Finished Objects: Winter 2012-13 Edition

Given that I was struck down with morning sickness until early January I am amazed that I was able to accomplish as much as I did this winter. First up is actually the last project I completed: My Norway Socks.

 This was such a fun project for me. When I was in Norway last summer visiting friends I met a young woman doing traditional color knitting at the Norwegian Cultural Center. I struck up a conversation with her and she said that color knitting is actually quite easy and that I should give it a try. Encouraged by that advice, my friend Elisabeth took me to a yarn store (quite easy to find in Norway) where I picked up a pattern book and a few skeins of Norwegian yarn to make these socks.

Hey look! I even have a picture! Notice how she knits with one skein of yarn on each side of her to help prevent twisted strands.

It took me months to get up the courage/find the time to start these but in early February I finally did. Despite struggling with the pattern translation, and interpreting Norwegian pattern directions which are much more open-ended than American patterns, I found that it was fairly easy and enjoyable to knit these socks. I am a much better knitter now because of this project and I am happy with how they turned out. I won't be able to wear them until next winter though because my legs have started to swell already and given that they are double thick 100% wool, they will be much too hot.

The pattern is number 20 in SandnesGarn Klassikere but the pattern is not found on Ravelry. The yarn was 100% Norwegian wool, Peer Gynt, in Hvit and Svart. This yarn was so awesome; it still smelled like sheep and occasionally had tiny pieces of grass weaved in.

 This birthday crown was crafted in November with the beginnings of my morning sickness. Apparently morning sickness makes me incapable of focusing the camera. The little girl this was gifted to opened it and promptly threw it in the garbage, much to her parents chagrin. Handmade gifts are not always so well received.

 For Christmas gifts I decided to make herbal healing salve to give to friends and family. This was my first time infusing oil with herbs and making a salve. I am quite happy with how they turned out and the finished product works really, really well!

These socks were made in January for my mom's birthday. I love the rainbow colored yarn and the honeycomb pattern. My mother-in-law, a big fan of my knitted socks, wanted to model these before I sent them to my mom; she also wanted to keep them for herself, but only if my mom didn't want them. These are the November Socks knitted with Jojoland Melody Superwash.

 Another birthday crown was a special request from my daughter's friend who loved Ravenna's felt birthday crown so much she requested one of her own. Weeks before her birthday was to arrive she would remind me to make her the birthday crown. I did a fairytale themed crown and this one did not get thrown out.

Finished Objects: Summer

As usual, this past summer I had lofty goals for completing projects that have been sitting around in my to-do basket for quite a while. Unfortunately a trip to Germany and a lingering illness souvenir kept me mostly out of the creative loop until the end of July. What took me the most amount of time was this sampler which I started in June 2011 intended as a Christmas gift for Ravenna (oppps!).

I worked on it a bit while in Germany and finally finished and framed it as fast as I could. I did not frame it correctly. There is a whole process for framing embroidery that includes stretching and mounting boards and pins so that it doesn't look rumpled. Maybe I will get to that one day but for now, I am just happy it is done, wrinkles and all.

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 Ravenna needed slippers for her Waldorf classroom so I decided to knit and felt some for her. Knitting these was painfully easy as it was mostly stockinette in a large gauge yarn. Felting in a front loader however, took forever. Here is the link to the project and my notes on Ravelry.

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 Another easy project (ravelry link) to try to use up all that kitchen cotton left in my stash. Pretty self-explanatory. I will let you know how well it works.

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Lastly, a work in progress. An Autumn cardigan (ravelry link) for me with yarn (KnitPicks Palette in Cornmeal) gifted from Andrew last Christmas. I am hoping to get this completed by October but with the small gauge, I think that will be a miracle. Either way, it is lovely to be knitting in this fall weather.

Knitting A Sock

Making the Heel Flap While Knitting in the Sunlight

Three weeks before Christmas the conversation went something like this:

Me: I am going to knit [unspecified person] socks for their birthday.

Father-in-law: Great. Sounds like a great gift.

Me: Would you be interested in some knitted socks, too?

FIL: I don't know. I have never had knitted socks before.

One Week Later:

Me: I finally got my sock yarn and needles in the mail so I am going to start on making the socks for [unspecified person] right away.

FIL: Am I getting socks for Christmas?

Me: Ummmm...I wasn't planning on it.

FIL: But you said you were making me socks for Christmas.

Me: Wait! What?! I was planning on making you socks for your birthday!

FIL: Why would I want wool socks in June? 

The second conversation occurred five days ago and until yesterday I had been feverishly knitting a men's size large sock in the hopes of completing them in time. I love my father-in-law and he is notoriously hard to gift to so for once he wants something that I can make and I was determined to do it. Now, you must understand that this was my first sock knitting experience with tiny gauge yarn and needles (it is like knitting with toothpicks) and my father-in-law has big feet. I was making great progress until I dropped a stitch right after turning the heel. I tried to correct it but to no avail. The project began to unravel, very literally, right before my eyes and I had to "frog" it i.e. pull out all the knitting that I had spend 10 tedious hours on.

At that moment I had an epiphany: I was close to tears of frustration for all the time I had already spent only having to start all over despite it all. Four days of a semi-neglected home and family all in the name of a knitted sock. Had I not made the mistake I would have been able to complete the pair before Christmas and been able to happily gift them, but it was seriously stressing me out and taking the joy out of the knitting. I love to knit and I love the challenge of a new project but it was like the "sock that stole Christmas" since my presence was missing from my family.

This year I have had such a strong desire to simplify. Perhaps it is having a foster child and the busyness that brings, or maybe it is a consequence of reading Simplicity Parenting, but I did nearly all my Christmas shopping in November, said "No" to party invitations, and did the very minimum of holiday decorating choosing instead to try to concentrate on spending time with my family. The sock project kind of killed the simplicity bubble.

Right now Ravenna is singing a song that she created whose lyrics primarily consist of "Can I watch the little Merlaid?" She certainly is creative in her requests but I am going to have to say "no", not just because she has watched "The Little Mermaid" a least a dozen times since she got it but because it is time that I got off the computer and spent some time with her. That is what family is all about, right?