The Start of Summer

Finally! The start of the Summer of Socks has begun. While I was waiting, I finished up my Ravenclaw socks, which need many ends woven in (pictures coming soon).
I finished the ribbing on my second Dulaan hat from the Dulaan-a-thon and dropped it off at the Knitting Room. This hat is big and almost beret-like on me, but fits Salvbard pretty well.
I did one of the Lesson 5 squares (Nooks n' Crannies with an H hook), in which I learned all about crocheted ribbing and felt guilty about using knitted ribbing on the above hat. Can anyone tell me how a crocheted ribbing compares to a knitted one in relation to relative stretchiness and "grip"?
Desperate for some easy playground knitting, I started the Fairly Easy Fair Isle Sweater from Stitch n' Bitch Nation. I have had the bulky yarn in my stash for almost a year now, and somehow it bothers me that so few yards take up so much valuable volume in my stash bins. Plus the yarn was even in a Project Spectrum color! Still this just wasn't the same as having a nicely portable pair of socks.

So this morning I cast on a pair of toe-up socks with the oh-so-soft Supermerino that Jill had given me as part of the Lime n' Violet Swap. The tentative plan right now is that these will become a pair of Christmas socks for my mother. More details on pattern to come soon. For now I will leave it at the fact that dk weight socks work up incredibly fast.

Dulaan-a-thon

Last night/this morning was the Dulaan-a-thon event at the Knitting Room. Similar to Ryan's Dulaan-a-thon, this ran for 12 hours, in this case from 5 pm to 5 am. We only stayed until 2 since Salvbard wanted to get home to bed (and no I didn't make him stay the whole time beforehand).
The turn out was good, and these ladies were so much fun to be with. I didn't know anyone else previously other than Laura (not shown), whom I had taken a class with once. Some people even teamed up to make coordinating hat and scarf sets.
Many adorable hats were knit.
Almost everyone was knitting, but I broke out a K hook since it was so much faster. I got two adult hats done.
Here I am wearing my "blue cheese hat". This poor yarn was evidently not created with crochet in mind. It had a distinct blue warts/lumps thing going on due to how the crochet truncated the thicker blue lengths. Yet somehow it gives me great joy.

Both the blue cheese hat and a "rasta" hat (which I will show you tomorrow once I get the photo off Salvbard's camera) were done with single crochet in a simple free-form top-down form, though I later added a ribbed edge to the rasta hat.

If you would like to donate items, Jackie has kindly agreed to collect items until closing at 4pm on friday (June 22). Just drop off your Dulaan items to the Knitting Room before then, and you won't have to worry about shipping them out yourself by this year's deadline.

FO: SC Dulaan Hat

I was digging through my stash last night and I found some Lamb's Pride I bought last summer with the idea that I would felt with it. I have done some knitting with it, but I have found that I am not a huge fan of this yarn. So when I found 2/3 of a skein left from making a Dulaan hat, I thought I would use this up practicing my crochet.

So last night I whipped out my H hook and single crocheted another Dulaan hat. Crochet is absolutely crazy in how fast it goes. Even Salvbard who is usually pretty uninvolved with such things noted how quickly it went.
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in Roasted Coffee (discontinued color)
Fiber Content: 85% wool, 15% mohair
Supplier: Lakeside Fiber
Hook: 5.00 mm
Pattern: none - simple free form single crocheted hat

This hat puts me up to my fifth Dulaan item. Woohoo! Now I just need to pack these up and ship them off to F.I.R.E.

Joiner

Ha! I am such a joiner. There have been a bunch of knit-alongs recently that have perked my attention. I have already started a couple of them, but I figured that I would take a moment to briefly talk about them.

Project Spectrum 2.0
The new color system intrigues me, and as you may have noticed I like creative prompts available even if I don't follow them. I also really like the idea of doing art or crochet or dyeing in addition to the knitting.

Lime & Violet's Sock Marathon
There are somethings that one just shouldn't know. The total length of my sock yarn stash is one of them. Not including non-sock weight yarn (though I may make some more worsted socks) I have 16.4 miles or 26.3 km of sock yarn. Yipes! I would like to knit at least 2 miles of this before April is here.

Knit from Your Stash 2007
I am not a New Years Resolution type, but I do like to challenge myself. Last year I went yarn shopping free from Febuary to August (6 months) so I know that I can do this. Plus I am looking to graduate and possible move in the next year or so, thus less stuff to move is good. As seen above with the Sock Marathon, I have a lot of sock yarn since socks are one of my favorite things to knit. I also have yarn for a few sweaters that I have been thinking about, so there is no need to buy anthing there.

My one major difference from the stated rules is that sock yarn will count. Also I have at least 2 babies being born this year among my friends and family. I will endeavor to knit from stash from them, but will consider purchasing for them if need be.

Dulaan Project 2007
I know I have mentioned this project in the past, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. This is a great one for using up odd ball yarn I have around the house. I have already done 5 projects for the 10,000 or Bust drive, but I will probably do a few more items this year.

FO: Child's Seaman Hat

Yarn: recycled sweater, hand dyed by me
Fiber Content: 100% wool
Needles: US Size 6 DPNs
Pattern: based in concept on Needle Beetle's Seaman's Cap

I am happy to announce that I have another Dulaan hat done. (It is here modeled by my ever so obliging kid.) This used up a most of a single lone skein (>100 g) of yarn that I had recycled from a sweater and then dyed with Wilton's icing dyes (kelly green and cornflower blue) and citric acid. When I did the initial dyeing I was really surprised to find the pink/purple which separated out from the cornflower blue. That is part of the reason I enjoy the process so much though, these little surprises.

FO: Child's Hat

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Soho in 37504 (ha dyelot 6969, I am so 13 sometimes)
Fiber Content: 100% wool
Supplier: Carodan Farm
Needles: Clover bamboo US 8 DPNs
Pattern: basic hat pattern with a cast on of 80 sts

I have been so busy finishing up other projects that I haven't had a chance to really work on Lonesome Skein projects. This project took just under a full skein, which leaves just enough to crochet a flower for another project.

So in an attempt to create a stock of potential Christmas gifts, I figured it was time to start. I think hats are gonna be one of my main items to gift this year. They are the perfect size, but unlike socks they go really fast. This hat only took 2 days. I am particularly pleased by how gender neutral the colors are, making it a great gift for children of either gender.

FOs: Dulaan Hat #1 & 2

Woohoo, two hats done so far even before the end of September!



Dulaan Hat #1 (left)
Yarn: Lamb's Pride
Color: M-89 Roasted Coffee
Fiber Content: 85% wool, 15% mohair
Supplier: Lakeside Fibers
Pattern: Neetlebeetle's Seaman's Cap
Needles: Addi Turbo 40" US Size 8

Modifications:
Cast on with only 72 stitches and followed instructions accordingly.

Comments:
Mohair fuzzies! In my eye! No really... I am really happy that these will be warm items, but the mohair fluff is driving me a bit batty. This is also my first time knitting a commercial single ply, and I am not sure if I like it. I am happy with the hat in general, but I don't know that I would want to regularly wear something like this myself due to the way the sinlge ply makes the stitches apear to be listing to one side. I can see this yarn being a favorite for felting though.

Dulaan Hat #2 (right)
Yarn: Bernat Softee yarn
Color: mint
Fiber Content: 100% Acrylic
Supplier: stash/Michael’s?
Pattern: bottom-up raglan decreased hat (own pattern)
Needles: Susan Bates 8" US 4 DPNs

Comments: I had finished a raglan sweater for my daughter (entry coming) and wanted to play with using the same decreases in a hat. I know I have seen a pattern around suing this idea, which I totally used as conceptual inspiration, but I can't find it now.

Dulaan Project

You may notice that I have a new banner in my sidebar. I am going to be a first time contributor to the Dulaan Project. R and I were just talking about a possible trip to China/Russia this year, and now I am thinking a lot about Mongolia.

Robbyn has started a Dulaan Kick-off Contest for those who might want to get to an early start. The goal is to have at least 2 items finished by October 31st. I can do that! In fact I have one acrylic hat that just needs ends woven in and another hat in Lamb's Pride already on the needles. (We will just breeze over the fact I am starting another hat without weaving ends in on the first. I will do it at the Boston Knit Out and Crochet Too.)

I also have a ton of fleece in my fabric stash. I used to make nap blankets for a friend who taught at a poor inner city preschool, and I would buy it whenever I could find it at a deep discount. Since my friend has moved on to another job, I had been wondering what I could do with all this fleece. I also have a ton of alpaca in my stash from a recycled sweater. After using some of it in a project I decided I wasn't crazy about how halo-y it was, but it makes an amazingly warm fabric.

The more I think about this, the more this seems really doable. It also seems a great way for me to destash prefectly good materials that I otherwise didn't know what to do with. I wonder how many items I could do before July 1st...