Answering the question 'what do you wear under a shawl'

...also showing just how flat-as-a-pancake I am.


Blocking shots...


...and pre-blocking shots. I used guitar strings as blocking wires, and strung them in before washing. It worked pretty well.

FO: White circle shrug

This is the second of three iterations of the circle shrug concept. I know, start in the middle why don't I? It is, however, the best looking of the three. I found the idea in the craftster forums, and created my own pattern for it. It's a very simple recipe, essentially a folded rectangle which you pick up stitches from the long edge of and knit around for a ruffle. In this case, the rectange is the 'english mesh' lace pattern from some washcloth pattern somewhere, and the ruffle is my own figuring (I'm sure someone else has devised and name it before, but I haven't seen it).
Stitch pattern (roughly):
r1: k2tog yo p
r2: k yo p2tog
It's essentially k1p1 ribs with yo's in between and is completely reversible, which was the desired attribute.
Due to the heavy drapey nature of the yarn, it doesn't need blocking beyond laying flat to dry, which is nice.

So, vital stats (I honestly remember all of these - wow)
yarn: gedifira 'big', a cotton acrylic blend 3 balls. I bought this for a tube top, then realized that was a bad idea, knit another top for which it was entirely too heavy, and finally it found a home here, for which it is very suitable, soft and drapey.
needles: size 8 bamboo circular. The plymouth one with the joins I don't like, which is why I remember it.
gauge: er, it's lace. One repeat of the english mesh is 2 inches across and 3 inches tall. One repeat of the lacy rib is 1.5 inches across.

close up:

Snowflake Scarf

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas, Alpaca Worsted, 4 skeins, natural and light blue
Gauge: 14 sts, 16 rows per 4"
Pattern: My own
Needles: size 8? bamboo.

This is one of my favorite projects. It's also My mother's, for what that's worth. This yarn is incredibly precious. You touch it and can't believe something so soft came from a living animal. That said, there are some guard hairs that I notice on my very sensitive neck. Not enough not to wear it. Also, one (not terribly long, though grandted double-thick) scarf like this will set you back $80. Phew.
It is beautifully warm though. Just long enough to really wrap across your face once. And quite good at hiding beginner's DK eveness issues. Also, it has a cable construction, and really hasn't pilled in two winter's worth of resonable wear. It does leave some fuzzies on my black wool coat, but the scarf itself is doing quite well.
Appoligies on the pictures - the coloration of this is incredibly hard to capture for some reason. It's subtle and pale, but not nearly as blurry and grey as these suggest. Most pictures that showed any kind of contrast either washed the whole thing to white so you could barely see the patten, or made the blue a strange brilliant cyan. I need to get better with the camera.

FO: 2nd Socks

Really, like, this is a current one I finished them yesterday.

yes, they're purl-side out. I decided I like the way it blurred the stripes together this way.
stats:
yarn: All The Pretty Fibers Pure Merino Wool "Aurora Borealis" 500 yds.
pattern: Sockulator V 8.75 long, 7.5 around. 2x2 ribbed cuff with increaces every 12 rows.
needle: combination 0 & 1 bamboo dpns. (all at the same time, not like one for the ribbing, I'm a few dpns short of a set apparently - it seemed to work)
gauge: 9.25 sts, 13 rows per 1"
thoughts: I'm not crazy about this yarn. The color is a little bright, and it changes significantly from one end of the skein to the other. It's also very thin, with many itty bitty plys, and the texture just isn't as great as the STR I used for socks #1. OTH, it was a) a gift. and b) it the picture, it looked absolutely fabulous, I so would have bought it myself, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting (btw, I was expecting more blurred colors and 'in-between-tones' rather than essentially three discrete colors in a striping pattern.
The fit is wrong. This is completely my fault, I just need to learn what size I like my socks.
But, all told, they're surprisingly servicable. The fit is manegable, and they're nicely warm. and I am so glad to be done with them.

Felted Tweed Sweater

Stats:
yarn: rowan felted tweed (color: melody). I don't remember how many balls.
pattern: copy of something I already had. While I tried to copy faithfully except for making it circular, it didn't quite work out.
needles: bamboo circular, size 1 (I think)
comments:
This was my first sweater. My first 'real' knitting project of any note. It's has flaws, but considering, I'm pretty proud of it. When I was unsure about how many balls of yarn to buy, the lady at the yarn store expressed disdain that it would be possible to copy something from an existing garment. That's crazy. I thought it would be easier than following a pattern, and it mostly was.
It's also exceptionally warm. Looking at the content (mostly wool, with equal parts alpaca and rayon) and gauge of felted tweed, I assumed it would be relatively cool, if not summer wear. I guess the alpaca goes a long way.
That said, the problems:
The gauge is a little off. I'm not sure where this came in, whether I measured the original wrong, or preferred the felted tweed at a smaller gauge that is specified on the label, it's really a mystery. For the most part, this works fine, it fits snuggly, but the ribbing expands, and it's 'fitted' rather than tight.
It's itchy. Not intolerably so, but I prefer an undershirt with it.
It shows bra-straps.
You may notice the sweater is a midriff, and while I am at that brief stage in my life where I can debatably pull that off, this matches poorly with the 'incredibly warm' point mentioned above. It also matches poorly with the idea of showing this off in front of conservative relatives & whatnot. I attribute this (the shortness) to a combination of the gauge problems, and being impatient to finish the darn thing. I've considered knitting more ribbing, then kitchenering the whole thing together to make it longer, but I think the ribbing would be disproportionate, so I'd have to go all the way up to the lacey bits. Also, that's a darn lot of kitchenering. Also, the needle I would need for it is currently occupied.

A closeup view of the colorwork:

(this was the last picture - by the time I got to it the light was completely shot. This is the best I could do. The color in the first is much more accurate)

smurf feet

statistics:
pattern: fuzzy feet, from knitty, rather modified.
yarn: Imperial Stock Ranch lopi style. Two skeins.
gauge: felted, disatrously. Who knows.

thoughts: I made several modifications to the pattern. One, was to change it to a toe-up version with a short row heel I saw somewhere. This, despite being perhaps an agressive change for my new-to-knitting ways worked fine. The second was to substitute the yarn. This too, was probably not a bad thing, and I believe the choice I made was apropriate. The problem comes in with gauge. Since I was making all these changes, I couldn't just blindly follow the recomended gauge. Having heard only a little about sock knitting or felting at the time, the one piece of information I remembered was that socks should be knit tightly for durability. So I knit them very tightly. Do you see where this might be a problem for felted slippers? Well, as you can see, they did felt some, but not completely, and it darned near killed me to get them to do that. I also didn't know that felting things made them shorter more than it made them narrower, and I didn't have regular washing machine access in order to swatch appropriately and find this out myself.
So, they're too big, particularly too wide, but for slippers they work fine, they're pretty sturdy, and I can wear my mohair footies inside of them for extra warmth.
I have mixed thoughts on the yarn, it wasn't itchy or rough, but it gave the impression of being dry, or powdery, it's a hard-to-describe sensation, not necesarily bad, but odd. One of the skeins was full of knots, and this was before I knew to send something like that back, but they're felted slippers, so who really cares?

Fuzzy socks

Statistics:
Yarn: ozeyarn kid mohair brushed, 100% mohair bulky weight.
Amount: ??? leftovers from one skein after making two scarves & a hat.
Gauge: 6sts, 9rows per inch
Pattern: madeup, basic toe-up sock recipe. Short row heels
Needles: #2 brittany birch dpns.

These turned out way better than they had any business whatsoever turning out. I was using leftovers from some x-mas scarves, I didn't really check gauge, or have any pattern theory other than keep knitting until they're big enough.
They are one of my favorite FOs
Never let anyone tell you that 100% brushed mohair socks are a bad idea.
They are soft (and not itchy like so many mohairs are for me), they are squishy, they do the best job of anything I've ever tried of keeping my feet actually warm. (this is an impossible task, really). I love the colors in the yarn and how it subtly stripes. They are kinda slippery on hard floors, and I imagine they will get gnarly with age, but that does not diminish my love for them. I wear them like slippers and while I'm sleeping.
They were a bit of a bear to knit up, due to both unfamiliarity with socks and just plain knitting brushed mohair at a tight gauge. They stained my needles.

By the way, I would recommend this yarn in this gauge for sweater knitting, it's nice and opaque, but not stiff. You could probably make a polar expedition it it though.

Obnoxiously Yellow Hat.

Well, I'm going to try to post past FOs, though not necessarily in chronological order, more like, when I found it laying around order.
So here we are:

Vital statistics:
Yarn: handpaintedyarn.com novelty boucle in color 'curry light' 2 hanks, had a little left over
Gauge: used doubled in seed stitch, ~ 2sts, 4.5 rows/inch.
Needles: who the heck knows anymore, I think it was the 8's
Pattern: my own. Very simple knit in the round from the brim up. Picked up some stitches for the ear flaps.
Other thoughts:
I like the yarn, though it was a bear to work with. Very little stretch, as the core thread is tightly spun, despite the puffy bits sticking out of it.
This, by the way, is even more of a glowing brilliant acid blinding yellow than the picture makes out. Computer screens as we know them are simply not capable of displaying the true yellow-ness that this is. I find it somewhat amusing, and largely what I intended for the yarn. M, on the other hand, won't let me wear it out of the house. It's comfortably soft and warm - I've been wearing it to sleep in recently.

Here's a closeup of the stitchwork for those interested in the yarn. It really is that hard to see any coherent stitches, even in real life - I had a heck of a time measuring the gauge


And a shot of it 'on-head' to get a better impression of size & style - appologies for the fuzzy picture - there aren't any better-lit mirrors available.