"A Knitted Wonderland" Part 2 - FO: Tree Sweater

Here is our finished product. Tree 34 with it's sweater and its team, Katie, Aaron, Mom and me.


To recap, this is our tree sweater for A Knitted Wonderland. I recommend reading all my tree sweater blog entries if you missed them the first time. That way you can understand the overall project and see how we got here.

We used the assigned yarns, I Love This Yarn in Orange and Turquoise, Red Heart Kids in Pink and Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Olive. I used US Size 7 needles for my portion. I don't know what size hook Katie and Mom used for their portions.


I had two sections with cables. I used a the large middle cable from the Braided Cable Scarf by Miriam Felton in the center, and put two simple cables on either side.


Katie used half double crochet for her portion.


Mom used single crochet on her portion, and Aaron helped us sew the whole thing up.

In this picture you can see the button and the crochet flower I added. To make the flower, I used the Little Flowers with Leaves pattern by Mimi Alelis. I wish I had added a few more flowers around the top. I think it would have added interest without being too distracting.


The day after installation day was the official project debut at Explore UT. Katie and Aaron had to work and Mom didn't want to fight the traffic. We were all pretty tired, and Explore UT is a massive event. But I wanted to see my tree in action badly enough to pay for parking and deal with the crowds.

I followed the arrows (like the one above) and caught the last part of Magda Sayeg's talk. I even helped answer an audience member's question about how long it took to make the tree sweaters. (Basically, I said it took me a month to make half of our tree, but it's hard to break that down into hours.)


After the talk I spent some time outside watching our tree to see if we had any tree huggers. I saw a few people take pictures with it, including the woman above. She took a picture of two little girls posing with our tree. This woman took a picture too. And that's just what I saw while I was sitting on a bench.


Some group was filling rubber gloves with helium and handing them out like balloons. They were all over the place. I saw one kid accidentally let go of his glove/balloon under our tree. It ended up stuck in the branches. The boy tried to knock at the balloon by tossing his water bottle at it before he gave up.

It's amazing the sense of ownership that developed after we put the sweater on the tree. I wasn't too worried about the glove/balloon, but I felt like it was my responsibility to do something because it was in my tree.

I wonder if it's still there. It seems like it would have lost helium and fallen out of the tree by now. Or eventually someone in charge of maintaining the campus would have seen it and gotten it out. There's no way I could reach that with my ladder. (Not that I had it with me during Explore UT.)


On Friday, March 18 it all comes down, and that makes me sad. But my family and I got to be part of something really cool. I'm glad I saw the link on Facebook, otherwise I would have missed the whole thing.

There are links about this project all over the Internet. I'll leave you with a link to all of my pictures and some coverage from The Daily Texan.

A Knitted Wonderland from The Daily Texan on Vimeo.

FO: Foliage: Purple, Version One

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Year Long Gift-A-Long.


It's revenge of the chunky Foliage hats!

Remember last year I made three of these? One in red, one in Emerald and one in lime alpaca.

This one was made with Malabrigo Chunky, like two of the other three, This color is "Purple Mystery." Like the other hats, I used US size 10.5 dpns for the main hat, and US size 9 dpns for the ribbing. I'm pretty sure I used bamboo needles.

I actually made this one in one sitting for last year, but it never made it to the recipient until this Christmas. It's been on my coffee table ever since.

This one turned out like the rest. I'm pretty happy with it.

FO: Foliage: Green, Version One

Have I mentioned that I love Foliage from Knitty?

This one is much like the first one. I used US size 10.5 dpns for the hat, except for the ribbing, where I used US size 9 dpns. The yarn was Malabrigo Chunky again, this time in "Emerald."

This is version one, the bigger gauge. It only took me a couple of sittings. I plan to make more (and eventually one in the smaller gauge.)





Lisa (above) got this one, and Dee (below) got the first one.

FO: Foliage: Lime, Version One

I'm behind on my blogging my FOs. The Stash and Burn One Skein Contest ended yesterday. I'll never get all four left done tonight, but I can at least do one.

Yes, I made another Foliage from Knitty, and it's another Version One (the chunky version.) I used the Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande in color 1310 and US 10.5 needles. I bought that yarn at the Knit n' Knibble in Tampa when I lived in Florida. It was the big spring sale, and I bought two skeins to give to my Mom for her birthday, and one skein for myself. They asked what I was going to do with just one skein. I said "probably a hat." I knit this with yarn to spare.

I don't remember how long it took. It's been more than a week of one skein projects since I made it. No more than two days. I plan to make more of these. I think it'll be one of the great Christmas gifts of 2007.

I like this one, but not quite as much as the first one. I think the Malabrigo made the stitches a little crisper and gave it more stretch. Also, the subtle semi-solids added a nice touch.

I'll be making more of these for gifts. I want at least two more in Malabrigo Chunky, probably in jewel tones. I have a decent amount left over after each one, and I want to combine the leftovers for a striped scarf.

I think this one was a little bigger than the first one, but the stitch pattern has a bit of stretch, so I'm sure it will be fine.


And yes, to whoever receives this hat, my hair was clean when I tried it on.

PS - Anyone noticed that some of the "Plymouth" yarns in Ravelry have been changed to "Indiecta"? Apparently Indiecta is the distributor, but I think everyone still calls it Plymouth. I hope they'll change it back.

FO: Foliage: Red, Version One

I titled this FO in pretty specific terms, because I suspect there will be more of these.

This is the Foliage hat from the recent Knitty. As I mentioned before, I love this pattern.

I used 1 skein of Malabrigo Chunky in color 102, "Sealing Wax." (I finally figured out why the colorway is called Sealing Wax. I kept thinking it was something you bought at Home Depot to seal a deck. And for some reason I always think of this type of sealing wax being purple.)

The needles I used were US size 10.5, which is amazing because I used the needles recommended in the pattern and got gauge. (You may know by now, I am a loose knitter.) I even used the US size 9s recommended for the ribbing.

The main problem I had was "missing my exit" in a manner of speaking. I thought I was supposed to repeat the lace pattern three times on the body of the hat. However, once I had done the pattern three times, I re-read the pattern and discovered it was three times for the worsted version, but only two times for the chunky version, the version I was making.

So I should have finished Thursday night, but it ended up being Friday night. I was talking to Jules on the phone while I was working on it. I think it took longer to tink it than it did to knit it. I was so frustrated. We would be talking, and I'd just suddenly break into "I can believe I did that!"

Anyway, all that aside, I love this pattern and plan to make some more. I'm thinking trying it with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky, Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande and maybe Jo-Ann Sensations Angel Hair. I might also get some more Malabrigo Chunky. I love the semi-solids.


I also went unblocked, and it looks fine. The pattern said it could go either way.

Yet another entry into the One Skein Contest is complete. Some lucky person will be getting this hat for Christmas. If it ends up being you, I promise that I had clean hair when I took these picture.

And forget that you saw this.

Is there life after Knitty?

Yarr...Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, me hearties. Why not check this shawl from Monster Crochet, or get some booty from the Yaaarrrrrrrn Pirate.

So It's been about 48 hours after finally submitting three patterns to Knitty, and my brain is finally recovering. Everything had been building up to that deadline. I realize now I tend to think of my knitting in terms of knitting deadlines. Now that this one has passed, I can start some new stuff.

As you see above, I got some free Moo cards with my Flickr account. Of course, you can see all these pictures at a larger size on my Flickr page.

Also, I got my cube that I won from Schrodinger. Now I need to start some socks to put in it.

Actually, my focus for now is the Stash and Burn One Skein Contest, which is also a running start to Christmas knitting. It's a shame that the Knitty submissions have to be secret (although I understand why.) One of mine is a perfect one skein pattern, and I've made several since the contest began.

One of the projects I want to make is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Spiral Hat. The Opinionated Knitter seems to imply that they still make this yarn (The original pattern was written decades ago.) I need to do some research before I cast one. Last time I checked, I couldn't find it on Ravelry.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed, so I decided to just cast on something. So I started with Foliage from the new Knitty. I used Malabrigo Chunky in 102 "Sealing Wax."

I love this pattern!

The chunky version is going very quickly. It has a fun top down construction. Also, the designer took the time to include both charts and written directions. I have very little chart reading experience, but when I started looking, I realized there wasn't really anything to learn.

The most amazing thing happened with this pattern. The pattern calls for US #10.5 needles. During my break at work, I cast on a swatch on size 9's, knowing that my gauge is usually really loose.

This evening, when I arrived at Bluebonnet, I measured the swatch and realized the gauge was too tight. That was unusual. So I got out my size 10s. It was still too tight. So I bought some 10.5s. And it worked! I don't recall any other time I've gotten gauge with the needle size recommended in the pattern! I guess the designer and I must be gauge soul mates or something. I think I'll be making more of these. I also have some yarn for the worsted weight version.

I love the yarn. The semi-solids are beautiful.

And I love this pattern!