Hotham Hat 2012

I had this single skein of Madelinetosh DK in Mourning Dove. It's gorgeous, and squishy.
I bought it alongside the yarn for my Vivian cardigan to check out the colour, and I freaking love it.
So it needed to be something. Something awesome.
Like, say, a super ssquishy, medium warm hat?
Enter the Koolhaas, which not only has a neat name, but a cute look about it. It looks clever. It looks the good kind of handknit.
Its chart is tiny.
Perfect.
I knit this hat during a bus trip and several car trips up and down my home mountain, Mt Hotham, this snow season. And I finished it just in time to get no wear out of it at the snow. Such is life.
It's still a fabulous hat. And it fits perfectly.

Snow little knitting time

I've just come back from a week at the snow, which was awesome!
Unfortunately for my many, many WIPs and this little event called the Ravellenic Games, not a lot of actual knitting went on while we were making our way through blizzards and fresh powder snow.
Aaaah, the hardships.

But I did get some knitting in on the bus. in fact, I made two washcloths that I love very much. They're knit out of vintage stash, and so far, they're holding up great.

I didn't knit further on either the mitts or the mystery KAL shawl, because my brain wasn't up for it.
I did make quite a bit of progress on the Skew socks though.

Now that I'm back, it's time to seriously get into the dye pots for Sock The Vote. Are you ready to knit along, too?

Climate Ninja

 I've made a ninja mask before. It stood me in excellent stead while in Japan. So I wanted another one.
I had a skein of Lorna's Laces Solemate, which is made from wool and magical climate-controlling Everlast in a cheery pink/purple that would go great with my snowboard.
Yes, these things are important. Shouldn't they be?

This one knit up much more quickly, although I conveniently forgot that I had issues with the last one.
i had the same issues again. Doesn't matter.
The finished result is great and worked well on the slopes.
Something I forgot though: The original mask got a lot of its warmth from the fact that the wool felted across my face.
Solemate doesn't felt as easily, making it a bit breezier.
Which means I now have a less-cold-weather mask. Excellent.

Snow Forest Mittens at last!

Remember how back in February, I had grandiose plans of knitting myself mittens for and in Japan? And then I only knit one, finishing the thumb just in time to rush out the door to the taxi?

Well, thanks to Nerd Wars, I finally finished the second mitten.
It went much more easily the second time around. I knew what to expect of the Latvian braid (a lot of very tangly, grabby yarn), and how to read the charts.
Easily doesn't mean quickly though. But the finished result is gorgeous.

The yarns are alpaca for the light and possum blend for the dark, two happy, fuzzy yarns that are just glorious after a quick spin in the dryer. So fuzzy and warmerific.
Of course, it's not cold enough here for mittens... Guess I'll have to go travelling again!
Where would you take mittens, if you had them?

Carving Socks

These were supposed to be knee-highs.
These were supposed to be my boardgame night knitting.
These were supposed to be easy.
What they are, is done.
By the time I'd ripped them out once and looked at them for several months, I was thoroughly sick of the colours. I loved the colours at the start. Then, not so much.
I'm still not sure if I like these socks or not.
But they're done.

Photography Friday - In Deep Snow

You wish you were here. Wearing a fabulous hand-knitted mask and enjoying knee-deep powder snow on a bluebird day.

Admit it. You do.

Knitting in Action

 Remember the Ninja Mask I knit for snowboarding?
It's finally seeing some action.
It's working exactly as I hoped it would. It's warm, but lets me breathe, and my goggles don't fog up while wearing it.
It freezes at the mouth, but that's not a big deal at all.
I'm so glad I have it out here in the deep powder!
What can I say? Life is grand.
I might need to knit myself another one of these. Too awesome.

It's a Ninja! Mask.

shapely nose

upside-down chin

 When the going gets tough, you need to protect your face.
Whether it's to hide your identity, block out the wind of an icy snowboarding mountain or protect your gentle features from the guts and gore of decimated zombies, a ninja mask is the answer.

As soon as I saw this pattern on Ravelry, I knew I had to knit it. It had everything, a cool name, a practical purpose and just enough shaping to keep me interested.

Ninja!

It wasn't the smoothest start as the pattern is rather... verbose. You wouldn't think something knit in the round would require this many instructions, but it does.
it took some mathing, some trial and error and some outright discarding of instructions, but the finished result speaks for itself.
It's fabulous!
I couldn't love it more, and I can't wait to see how warm and cozy this mask will be when used for its intended purpose, as a snowboarding scarf/face mask that will stay in place and stay warm from first lift to last.
Expect snow photos of the mask in action next month.

blending into the environment

Knotty gloves of Alpaca Gentility

 Nerd Wars has certainly stretched me as a knitter, challenged me in unexpected ways and kept me knitting happily along.

I've been thinking for a while now that I'd like to make myself some nice gloves, warm soft ones that are different than any gloves I could buy at the store.
Gloves for our fickle, short winter. no, gloves for an overseas winter! A real one!
I bought some Yarn Pirate alpaca/wool yarn on sale at the Loopy Ewe a while ago, not quite sure what I was going to do with it. I just wanted to experience a new fiber.
Alpaca is supposedly warmer than wool, so perfect for snowy weather gloves!
I also felt like learning more about cabling, so the Knotty gloves by Julia Mueller seemed like the perfect match here.
Good idea.

I modified the pattern a bit to fit me, but the result speaks for itself.

I made the ribbing before the braid a bit longer.
Started the pal 2 rounds earlier than indicated in the pattern.
Cut the thumb gusset short by 2 rounds.
Started with the little finger, knitted one round before starting each subsequent finger.
Knitted body of glove on one long circular, 2 at a time. Knit the fingers with bamboo DPNs.

I can't wait to try them out in real weather.
It's getting hot here. Definitely not glove weather. At all.

Super Fun Stripey Socks, or: I made those up!

Thank goodness the move is finally over.
It's been a stressful couple of months of househunting and general home uncertainty, but once we found our new place, things moved relatively quickly.

We did most of the move ourselves, opting to hire a moving van only one day for all our big furniture items.

We're a short bus ride away from our old place, so I took the week off and started moving suitcases of stuff over.
And we all know that public transport time means knitting time, right?
My mom has sent me this awesome yarn of random stripes (Regia Design Line Kaffe Fasset) that couldn't be more my colors if I had chosen them myself!

I didn't want to waste a yard of this yarn, so I decided to make them into knee-high, ribbed socks for snowboarding.

I started with 24 stitches and increased to 60, then went for a 3x3 rib all the way. nice and easy, nice and flowey.
I loved watching the stripes appear.

There's a funny thing about bus rides. While on trams and trains, no one ever talks to me, on buses, there are more old ladies with a lot of time.

I've had two approach me during my moving day to chat about my socks.
One of them asked in broken English whether I was making them "for bebe". I held up the two completed my-size feet.
"No, for me," I told her.
She picked up the socks doubtfully.
"For bebe," she declared. "Too small for you."
Well, whaddaya know? She must know some big-footed babies.

Mr. Mechanicalpenguin took two days off for the move, too. We borrowed his parents' car and shuttled our various boxes and bags to and fro all day Thursday and Friday.
And the sock legs grew and grew.

Finally, everything was moved on Sunday, and the socks went all the way up to my knees.
I finished them off in 1x1 rib at the top for an inch, then bound off.
now it's time to put up my feet and enjoy our new home.
Life is good in stripey socks.