WIP: Cheshire Cat Scoodie

I'm on a bit of a crafty binge, aren't I? Like I found my lost mojo, all of a sudden. I'm not complaining, mind!

My sister called me last week with a request for a Halloween costume item: a scoodie, inspired by the Cheshire Cat from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I had never heard of such a thing. A scoodie, that is. The Cheshire cat may be one of my favourite cats in literature. A scoodie, in case you're wondering, is a scarf with a hood attached. My sister found an image of such a thing and wondered if I would be able to recreate, or in any case create, such a thing. I'm always up for a crafty challenge, so we scoured the internet for some more images and patterns.

(Top left: image from Alice in Wonderland. Bottom left: kirimoth.tumblr.com. Right: mooglyblog.com)

The bottom left image, as it turned out, was the same image my sister had found. She's going to do the face paint, and create a costume, and I was going to make her the scoodie. I chose to go with a crochet version as it's far quicker than knitting, make it slightly wider than this version, and attach a hood and ears much like the image on the right. I hope that by using a big hook and thick yarn, I can make the hood slightly baggy like the inspiration picture. We're leaving the pockets and the paws off, though.

The scarf was a breeze thanks to the extremely thick yarn I've chosen. It's Katia Alaska, 100% acrylic and fuzzy as hell, so I was covered in little fuzzies from top to bottom before I was even halfway. It's super soft though, very pleasant to the touch. I ran into some issues ordering it, as I had ordered it online at a shop I have used before but somewhere between my order getting through and the order arriving at their queue, the computer had bugged out apparently and my order got lost in limbo. I called them on Friday after not getting response on my email, and they figured out that it had indeed not gone through, grabbed my yarn and sent it out as fast as they could, boosting me up to the more expensive shipping option to compensate for the delay. It arrived on Saturday morning! Project saved, as well as my regards of that shop. (crafty Dutchies: because I love to enable. They've got a ton of the cheaper brands like Phildar and Katia, as well as Scheepjes and Rico. They've got acrylics as well as nice, soft merino yarns (the yarn for my Maroo mitts also came from this shop. And they're (usually) very quick to ship!)

I hope to get the hood finished this weekend too, so I can get going with the ears and my sis can get to work on the other bits of her costume! And get her to send me pictures when she's all dressed up, of course. Mrow!

FO: Sunshine shawl

Done! I actually am done before Autumn is over! Who would have thought. I blocked the sunshine shawl and it came out as a lovely little shawlette, large enough to comfortably wrap around your neck and tuck into your coat but not so big that you can't close your coat up properly. Just warm enough that it protects you from the wind, but not too thick, so it's perfect for a chilly Autumn day!

I'm happier with how it turned out than this picture makes me look, I promise. (smile, Stef, smile! Come on! You can do it!) (I also discovered that I really need a tripod for my camera because I can't balance this one on a jar like I did with my old point-and-shoot! I got three good shots out of a whopping 15 because the camera wobbled!) I'm almost disappointed I had to give it away as it's so squishy and soft and nice.

As I had never really blocked knitting before, especially knitting with lace elements, I was surprised how it turned out. The fabric seemed a bit bouncy before blocking, the picot edge very scrunched up, but the resulting fabric was very supple and smooth and the picot edging really opened up and made the thing come together. And to think that I almost left it off because I was afraid of mucking it up! Yay for trying scary new techniques!

My friend was very happy with it and is now going to make sure that her still-to-buy winter coat will at least match the colours. Present well-received, I'd say.

Now I can finally really start on my Maroo mitts. I bought the needles and even started once, but I messed up on the fiddly first round of k1p1 before messing up because those DPNs sure can get in the way when you're trying to wrestle ribbing onto one of the needles. So I frogged in frustration and tossed it aside. It'll get picked up soon enough, though!

almost FO: Sunshine shawl

The Sunshine shawl is off the needles! Yay! It took me forever but the shawl is finally at a stage where I can see completion in its near future. All that's left is to weave in the ends, block the everloving hell out of it, and bring it over to its recipient.

I hemmed and hawed over how to finish this shawl as the instructions say nothing about an estimated length needed for the bind-off, so I kept weighing my leftover yarn and finally decided at about 8, 9 grams left that I needed to get going with the bind-off. In the end, I have so much yarn left, that I probably could have added another row or two... But oh well. Lesson learned for the future, I guess. Figure out how much yarn you need for the bind-off before you get to that stage!

It would have been nice if the designer had included something about that in the pattern, as it's marketed towards the absolute beginner in shawl-knitting and if the comments section on the pattern page is any indication, I'm not the first to have encountered this problem. However, from the look of things, this is actually never really mentioned in a pattern at all. I'm guessing it's because you can't really put a number down as a designer as it depends heavily on the yarn, your gauge, if you're a loose or tight knitter, and the type of bind-off.

The bind-off I used was the recommended picot bind-off. It's a fun little bind-off, the end result has a bit of a Fifties-feel to it. And it was surprisingly easy to do! The knitted cast-on threw me for a loop for a minute or so, and the first time I read through the instructions I was ready to bail on the idea and to just do a regular cast-off, but Youtube helped me through the instructions and after a cautious beginning (fiddly stitches on slippery needles, you know the drill), I motored through the bind-off and got it done far quicker than I had anticipated!

The blob of knitting doesn't look like much yet, and I do hope blocking it heavily will let it grow quite a bit still because as it is right now, I can hardly get it around my neck! It is supersoft, though. And I really hope the recipient will love it!

Not even a WIP: Maroo mitts

How often can you run into something before you give in to its lure and just buy the damned thing? I had that with the Maroo mitts. These gorgeous little knitted mitts, with a simple construction and colour-blocked scallops, I must have run into the ad on Ravelry for that pattern at least 20 times this past week alone. They're so cute! And they look snuggly and warm and adorable. And those colours! I've seen them look amazing in variations of green, a medley of red colours, and even a halloween-themed pair in black, orange and yellow. Very cute. But the original colours really caught my eye: dark grey, with a pop of bright honey-mustard yellow, followed by an edge of silver. Gorgeous! Not my usual colours, perhaps, but I figured it was high time I strayed from my blues and greys a bit. Too many accessories in the same colours can get dull.

So this week I finally caved and went to look at the pattern again for the yarn, and then it struck me that I have this pattern in my library already! I got it for free not too long ago (I think for the designer's birthday?) so all I had to do... was buy yarn! I need a relatively small amount for them because they're just mitts, so I didn't want to buy very expensive yarn just to use a tiny bit. The yarn I settled on is Lana Grossa Cool Wool Baby, it's 100% merino and it's supersupersoft. Because of my sensitive skin I can't wear normal wool close to my skin, and in some cases even acrylics can itch and scratch like a beast, but I have never had a problem with merino.

But I can't start, not just yet. I need to finish the Sunshine Shawl still! I'm getting there, I've got about 20 grams left, if not less. I'm hoping that when it's done, it'll be a decent-sized little shawlette that is perfect to wear in this current bout of weather we're having. It's sunny and warm, but as soon as the wind picks up slightly it cuts right through your sweater. And at night it cools off rapidly, too! We've already had temperatures below 0 degrees here too, so the cold is rapidly approaching. I need to get a move on on this shawl. Maybe I need to keep this yarn out on my desk as an incentive to knit faster, so I can start on my mitts!

WIP: Sunshine shawl

This lazy blogger went to the market, this lazy blogger went home, this lazy blogger...

You get the idea. I guess the summer got in the way again, like it does every year. This year though, I've mainly been working, and only had one week off! We went to a festival, like we do every year, we had a great time, saw a boatload of great bands (and a handful of not-so-great ones), had little to no sleep, and came back home with a ton of stories and a backpack full of laundry. You know, like every year.

In the mean time, though, I have been knitting. I'm working on a Sunlight Shawl for Sad People in, almost ironically, a moody, overcast-sky coloured yarn. I'm making it for a friend who gave me a whole bag full of her old clothes because we both lost a ton of weight and now I fit in her old clothes. That, plus the fact that she's a great person who is truly knitworthy (two years or so ago I made her a hat out of clownbarf babbymelting acrylic yarn that she still wears on occasion because it keeps her head incredibly warm), and the fact that her birthday was a month ago, meant I decided to knit something really nice and soft and warm for her.

It's the first time I've ever attempted to knit something of a decent size, and it's working up really well! The pattern is very simple and is basically the pattern for a standard triangular shawl with yarnover increases, and as a modification you can add ridges, or as some people who have made the shawl did, eyelet rows. I'm trying to space the modifications out evenly. I'm not sure what I want to do with the border yet, or how much yarn I need to have left over for a border, so that will be interesting. I have quite a bit of shawl to go still though, so I'll worry about that later.

This was my first attempt at adding an eyelet row to anything this size! It's pretty cool. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear the more experienced knitters snickering behind my back... There's a first time for everything, right?) And I didn't even miss a stitch! Dropped one, yes. No worries though, I picked it up again.

I promised to have it finished before the weather turned cold and as it was only 15 degrees yesterday and raining like crazy, I probably need to get a move on!