Tag: camp loopy

(Unofficial) Camp Loopy 2021: July Challenge

On By iswimlikeafishIn knitting, patterns, ravelryLeave a comment

Camp Loopy July Challenge: This month we are celebrating stripes – like the stripes of the big top tent! You can do stripes of color, stripes of sections of stitches, stripes of beads, etc. Just so your project has stripes of some sort going on. (see some examples below). The July project must use 600 or more yards, single knit.

https://blog.theloopyewe.com

As a general rule, I’m not a stripes person. This may be because there was a time in my childhood where everything I owned was striped, after all I felt the same way about floral patterns for a long time as well. This isn’t to say that nothing in my closet is striped, there are several “go-to” pieces that do in fact meet the striped description. Mostly, this is to say that generally speaking I don’t enjoy knitting stripes. So when you consider the July camp challenge and what design elements are most likely missing from my queue, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I struggled to make this one work.

After pouring over patterns on Ravelry and seriously considering a baby blanket pattern (or 3), I decided that the best thing to do was to let go of the official constraints of the challenge and focus solely on the stripes piece. This decision was made when I realized that the pattern I needed to knit I a) already had the yarn for and b) wasn’t going to hit the 600 yard limit. On the one hand, this meant that I won’t qualify for the rewards piece of the challenge. On the other hand, I’d get a head start on my holiday knitting.

In the end, I opted to knit Little Sock Arms by Stephanie Lotven in a size 2T. The sweater is knit using two different fingering weight yarns (or colors), utilizing a skein of stripped yarn to make the sleeves fancy. You work the body of the sweater in the round bottom up until the arm pit and then divide for front and back before eventually using a three needle bind-off to reconnect the front pieces to the back. The sleeve stitches are then picked up and then worked in a top down manner.

This was the simple project that my hands needed to work this month and I’m happy with the way that it turned out. For the body of the sweater, I used Knit Picks stroll in Duchess Heather which was chosen because it matched Knit Picks Felici Fingering Weight in Countess. Countess, used for the sleeves, was chosen first.

While I know that children don’t really need waist shaping in the same way that women’s sweater’s do, I feel like the body of this sweater is boxier/looser than the arms of the sweater. Maybe it’s “simply” the measurements of little bodies? That being said, I’m comforted by all of the little ones wearing their sweaters and looking cute on Ravelry. All in all, I would probably knit this one again.

Purple sweater with multi-colored purple stripes on the sleeves.
iswimlikeafish’s Little Sock Arms

Camp Loopy 2021: June Challenge

On By iswimlikeafishIn knitting, patterns, ravelry, yarnLeave a comment

Camp Loopy 2021 June Challenge: We’re celebrating the three rings of the circus with this one. Pick a pattern with 3 different stitches going on, or three different colors in the pattern, or changing the stitch or pattern every three rows, or even the word “three” in the name of the pattern or color! You’ll need to knit/crochet 400 or more yards in this June project (single knit, not held double). As always, we want you to knit something you love. If you can explain to us how your project celebrates “three” and you’re hit the 400 yard mark, we’re good!

https://blog.theloopyewe.com/
Baby sweater with a pink body and a beige strip creating the arms and chest.

June was a rough month for me crafting wise, I took almost two whole weeks off from knitting before coming back refreshed. I’m not blaming the 3×3 rib that exists in Jessie Maed’s Ripple Crop top, I was actually cruising along at breakneck speed until suddenly hitting a wall and needing to put down my needles.

Part of coming back from my knitting break was realizing that there are a handful of projects that “just need to be finished”. The first one is the Macaroon Sweater that I started for my niece back in December. Long story short, I ended up knitting a larger size and running out of yarn. When I went to place a new order, the yarn was backordered until May. After months of sitting around on stitch holders, its officially blocked and the button closure has been attached! I found a cute flower button while in Portland ME on our honeymoon.

The second project that “just needed to be finished” was this one. I spent a lot of hemming and hawing and decided that negative ease tops are not currently articles of clothing that I feel comfortable wearing. Since I was half a foot into the Ripple Crop Top, I ended up using one skein of yarn and binding off the project as a cowl. This leaves me with one project left on my needles (a lace shawl, more on that later!) and one project on my loom (I’m weaving a rainbow scarf!).

Finished photos can be found on the project page when it’s done blocking :]

It feels good to be finishing projects and freeing up my needles, for this knitter having too many projects going at once takes up too much mental space. I have a lot of respect for knitters that have more than 3 projects going at any given time.

Real talk: I won’t be participating in July’s challenge this year. Or rather I will be, but I won’t technically be meeting all of the challenge requirements because I plan on a) stash diving and b) knitting something less than 600 yards. There was a lot of hemming and hawing on my end about this decision, but in the end I think it’s the right one.

Camp Loopy 2020: August Challenge

On By iswimlikeafishIn knitting, patterns, ravelry, yarn2 Comments

Let me start by saying, August is always the best month because you typically have the most freedom when it comes to meeting the challenge. As I write this post, my August project is sitting in my bathtub. Admittedly, I was up until late last night working the final rows despite having five more days to finish it. The challenge was as follows:

Yarn for August: Socks that Rock and Dream in Color

1. Your project must use 800 or more yards in one single project, singly knit. (Singly knit means an 800 yard project as opposed to a 400 yard project with the yarn held double to use up 800 yards.)

2. To celebrate our science theme, your project needs to fit into one of the following categories of science: Physical Sciences, Earth Sciences, or Life Sciences. It can fit in there by pattern name, pattern design, pattern designer, yarn name, or yarn color.

3. Yarn for your project (800 yards) needs to be purchased from The Loopy Ewe, July 10, 2020 or later. If you purchase during Camp Store Week (July 10-17), you can request a 15% discount on the yarn for your project. You’ll need to leave us an order note with the name of the yarn that you’re using for your project, so we know where to apply your discount.

4. The project needs to be started August 1, 2020 or later, and finished no later than August 31, 2020, with a photo of the finished project uploaded to our Camp Loopy Photo Gallery on our website by midnight on September 1st. You upload the photo on your Loopy account page.

Usually, I read through the prompt and spend HOURS trying to decide what to make. Hemming and hawing about how I want to spend the last month because the yardage requirement is typically the largest. This year, however, I hoped that the final prompt would have something Geology related because I’ve had my project picked out since May.

First color: Amy’s Spring Flower

Normally, I’m intimidated by Stephen West’s designs. They contain so many different colors and I have a hard enough time selecting colors for stripes. I’m not sure what happened this year, but suddenly I’ve been drawn to his shawls. Striped Esjan, Skystorm, and Mosaic Musings hit my queue one right after the other as they popped up in my instagram feed (West has put together some new kits over the last few months). When Lava Lake was released, I fell in love with it and was itching to cast on.

Camp got in the way of a speedy cast on. Between Precamp, June and July, my yarn budget, and knitting time, was focused. That and the hope that August would pose a challenge that Lava Lake would fit nicely into. 1647 yards later, it’s done.

As I mentioned before, I have a hard time choosing colors to put together. This isn’t because I’m bad with color, I love color. Blending it, making it pop, etc etc. The problem I run into is I have a hard time making a choice. This problem is worse when I shop online, and since I’m not local to The Loopy Ewe I had to bite the bullet and ask for help.

Halfway mark, all decreases from here

This is the part where I tell you that I love local(ish) yarn shops. Their attention to detail and their enthusiasm for what they do is truly remarkable. Not only did they politely point out why the colors wouldn’t work as well as I thought, to my credit it’s hard when you can’t put them next to each other, they took the time to find colors that did (thank you Sarah!). Sure, maybe that’s their job (after all I worked for a yarn store and it is what we did), but I still think it’s going above and beyond. Finding colors that suit someone else’s vision is a skill and I really appreciate(d) it.

So what’s the vote on Lava Lake now that it’s done? Honestly, I can’t really believe that it’s done. Lava lake provided me with a simple yet interesting project. The repeat was easy to remember, but the color changes and the shaping were engaging. Admittedly, last night I entered the knitter zen of “this is getting finished tonight” and this comes with “how many more rows do I have to do?”, but I was almost sad to finish casting off.

When I started this project, I kept thinking about how it might be fun to knit it all in one color. Now that it’s done, and I’m left trying to figure out what to knit next, I still think that might be a good idea.

Just about to the blending of the last (first) two colors!

We’re in the middle of fixing up our fixer upper, which is a fancy way of saying that my yarn budget and ability to take on complex projects, is small. I’m not sure what I’ll knit next, but at least there’s some beautiful yarn in my stash to help me get started.

Since my shawl is still in my bathtub, I’ll share the final photos via instagram and my project page.

Edit: Because I just laid the shawl out and am in love with how HUGE it is.

Lava lake shawl laid out on a porch rail.

Camp Loopy 2020: July Challenge

On By iswimlikeafishIn knitting, patterns, ravelry, yarn2 Comments

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Pattern: Flax, Yarn: Malabrigo

Another month has come and gone, I can’t believe July will be over in two days. For the second month of Camp Loopy 2020, my hands took on the challenge of knitting a large sweater (just under 1200 yards, worsted weight) for my partner’s birthday. Before getting into the details of the challenge, I want to take a moment to discuss how much I love using Tincanknits’s Flax sweater patterns (worsted and fingering weight) without the garter stitch pannels to make classic raglan sweaters. I’ve knit several of each for myself and others and am always happy with the fit and the color pooling, but always have over 200 yards of yarn leftover. Seriously, I was anticipating this sweater needing 1400 yards! Anyways, here was the challenge for July:

The July Challenge:
We are celebrating The Botany Lab, The Zoology Lab and The Entomology Lab in July.Your project needs to reflect plants, or animals, or insects.You can show this representation in the colors you pick, or the color name, or the pattern itself, or the pattern name, or the designer name.You need to use a minimum of 600 yards of yarn, single knit or crocheted (not held double).Examples for Botany Lab (plants): You could pick colors like Dragonfruit, Joshua Tree, Rose & Iris, Mountain Wildflowers, Garden Party, Holly Hock, Pomegranate Blossom, Vegetable Medley, Seaweed, Ivy.

OR patterns like: Graceful Leaves Pullover, Maple Ridge Vest, Hibiscus Cardigan, Protea Cable & Lace Scarf, Tree Seeker, Sprouted, The Rose That Grew From Concrete, Peaslake Shawl, Fairy Leaves Wrap, Violeta Tunic.Examples for Zoology Lab (animals): You could pick colors like Flamingo on my Lawn, Grey Tabby, Silver Fox, Rainbow Trout, The Cat’s Pyjamas, Manatee, Koi Pond, Dirty Panther, Turtle.

OR patterns like: Koi Pond, Llama Drama, Goldfish Memory, Wild Swan, Crayfish Party Socks, Simple Tee (by ChurchMOUSE), Barklines,Examples for Entomology Lab (insects): You could pick colors like The Unicorn Beetle, A Butterflies Dream, Lightning Bug, Firefly, Beeswax.

OR patterns like: Bee Fields, Dancing Butterflies, Jimi Cricket, Wool and Honey, Honeybee Cardigan, Dragonflies Jumper, The Love of Spiders, Queen Bee Pullover, Butterfly, Arachne, Mothed.

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He’s laughing at me because didn’t trust him not to get food on his sweater during dinner

I know what you’re thinking: With so many choices, why would you choose to do another flax sweater? For starters, I wanted to make something with more yardage than the minimum as I finished last month’s challenge so quickly. Due to the pandemic and working from home, I have a lot of knitting time on my hands during meetings if the project is simple enough. This brings us to my next argument for choosing a simple project: it’s simple and doesn’t require a lot of brainpower. In other words, I can use my hands to see my stitches instead of having to look at or think about what I’m working on. The most important reason, however, is that I knew my partner would love another handknit sweater (re: my feelings on the sweater curse). 

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I even made him a matching hat with the leftover yarn :]

Having finished this challenge in about 10 days, I’m realizing I may need to take on something bigger for August if I want the project to last. It’s weird to think that this time last year all my free time was spent hiking and traveling. We’re still hiking, but our ability to travel several hours to make a weekend event of it is temporarily out of our control. In the meantime, my partner has started requesting I knit him another sweater in a different color (for his birthday, since this one was gifted sooner), so I will take comfort in the knowledge that he loves his sweater and we still have a life time of adventure before us. 

Camp Loopy 2020: June Challenge

On By iswimlikeafishIn knitting, patterns, ravelry, yarn2 Comments

img_20200609_084552As June comes to a close, I can honestly say that I didn’t feel rushed when working on this month’s knitting challenge. Though I chose to work a pair of color work double lined mittens, which essentially means that I knit two pairs of mittens, I don’t think a 400 yard project in a month is very challenging. Last year I had a lofter goal of knitting one adult sweater per month and found myself unmotivated to follow through with it in the end (In June I was successful, July I knit a scarf and August ran into September because I knit other things). This summer feels different because I feel like my creativity has been struggling to keep up with the amount of knitting that I’ve been doing.

Here is the prompt I had to work with this month:

Camp Loop 2020 June Challenge

The June challenge includes combining elements to make something new. What does that look like?

You can combine two (or more) different colors together. Here are some ideas –
From The Loopy Ewe website: Edith Cowl, Victoria Hat, House of Faberge Cowl, Merida Mittens, Oranssi Cowl, Albuquerque Sunset, Magical Thinking, and Quindici.
From Ravelry: Jupiter Crop, Rock It Tee, The Shift, Odyssey Shawl, and Breathe and Hope.

Or you can combine two different yarn materials together. (Combine different weights, or combine different bases. Or add a different material like beads to your yarn project, etc.). Here are some ideas –
From Ravelry: Ashbury Park Shawl, Imagine When (beads on points), Lily of the Valley Shawl, Morningstar, Calan Mai (combining two weights plus beads!), Charmayne, and Musicality (with beads).

Or you can combine two different patterns together to make something unique. Like taking the neckline from one sweater and adding it to another. Or the stitch pattern from one thing, and combining it with another pattern. Or the edging from one shawl to add to another. There are so many options with this one!

Since I’ve already mentioned that I worked a pair of lined color work mittens, it may seem obvious that I went with the first challenge: mixing two or more colors. This is true, I mixed red, charcoal and yellow together and am very happy with the results. I also happily took it a step further and knit the lining in a different yarn base to mix materials as well. Not to be an over achiever, my goal was to provide my partner with a pair of mittens to keep his hands warm (also to stop him from stealing my mittens).

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Pattern: Fiddlehead Mittens
Yarn used: Woolstok in Red Rock and Cast Iron, Road to China Light in Topaz