Smurf-ish
Recently I had a request to knit a tiny Papa Smurf, after one of my older sister's friends saw my tiny gnome army. Since I knew I had both blue and red remnants at home, I agreed and set about the task. Using the teeny tiny mochimochiland santa pattern, I improvised the color placement (making the pants slightly higher, and making the skin and shirt both a smurf-like blue). In addition, Smurfs had both large noses and wee nubbin tails so I used a tiny tiny bit of 2 stitch i-cord for both of these elements.
The most troubling part to me was the eyes. This blue is just dark enough that simple black eyes don't really stand out. I tried using white yarn to make big round eyes onto which I drew a sharpie pupil; this was a horrifying no go. (In fact, it looked something quite like this pop-eyed guy--click at your own risk, I find this super creepy!) Ultimately, it's suggestive of a smurf, without being super accurate. And at a scale of less than two inches tall, I'd say that's close enough.
See this project on Ravelry or blogged here, on the mochimochiland blog.
Some Pig
One of my Christmas gifts was a copy of Knitting Mochimochi
The pig itself is knit with about 1/3 of a skein of cascade 220 in tutu pink, and the crazy Marie Antoinette Beehive wig is green apple malabrigo worsted. All together, the knitting only took me a few days; the instructions are very clear and and there isn't a ton of crazy fiddly assembly. For this worsted weight yarn pig I used 12 mm safety eyes from 6060.etsy.com.
The photos were taken at the Science Factory because its awesome stripey colored walls seemed the perfect backdrop to a silly knitted pig.
A little handy tip for a perfect curly tail and happy wig embellishments is that you can curl the pieces around a pencil or double pointed needle and then hit it with a good spray of hairspray. It's a little trick I picked up from another toy pattern and it works really well to help the curls keep their shape.
After finishing this pig , I decided that clearly the next logical step was to make another, smaller pig. I'm doing this with fingering weight yarn, and the tail is so cute and tiny.
One Tiny Gnome Army
Anyone who knows me knows that I have occasional compulsive tendencies. I go off on wild tears and do things like bake ten kinds of cookies for four people for Christmas Eve, collect all available cds from a band I decide I like or get wrapped up in a book so much that I stay awake reading for hours after I've realized I'm exhausted. This time my focus was on a project full of joy and happiness; one tiny gnome army.
I initially discovered the pattern (mochimochiland's tiny things collection 3) and filed it away for a day when I needed a really fast and instant gratification project. Meaning I'd knit one and be done with it. Except next thing I knew I'd knit 14. All of the yarns were remnants or bits of yarn I just had in my stash. I mass produced the beards and arms and then did all of the finishing at once. Each gnome took me just under an hour from beginning to end, and these guys pack a huge joyful punch.
They're little, under two inches from their little feet to the tops of their pointed hats. Totally pocket sized and full of awesome.
More photos of the tiny gnome army here. Project on Ravelry here.
Knit to Fit; Adjusting for a High Instep
I'm super excited to share a new pattern by my friend Kiersten, Rhetoric.
I test knit the pattern and while I think we got most of the kinks worked out before its release, there were some moments of great consternation along the way. Because of the nature of the cables and the way that they travel, this sock is written in one size only and the best way to resize it is to change your gauge. I have weird feet, I admit it. They're wide, short, and I have a high instep and high arch. It makes fitting shoes kind of a nightmare, and made sizing these socks to fit me a little tricky.
When I first agreed to test knit, Kiersten and I spent a little time discussing how I should knit them, whether I should work the pattern to her exact specifications, or whether I should use them, but adapt them to fit me. In the end, she asked me to do the latter. The original gauge for these socks 7 stitches/12 rows in 4". At 72 stitches around, this would have given my 9.5" foot a little too much positive ease for a sock, so my first change was to select a yarn that gave me 8 stitches/12 rows in 4". This gave me a half inch of negative ease, which is how I like my socks to fit. However, it caused a few problems a little further on, with my instep, and the diagonal from my instep to the back of my heel. As written, it was so snug that I had to yank and yank in order to get it on, straining the stitches.
The solution for giving me more give along that diagonal was to make a gusset that was longer and taller than written. I thought that I had figured out a mathematical equation for figuring out how to determine how many extra stitches you'll need to fit, but as I write this, I can't for the life of me figure it out again. Instead, I'm just going to suggest that if you have a high instep, that you add 4 stitches to the gusset (increasing to 15 stitches). At 8spi, this will give you another half inch around, but it will also give you a longer heel flap, as you'll have those two extra stitches to decrease again. What I can tell you is how much sooner to start the heel flap based on increased vertical height. Because I added 2 gusset stitches, this meant I was adding 4 rows. The pattern has you start the gusset 3" less than your desired total foot length. Since my gusset would be 1/3" longer than the gusset as written, I needed to start mine 3 1/3" less than my total foot length desired. If you were adding 6 rows (3 gusset stitches), you'd start when the foot was a half inch shorter. Clear as mud?
I also found that the leg was even less stretchy than the foot (which makes sense, since that's where the stitches start to travel, and all stitches are used in the cables, instead of just the top half). To compensate for that, I went up one needle size after completing the heel, resulting in a slightly looser gauge to give me a little more room.
All in all, these are beautiful socks. I knit them in Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock and they're warm, soft, cushy and the nylon content means they should wear quite well. I highly recommend them.
Surprise, Surprise, Baby Surprise
In a crowd of knitters, if you mention Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket, you're likely to be met with one of two reactions. Either they'll have knit it, probably more than once, or they're intimidated by the scant instructions and "trust the pattern" nature of the knitting. I hadn't knit one, although I purchased the pattern several years ago. There's a lot of great patterns for wee ones out there, and I keep getting distracted by other patterns when I needed gifts for new little people.
It seems I am again at a point where many of my friends are expecting children, or have just given birth to a child. While scouting patterns for a baby due earlier this month (he arrived on the 15th, healthy and with a great appetite for living) I decided to take a stripey yarn (schoppelwoll's crazy zauberball in fresh fische) that looked kind of clunky in the ball and turn it into a crazy rainbow bsj. Because of the way it utilizes miters, it's a perfect pattern for yarns with long, gradual color changes. It's true that for most of the knitting, it looks like you're knitting a big, blobby amoeba. But if you trust Elizabeth's guidelines, you take that amoeba and fold it quickly into a wee sweater. Two seams and a few buttons and you're done.
The nature of the knitting forms those perfect square cornered stripes and then also some lovely horizontal stripes across the back:
I finished the sweater with 5 buttons from The Button Emporium in Portland. That place is a wonderland of buttons and ribbons. Almost any kind of button you might imagine wanting (although we did manage to leave without finding the right buttons for a sweater Jodie was finishing though). The rounded square shape and slight divot in the button provided just enough interest in a fairly busy sweater.
The sweater was a hit with the new little one's mama, and a joy for me to knit. I suspect it will not be the last one I knit.