Viva Serac!

I just got the bright idea to search the Wayback Machine for an old pattern that had previously only been on my website and I found it!!! Reposting here so I can relink and reactivate the pattern on ravelry.

Also, I'm apparently ***really obsessed*** with sea green as both this blog and that are loaded with it. :) 
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New Pattern (Serac) + Knitalong

Posted on November 17, 2012 by bethanyh

Meet Serac! Wikipedia defines a serac thusly: “A serac (originally from Swiss French sérac) is a block or column of ice formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier.” A photo from the Wikipedia page looked just like the stitch pattern I’m using, and happened to be from the Winthrop Glacier on Mount Rainier in my home state of Washington. :)

Serac is a simple triangle shawl that starts from the bottom point so you can stop any time. I might work the last section without increases so I can add buttons and make it into a cowl/dickie thing. There are only two pattern rows; what makes the pattern is the way they are repeated.

Meet Serac:

A pattern this simple just begs for a wholesome neutral-shade yarn like Mountain Meadow Wool Kaycee. It’s a slubby, sport-weight singles that knits up into a delectably elegant, supple fabric. Mountain Meadow Wool yarns are a 100% US product that look great in plain stockinette, textural patterns, lace, and cables. If I could describe them in one word, I think it would be “skooshhhhh” as that is how they feel when you squeeze them.

If you’d like to make a Serac shawl, see below for materials and instructions.

Mountain Meadow Wool Kaycee: 2 skeins for cowl version, 3 skeins for shawl version
3.75mm needles (US 5)

Begin Pattern:
Using longtail method, cast on 7 stitches

Set-up Row 1: knit
Set-up Row 2: k1, yo, (k1, p1)2 times, k1, yo, k1
Row A: k1, yo, knit yarn over from previous row through the back loop to twist closed, (p1,k1) to last 3 stitches, p1, knit yarn over from previous row through the back loop to twist closed, yo, k1.
Work row A again.
Row B: k1, yo, knit yarn over from previous row through the back loop to twist closed, knit to last 2 stitches, knit yarn over from previous row through the back loop to twist closed, yo, k1.
Work row B again.

Continue pattern by working Row A 3 times then Row B 2 times.

Cowl version: When you have desired width for cowl, omit increases and work in the established 5-row ribbing pattern for at least 12,” then bind off all stitches on the second row B. (I might do some needle size changes to taper the top of the cowl if I go this route.)

Shawl version: continue in established 5-row ribbing pattern until you have desired width for shawl, then bind off all stitches on the second row B.

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Now to figure out how to download the entire rest of my website prior to it being hacked/taken over by an Extremist group...

Looks can be deceiving!

I woke up with a fire under it today to work on a couple things I had thought of forever ago and promised myself I wouldn't rest until I'd worked on them. This one is the first:

Looks like Tunisian crochet, right? But it's not! I'm working on some color combos and swatches and then will type up a pattern for test *knitting.* I'm really excited about this design!!! Hoping others will like the invention (extensive googling and ravelry searches turned up nothing so it looks like I might be the first person to think this up / execute it?) and get excited about it, too!

I'm also working on converting a lot of my knitted patterns to crochet (!!!) and designing more crochet (and knit) patterns as well. I'm bistitchual so feel my patterns should reflect that better. My goal for this year is 12 new patterns. I've already put 4 out in the universe so am thinking that momentum might just make this my most prolific year yet!

I AM VERY BORED AND TIRED OF BEING HOME ALONE ALL DAY, to say the least, but I guess I am getting a LOT of crafting done. Cannot wait to go back to work, that is for sure!!!

My throw blanket is about 2 feet long now, and over a foot of that was from one day's crocheting. Yowza! Sadly, I'm almost out of Golden Girls reruns. Guess I'll have to find something new to watch / knit / crochet to while I'm waiting to go back to work.

Spinning plates—in perpetuity, it would seem

Of course I need more projects, so I decided to start an all-in-one-piece blanket to add to the cabin-fever frazzle because I am very smart.

I know it's laying there in a rumpled heap and may not make a lot of sense right now, so allow one of the cats to demonstrate how to use it:

He is so helpful—thank you, Scotty! (◕‿◕✿)

If you'd like to make your own version of this the pattern is on the project page in my Ravelry notebook. The design is intentionally very simple to make it quick to work and create more opportunities for modification. Some ideas for different variations:

• vertically-striped lap blanket (4’ / 1.2 m in length)
• horizontally-striped throw blanket (4’ / 1.2 m in width)
• enlarge the blanket by increasing the foundation row
• stashbust with many-colored solid stripes (hold fingering or sport yarns double to meet gauge)
• work in two colors
• marl colors together à la Sophie Digard
• hand-dyed yarn fade-ient
• thicker stripes
• thinner stripes
• work all the eyelet rows in one color

If you'd rather work this as a smaller lap blanket you can bust a lot of stash and give the blankets as gifts to folks you don't get to spend time with while self-isolating. Another option is to make this as a scarf, or a stole, or...the sky's the limit! 

Elephants make excellent coffeetables

[Obligatory acknowledgment of current chaos and well-wishes for anyone reading this here. I don't want to dwell on it as I think we're all getting inundated, so without further ado...]

The Actual Blog Post

Of course instead of working on the WIPs I had planned to, I decided to start some new ones.

1. This one could be considered just a swatch (2 or 3 hexagon motifs in varying styles, knitted and crocheted) and, as we all know, swatches don't count, so this should actually be zero, technically speaking. 
2. Who doesn't love a plain, seed-stitch scarf? Comfort knitting at its best. Sounds pretty basic, right? Well, never one to leave well enough alone, I had to do *something* to make it a drudgery, so I'm working it with two ends of a nearly-black, very-light-fingering weight, super-sticky-because-of-the-wool-variety's-fiber-texture, oiled-for-machine-knitting-so-entirely-inflexible... yarn, and I've been working on it in dim lighting while watching TV—Ha, take that, sanity!—but at least it is a tweed with red and yellow nepps to help make the stitches a little more obvious. So yeah, black, red, and yellow: all the scariest CAUTION, DANGER, HAZARD colors. (Didn't realize that until just now, but I shall soldier on regardless) I've already got roughly 6" of knitting done on that in just a couple of knitting sessions. It's for my boyfriend who is very tall, so I'm trying to get it to 7 feet in length, if there is enough yarn—and, well, you know... Knock on wood. As the weather is getting warmer it won't be needed for a while, so I might have time to complete it before it gets cold again.
3. This is one I can't wait to finish because it's my first garment in about a decade. It was inspired by my love for Art Deco and the beautiful tarnished silver color I'm working with. I'm trying to decide how I'd like to do the back (as in, plain, or with a stitch pattern), but finishing the front should inform that decision. 

Feeling lazy, so only a couple photos for you today. 

Art Deco Blouse, working title "Maupe" (pronounced "mope") because it's a Mushroomy-Taupe color

This shouldn't be as satisfying as it is because I hate knitting with the yarn, but I'm racing to finish it because I can't wait to block it. Hoping it will transform like an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly...

Show & tell, I mean talk wayyyyy too much

Full disclosure: I was naughty and cast on for a Stannum Cardigan last night, but it will be what I work on when I'm not in the mood to work on some of my more detailed WIPs since it's a simple top-down raglan sweater, so lots of stockinette that's good for knitting on auto-pilot. This is a picture of the pattern as given, but mine will be all one color:

I also will be doing regular ribbing on the neckband, unless I have a TON of yarn left at the end and then I might be cheeky and do some kind of reversible/lays-flat stitch pattern instead...we'll see. What yarn am I using? I'm glad you asked:

It's color T15 which is a really pretty deep blue-green jewel tone with lots of little pretty tweedy flecks of color. I love that it's a soft singles yarn too because I think it will give my sweater a nice rustic look.

And now for some languishing WIPs that I absolutely need to finish, like, ASAP:

This is one from my Grandmother's Closet pattern line that I've really been excited to finish for a long time, but I got in my own way on this one when I decided I wasn't being "random enough" which is the human way of saying I didn't assign order to my randomness. Now that I've been replaced by a robot that looks, walks, talks, and acts just like..."me," I realize this is silly and I need to just finish it already. Now I just need to scare up more of the yarn I was using to edge and join the motifs (there's another skein somewhere deep in my stash) and then I need to figure out what it's going to be. I'm thinking of a hat/cowl convertible sort of situation...maybe. Or maybe just a plain ol', long scarf. I'm tempted to rip out the Shibui edging yarn and use something cheaper / more plentiful from my stash...but I've already woven the ends in on a lot of these and that would feel like a complete waste of some very expensive yarn, so we'll see...I am holding the yarn double, so maybe I can fade in another color.

Another one from Grandmother's Closet that's been just laying around unloved and unworked on for far too long is this guy:

It's bad enough he's a fake dead animal. For me to not "FINISH HIM!" (actually literally ironically—how many times does one get to turn that phrase???) just makes it worse. He's (I don't know why I'm personifying a fake dead animal—maybe that's worst of all?) going to get a lining to hide the wrong side and ensure the knitting lays flat. The thinking was to use a cashmere sweater I've felted and cut to fit, but I may be so bold as to do a pretty patchwork design in a couple of colors or just pay for some really pretty plaid flannel. I'm most likely going to put a button under the head to lock the scarf in place so it doesn't have to be freakishly long / give it the classic biting its own tail look. After all, this isn't a dachshund or ferret scarf.

These are still another Grandmother's Closet design that I've let collect dust for far too long. I know where these are. I know where the yarn is to work that last thumb, and I have plenty of yarn to complete the embroidery. The only thing holding me up on this one is ME. I'm hoping to get enough patterns in each of my design lines that I can release some e-books soon.

Last but not least, I have sad news: a design of mine that I had to put in storage prior to finishing seems to be GONE. I can't find it anywhere. [Insert a GIF of Charlton Heston ranting and raving at the end of Planet of the Apes here]

It's based on the Icelandic waterfall Svartifoss (Black Falls), and *was* being knit in the most gorgeous color of Madeline Tosh Merino Light (Georgia O'Keefe colorway). I think now I will have to find another yarn to make this with, which is really depressing because I shelled out a lot of $$$ for the MTML, but that's what you get for having to move a lot, I guess. I'm thinking of holding more than one yarn together to be able to make the most of inexpensive lace or fingering weight yarn, which seem to be the best bang for the buck. Will probably do a strand of black (or dark) silk/alpaca lace blend, a strand of black merino lace, and a strand of a mohair-silk blend in a deep teal color to mimic the depth of color in the yarn I was using.

I think my best approach will be to work on the Foxy Scarf first since it is worked on 10.85mm needles so will be a good confidence boost / quick finish. After that, probably finish the Hallstatt mitts, and then the thing with the flower motifs...whatever it's going to be. Was almost tempted to make it into a hat/cowl convertible thing, but I really don't like that it has so many holes. Think I need to just buckle down and get more Shibui Pebble (I have one more skein of it buried somewhere in my stash), but until then it's at the back of the list.

Either way, I'm still working on be-tasseling my Marrakesh scarf, adding length to the massive Kuychi blanket scarf ("blarf"), and about to cast on for an Art Deco-y blouse for spring and summer. I've had this Classic Elite (RIP) Firefly in my stash for ages—and another thing: this is how bad I am about working through my stash. It's outlasted dozens of yarn lines, yarn companies, and yarn stores!—that needs to become a thing. I've got a few sketches it may become...more on that soon. That's not going to take very long to knit so may jump ahead in the queue so I can finish the pattern in a seasonally appropriate time period.

Onward and knitward, y'all!

I like the way Canadians say progress better.

These were cute, but now they're *adorable!* This design is currently being test-knit. I still need testers for the medium and large sizes, though.

I also finished my potholder/trivet thing and wrote up a pattern for it. It's in testing right now as well, but here is the finished item:

The latest stitch pattern in the Kuychi scarf is an intriguing brioche variant that is worked with two colors from both sides of the fabric, just for something different. It creates a fully reversible (as in identical on both sides) fabric:

And I've added more embellishments to my Marrakesh scarf, see?

It's *far* from finished, but this is a great TV project. I've come up with a clever way to make the tasseling go faster, too, which will of course be included in the pattern.

Well, time to go to work. Can't wait to get off so I can come home and work on all my lovelies!

Not that kind of "FO"

I'm talking about Finished Objects of course!—the knitting on the peach & white fingerless mitts is complete! See?

I'm trying to decide if I want to embroider them like my Mayrhofen Fingerless Mitts or if I want to do something else (maybe some cute little knitted bows?), but for now I'm happy to wear them as-is since I have to work outside again today and it's going to be frigidly cold. Perhaps since the knitting on these went so quickly, I'll just have to make a second pair so I can embroider one and put bows on the other.

So much more to finish, but it will all have to wait until after work. Feels good to finish something though. I've been more productive knitting-wise in the last few months than I have in the last few years!

Peach & White Fingerless Mitts Progress

Well I finished the first one of these last night and started on the second. I'd be a lot further on the second but made the mistake of drinking Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea and promptly nodded off on the couch.

I know this isn't about knitting but that stuff is like Ativan. My whole life I thought chamomile was just some stupid hippie herb that didn't do anything and boy, was I wrong. I used to drink chamomile tea when we'd run out of the flavors I liked at work and it wasn't until about the 30th time I nodded off at my desk that I saw a correlation. Apparently, in addition to being highly susceptible to hippie herbs, I am terrible at detecting patterns in things. Unless it's numbers and then I turn into Dustin Hoffman as Kim Peek.

Aaaaanyway...

Here's where they're at so far:

I really like how they came out. They fit just at the base of my fingers which is nice for when I'm working outside and could also be great if you have to work in a freezing cold office but still be able to type. I wish I'd finished the second one in time for work tonight, but it will definitely be done before my next shift, so that's good.

Scotty, aka Scoots, aka Sir Scootsalot, aka Pitbull, aka JerkPanda, aka "STOP THAT!", aka Naughty-Scotty, aka Crazy Boy, aka Baby Orca, aka Fuzzball, aka—you get the idea because you're better at distinguishing patterns than I am, right?—was rubbing his face on my hands and moved me slightly out of frame for this shot, but this shows how the right mitt looks when worn.

I usually make them go higher up on fingers and thumbs, but I think this will keep my hands and wrists warm enough to keep the fingers warm too. We'll see.

I think tonight I'll finish my trivet and post the photo for that tomorrow after it's blocked. If I don't do it, feel free to hold me accountable by any means necessary:

This is tempting me to make a sidebar where people can actually say awful 4chan-worthy mean things to prompt me to post more often. Would be good for a chuckle or two, methinks.

I said "Hey, what's going on?"

Just a quick little update to show what I've been working on and, of course, goal-oriented shaming myself into completing projects and their patterns...

I have been dreaming of these mitts I saw in the Sundance catalog, and wanting to make something using the two color checkered stitch pattern they have, but I know it's done with stranded colorwork, which I am really not a big fan of working myself (it looks beautiful, it's just never going to be a bug by which this very lazy knitter gets bitten). I've cast on for my own version, but changed the stitch pattern to a simple slip-stitch colorwork check and it's coming along so quickly! I might be able to finish both of them by the end of the day today!

There is a ton—are tons? is, no, are, ugh whichever! #grammarmongermongersgrammar—of stuff on various and sundry needles and hooks around here. Many of them are (are!) so close to being finished that I'd rather wait until they're all the way done to post photos / write too much about them, but I know reading blogs is boring without pictures and I don't want to let down allllllllll the people out on the 1nt0rw3bz that are anxiously refreshing this blog for updates and lathering themselves into a froth / crashing Blogger's servers in the process—so here, have some eyecandy:

This is a crocheted potholder I made (and felted!) with three yarns held together after finding out my LYS carries Brown Sheep, which is probably in my top 3 favorite yarn lines ever: yarns used are Wildfoote Luxury Sock in SY48 Circus (a marled orange, pink, & yellow colorway), Naturespun Worsted in N85W Peruvian Pink (which is really more of a magenta color), and Naturespun Fingering in 157 Boysenberry (a really rich, deep fucshia). Started & finished in one evening January 2020 which I was watching some abysmally-bad sci-fi on the Comet channel and loving every minute of it. 

This is a pattern I've written up but need to get test-knitted before I can publish it. It's a brioche/tuck stitch design and I gave both methods for getting the same result in the pattern. It will be great for teaching people how different yarn manipulations can achieve the same things. This one uses Classic Elite Yarn Liberty Wool Worsted in 7861 Golden Pagoda. A quick note about this yarn: of the two skeins I used to knit this, neither skein had the green portion. I would like to ask the person who designed this yarn: "Why would you make a color repeat so long that it won't all fit into the yardage you've chosen for a single skein?" So silly. 

This is a really neato-cheeto design inspired by an Anthropologie scarf I was lusting after (like, I literally looked like Ratfink when his eyes pop out every time I would stare at the photos), but it was out of stock, not that I could have afforded it anyway at $158! I was going to try to copy it exactly, but then I realized I'd rather do my own thing, so this is just a nod to the Anthro one. It's not even close to done. Currently around 4.5 feet (1.37 m), but will likely be 7 (2.13 m) before I bind off! Wowzers, that's almost Dr. Who-worthy. The next section will have another slip-stitch colorwork portion to match the blue and green one (though it will be a bit different for visual interest) and then I think a bunch of really thin solid-color stripes before finishing it off with a bunch of embroidery & pompoms. This one is going to be a real show-stopper when it's finally done! The knitting is on size 6.5mm needles so it's going quickly when I actually make time to work on it.  

Found a wonderful new yarn line at my LYS (Knitting For Olive—great price points and high quality product! Can't recommend them highly enough.) and decided to use their merino fingering weight and mohair-silk lace weight together in this pretty little scarf. Am going for a vintage Boucherouite rug sort of vibe. This is hardly even the beginning of the little tassels and embellishments I'm going to drench this bad boy in. Next up is a ton of black and white ones followed by single-color ones in every color under the sun. When I'm done the brown will be a lot less visible. Words can barely describe how luscious the combo of these two yarns feels. I'll start with scrumptious, but am going to need a thesaurus to really get the point across. 

This uses a Noro yarn I bought 3 skeins of on sale quite some time ago (for the life of me I can't remember where) and it's really soft and pretty in the skein, but it is impossible to knit up without a lot of really ugly flashing and pooling. I am striping it with a custom yarn I made from 3 different kinds of Habu that I wound together into one skein. I saw the Noro and the Habu side by side in a yarn basket, and knew right away that it was kismet! Can't wait to finish this scarf to wear in the spring since it's mostly plant fibers so better-suited to warmer weather! :D More on this one in its own post later...

Check out this rainbow pussy hat that uses roughly eleventy-two billion yarns held together. I absolutely love this! It gets a lot of comments from folks when I wear it, too. Like, *nice* comments, even. Will likely be making a grip of these to sell in my Etsy shop. Pattern to come soon as well. 

 This is a totes gorg yarn I found at my LYS (Knitting Fever's Painted Sky in the colorway 226 Lime Twist, i.e. apparently the most difficult yarn on the planet to get an accurate photo of—the pic of the colorway on the Knitting Fever website looks like blues and browns, which is totally wrong, and all the ravelry stash photos make it look blue or brown or even totally off other colors as well, but it's actually sage, celadon, pale peach, and apricot with just a tiny bit of gray). I'm using it to crochet a trivet for when I want to put hot foods in the fridge because it has glass shelves. I know the glass is tempered, but one doesn't simply walk into Mordor mess around with fate like that. We also eat dinner at a steel dining table and this keeps hot pots from turning the whole thing into a field of magma when we're serving ourselves à la table, which is nice because having skin on your arms keeps your sleeves from sticking to them.

Look familiar? This is an unblocked version of the brioche/tuck stitch infinity scarf above but in the 7828 Stained Glass Disc colorway, which like the other one, was supposed to contain some kind of watermelon red color of which my two skeins only had a couple of yards in total. Weird!

And since I name-checked this place a few times, I just wanted to give a shout-out to my local yarn store, Unraveled in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon! The owner Janie is really friendly and knowledgeable. I came in on a January-raining-sideways-cold-&-windy day, and she helped me choose some yarns with which I am truly besotted. They were just the cure for a dreary, wet winter in the Pacific Northwest. If you haven't been and live in Portland or the surrounding metro area, I highly recommend you go check her shop out!

Okey-dokey, play time over. Back to scrambling to finish 4 things at once while typing up patterns and trying to eat a deeeelightfully unostentatious baloney* sandwich.

*Bologna is a city in Italy as well as the name of a perfectly respectable type of sausage from same. Baloney is a an American shibboleth for a smooth, pinkish, somewhat-meat-involving product that costs 99¢ for roughly 16 slices of sheer befuddlement bathed in nitrites and sodium. The more you know====★ 

Long time no blog!

It's been ages since I've had a blog, but I like that it forces me to make progress and post it / add photos to ravelry, so I'm getting it going again.

Have been designing non-stop for the last several years, but haven't published much. Am hoping this will help!

I've got a new design just done and blocking, just needs to dry a bit longer and then I can post it. So many things on the needles (and hooks!)—it just all needs to get organized into a pipeline to finish and publish them all.