe. (The pictures when I'm done will help if that just made zero sense to you) I'm also toying with the idea of lining the entire stocking to prevent stretching out of shape.  I think I've got some red jersey or fleece around somewhere.

This pattern doesn't show up well in the photo - not enough contrast between the green and red.

This is a Sanquhar pattern called Prince of Wales.  Sanquhar is a small town in Scotland that was known for producing beautiful hand-knitted gloves in distinctive black and white patterns.  These patterns are very adaptable to other knitted items and look good in colors as well as black and white. A Ravelry search for Sanquhar knitting patterns yields many gorgeous designs.  I don't have the patience for gloves, but the socks are striking and all that color stranding would make them really thick and warm.

Ohio State is playing Minnesota at noon today and I will be camped out on the couch with the stocking to keep me from biting my fingernails.  With some luck, 3:30 will find the Buckeyes with another victory and me with the stocking nearly completed!

Special Request

I caught a bad cold last week and spent most of the weekend snoozing and blowing my nose.  You know you're sick when you don't have the energy to knit!  I worked on the charcoal sweater a little more - now it is two sleeves and three inches of body.  Charcoal stockinette is not a dynamic photo subject, so I will spare you.

I put the sweater on a temporary hold yesterday to start on a special request project.  As you can imagine, the members of the von Stashenskeins family all have hand-knit Christmas stockings.  M's is dark green with cables and it is pretty but it has squeaky white acrylic fluff around the top and it is kind of small.  Every year when I pull out the Christmas decorations I think I should knit her a new one, but by then my last-minute Christmas crafting is already in overdrive and it never happens.  But this year, M was smart enough to request a new stocking in October and I really can't put it off any longer.

I chose Lion Brand Heartland for the yarn.  It is 100% acrylic (horrors!) but really soft and I love the depth of the colors.  Acrylic will also last for a billion years and won't stretch out when the stocking gets stuffed.  The colors are King's Canyon and Redwood.

To make it fancier I started with a two-color cast on and then a Vikkel braid, all courtesy of Nancy Bush's Folk Knitting in Estonia which is a brilliant book that I have loved for 15 years now.  Looks like there are used copies available should you wish to have your very own.  The stranded color pattern is also from the book. I plan one more repeat and then another braid and a new pattern for the next panel. I'm going to do an afterthought heel in red - probably a red toe too.  I'm going to duplicate stitch her name on the plain green panel with white so it will really pop.  

The top edge with the braid REALLY wants to curl - I may knit a little stockinette facing to discourage it.

The only other new thing to show is some yarn I dyed.  Can you believe these colors are Kool-Aid?

This will be a the warp for a pooling scarf - there are good explanations and some gorgeous examples in this Ravelry discussion group.  I wound the yarn on my warping wheel so I had the full length of the warp and then dyed it in mason jars on the stove like this.  If I put it on the loom correctly, the colors will line up and I will have a lovely Ikat effect.  I have a whole list of errands to tackle today, but I think a little pre-errand warping may be in order!