Intrepid Knitting on the High Seas, or, Pointy Things and Tangly Stuff

Three bobbins of finely-spun yarn rest on braids of the same fibre. In the background, a spinning wheel and yet more of the fibre. 0

spinning

In Which the Pirate Spins.

I’ve been steadily working on a new spinning project – a pound of pale pink wool. At 40 WPI, this is going to take a while. Daily progress pictures wouldn’t show much, but here is the first four ounces spun up, and the next four ounces ready to go…

Closeup of the bind-off edge of a blanket, where it transitions from double-knit to single stranded.

blanket / double knit / fleeps / hands / shawl

In Which the Pirate Is Warm.

First: my new Warmer Fleeps are, indeed, warm enough! The exact shape of the mittens could use some adjusting (the mitten top needs more overlap, and the thumbs are too long) but we walked half a mile to breakfast in 14°F (-10°C) weather and none of my fingers froze. Nice. Second: I got to finally wear my Breathe and Hope shawl in public. We...

Flip-top mittens knit in charcoal gray and teal. The back has a zig-zag pattern and the front has a 1x1 pattern. One of the mittens is shown with the top and thumb cap flipped open; the other is closed. There are many yarn ends that need to be woven in.

fleeps / hands

In Which the Pirate Is Almost Done.

I put seaming the stripy sweater aside to focus on these Warmer Fleeps, because I wanted to get them finished in time for a work-related trip next week. For some reason we’re having a teambuilding event in Oregon, in February. It may be a case of bonding through frostbite, but hopefully these will help me stay warm. I was pretty sure that I’d have...

Two gloves with a set of DPNs and a tiny ball of leftover yarn between them. The gloves are handknit in a dark charcoal gray yarn. They have partial fingers for the thumb, index, and middle fingers. The ringfinger and pinkie are fully covered.

fleeps / hands

In Which the Pirate Makes Warmer Fleeps (Take Two).

Right, so, I made the inner gloves in a grayish green yarn for a pair of Fleeps (flip-top glove/mittens, for those of you who are new here) that will be warmer than my usual single-layer ones… and then I decided that the grayish green looked awful against the coal and teal I’d picked for the outer mittens. So I started over, and knit a...

The pieces of a stripy sweater laid out on the floor as if they were sewn together. The stripes are gray, blue, and green - on the sleeves the gray stripes are wider, and on the body the blue stripes are wider.

machine knitting / sweater

In Which the Pirate Has Pieces of a Sweater.

Well would’ja look at that, it’s a stripy sweater! All four pieces are done. I basted them together and tried on the sweater, and it doesn’t not fit! It may be one stripe longer than necessary, and there may be a little weirdness with slight tension differences between the blue yarn and the others, but I made a sweater! Well, almost. I still have...

Two white and two navy blue skeins of sock yarn. They are neatly tied and folded, but the yarn is squiggly from having been knit and unraveled.

machine knitting / sweater

In Which the Pirate Swaps Stripes.

Remember that time I knit a sanquhar-inspired scarf with little skulls hidden in it? It’s not that it was a bad idea, it’s that my execution was off, and so was my estimation of whether I actually wear scarves. I’ve been looking at this thing all winter going “okay, but it’s too long and too thick to be comfortable, and not only does my...

Tension swatches of yarn in medium gray, kelly green, and navy blue.

machine knitting / sweater

In Which the Pirate Starts a Sweater.

It’s (finally) time for a machine-knit fingering weight sweater! I chose three yarns out of my stash – two skeins of gray, one of a bright kelly green, and one navy blue. First, swatching. I tried each of the three yarns on tensions 5 and 6, and decided that T5 felt better, and was less see-through, without being so stiff that it won’t feel...

A handknit brioche baby blanket in gradient stripes of greens, pinks, blues and purples. It is 30 inches wide by 33 inches long.

gifts / things for babies

In Which the Pirate Finishes a Blanket.

First project of the year is off the needles: the brioche baby blanket is done! It came out a little bit longer than I’d planned, but I wanted to use the full colour repeat on both balls of yarn in order to get a fully reversible blanket in both directions. The two-colour brioche was a lot of fun to knit: just challenging enough that...

A pair of handknit socks with chevron stripes in purple, gray, white, yellow, pink, and tan.

frog pond / sock

In Which the Pirate Makes a Sad Discovery.

This morning I reached into my sock drawer and pulled out a pair of Jaywalkers that I knit a dozen years ago. They haven’t gotten much wear and they still look really good, but… I couldn’t get the sock cuff over my heel. And then I remembered the last time I tried knitting a pair of Jaywalkers. My feet have grown. Dangit. I guess...

Three handmade zipper pouches in a variety of pretty fabric patterns and colours, their zippers opened to show the different fabrics on the inside.

sewing

In Which the Pirate Sews Some More.

I thought I’d put away all the sewing stuff, but then friend Karen asked if I could make a couple of zipper bags for her, so I did – and while I had the machine threaded, I made one for myself as well. Once again, I followed this YouTube tutorial – this time, unsurprisingly, it went more smoothly. Especially the part with the zippers....