Finishing the hoodie

And there's a winner!  Here's the winning entry:

Hi fellow knitter and blogger,
it's a fun guessing game you invented! After taking a good look at your project page and thinking about what would I do... I'm still not sure but I will try my best. So, I suppose you first finished the front, then embroidered the flower on the right shoulder area, next you finished the back (possibly kitchenered it to the front), then made the hood and reknit the sleeves to be wider. My guess may be far from the truth, but one thing I know for sure; you did an excellent job with this hoodie, it's very pretty.
Enjoy the last few days of your visit and have a safe trip home!

 Mimi (Serbia)

And the finished hoodie:

Done with two days to spare!  Like Brenda, a rare occurrence.

As Mimi observed, I needed to finish the back, make a front, knit the hood, knit a border around the front opening, sew in the sleeves, and embroider the final heart/flower.   Why did I have 2 days to spare?  Probably because I did NOT reknit the sleeves.  It is a miracle!  They fit!!

Yarn goes in the post today… Congratulations Mimi, and thanks to all the others who read my blog.

Update on Knitting

Here's the most recent progress, however, (spoiler alert) I just bound off!  Yay!  Two days to go, and I'm SOOOO close.

I don't know why it is sideways… It wasn't when I imported it...

And speaking of close, I want to let you know that no one is CLOSE to winning the prize from January 16!  You can go back there and review, but here's a refresher and hint:
When I asked for 5 things I needed to do to complete this project, two of them are (in no particular order) finish the back, and knit the front edging.  If you have trouble seeing the image, click on the photo and it should open up in an enlarged format.  If you want to see the pattern, you can probably get to it through my Ravelry page.
Ok, Marija!  It's up to you, and you have 24 hours from … NOW!
Good luck!  (There were more than 5 things, so don't worry if you can't get them all in 5!)
And go ahead and write them in comments… or email me.  I don't care if you spoil it for others.

Double Trouble... Kauni

Gotta luv that yarn!
But here's a tip.  A tip that should be kept in mind for all long self-striping yarns:  Don't use it doubled from the inside AND outside at the same time.  That causes the color pattern be in the opposite order:  red - orange - yellow vs. yellow - orange - red.  Putting those two together (doubled) can you imagine what's going to happen?  Solution is easy:  Divide your ball and make sure both strands are changing color in the same pattern or direction:   Red to Orange, and Yellow to Green.
I didn't think that far ahead, and it has been worrying me for months--the months that I haven't been knitting on this project.  Looks tremendous, IMHO, but in the back of my mind I've been running through the colors and imagining what's next.

 And my fear is that I'll have the same color doubled up. Look at this:
I start with (think rainbow) strand 1:  Blue Purple Red Orange Yellow Green;  Strand 2:  Green Yellow Orange Red Purple.  They line up like this:
Blue-Green, Purple-Yellow, Red-Orange, Orange-Red....Yellow-Purple etc.  Since the color change is so subtle, I know I'll have red-red or orange-orange in between my color changes, and I can't stand that much red and orange in the middle of my scarf.
OK, let's hear it... just shorten one of the colors, you say.  And I tell you, that would be fine if I discovered the enormity of the problem before I got to Red-Orange above. Once I was knitting with Red-Orange I couldn't shorten the red because it would still run into the orange of the 2nd strand, and the same goes with shortening the orange to red.  But...
My motto:  Divide and Conquer!  Divide (cut that yarn), roll up yards of red and orange, cut again, and reattach the yarns "switched".  Now I expect the order to go retrograde.  Blue-Green, Purple-Yellow, Red-Orange, Purple-Yellow, Blue-Green.  The only thing I'm losing is the two sides will never have the same pattern.  Each side will be unique, and THAT I call "A Plan".
I removed 27 g from the 160g ball and all is right in the Kauni world.  Hope the news gets out and prevents at least one other person from gnashing their teeth.

Somewhere out there, someone SHOULD do the calculations for where you can start as I did and using the right combination not have the same colors meet.  Here's a quick attempt:  Red - Orange - Yellow - Green - Blue - Purple - Red  AND  Green - Yellow - Orange - (no same thing happens)... Blue - Green - Yellow - (no)...  I don't think it can be done.
Contest time!  I have a ball of Kauni to give away... Send me your combination of colors where the six colors follow each other in the opposite order, and they don't cause the two colors to repeat themselves (as mine did) or the same color to occur at the same time.  Good luck!

A WINNER!

Can you believe that my nearest friends were WAY off in guessing my stash?    The answer is: 66. And the winner is Bonnie from Indiana with a guess of 55.  She'd better start counting her stash!
The Contest
I have 66 yarns that I have purchased and not touched.  (Shame on me.) Here's one from SO long ago that I don't have a date...  bought in Durango, CO.

I haven't used the green in the background, either, so these counted as "2" towards my 66.
The really good news:  I have a pattern in mind, and you may see it in the next few weeks if it works out. I love my stash, but I would like to see it used. (It justifies future purchases, doesn't it?)

And the winners are...

Thanks so much for reading and entering my contest:  Denise, Kay, Celina, Pattie M and Patty W, Jenny and Marija.

Marija guessed all three correctly, even though I'm not finished...  She guessed that the finishing order would be Hat, Scarf and Mittens.  The Hat is indeed finished first, and I intend to finish the scarf before the mittens.
My plan:  Too late in the season for mittens, and/or scarf in wool, so the mittens will be put aside until I think Norway has cooled down in the Fall or until a certain birthday occurs.  The scarf... I love knitting the scarf, so I expect that to be finished without depending on the weather.
Everyone else guessed that the hat would be done, so in a run-off eliminating the other three winners:
Pattie M, come on down!

The Scarf:  16" on March 16th.  Denise is the winner with 17".  Congratulations!!  You had competition close behind you with Pattie M at 18".

The Mittens:  Does this look like "done" or 1-1/2 mittens?

I think so too. Patty W wins with the only guess that I wouldn't finish!  She said 1-1/2 mittens... Smart she is!!  (Does she know about black hole of toddler time?)

The prizes:

Prize winners, if you have a definite favorite, let me know.  That and $20 (just kidding; a la Car Talk) may be YOUR prize!  Otherwise, expect a surprise package in a few days.

Contest is over...

I lost...
I feel like I lost, but as my friend says, I win because I got to spend so much time with my daughter and granddaughter.
The even better news is that three lucky guessers won!
To be announced by the end of the week, because I did such a poor job of getting any knitting finished, I'll have to come up with a drawing of sorts!
The hat is leaving in a few hours for England and Denmark.  By the looks of the temps, it will be needed in Denmark.  Windy, temps around freezing, but maybe in a week it will be higher, and then my knitting in earnest will go un-needed.  It's stretchy and I'm pretty sure it will get worn in Norway by September 2011.


No braid on the top per request.  It was super fun and interesting, but I recommend that you draw up a chart. The directions a 4 row repeat, and two separate 16 row repeats all at the same time to make the border band.  I didn't knit on this until Saturday mid-day. The other pieces (scarf and mittens) were more enticing because of the color-work. I 'heart' colorwork, and I don't know why when knitting texture is so gorgeous! More about this hat at Contest #3.

Pattern: Braids & Bobbles (AC-60) by Carolyn Doe from Fiber Trends;  220 Superwash by Cascade Yarns, Worsted / 10 ply 100% Wool, 220 yards

Ravelry Link

The Hat WINS!

Contest spoiler:  I'm not taking any more entries, so I'm going to report on progress so you can decide where you stand.

I worked on the cupcake mittens, because I was curious to see how they would come together (being a combination of two patterns, and convertible mittens/gloves).  

Meanwhile, I couldn't resist double knitting the scarf with Kauni so I could watch the long colorways appear.

I didn't touch the hat until Saturday, when I asked which of the three would be more of a necessity, and the answer was, of course, the hat.  Early Spring in England, Denmark and Spain seemed to warrant a hat...  since then, I've been working on it (almost exclusively).

Here's about 12 inches of braided and bobbled band.  I estimate it's 30% and two days to go.  Now what?   I think this contest is going to show that toddler time is another dimension!  

And it isn't likely I'll have lots of knit time in the next two days. An all-nighter might be in the near future.

Today I have a special service to play and two choir rehearsals in the evening.

Tuesday I promised myself and my daughter a trip to Durango to the Sushi restaurant.  And Wednesday, it's too late.

Ruht roh...

Spoiler Alert!

If you are thinking of entering my contests, you might want to think about the following information:
My mittens are not alike.  And for the contest, I intend to have a matching pair.

On the left, I REALLY wanted to use my garnstudio Alpaca.  It's lovely soft.  Then I got this far and was disappointed in the definition of the cupcakes.  Assuming that it's because the "garn" is fuzzy, I decided to try a second mitten with the lovely Valley Yarns Superwash DK.  Although the second one isn't "miles" better than the first, I'm going to continue with it.  The color is lighter, and it has a crisper look to it.  We agreed that if you told someone they are cupcakes, it would be obvious, but otherwise, they are colorful.

 Detail of the rejected mitten:  The bottom (first row of cherries) was knitted with a fluffy, eyelash type of red, and it stuck through the whole row as I carried it behind the other stitches.  It was surprising!  I never thought of that.  I thought it would be perfect for the splash of cherry, but, alas.

I have 12 more days to finish my projects, YOU have 3 more days to enter my contests!
NOTE: The deadline to enter has been extended to Sunday at midnight (MST or GMT+7).

Time with a Toddler

For the next few weeks, a toddler will be living at my house!  How much knitting do you think I'll get done by March 16?  I have three things that I would 'like' to get done by that date. And by 'like' I mean I intend to send them off with their recipients that day.  Is this craziness?  If you would like a prize of your own, I'm running a contest!  I have 3 lovely tea towels from around the world that I will send to those who guess correctly the stage of each project on March 16th.
Contest #1:  The Mittens.  Cupcake Convertible Mittens as seen on Ravelry. (All links are to Ravelry.)  This is using the colorwork from the cupcake mittens and with the knitting pattern Broad Street.  Here's what they (er, only the first one) look(s) like today:

First mitten up to stitches being held for thumb

Contest #2:  The Scarf.  A double-knitted scarf with Kauni.  This is going to be tricky, but guess how long it will be by March 16.  (I don't know myself, yet!)

4-1/2 inches long

Contest #3:  Hat.  Newly started (last night), this is knitted flat as a head band and then a knitted disc top.  Pattern:  Braid & Bobble Hat.  The theme for all of these is the purple color and (in my demented knitter's mind) intended as a set with different patterns and yarns.

Shows 2 of 10 repeats for the headband.

Contest rules:  You must make your guess-timates by midnight Friday, March 4th, and the closest to correct wins!  There will be three winners, one in each contest, even if I have to have a run-off in case of ties. (Unless NO ONE enters.)
Good luck!