Lots of F.O.

Most of this stuff has been done for eons.

My husband actually began to nag me encourage me to take picture by putting the projects in a bag with the camera and sitting them in the kitchen by the deck. He even included my big glass head. I'm ashamed to say these are very late going to their charities, but now that they are washed and bagged, I can deliver them. And now, without further ado ~


Preemie Hats for Howard Co Hospital







Chemo Cap With Floppy Brim from Cancer Can't

It looks more like a cloche to me, but turned out nicely and is very soft, so who cares?

And of course another No Hair Day. This one I call Confetti.




Now then.

On Ravelry I have joined a new group that has become dear to my heart. Helping Kids At Hopkins (Ravelry link) is the brainchild of my friend Nittany Knits. You may recall her daughter Gabrielle had a brief but intense illness before passing last spring. The group knits items for (you guessed it) the kids at the Cancer Center at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. There are plans for projects in other Units too. The heart unit will be in February for instance. Every two months is a new theme - and there are even prizes, voted on by the knitters. But the incentive is the joy.

Our first effort was Halloween.

Isn't it he awsome? Oh! The hat too!

Celtic Knot Rocks

I realized too late I needed some nice stuff to wash my Dad's new hat before giving it to him for his birthday. I know it's supposed to soften up the wool and it would be nice for the Noro on his head and ears. Dashing off to The Celtic Knot Yarn Shop in Ellicott City on my way back from physical therapy today I figured I could scoop up something, polish off the hat, and voila! Gift complete.

Sure of my mission I entered, pleased to see not only Carole the owner but Lindsay of Storm Moon Knits anxiously awaiting a special delivery. Lindsay is to be a cover girl of sorts I hear! But I digress. I announced my need for fine fiber care and was dismayed to hear Carole's worried "I think I sold the last . . ." Ugghh! Oh damn. Well I guess I gotta keep going then. Leave it to me to need to go shopping like a Christmas Eve - eleventh hour - last possible minute . . .

She fumbled in her big bag on the table.

Out popped not one but two stalwart samples of Soak. Her personal stash. She swore I was saving her from having it explode in her bag all over her projects.

I'm not the biggest, baddest knitter out there. I'm a slummer to a lot of fiber freaks. I use a lot of Acrilyc for a lot of charity projects and buy a lot of pretty string that I have lofty ideas of knitting into fantastic works of art for my family or heaven forbid - myself. breathe But I do love this thing we call knitting. And here Carole, recognizing a crazed woman about to schlep out in search of Blaa Blaa Yarn Shop to score some

LYS may come and go, but I'll be back at The Celtic Knot Yarn Shop for more.

It is unfortunate however that "The Late" precedes my name. I had forgotten Bobby had won tickets to a movie that night and off we went after my nap. Wednesday was my birthday. Yes, I share a birthday with my nephew four days after my Dad. Since it was my birthday we went out to Eggspectation to celebrate for breakfast. With PT, OT, drop off and pick up a car, and furiously knitting - I still didn't finish.

So here's how it went.

With everyone sitting in the living room, I picked up Dad's hat, still on the needles, and started a row.

"This is great yarn. It comes from Japan, Toy(so does she). Isn't is nice?" We talk a bit about knitting and she tells my sister how she used to make gloves with tiny needles as a small child. Each finger done separately on three needles like mine. I continued "I'm making this with yarn I got the first day of my treatment - it's a gift for a very special guy, but you know me - I'm not done yet. So Dad, would you try it on so I can see if it'll fit when I'm done?" He gave a start. And a big grin.

At least I saved Carole from the horrors of leaky Soak in her bag.

And I will be back to buy a nice bottle when the shipment comes in.

THAT'S A PEACE SIGN
MY DAD SAWED OFF PART OF HIS FINGER A WHILE BACK !

Charity Begins at Home

To quote the old Bartles & Jaymes commercials, “Thank you, for your support.” The messages from you guys when I got home just THREE days after my brain surgery meant so much to me. My knitting community and desire to return to it was, for some reason, something to focus on in the midst of so much fear surrounding this thing in my head.

I‘m home. The surgery went better than expected and I’m physically capable of more than when I went into the hospital six days ago. I was knitting in ICU the day after brain surgery expected to give me more paralysis of my right arm than I started with. My whole rhythm has changed and I can knit faster. Smoother.

Life is good.

So.

I’ve been remiss about posting my F.O. because life got busy. This I can fix as easily. I’ve had several charity items finished and now it’s time for the Second Annual Knit-A-Thon at the Lakeside Café in Columbia, Maryland this Saturday. Since I’ll be saying goodbye to them, I finally got my camera out today and went out on the deck for a photo shoot.

Up there is the Jimmie Johnson preemie hat I made at the NASCAR race in September. It is a lot stiffer than I thought, but I had a lot of fun with it. Even if a baby gets a picture and it hits the floor, it was fun. I’ll do more in soft sweet colors and cushy yarns, I promise. The little model is the Taco Bell Chihuahua. It was from the Godzilla promo commercial and says “Heeeeeeer leezard, leezard, leezard!” In the commercial he sees Godzilla and followed that with “I think I need a bigger box”. That used to crack me UP.

Next is the oldest Warm Up America block in the history of the charity. I wonder if I could get some kind of award. It’s been in the car forever. It’s been ripped out, re-knitted, put on the back burner, lost, forgotten, and pattern-changed. And I’m rid of it. Bwwwaaaaa haaa haaa haaaaaaaaaa!

After that is the Nemo II preemie hat. I actually started this little guy on the way to Richmond and finished him during the Busch race of the event. I decided to make a tail on the top and improvised some short rows to give it a scaled effect. It isn’t perfect, but again, a lot of fun. I like the creative outlet. Could be worth a pattern thing if I put my mind to it, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. I still haven’t written Rainbow up yet.

It’s gonna look like a fish swallowing a baby’s head, eh?

When straightening out my knitting basket last week, I came across some leftover cotton. Knowing the Knit-A-Thon was coming fast, I used it for a face cloth for a knitting buddy’s pet charity in Pittsburgh. The name escapes me, but they give hand knitted cloths to battered women in shelters so they have something feminine and personal of their own. I used the same simple blanket pattern I’ve been using for a pet blanket I hope to have finish for the same event.

The simple rhythm of this cloth gave me someone other than myself to focus on for a while.

So yes. I’ve been busy. I’m gonna BE busy. But it’s so good to look at the little collection up there with pride.

Or simply choose a WIP and pick up where I left off.

Seasick Chemo Cap

I like this one.

After a lot of time and effort, I overcame several personal hurdles and am happy with the end result.

It started with a preemie cap Down by the Seashore - I couldn't get the hang of it. The repeats didn't make sense even after several tries so I gave up and finished it in stockinette. But I liked the pattern dang it and was peeved about being bested by it. In order to see the stitches better, I made appropriate changes to knit an adult sized hat. As chronicled in previous posts here, I persevered and even got great input from a friend at Ravelry and my husband. The final insult came when I discovered I had not two balls of the pink yarn but one.





The resulting yarmulke effect was hiddeous.

Remembering what a good swatcher I had been,

I did some eyeball calculations and frogged out the grey.













Since I saw how unattractive the plain decreases were, I dressed up the crown with a few sets of garter stitch to continue the wave effect.

It's cushy, squishy and oh so soft.

All in all, a fine chemo hat.

Doomed I Tell You

Down by the Seashore Preemie Hat looks pretty good. The Gedifra Marokko cotton yarn is so soft and cushy it will be a great chemo hat for a tender head. I've started the decreases now and am looking forward to putting this puppy to rest.

Sounds rosey, eh?

Last night to my dilemma, I discovered I don't have two balls of pink, but two balls of grey left. It figures, now that I solved the math problem everything goes hinky again. My choices are these:

• a grey yarmulke look
• frog it back a bit and make stripes like the pattern calls for
• frog the swatch for the "loopy topper" in pink
• frog it all and make a dishcloth
• burn it
  

This hat is doomed I tell you, doomed. I'm not sure of the final destination for this one.

Saartje's Bootees

Thought I'd flash a picture of my Sjaartje's bootees and the little hat. Sartjee's are all the rage you know. So blasted adorable you can't help yourself from knitting up a dozen or so. Mike and Sully over there are modeling for the future little Monster.












The neatest part is I used buttons I found in my mother's old button box. Mom kept this old Tetley Tea can in the china cabinet with her sewing box. When one of our school blouses got ripped or was so threadbare from too many hand-me-downs, she would snip off the buttons and keep them for when we needed a replacement button another time. They were uniforms and always came from the same company. Other buttons were in there too, but the blouse buttons were perfect for the Sjaartje's Bootees.

And gee, if they're 40 years old or so are they antiques?

The Feminine Touch

I finished my Lace Edged Women's Hat for the Claudia Mayer Center ohhhhh last week some time. I just got around to taking pictures yesterday though. I swear. I am going to get some coaching on the lace thing. I know I'm using a non-breathing yarn (acrylic) because that's what the center wants, but I can see that my painstakingly following the directions didn't get the lace quite right. I know this for sure because I can compare my work to no less than 6 other knitters with pictures of their projects on ravelry.


I hate to sound like a broken record, but seeing how 6 different women knit up the same pattern with 6 different yarns is the biggest reason to sign up for a ravelry account RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

<------- click the shiny blinky ravelry button over there <-------

I'm currently working on the preemie hat. Arrragh. Well, it thinks it is a preemie hat. Once again, my gauge is right, but this thing looks rather large for any preemie I ever took care of in Labor and Delivery or The Nursery. Hrumph! I did wimp out on continuing the lace up the body of the hat. Instead I did a color change. It's very soft and suitably cute. I found a project for booties on ravelry too from Saartje, one of the designers who has her patterns available for download directly from the site. You can see them on the right side of her blog here. She has a newborn and should know a thing or two about what stays on a baby's feet. Besides, I've alway's wanted to use some of the ton of antique buttons from my Mother and Grandmother's button can. I plan to cast these on as soon as the hat is done - they are calling my needles so loudly.

Oh I hear ya. If I ever stop playing with ravelry and this computer long enough to knit anything again, right? Well in 30 minutes I'm off to Sit-n-Knit with K1P2 down at the Lakeside and have dinner with my husband at the concert afterwards while I finish this hat.

Watch me!

Chemo Caps

I have found a rededication to chemo caps. I finished this one the night before I left to go to a family reunion on Friday and started another in the car. It felt good.

I got off track for a while, making things for other charities, making other projects for my family at Christmas. I shopped for new yarn with my own projects in mind. Tackling new skills on my list of knitting things to do. Stitches East is on the way and I signed up for four classes. I forgot why I started this knitting thing in the first place. By far, the chemo hat is the most satisfying for me.

I need to always be working on one.

For John.

Group Therapy

I took the pink vacation cap over to the The Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource and Image Center here in Columbia. They liked my design, saying the ladies often complain the hats are too tight at the top. One of the women I met there a few weeks ago said she like exotic hats. She was wearing a green eyelash hat at the time resembling a Koosh Ball .

Knitting groups are cool. I already look forward to every Thursday night at K1P2. Before vacation, I decided to step up my efforts with charity knitting. So. Twice a month, I now knit with the ladies at the Center. It is a homey place associated with Howard Co General Hospital & Johns Hopkins. There is a humongous cancer resource library and salon for free consultations and product purchase/guidance for everything body image. Operators from some of the top salons in the area donate their time and talents there. We meet in the front room which is set up like a comfy living room. Many of the knitters are clients of the center, but the group is open to the community. There is someone to guide new knitters, donated yarn and needles and a few designated charities although you can knit what you like for whichever you like.

I picked up some baby yarn from them and made my first preemie hat for the hospital. Whew! Sooooo many stitches for such a little thing. 2 x 2 rib takes a long time. I finished it in two weeks though (me?) and am quite proud of it. I used the pattern provided by the center, but I would look for better resources if I make another. It was knit on straight needles and sewed. The crown had just a few decreases and was . . . odd looking. I got to use some of my ebay needles - size 4 (thanks Dad). That’s the smallest I’ve used so far. They felt strange in my hands at first, as did the cheap yarn, but after a few rows I trusted myself to not break them and we got along fine. The thought of keeping some little wailer from loosing body heat seems right after all the babies I worked with in Labor and Deliver and theNursery.

I decided to knit Koosh Ball lady (gotta find out her name) a new hat since hers had definitely seen better days. I found a site with a free pattern, No Hair Day from Headhuggers. and some unidentified donated yarn from my stash. Their site has lots of caps to knit and crochet geared/sized for folks without hair. I swear Koosh Ball lady's hat was made from that pattern. I went with another variegated yarn because her green one is made with several greens, yellow and cream. The pattern calls for 1 ball of yarn for a small. Since she is not a large person I went with that. Wrong! Luckily, a picture on the site showed a variation with a yarn crown, so that’s how I finished it off. The lavender yarn is very soft and should feel comfortable against her head. If she likes it, I'll make her another with two balls so it can be furry all over.

I hope she’s there the day I take it in.

Knitting on the Road

Knitting in the car works for me. Don’t worry; I’m not driving at the time. We love to take driving vacations, and often there are long stretches of highway with absolutely nothing to look at. This is when knitting has been a godsend for me. I used to fall asleep a lot, leaving my husband to fend for himself when it came to looking for the next highway. Of course navigation has always been one of his strong points, but I like to follow along and note places of interest.

I polished off two (count ‘em 1-2!) projects in the car. I had started a scarf for my niece in my crochet class back in February. I had mostly put is aside and had about 14 – 18 inches done. I really needed to get cracking for her Birthday on Easter. Working in the car, I finished a scarf about 4 inches wide and 6 feet long. I made it like that to double and wrap around, slipping the end through the loop. Pre-teens love to play around with fashion so I left her options. Since I had never done it, I asked for some help and added the fringe at K1P2 one night. I’m glad I took their advice to hold off on cutting the fringe – Jessica wanted it just the way it was. I wish I’d gotten a picture of her in it but I plum forgot to.

Next was a pink chemo cap. At Stitches East last year I made a miniature hat knit top-down. I also saw an adult pattern called Karlchen and experimented with my own top down version. It has a nipple at the top (tee hee) and four peaks to let some air circulate or keep the crown off sensitive scalps. I put in a little eyelet while I was working my increases. It adds a bit of a feminine touch. I still had a good bit of the yellow left, so I designed a little fairisle pattern too. I wish now I had thought to do a Mickey Mouse head for my Disney vacation, but working out the simple design was tough enough. I had to guess on the look with hand drawn long-box graph paper. I kept it veeeery simple.

That makes four chemo caps so far for me. For John.

Chapter 22 - I Design A Rainbow Crochet Hat

Introducing . . .

R A I N B O W

a crocheted top-down hat designed by Bonnie Martin

My first FO in crochet and I had to design it myself. I am still working on a little scarf for my niece Jessica, but I bought the absolutely most decadent yarn for a hat after my crochet class on Saturday and couldn't find the perfect pattern - so I winged it. Ann (my partner-in-crime in the class) had begun to crochet this amazing scarf in lush shades of brown. We both wanted hats from the same yarn and Shea, our instructor started us on the road with a sort of verbal pattern. I scribbled what the two of us could remember and we both started it after class. But I didn't like the haphazard look of the crown where she told us "oh,if it gets ripply just decrease a stitch here and there". The double crochet was fast but had too many holes for me. I searched online, but everything was close fitting like a ski cap. I found a pattern that was close and made a few adjustments for curly hair. I was off.

And that ripply thing gave me an idea to keep my curls from getting squished around my face.

My new hat was a joy to work on and when I decided it was too tall on my head, I easily pulled out the ruffles and a few rows with no damage to the yarn. I loved the way it had ended in the gold, so I did a cut and paste when I restarted the last row. Brilliant.

So. You want to know what it is, right? inka by GARNSTUDIO is my new favorite yarn. This stuff is from Norway(sigh). The website is impossible to view unless you have incredible patience but I include it to give them credit. (a friend who lives there now told me about their internet system - it sounded atrocious) There are no free patterns but the website lists two of my LYS who are distributors for patterns. I have two more skeins and I know how to use 'em. I want to reproduce my pattern with another hat as a gift then I'll publish it here at tinkknitz.

Look at how the colors meld. There's no clear-cut beginning or end. While you're working the yarn a little dot of the previous or next color will appear and a myriad of shades in between. The entire skein is chromatic. I've never been fond of rainbow themed paraphernalia, but when I saw this I was a goner.




Can you eat yarn?

My Punkin Hat

I thought I would take some pictures of my other Stitches East project yesterday. I'm so proud of the way it turned out. The class was my first using dpn and a bit of a struggle at first 'cause it was a hat knit top down - beginning with I-cord. That was another first for me. Such close work first thing in the morning? By plunging in, and with the calm reassurance of our instructor, it began to take shape. Slowly. Verrrrry slowly. Then ooooh aaaah, the increases made such a pretty swirl on the top. The other hats I've made were all bottoms up and the only said "decrease 1" so I knit 2 together. God bless beginner patterns! Since I am a methodical (read slooow) knitter, my Stitches hat ended up in miniature as I started each step when she began them, except the cables. I was in the middle of changing colors and couldn't keep up. No biggie I told her, I learned so many things - I was content with all the new skills I DID learn.

About two weeks ago I had frogged it back to the color change. With the help of a book I bought at the Marketplace there at Stitches and listening with one ear while I was still changing colors, I made some rather impressive cables for a beginner (applause gratefully accepted). I did goof a bit at first when I mis-read the pattern, but it was late at night. With fresh eyes, brain and hands though it was a different ball of wax (errr. . . yarn). I may look for a different cable needle though. Mine seemed a bit short.

Then it was on to the Fair Isle, another section I sort of missed. This one I did a short piece of on a new swatch first. It wasn't that tough though, and switching to the the other color was okay. Until that needle change. Arrrgggghhhhh! I still am not happy with doing that. I think I changed my fingers each time I turned a corner. I just couldn't get a flow for that "slide one needle out -reposition hands - rewrap yarn and insert". But it did turn out nice and even. The raised row of K1P1 before and after it obscure it a bit which I would change were I to use the pattern again. Perhaps two rows of diamonds or another row of straight knitting above and below would keep the Fair Isle from being obscured.

After a quick rolled brim, I was finished the little hat as written. It's amazing! So many new things in one project yet they seem to go together. I thought of donating my hat for chemo - there are some pretty little kids with cancer. But from what I understand wool is uncomfortable for them. This Saturday I have a family breakfast up in Baltimore County. We gather once a month at a buffet place. There are usually 30 or so relatives but December always draws a few more. I hear we have a new baby less than a year old. (Tammy is a grandmother??? I used to babysit her.) It'll be cool to make a gift for someone not expecting it.

Right now, I'm busy making Christmas scarves. I already gave one to my nephew Thomas who was visiting from California. He was freezing the day he got here, so I gave him his present early the next day. I made it long so he could double it and do that loop thing in the front. He was most impressed with my knitting prowess, even if it was a simple garter stitch.

And now a note about my blog. Editing those pictures so they appear where I want them is a bear. Appreciate them.

::note to self - learn to make linked pictures not so freaking HUGE::