Joe and I went out for a drive today to look for interesting places to photograph.  As you can see here both Joe and I found a few interesting things.  He is taking pictures with his super hi-price pro digital camera complete with a large pack of accessories and an enormous tripod.  He is taking pictures of the Saco River and I am taking pictures of him -- but I am using my I-Phone.  I wanted you to see the sweater.  I made this for him this winter and it is, I am embarrassed to say, the first sweater I have ever made him.  Since we have been married almost 25 years I have no respectable excuse to give you.  In my defense I did make him the hat.  Let me tell you about that hat.

He wanted a felted hat that was windproof.  It should also not be the least bit scratchy.  And it had to be black.  I knit that hat out of recycled cashmere and merino (both black) and neither one the least bit scratchy.  Recycled yarn is obtained from unraveling sweaters, so the yarn is fine and crinkly.  Also, in order to felt something to size you have to make it at least 1/3 bigger in all directions than the finished product.  So, between the fine crinkly yarn, the completely black color scheme, the enormous size, the tiny stitches and the complete lack of anything interesting going on in the way of pattern or anything else this hat is the equivalent in interminable knitting of at least one sweater -- quite possibly two.

The good thing is that he loves the hat and has worn it almost constantly for the last 7 years.  So it seemed he had earned a sweater.  I want to point out the nice way that the cable runs across his shoulders and down the arm.  I believe while I was taking pictures I also commented on how splendid the sweater looked from the back, adding that he always had a very nice rear aspect.  That is what elicited the look that you see here.  I believe he is wondering what exactly I might be implying and, perhaps, how best to follow up.

If you look at the entry below you will see that I saw my friend Berta's Pinterest posting for an afghan design that she wanted to try....if she could only find the pattern.  I took a look....it was a slow rainy Sunday afternoon with lots of sitting around watching movies in the plan, so I grabbed some scrap yarn and gave it a shot.  This is what I came up with, and the pattern to make these little squares is available to you in the entry that I made just prior to this one.

I ran out of the variegated yarn after I had completed 6 squares, although there was still plenty of purple left.  So I left it laying around for a bit on the table in the studio, which is my favorite spot to leave things that I want to think about for a while.  It occurred to me while I was watching a Netflix movie and knitting that the size of the knitting sample was almost perfect for the side and fold over section of the I-pad.  So I knit an I-cord border around the whole thing and then used some of my ENORMOUS stash of rug wool to make an I-Pad cover sleeve which I then sewed the knitting sample to as a kind of decorative cover/extra padding.

As you can see here, I also added a little pocket at the base so that you can roll up the whole shebang, tie it off with the green ties and have your I-Pad at the perfect level of Prop for reading or viewing.  Plus I find that when I sit down to read a nice novel with my cup of tea the customary I-Pad covers are a little....technical in feel.  This knitted, wool backed cover gives the whole experience a nice, cozy, nestling in feel that is more conducive to maximum relaxation...at least for me.

My friend Roberta posted a picture to Pinterest under Things I Want to Try.  I looked at the picture and shot her an e-mail offering to write up the pattern so that she could try it.  This is a photo of my version, using the scrap yarn that I had on hand.  I used a worsted weight yarn and a size 5 needle.  This would be a great pattern to use as your Carrying Around Knitting, particularly if you do the Bow Ties in Stash Scrap Colors (or hand dyes, or handspun) and use a unifying color like black, or white, or grey, or brown in the place of the purple.   I recommend that you just carry around the directions for the Bowties and wait until you are sitting down at home to knit up the little quadrilateral Inserts and do the sewing up while you are comfortable.

Bowtie Pattern:  Cast on 20 stitches using a flexible cast on method.  I Knit On myself, but any method that doesn't result in a hard stiff edge is fine.  Knit one row.  At the beginning of the next 12 rows Slip 1, Knit 1, Pass the Slip stitch over, Knit to the end of the row.  You should have 8 stitches on your needle.  Slip the first stitch and knit to the end of the row for the next 16 rows.  Now to do the last increasing bit.  Knit into the front and back of the first stitch and then knit to the end of the row for the next 12 rows or until you have 20 stitches on your needle.  Bind off with a flexible bind off method.  This is a good one.  Knit 2 stitches then insert the tip of your left hand needle back into the 2 on the right hand needle and knit them together.  Knit another stitch.  Repeat.

Quadrilateral Insert Pattern:  Once you get a few of the Bowties done load up a movie or your favorite music and start to knit the Inserts and assemble your squares.  Cast on 20 stitches and knit one row.  Knit 2 together at the beginning of the next 12 rows.  You should have 8 live stitches left on your needle.  Break off the yarn leaving about a 20 inch tail which you thread onto a darning needle.  Sew the live stitches down, one at a time, to the straight edge at the narrow part of the Bowtie.  Use a mattress stitch to join the angles of the Bowtie and the Insert together.  Use the bit of yarn left from when you cast on to sew up the other angle.  Repeat for the other side, and then over and over as many times as you have little Bowties.  Sew the squares together using a mattress stitch as well.  The mattress stitch keeps things flexible....you don't want hard edges....everything should be kind of stretchy.

Here I am sitting at Bintliff's which is, according to my son Blake and me, the very best breakfast place in Portland.  My arms are adorned with Stulpin, which are European knitting garb intended for either your forearms or your legs.  We had two guests from Germany staying over in our Airbnb room and I was knitting knee socks as we chatted over the breakfast scones in the studio.  One of the ladies wondered if I could make the socks without feet.  It took us a while to figure each other out, what with her not so good English and my much, much worse German, but we managed.  The results are these Stulpin, which are now with her in Munich keeping her forearms, or her legs, warm through the cold European winter.

This is a closer view of them showing the little mock cables that I put on my particular version.  I will post a pattern on Ravelry and on my Etsy site if you want to make them exactly like mine but if you are a sock knitter almost any rib like pattern that you would use on socks will work nicely.  Color work might not be stretchy enough for arms and legs, particularly if you have working class calves like mine.

This is a picture of my beautiful... um...relative.  Nico is the second son of my nephew....what do you call that kind of relative?  In any case he is beautiful and he is winsomely modeling the sweater I made for him before he was born.  This is a version of the Hooded Sweater for Everybody made with hand dyed sock yarn so it is warm and entirely washable.  Based on his parents I assumed a dark haired, dark eyed baby and as you can see I assumed correctly, which doesn't always happen for me.  There was, of course, no way of anticipating the awesome adorableness of Nico himself.  He is a darling baby boy and is, in this picture, approximately 6 months old.  If you would like to make a version of this jacket for your own charming relatives it is listed on the pattern page here and on Ravelry here.  If you do decide to work one up please send me photographs.  You really just can't have too many of these cute baby pictures.

I made this sweater for Blythe about six years ago.  Last Friday, when she showed up for her weekly knitting/spinning/making of scones class (Just another day with Great Auntie Martha) she was wearing it.  When I made it for her the sleeves went all the way past her wrists and had to be rolled up, which is why I put a color work design on both the inside and outside of the cuff.  Also the length was generous and hung all the way to the top of her legs.  I designed this pattern to work for 2-3 years, what with the rolling sleeves and the lovely tendency of children to get longer and longer without getting wider and wider.

But Blythe is not one to let a favorite sweater go.  The sleeves are now about halfway between elbow and wrist and, as you can see here, the length is now high hip.  I believe, with determination and a resolute intention to ignore reality, Blythe can keep this sweater going for another 2 years which will make it an 8 year sweater!  At that point the sleeves will be elbow length and the sweater waist length and Blythe herself will be about 10 years old.  If you are interested in knitting up this sweater for a loved child the pattern is available and actually a fairly easy knit.  There's lots of garter stitch and just enough color work to stimulate your mind.  Go to Patterns and look for the Hooded Jacket for Everybody.

These are the new version of a pair of War Bride Booties that belong to a friend of mine in my knitting class at OLLI.  She wore them on her own baby feet when she came to America on the ship with her mother who was a war bride from England.  They have tiny name tags sewn into the backs to identify them and to avoid confusion.  Evidently there were other babies on the boat and the washing was communal.  I have reversed engineered a pattern for them, at their owner's request.  I will be posting that pattern on my pattern page.

These are the originals.  Both pair are made up with natural white merino wool but, as you can see, the 70 odd years have yellowed the original wool to an old ivory color.  I am giving my friend a copy of the pattern in case she wants to make up some duplicates of her own to give to her wee loved ones.  These are too fragile and precious to use now.  But isn't it a miracle that she still has them.  I love to think of them being knit up in England, with the name tags sewn in with tiny hand stitches.  And I love to think of them on her kicking pink baby feet.  And I also love that she has kept them tenderly wrapped and kept all these years like the precious articles that they are.

I just finished binding off this shawl this morning and, after running it through the hand wash cycle on my front loader, I have stretched and pinned it out to dry on my blocking board.  I have had people tell me, "I never block anything" and my response is a sort of internal WOW.  Blocking raises the halo effect of wool or any animal fiber, stretches and displays the stitches, evens out the edges and any tension anomalies and can, with lace knitting especially, literally double the size of your knitting.  

This shawl was made with 3 skeins of assorted artisan yarns that were not quite matching in fiber content, color, yardage or weight.  The stitch pattern favors garter stitch heavily and I wanted to practice the Portuguese style of knitting so I cast on 10 stitches and began, increasing in the center and at the edges and changing the yarn every 6 rows or so utilizing the Russian Spit Join so I wouldn't have to work in ends.  I used the third skein to make the lacy ruffled edging and I used up every last inch of all the yarns except the edging yarn where I had about 4 yards left.  I counted on my trusty blocking board to even out all differences and as you can see in the close up here the magic worked as I had known it would.  The wires and pins can be picked up on line at KnitPicks for around $20 and the blocking board we made ourselves.  We used an 8 foot piece of 3 inch thick pink insulation board from Home Depot cut in half and joined together using the tongue and groove at the edge.  Duct tape was involved.  Then I wrapped the top surface in quilt batting, wrapped it again with some heavy weight linen (use a dark color -- mine is light colored and shows water marks) and sewed it on, folding at the corners like you would with a Christmas package.  I can stab the pins straight into it without worry and then take it off the table and lean it against the wall until the knitting has dried.  In between blocking parties I use it to pin idea swatches onto, iron big flat pieces of linen on, or block the sunlight when it is blaring into the studio.  It is extremely light weight and rigid which makes it very easy to move around.