Poor October

Sad little October, you've gotten away from me. The thing is, there's nothing going on over here to report! As you know, I'm gearing up for a new arrival in April, which means I've been sleeping a TON lately. Between that and my day job, I haven't accomplished much in the way of knitting.

It's Halloween time, though! A cute article on Craftsy shows some Halloween-y knit options, which is leading me to ask: Have you ever knitted a Halloween costume? The closest I've come is my viking hat:

I'm working on another newborn hat using the leftovers from Meridien, as a gift for a friend who just had a baby girl- congrats, Kate! I'll post it when it's done.

And I'm excited that we're coming to the close of October's giveaway, a lovely project kit from ellelittleblog! Winner's coming up soon!

Go check it out while there's still time!
- YX

FO: Sultan Pompom Hat

Click here to check out  the October Giveaway

I've made a new little hat:

It's a top-down beanie, and I love it. A quick pompom made without cardboard, and some leftover yarn turned out really well. I love the variation of color in the pom:

This heavily-variegated yarn looks like a ton of different colors in one pompom, but is much easier to make.

Both yarns are Wollmeise sock, and the stitch definition is, as always, gorgeous. I should get around to writing up the pattern. By making the hat top down, I was able to control exactly how long the hat was without being afraid of running out of yarn.

I made this hat for a very special recipient... My husband and I are expecting our first baby! He or she is due in April. I'm so happy to share this news with you! We've been through a lot together since I started this blog TWO WHOLE YEARS AGO! Hopefully I'll have more baby knits to show in the future!

- YX

Guest Post: Entangled Stitches Gloves from ellelittleblog

This week, I'm bringing you a guest post. This is a friend of mine from the knit-o-sphere, and she's done a lovely project to share with you. I'll be featuring a few more guest posts in the next few months, so enjoy! 


Hi YarnExploder peeps!  My name is Letitia.  I will also answer to Elle, blond chick, and hey you.  I am poly-craftual, as most crafty people tend to be.  I consider myself mostly a sewer these days, but I have also been knitting since December 2008.  I taught myself how to knit by looking up stitches online and making preemie baby caps.  “Hey!  Bobbles look fun.  I’ll put some of those in a hat!  February Lady Sweater?  I’m not sure what lace is, but I can turn that into a hat. Etc.”  I love knitting, but unfortunately/fortunately I live in Florida and there isn’t much use for knit beanies or giant Aran sweaters or gloves.  Yeah.  So about those gloves…

I fell in love with the entangled stitches pattern by Julia Mueller sometime in 2010.  Someone posted in Remnants about how her brand-new gloves in a beeyoutiful silk blend yarn were stolen off the train.  She was understandably heartbroken.  Anyway, awesome ravelers are awesome and someone was able to get the dyer of that yarn to dye more (she wasn’t dyeing anymore from what I remember) to gift to this chick.  That’s how I remember it happening anyway.  Fast-forward to August 2012 and I see an ad on LSG for sheepytime knit’s colorway of the month, South Pacific, and I HAD to have the entangled gloves in THAT color.  Never mind the fact that I was going nowhere close to cold anytime soon.

My first order of business was to find my colored pencils and color in each different symbol on the pattern.  There are so many different kinds of twisted stitches in this pattern and the symbols look similar enough that coloring in the squares was very necessary for me.  That took somewhere in the neighborhood of three hours to complete.  That should have been my first clue as to how intense this project was going to be.  There are seven (7!) pages of charts after all.  I’m not one to look at something complicated and think I can’t do it, so onward I cast on with my tiny size 0 DPNs.

I note on my Ravelry project page (very light on the notes, btw) that I was 15 hours into my first glove and I wasn’t done with the first chart yet—that’s not even 40 rounds in 15 hours.  My hands are like normal people hands with the pinky spread thing (not sure what to call that exactly, but you know what I mean right?) starting earlier than the other fingers.  I moved my pinky stitches onto waste yarn on after round 88 and continued working the other three fingers according to the chart.  That’s the only modification I made that I can think of apart from using a smaller needle size.  I tried to make the crosses on the fingers line up with my knuckles because I thought that would look cool.  I wish I had a picture of that!  Sorry, not sorry.

From start to finish, these gloves took just short of 6 months.  I was zipping along on them all through September and was almost done with glove 2 when I stalled for all of October.  I picked the gloves back up to finish chart 2 on the second glove and was almost done knitting the fingers by mid-November.  Then I stalled again, spent a month in Central America, and went back to work in January busy as hell.  My biggest challenge was WEAVING IN THE DING DONG DURN ENDS!!!  Mugglefrackin ends.  Ends are my kryptonite.  Well, ends and buttons.  I was so not wanting to weave in those ends.  I made a deal with myself to just weave in 2 a day.  Just 2.  Per day.  That’s it.  It still took me forever, but here, look at my pretty finished gloves!  Glorious gloves really.

My original idea was to take these pictures at the beach.  I’m glad I didn’t because the reflection from the sand would have been horrible for showing the detail on the gloves.  The backyard wearing a $2 dress from the Nicaraguan version of Goodwill was way better.

This photo is really blue.  I was trying to get all the cabling to show and overadjusted the colors in the process.  Oops.

For the record, we had a really cold March and I was wearing my gloves regularly in the mornings.  Steering wheels get cold!  Enough about my gloves.  You can find me as ellelittle on Ravelry and/or read my blog about sewing, what I’m cooking, and where I’m going, as well as other random things over at ellelittleblog.blogspot.com. 

And since I’m feeling really generous, I’ll sponsor a giveaway too.  Up for grabs is a digital copy of Entangled Stitches (gifted through Rav so you gotta be on there) and a skein of Knitpicks Stroll Tonal in Pearlescent that’s been languishing in the stash forever.  And because I’m really freaking awesome, I’ll make you a sweet project bag to go along with it all.

You want this?  You know you do.  Leave a comment 1) confirming that I am, in fact, awesome and 2) what the hardest thing you’ve made so far was and why.  Bonus internet points for linkys.

That’s it!  Thanks to Yarnexploder and readers for having me today!

Park Avenue Yarns

So recently, I headed down to League City, Texas to check out a trunk show at Park Avenue Yarns. I'm saving my post about the trunk show itself for another day (perhaps another yarny day, with lots of lovely yarny giveaway potential. Indeed, I may have shopped for you while I was out!)

But I was so excited because I just absolutely love this yarn store, and I want to tell you all about it.

So if you go to the website I liked above, you can see the front of the store. It's a cute little house on a street with some other shops-in-houses. As I walked up to the front entrance, I was amused by the yarn bombings on the porch:

It was super cute. Once I got in, I was immediately overwhelmed. In a good way.

Square shelving units create "aisles" of yarn, and there are two back rooms- one with couches for hanging out (this is where the trunk show was) and one with a large table for classes. Everything in the shop is tidy and organized, so walking through, it was quite easy to see things and compare items.

Each table is curated and displayed with intent. It's so nice to walk in a store where a display table has a clear feature. Yarns were piled in baskets or bowls, not left on a table to fall all over the place. The store recognizes knitting, but also crochet (a large selection of books and hooks) and spinning (you can see the wheel, and they carry fiber and if I recall correctly, a few drop spindles).

My favorite thing about this store is definitely the variety of products. Normally, when I go into a yarn store, the owner or merchant's preferences are super easy to predict. There are lots of yarns in a specific color range, for instance. Or fifteen different kinds of Debbie Bliss, a handful of Rowan, and no indies. Park Avenue has a nice spread of local indies, small, specialty brands, and big names. Aside from the Vice yarn, I picked up two skeins of Classic Elite Chalet, which is a wonderfully squishy braided ply yarn. The friendly lady behind the counter was making a project with it, and we chatted for a bit about the yarn and how it works. She even showed me her project, which was lovely.

It's nice when employees are invested in talking about your project plans. I had an excellent experience at Park Ave, and my only complaint is it's woefully far from me- 40 minutes in the car, as opposed to the 10-minute hop to my current LYS. Regardless, I think Park Ave is going to be my primary stop for projects. I know I'll find something I like there, and probably a bunch of other things I didn't plan on buying!

Next week, I have a guest post planned. I was going to set it up this week, but my lovely guest poster has some surprises in store for you, and they'll be perfect to ring in October!
- YX

FO: Big red cowl

Big needles, giant yarn, and we have a cowl:

It's a monster. And really cute double-wrapped:

This yarn (Lion Brand Hometown USA) isn't the fanciest or most expensive stuff on the block, but it will withstand football tailgates, washing and drying, and anything else a college kid can get into. 

The texture isn't bad, either, and it's super soft, as acrylic tends to be:

As soon as I took these snaps, it was off in the mail to its new home! So long, cowl!
- YX