One Scheme of Happiness

FREE PATTERN: Spring Wrapture

I've spent years searching for the perfect wrap.  I've knit scores of scarves, various shapes of shawls, cowls and hoods and still I could not settle on that perfect cozy accessory that would warm my head, neck, ears and shoulders. 

Scarves couldn't adapt well without tumbling into knots.   Hats were just...hats.  Cowls left my poor shoulders shivering.

Shawls came the closest to meeting my demands, but no matter their shape or how I twisted them, they always ended up slipping off my shoulders, sliding into a puddle under my coat or at my feet.

What I needed was a shawl that would not slither off of my body; a cowl that would do something for my shoulders; a hat that could branch out from being just a hat.

I looked at some infinity scarf patterns, but I really need need fancy, twisted stuff to further confuse me and tangle around my body.  I wanted a basic round reversible wrap that somehow met all of the images bouncing around in my head.

Finally I designed my own.

 

This circular wrap can come together to be pretty much whatever you are in the mood for it to be.  Since it is reversible, you can wrap and twist without worrying about what's showing.

It's even works pretty well to deflect against rogue snowballs.

YARN: Jojoland Melody (4 skeins)

NEEDLE: Size 2, 36" circulars

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS: about 55" around

GAUGE: 1" = 5.7 stitches; 13.3 rows

Download free pattern: Spring Wrapture here: Click to Download Spring Wrapture

**Please feel free to contact me with any comments or corrections!  Enjoy!
 

 

Snowicane 2010!!

This time, it snowed for days here in the city.

Luckily, a lot of hard work (by people other than me) kept the streets and sidewalks of midtown relatively clear.
  

We ended up with about 20" in Central Park.  I still had to go to work and school and do all those things I do.  For the longest time, although it snowed like crazy, it just didn't stick.

Ben and I sought solace in steamy mugs of milky lattes.
 

Good luck, if you wanted a bus!

Heads up - watch for falling snow and ice.

Today, Ben and I poked around in the park a bit - I finished my Olympic Knitting and we had to do the official photo shoot (which will be here withing the next 30 hours or so!  Complete with pattern!)

 Believe it or now, it was still snowing a tiny bit at times!

 

Not That Again, and Picot!

When Giant Snowflakes Attack! 

The flakes, they nearly knocked me down on my walk to work this morning.  Yes, it was 43 degrees yesterday and The Weather Channel says it's 34 degrees now, but these flakes don't seem to realize the implications for that forecast.  I haven't seen any of it sticking (however, I've been ensconced in the safety of my office since 9am).

This snow practically begs for knitting.  While work does interfere most of the time, today I have Office Knitting Lunch and I did haul in my Olympic knitting! 

Last night I R-I-P-P-E-D the naughty picot edging out, since I was going about things all wrong (thank you for your advice, google).  Now I'm totally portable and about a quarter of the way through the bordering!

 

 Check out that fiiiine picot.

Ooh, la, la!

You probably guessed that I made negligible progress with that baby blanket border and you would be right.   I'll find all kinds of excuses to avoid that little deal.

...And Then All of These Deadlines Popped Up Out of Nowhere and Surrounded Me...

My Olympic Project has morphed into that which is non-portable.  I am binding off picot (wrong, I think - remind me to google that) and I don't dare shove that floppy mass of discombobulation into my purse for fear of flying stitches.

Four days until deadline on that one.

So I shoved this into my bag this morning:

Meet the completely annoying border for the Heirloom Baby Blanket. 

Why hello there.  I hate you already.  This little sucker has become a PITA fast.   And I must have it completely done with by Tuesday.  Ugh.

Also - HELP: do I block the main blanket and border before I join the border?  Or after?  I'm thinking after...

More deadlines!  By March 12th I must finish a Secret Handwarmer Project as well as a little Secret Something Else and I'd LIKE to at least be rolling on another Secret Something (these are all gifts, by the way, for people who may or may not read the blog).  In the meantime, there are two other projects that I really should be working on, since there are a couple of mamas out there busily gestating...

At which point I have become overwhelmed by my knitting...

*hides deep in the pile of woolly yarns*

Friends, Knitting, Hot Chocolate and Beer

Last Thursday night, I joined friends at The City Bakery's Annual Hot Chocolate Festival.  This year, they teamed up with the local NYC yarn stores for a knitting themed festival!

 
fabulous knitted signs created by Schrodinger Knits!

Well, I'm sure you can imagine what a stroke of genius that proved to be.  The event sold out well in advance; those of us lucky enough to attend found ourselves sampling ten different flavors of hot chocolate, four flavors of beer, macaroni and cheese, cookies, candies, cheesecakes, wine and fresh marshmallows as we fought against the sugar rush while attempting to knit, knit, knit without bouncing off of too many walls.

(the greenish blob in the foreground is my Knitting Olympics project, cozying up to a pilsner)

In the raffle, I won a giant skein of this wool!  HAT!

 
Oh the dilemma - more hot chocolate?  Or more beer?

Perhaps a bit of both, please?

 

Day 6 - In the Slog

Knitting Olympics Progress:

...not much, really.  I'm deep into the slog of moss stitch on ball three and have had very little knitting time since our last check-in (just during some women's luge and a few rounds of speed skating).

Tonight I'll be gorging myself at the Hot Chocolate Festival, which, while being a knitting event, might induce a sugar high that will impede my k, p, k, p rhythm (not that I'll be crying into my cocoa over it, mind you).

Knitting Olympics: Day 5....I think...

We have achieved Day Four Five (maybe) of the Olympics and with them, the ever-intertwined (for me, at least) Knitting Olympics.  The joy and sorrow of the athletes is matched only by my own tumultuous emotions as Ben and I strive to compress hours days of DVR'd Olympic coverage into those few, precious and brief moments between my arrival home and bedtime. 

What to fast-forward?  The touching tale of the ex-Canadian skier who got fed up with the Canadian system and took off to Australia?  The bloody ice wars of speed-skating past?  The weird Biathlon, with its shooting and skiing confusion in the snow?

Our DVR is jumbled with hours of glory and defeat, bleak commentator nonsense (fast-forward that awful woman who jabbers through the figure skating, please - I hate her!  Wait - the Chinese are skating again -PLAY!), heroics and egotism, commercials, awards ceremonies, snow and fog and cheering, always the cheering.

Last night, we compressed 8 hours of coverage into just over 4 hours.  And here is where it has brought me thus far:

I know that today is the 6th day of the Olympics (including the opening ceremony/cast on night), but I think I'm actually watching somewhere in day four of competition coverage.  And I seem to have missed taking a knitting photo one day in there somewhere, to further bungle things. 

Regardless, this is what my knitting project looks like as of right now (okay, 10 minutes ago when I ran to CVS and took a picture of my knitting on the way back).  Today I haven't knit on my project or watched any Olympic feats because I've been crammed into my cubicle since morning, so I don't consider this "Olympic" day to have even begun.

Of course, I have class tonight (that extra, bonus one - whatwasIthinking???) so there will be little time to savor victory or morn the dropping of stitches if I am to get any sleep at all (sleep is optional anyway, as we determined during Year Two of the MBA Project).  I've already told Ben that I'm punting on dinner preparation (order out or belly up to the popcorn bowl!)

On Day Four

Opening Ceremonies: Let the Knitting Begin!  3..2..1...cast on!

Progress: Night One: 

Day Two: Biathalon, women's mogels.

On Day Three, it becomes real knitting: skating pairs, men's mogels.

Here we are, on day four, and I've yet to knit a stitch since I woke up at god-awful o'clock and trudged to work through the dark and snowy dawn.  I can hear the call of the yarn from the deep recesses of my handbag, and I cringe, knowing my wool is shuddering from neglect. 

But I have scarfed down 27 crawfish and an impressive slab of red velvet cake ~ Happy Fat Tuesday! 
 

Olympic Knitting! Starting in Three...Two..

I'm all in!

It's almost time to cast on for the Winter Olympic Knitting Challenge!!

I have entered the Designer Biathalonon Ravelry (Team True Blood) and I'm knitting along with the Yarn Harlot!  You can find my project here- it doesn't have a name or anything yet, but it has a lengthy running commentary from the past month or so while I've twiddled my fingers and repeatedly run the math!  I'm swatched and blocked (!!!) and ready to go with it.

This little swatch will one day (in two weeks, actually) grow up to be a large loop wrap, knit in moss stitch with a picot edge (to make it reversy). 

PLEASE cross your fingers that I don't run out of yarn!  What I'm using, I scored in a Spider stash swap a few summers ago, so there is no telling where I could find more, should disaster strike!

I can't get started until 9pm, though, so I'm waiting very impatiently...