ganomy hat.

a few months back i made a ganomy hat.  i love it!  its is so cute and the wool is so nice and soft.  i am sure you all know, but the pattern can be found in The Knitter's Almanac.  just thought i would share.

more info can be found here.

mystery blanket

I'd like to interrupt the postings of baby sweaters to show you a Mystery Blanket. This is a (somewhat modified) version of the April project from Knitter's Almanac.



I've been fascinated with this pattern for a long time, and I finally had a chance to make it when I needed to make a baby blanket for my new cousin. For a long time now I've been thinking about the best way to join squares to make a blanket. When I read about this blanket, I knew I needed to try weaving the squares together. There are still some other ideas I have that I will hopefully try out on future projects, but this time I was looking for something that would work the first time. And it did work. I knit the squares out as the directions suggest, but I used different increases (I didn't want holes for the baby's fingers to get caught in), and added stripes to the squares. I also knit the blanket with worsted weight superwash wool instead of the bulky wool used in the pattern and made it smaller. And I used a regular cast-off because I wasn't trying to fool any knitters- this went to a non-knitting family. But otherwise, I followed the pattern.



I'm not thrilled with the way the colors came together- it's a little too much blue for me, even though it is a baby boy. But overall I'm pleased with it and I would certainly knit it again. The joins look neat and professional on both sides, which is more than I can say for any other blankets I have knit from multiple squares. And I think the garter stitch border works really well. And to top it all off, it was a quick knit!

February Baby Sweater

Another February Baby Sweater sees the light of day. I will have to give this pattern a rest now for a wee while as I have so many other projects on the go, but it definitely won't be the last one I knit. There are so many possibilities with this pattern and the next time I knit it, I'm going to make one for a slightly larger child, just to prove that I've understood the concept of the increases!

One day I may even make one for myself, in which case I could imagine it may be a good idea to taper the sleeves slightly, or they would be way to wide.

My next EZ project is to knit an aran. In fact, I am planning to knit two! I have bought some cheap yarn for my first attempt to get the sizing right and something slightly better for the second go. I can't wait to get started, as I love cables! I have decided to knit along with the Ravelry group that are knitting their way through the "Knitter's Almanac", but I started with the February Project, as I had a new niece in January and just coulnd't wait until February to knit for her.

More pictures and details of materials used etc. can be found on my blog and on Ravelry, where I'm known as teeweewonders.

February Baby Sweater and beenie

My second, but definitely not last, February Baby Sweater is complete at long last. I love the outcome and will be knitting these en masse for years to come.

I always try to accompany my baby jackets with a wee hat, and on this occasion i made a beenie using the same pattern as on the February Baby Sweater. I have tried to describe how I handled the decreases on my blog. I hope the instructions make sense, otherwise you are most welcome to ask for further details, and I'll be happy to try to explain.

Thank you all for sharing your February Baby Sweaters in this forum, it's helped me a lot.
Details of yarn, pattern etc. is on my Ravelry profile: teeweewonders. If you're not a Ravelry member, drop me a line, and I'll send you a copy.

Maltese Christmas Hat

EZ's hats are the best thing in the world for limited Christmas knitting. The Maltese fisherman's hat from the Knitter's Almanac (June) is a fantastic pattern and I have to say that the whole thing knit up quickly, clearly, and the shaping is simply brilliant.





I knit the hat in Knitpicks Telemark in Charcoal, Heather, and Drift, held doubled on US6 needles. The hat came out a bit small, and if I were to do it again, I would use 7s or 8s. Fortunately, my brother (for whom I knit this) has a small head and wool stretches and I was able to block the hat into a larger size that should fit him pretty snuggly.

I just love EZ!

Another Modified Mystery Blanket

This is the final version of my project from my earlier post. I made this 3'x3' baby blanket based on the EZ mystery blanket square pattern from The Knitter's Almanac and expanded the square until I ran out of long circular needles in roughly the same needle size (remember EZ says we can add 1-2 needles in 1 smaller or larger size without changing gauge when we're knitting circularly!!).

The square was a really easy pattern, especially because it was just knit stitch the whole way around. I knit it up in about a week, so it went really quickly, too. I threw on a few rows of garter stitch for the border.

I did run into a bit of a problem because I bound off too snuggly to make the blanket lay flat; so I ripped out a couple of rows and consulted Knitting Without Tears. I ended up using EZ's sewn cast off and loved how easy it was to control the tension of the cast off edge. It is now my cast off method of choice, I must say!

This will turn out to be a very serviceable baby blanket for my niece who will be born in February. More pictures and info are available on my blog.

The February Gansey, or why I love EZ.

I wanted to make a more masculine non-fussy version of the February Baby Sweater for my nephew. I didn’t want to make a cardigan, but I didn’t want to rewrite the pattern to fit over a large baby head. Guess what? Those features are already there.

Unvention- Knit the yoke in garter, then lap the button band stitches and knit it in the round. Instant placket pullover!!! No number tweaking required! The pattern works exactly the same.

Project Specs:

Pattern: February Baby Sweater from Knitter’s Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann

Yarn: I don’t know. I’ll guess acrylic, but it feels quite nice. My SIL gave it me several years ago, it was her mother’s before she lost her eyesight and was unable to continue crocheting. Recycle!

Needles and gauge: US sz. 7 / 4.50 mm a little less than 5 sts per in.

Modifications: Very few. I realize this looks drastically different than every other FBS around, but truly, I altered none of the original pattern numbers. What I did do was to lap the 4 buttonband stitches after the yoke and knit the rest of the sweater in the round.

Features: I think these are different than modifications. After the body/sleeve division I knit the body down first. I got a little bored and added in the patterning from Gaffer’s Gansey (Another EZ pattern- from Knitting Workshop). When it was long enough I split front and back to make that nice split hem in garter stitch. The back is longer than the front, since I forgot to put in short-rows. For the sleeves I picked up sts from the body-side-underarm-cast-on (utterly seamless garment I might add) and knit down to a garter stitch cuff on 2/3 the sleeve sts.

Parting Thoughts- This whole project was quite a gamble. I’ve never tried a yoke sweater before…. Or this pattern…. Or a non-raglan top down sweater…. and…. the yoke went a bit hoopity lumpity because I did too many ridges and it won’t fit my intended recipient….

…but it will fit my son. I am a happy knitter.

Fishtraps

Fishtraps for twins! These are for 4 year old twins my sons are friends with. Their birthday party is tomorrow so I finished just in time.

They are both knit in worsted acrylic (busy mother of twins asked for something easy for the laundry-harried) on sz. 6 needles. My gauge was 5 sts/in over stockinette. I was going for matching, not identical.

The Blue sweater has a contrast bottom hem on 90% of the body stitches. Between the pattern panels and the sleeves is plain stockinette. The sleeves each have one ribbed cable. The yoke follows normal raglan shaping.

The Maroon one has the Fisthrap pattern only on the front. There are ribbed cables down the sleeves and center back. The rest of the sweater is knit in K2 P2 ribbing. The yoke combines raglan and saddle shoulder shaping.

Adult Shorties

These are based on EZ's pattern for adult longies, with some anatomical considerations / modifications... I made them short because that was all the yarn I had left from the princess dress and because I just needed something small for ballet. Everything was calculated with 10% negative ease.

Short-row shaping just after the leg join, instead of at the waist. This turned out fantastic. I only needed 5 sets of short-rows to accomodate the buttocks-bulge and none above the waist. The waist did not end up tilted at all.

Spread-out decreases from hip to waist. The decrease line moves out one stitch every decrease. Also fantastic as spreading the decreases precluded the fabric pulling down.

Also a short-row gusset at the leg join for more flexibility. Looks funny here, but it works well. These will have their first test run in class Monday and I hope to get some pics of these in action.

Baby Sweater set in Baby Boy blue

I have knit several of these baby sweater sets over the years but this one was for my own son. I loved the gull pattern and found it very easy to knit. I did have some stretching with the buttonholes - but then, I don't think I've ever knit a good buttonhole. The Knitter's Almanac is still one of my favorite books - they are really easy patterns to knit.



I knit the leggings without feet because I've never felt they stay on well. My son is fairly thin so the leggings fit nicely with just a ribbon in the waist ribbing.

I knit it in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Baby Blue. This is my only boy so I wanted it to be really soft! I really liked the Peter Rabbit buttons as well.

Baby Sweater set in Baby Boy blue

I have knit several of these baby sweater sets over the years but this one was for my own son. I loved the gull pattern and found it very easy to knit. I did have some stretching with the buttonholes - but then, I don't think I've ever knit a good buttonhole. The Knitter's Almanac is still one of my favorite books - they are really easy patterns to knit.



I knit the leggings without feet because I've never felt they stay on well. My son is fairly thin so the leggings fit nicely with just a ribbon in the waist ribbing.

I knit it in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Baby Blue. This is my only boy so I wanted it to be really soft! I really liked the Peter Rabbit buttons as well.

First Twin Fishtrap

Last night I finished up the first twin’s birthday Fishtrap. I’m satisfied with how it turned out, but I can’t say I love it. I’m unhappy with the fuzziness of the yarn and how it blurred stitch definition. Harumph.

However, it is still a perfectly serviceable sweater. And I’m sure the recipient will never notice all the things I don’t like about it. And if he gets some good wear out of it, the time spent will not be in vain.

The idea came from the January Fishtrap sweater. This was sized down with EPS to fit a 4 year old and knit seamlessly. The shoulders are done with a combination of raglan and saddle shouder shaping. The back of the yoke follows normal raglan shaping. The front does too until the raglan lines met the Fishtrap pattern. I decided not to deal with the mental wrestling of chart-eating stitchs. When the raglan lines intersected the chart I started sleeve-eating decreases every round, as in a saddle shoulder sweater.

I think it worked out ok, but should have switched back to raglan shaping before the saddle shoulder shaping ate too much of the sleeve. As it is the Fishtrap design goes nearly to the center of the shoulder and you can see that the neck doesn’t lay too flat. Not ideal, but it should be fine when on the kid.

Now I’m going to relax and knit socks before I tackle the second [wiser, more experienced] Fishtrap.

Fishtraps and the Right Twist

Both sets of sleeves are done and I just started the body section of my first Fishtrap (I'm making them for 4 YO twins)... Wow. My utmost respect goes to anyone who does this pattern for an adult. Rather an involved project.
I really like how the Fishtrap pattern is progressing, but... My left and right twists are not symmetrical at all. Has anyone else had this problem?? I'm doing them as EZ instructs in KA but she says that her right twists not an orthodox method. Would the orthodox method be closer to symmetrical?? Or perhaps I just don't knit evenly. I'm not going to rip this one out and start over, but if anyone has any suggestions I can make the next one differently. Thanks!

Fishtraps for Twins

My sons are good friends with some twin boys who are having their 4th birthday party June 2nd. And I want to make them sweaters (it's Oregon- you need sweaters in June.) And I'm set on Fishtrap. As EZ might say "it smacks of madness" to start two big projects this late in the game, but I want to do it anyway.

Lucky for me a size 4 sweater cannot accomodate all the pattern repeats so I'm planning a simplified seamless version.

I have a question though for anyone whose ever made one of these. Because I'm going to have so much stocking stitch exposed on the sides I will need to do something about the bottom edge. Should I do some kind of welt on just the stocking stitch portions? Or should it include Fishtrap also?



I just don't know what will or will not disrupt the patterns. But that's still a ways away-- my needle is still making the princess dress for my niece.

I had some trouble figuring out the correct rate of increase for the skirt. I know EZ mentions skirts in KWOT but I don't have that yet... but she talks about increases and angles for baby leggings in Knitter's Almanac- and that saved the day. So now we're motoring along nicely.

But until it's done and off the needle, I'll be making lots and lots of sleeves!

a wee sweater

I've seen many beautiful February Baby Sweaters here and knew I had to make one for my Maggie. A perfect sweater for spring and a joy to knit!

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.
Guage: same as the pattern - 5 sts/inch over lace pattern.
Finished chest width, with buttons closed: 12.5", to fit Maggie, who just turned one.

I made some, ahem, unintentional modifications and they're detailed over at my blog.

-Mandy