Chemo Caps

There have been so many times in my life when I have been glad to be a knitter/crocheter (almost every day), but the time when I feel it is most helpful in my life is when I hear that someone I know or a person that someone else I know knows has received the dreaded news that they will have to face chemotherapy. It is at these times that I am so glad that I can sadly mumble condolences and then go off to pick up needles and yarn to try to do something small to help the situation. Over the years, I have found that knitting soft, cotton caps is a simple act that helps those suffering the agony of chemotherapy in a tiny way, but that it is at least something I can do in the face of news like this.

Here are two caps I made recently for a friend of my sister. The pink one is made of Cascade Sierra Quatro and the blue one is made of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.

I have found that both of these cotton/wool blends machine wash well in cold water on delicate cycle (even if their directions say otherwise), and I have even been known to throw the in the dryer on low for a little while with no ill effects (warning: you should try this first on a swatch if you want to be sure it won't affect the yarn negatively since different colors can react differently as can different washers and dryers). Unfortunately, though, Cascade Sierra and Sierra Quatro have both been discontinued, so it looks like I will have to find a new worsted weight cotton blend. Any recommendations? Please share in the comments section below.

The pink hat is a simple rolled brim cap, which was based on the pattern from this website: Head Huggers Patterns List. I modified it slightly by beginning the decreases at 5.5 inches and then adding a couple more plain rounds between the decrease rounds. (Check out my Ravelry project page under suzknittyspinner for details).  The blue hat is a great pattern from Grumperina  called Odessa. It is a great pattern that I found out about on a discussion board forum in the Ravelry group called Chemo Cap Pattern Library. I highly recommend checking out that group if you are interested in making chemo caps since they provide a lot of advice about materials to use and other considerations when making these caps. They also provide a lot of links to great patterns like Odessa. Here is a better photo so you can see how nice the spiral detail of the decreases looks on Odessa:

Odessa will probably become my new go-to cap since it turned out so well and was fun to knit. I have another free pattern, which I got years ago online and which I cannot find the link to anymore. It is a simple hat with a fancy rib pattern. However, I think Odessa has become my new favorite.

Does anyone else have a favorite go-to cap? Please share in the comments if you do.

Adventures with Fair Isle

Although I have been knitting for 20 years and have a lot experience under my belt, one area in which I need more practice and have dreams of unmet accomplishments is Fair Isle knitting. As you probably know if you have read my introductory post on this blog, knitting Arans and other types of textured designs has been my primary focus for much of my knitting "career." If you check out my Ravelry profile (suzknittyspinner), you will see that I have knitted several cabled sweaters of varying difficulties (and even more than are pictured on Ravelry since I wasn't always great about taking photos) with Alice Starmore's Inishmore being my most prized achievement. My dream is to knit one of Alice Starmore's Fair Isle designs now that I have one of her Arans under my belt.

However, during all those years of dreaming about and knitting cables, I always had a desire to learn Fair Isle (stranded) knitting, too. Lack of time due to a busy work and family-life schedule kept me from pursuing this dream as intensely as I would have liked to have done. I did make some small steps towards my goal over the years, though. I began by knitting hats, starting with a very easy hat and slowly trying others:

I highly recommend this simple pattern from Homespun Handknit: Caps, Socks, Mittens & Gloves, the Mushroom Cap and Mittens by Jacqueline Fee, as a way to begin to practice your stranding technique. If you have done any reading about Fair Isle knitting, you probably know that there are several ways to hold the yarns when stranding. You can hold them both in one hand, or you can use two hands by knitting English-style in one hand and Continental-style in the other (as Elizabeth Zimmerman and Alice Starmore recommend). I choose to strand using both hands, but because I am an English-style knitter, I had to learn to knit Continental-style with my left hand. Before I even started the hat above, though, I practiced Continental-style knitting on a scarf. Once I felt fairly comfortable with it (after over five years of practicing it, I am still not nearly as comfortable with it as I am English-style -- can't teach an old dog new tricks!), I tried this hat. Since the pattern only requires you to strand the yarn for one stitch at a time, it was fairly easy to get the hang of stranding and to get into a flow with my knitting. The yarn used was also a sport weight yarn, so that made the stranding a bit easier to manage for a first project.

After this hat, I tried another Mushroom Cap in different colors for my niece as well as a stranded hat of my own design (using one of Barabara Walker's motifs from one of her Treasuries) for my other niece:

Making these simple hats and especially choosing the motif for the second hat was a lot of fun, and I began to feel like I might be getting the hang of stranded knitting (these hats weren't technically Fair Isle since they were only using two colors without changes in the colors in the background), so I decided to try something that looks a little more complicated but really isn't, The Fake Isle Hat by Amy King.

It was so much fun to knit that I made another:

After my success with all of these hats, I began to gain confidence and decided to try some mittens at a slightly smaller gauge, so I began Beth Brown-Reinsel's Nordic Mittens, and this is where things began to get a bit more tricky. Working on double-pointed needles is usually a breeze for me since I was fortunate to have a knitting teacher who got me going on socks as my second knitting project (long before socks on two circs or Magic Loop existed). However, dpns while stranding was not my strong suit (and still isn't, which is why I am now using Magic Loop for stranded mittens). Here is what I started and have to this day not finished:

Unfortunately, I put these mittens aside when I began feeling frustration from trying to strand across the gaps between dpns, and my enthusiasm for Fair Isle withered a bit for awhile. I then decided that maybe I needed a class, so for my 40th birthday, instead of having a party, I asked for a weekend-long knitting class on Fair Isle with Beth Brown-Reinsel. It was awesome, and I learned so much. That class renewed my interest in Fair Isle, so I began an Ivy League Vest by Eunny Jang. 

It was a bit slow going at first since the gauge of the Shetland wool is finer than anything I had used previously. However, I began to feel like I was getting a rhythm, and then I made a mistake in the pattern! I intended to find it and fix it, but life got in the way, and before I knew it, this project was put in hibernation along with the Nordic Mittens. They both sat in a closet for over five years. However, this is the year that I plan to finish both of them. For some reason, cable knitting came very easily to me, but I have had to work at Fair Isle. I am now at a point, though, where I really want to be able to say that I met the challenge and have become a proficient Fair Isle knitter. Hopefully, I will be able to do that by the end of this year.

I will be posting later this week with some tips about how I have jump-started both of these projects and the ways that they seem to be coming along more smoothly this time.

Please share your experiences with learning Fair Isle knititng or any questions you might have if you are just starting to learn this technique in the comments below. Click on "no comments" to get to the page where you can add your own comment. I would love to get a discussion going here about this subject. I have a lot of great ideas for further posts that can link you to many of the helpful resources and tips I have picked up along the way even though, as you can see, I have been very slow to put them into practice. I have studied this subject a lot more than I have practiced it over the years. :)

Proud Mama

The day that I have been dreaming about ever since my precious baby girl as born, over 16 years ago, has finally arrived -- she has become a knitter! I have had a plan to entice her into this lifestyle for quite awhile. Of course, my motives were selfish since I dreamed of spending hours upon hours of quality time with her, sipping tea and stitching as we had some mother-daughter bonding time. 

I began to put my plan into action when she was only 4 1/2 years old. Being the avid reader of all things Elizabeth Zimmerman-related, I was very familiar with Meg Swansen's (E. Z.'s daughter) story of how she became a knitter. Elizabeth taught Meg early, but as Meg tells the story in her book, Meg Swansen's Knitting, she only knitted in fits and starts until she was a young adult. It was at that point that she became passionate about the craft, and this began a truly incredible collaboration between mother and daughter. Most of us know the rest of that delightful story, but if you don't, I highly recommend that you check out some of Elizabeth Zimmerman and/or Meg Swansen's writing and videos.

So, I envisioned my daughter and I developing a crafting relationship that emulated this famous mother/daughter pair. When she quickly got the hang of knitting at four and half, I thought, here is my knitter -- only to see her put down her needles the next day never to pick them up again for many years. Then at around eight years old, she picked them up again, showing enough enthusiasm for the craft to inspire me to buy her own little crafting bag with measuring tape, needle-sizer, a pair of scissors, a knitting instruction book for girls, needles and yarn. She began a simple garter-stitch scarf, knitted on it with zeal for a couple of days, and then quickly became bored. After that, her little bag sat in a corner of her bedroom for several years until one day in a flurry of spring cleaning, she decided that she would never again want to knit, and so she was going to get rid of all of her knitting "stuff." Of course, this saddened me, but in the back of my head, I thought, "She doesn't know what her future will hold. One day, she will still pick it up again." A little voice inside me did wonder if maybe knitting just wasn't her thing since I had noticed that as artistic and crafty as she is that she gravitated towards projects that could be planned and executed in a day, which led her to sewing and making other small crafty projects for a time. 

Alas, the day finally came in the last month when my patience seems to have paid off; she asked to pick up her needles once again to make a cute wool headband that she saw in an advertisement. She had originally asked me to find a pattern and to make the headband for her, but before I had the chance to begin it, she suddenly came to me and said, "Mom, do you think I could learn to knit the headband myself?" This was music to my ears, as you can imagine, so I replied, "Of course. Let's get started." The next day, I bought her some luxurious wool to get her properly hooked and to make sure she loved every minute of this experience, reviewed the knit stitch with her, taught her to purl and then to combine knit and purl to make seed stitch, and off she went! She picked it up like no time had passed since her last knitting session and even worked on training her hands to tension the yarn over and under her fingers in the way I have always done, so she could pick up speed. Before I knew it, she was knitting away every time I saw her with a spare moment. She even mastered it enough to knit while watching T.V.  

It is indescribable the joy a knitting mother feels when seeing her daughter with needles in hand and yarn flowing thought her fingers! I am in heaven. Not to mention, it is a blast to have someone right in my own house with whom I can talk "shop."  Here are the results of her glorious efforts! 

Pretty good for a newbie, I must say with a mother's proud heart.  My delight continues, since she is now asking to make herself some leg warmers! We are off to our LYS tomorrow.

In case any of you are wondering what I have been up to lately, I am working steadily on my husband's sweater and the Granny Stripes Afghan. However, in the meantime, I quickly knitted this wonderful hat for a co-worker to help him deal with this incredibly frigid weather we have been having. The pattern is a free download on Ravelry called Men's Ski Hat. I used Berroco Vintage yarn so that he could wash it easily. The stitch definition was great, yet the hat is very soft.  He loves the hat and wears it, which is the best a knitter can ask for, isn't it?

Unfortunately, I am also working on another hat for a friend of my sister's who is starting chemo today. I am so glad to be able to make these hats for those who need them, but I certainly wish I didn't have cause to make them. I will show you the hat and share which pattern I made when it is finished. It is looking really nice so far, but there aren't enough rounds to show it now.

Happy knitting and crocheting!

Free Fair Isle Hat Pattern

I decided to write up the pattern for the Simple Fair Isle Hat (Now called the Fair Isle Cross Hat since I posted it to Ravelry and needed to rename it) that I made last week to share with everyone. This my first time writing a knitting pattern, so please feel free to provide me with gentle constructive criticism via email if you see any problems with it. Here is a picture of the hat again in case you forgot or in case you haven't seen my earlier post:

Here is a copy of the pattern: Fair Isle Cross Hat

Please enjoy making your own color choices or even consider substituting pattern motifs for the ones I used. If I were to knit this again, I would definitely substitute a darker green for the one I used since it looks too light next to the cream background. Feel free to leave questions about the pattern in the comment section. Happy knitting!

Experimenting with Design

I recently completed a warm hat for a friend who is going through chemo and needs as many hats as she can get with these extremely cold temperatures we have been having in the Midwest. I had already made her a simple cotton chemo cap for indoors, so this time I thought I would make her something that was beautiful and really warm for outdoor wear. I started searching for patterns, but then I got the idea that I should design one of my own. I have created a few of my own garments over the years (mostly hats and one sweater). I always enjoy the process of searching through stitch guides and choosing colors. This time, though, I wanted to get more practice with Fair Isle knitting since it is something I have tried on and off, but that I don't feel I have mastered yet. Watching Elizabeth Zimmerman's incredible Knitting Workshop DVD (a Christmas present) had inspired me since she was encouraging beginning knitters to design their own two-color hats; I have been knitting for twenty years -- surely I could do this! Here is what I came up with:

I had a lot of fun choosing the motifs and deciding which colors to use for each motif and in each round. Since I wanted to be sure the hat was easily washable for my friend, I used some left-over acrylic that I had from a baby afghan (I would definitely advise using wool, though, if you can). The yarn was worsted weight. The motifs come from Mary Smith and Maggie Liddle's A Shetland Pattern Book (a great little book with easy to use Fair Isle patterns). I choose the central motif of the crosses so that I could knit some "prayers" into her cap. The other motifs were chosen since they had repeats that were divisible into the main pattern repeat and into the total number of stitches on the hat. I am happy with the results overall, but here are a few things I would change if I made another cap using this design:

• I would use a different green. The one that I had in my stash was a bit two light and doesn't pop well enough against the cream yarn. The pattern color really should be dark if the background color is light and vice versa.
• I would use Eunny Jang's technique from her Introduction to Fair Isle video where she recommends knitting all the stitches on the color-change row of corrugated ribbing instead of purling any of them in order to avoid the visible line in the color-change row. Of course, I saw her tip after I had completed the hat. The visible line doesn't bother me too much, though, since it is something I have seen in a lot of corrugated rib, but Eunny's technique is definitely something I will try next time.
• I might substitute different pattern motifs above and/or below the crosses

This project was a lot of fun since I really liked making so many choices and having everything under my control. It meant that I had to knit by the seat of my pants at times and there was some ripping and re-knitting, but it gave me a real sense of why E.Z. always had the mantra of "be the boss of your knitting." It is a great feeling. If anyone is interested in the pattern directions, I would be happy to write them up and post them to the blog. Just let me know by replying to this entry in the comments section below. (Click on the spot where it says "no comments" or if someone else has commented, click on where it says "comments" with a number before it.)

Now that I have completed this hat fairly successfully, I think it is time to pick up some of the other hibernating Fair Isle projects I have started over the years:

Beth Brown-Reinsel's Nordic Mittens

 Eunny Jang's Ivy League Vest

As you all know from the title of my blog, I am an Aran knitter at heart, but I still like experimenting with two-color knitting. Now if I could just finish something bigger than a hat!