Best Schwag Ever

As Guy says, the best schwag is schwag you make yourself.

Guy's awesome Google socks

Followup: The final chemo cap tally

Here's the followup we promised in our earlier post about chemo caps.

Labeled hats in San Bruno

We ended up donating at least 84 hats, plus three scarves:

• Knitting Pals by the Bay: 59 hats, 1 scarf
• Palo Alto Medical Foundation: 10 hats, 2 scarves
• Overlake Hospital Medical Center: 15 hats

45 Mountain View hats

Some of San Francisco's hats

Hats (and coffee) in Seattle

A knitting day of service

Once a year, our company encourages everyone to spend a workday volunteering. This year, knitters and crocheters in Seattle, Kirkland, Mountain View, San Bruno, and San Francisco decided to make chemo caps—soft caps to be given to cancer patients who've lost hair due to chemotherapy.

Mountain View

San Bruno

We're still tallying the results (the last date to contribute is in July), but some of us (hello, Guy!) worked overtime and finished many hats. We tended to knit stockinette, roll brim hats (either top-down or bottom-up), but some of Guy's many hats had 3x1 or 2x2 ribbing (he says 2x2 has better stretchiness).

Guy wearing one of his 7 hats

Ange knit a couple of Race for Life 2009 chemo caps, which are mostly stockinette but with a pretty lace edge. In fact, the first cap was so pretty that now Ange's sister wants one. Ange's wearing one of those caps in this photo:

Back row: Ange, Liz, Jennifer
Front row: Patsy, Kathy

Liz increased too much on her first top-down hat, so she decided to turn it into a design element. She decreased to the right size, then knit even for a while and finished with a rolled brim. The hats look a little like fat-stemmed mushrooms (in a good way; see the photo above). Liz is planning to publish the instructions on Ravelry, and we'll let you know when they're available.

Last I checked, Mountain View (our biggest campus) had nearly 30 finished hats, San Bruno had about a dozen, Seattle/Kirkland had 15, and San Francisco had 6 (plus a couple of scarves). We'll post more pics and a final tally in July!

A braided cowl

A little while ago, Patsy wore her braided cowl to our meeting.

Patsy in her cowl

Her cowl is based on one that was on the cover of the Winter 2010/2011 Knit Simple magazine [obligatory Ravelry link]. Here's what Patsy had to say:

Basically I wanted to use up stash. I had a limited amount of yarn in three colors, so I changed the pattern from stockinette to garter so I could reduce the width of the braid. Originally the pattern called for knitting a big, flat stockinette rectangle that you sewed into a tube. By switching to garter stitch, I didn't need to working about curling edges, so I could knit a smaller rectangle.

I knit one rectangle per color, sewed the three rectangles together, braided them, and then sewed down the loose ends. I love the color combo. It reminds me of raspberry sorbet. 

Thanks for the details, Patsy!

Fjord's FO

Behold: Fjord's first finished object since joining Google! (And it's not a sock!)

Melanie and the beret...

He doesn't recall which pattern this is (anyone?), but the yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca from Yarn in Hutchinson, KS.

...in a tiny back yard in Kansas

While we were out

We haven't had our regular meeting in a while, thanks to the winter holidays, but we've finished quite a few projects.

Here's Josie's sweater for her new grandbaby. Isn't it beautiful? The pattern is Debbie Bliss's Ribbed Baby Jacket. Here's the pattern's Ravelry page, for your convenience.

Matty's sweater

And here are Guy's tortoise-not-turtle gloves, on top of the tortoise who inspired them. We talked about these before, back when there was only one glove.

Tortoise gloves on a tortoise

Finally, here's the Koolhaas hat I knit for myself (after the Christmas rush) out of that Road To China yarn I gushed about before. It looks gray in this pic, but it's really a beautiful denim-lavender-turquoise mix.

Me and my Koolhaas hat in my glamorous cubicle

I'll post more about our holiday projects as we get more details and pictures.

Tortoises, nephews, and 'staches, oh my

At this week's lunch, non-sock projects dominated sock projects, thanks to two factors: a sock knitter switching to a hat for his mom, and a higher turnout than usual.

Guy showed off a tortoise glove of his own design (which you should not confuse with a turtle glove) in beautifully soft, fine alpaca. Yes, that's "glove", not "gloves". This tortoise does not yet have a mate.

Gina brought a hat she knit for her nephew, following the Turn a Square pattern by Jared Flood. (Also see the pattern on Ravelry if you're a member.)

In non-knitting news, Fjord sported a horseshoe moustache inspired by Movember. And yes, Fjord is a guy. If the female knitters were trying to grow moustaches, they failed.

On the road to China, a frog in a sock ate arugula

The weather turned seasonally chilly again, so we ate inside. (The arugula salad with parmesan and a lemon dressing was especially delicious.) Unfortunately, the good camera wasn't available, so we have just a couple of cell phone shots.

First, look at this beautiful Road To China yarn. See the frayed end at the lower left? Somehow this subtly lustrous denim-blue yarn with purple highlights has a bright blue-green core. It's like magic. Buttery, squeezable magic.

Road To China (baby alpaca/cashmere/camel/silk)
Lapis colorway

In more painful news, Erin frogged part of her nearly finished Tangled Yoke cardigan so she could fix the top. No pictures were taken because it hurt to see her tearing such a beautiful thing apart (button band and all), but we'll try to get a pic when it's finished.

And finally, Jen's working on her second sock of a pair that look like this (but even better):

Jen's sock

Mitten surgery, twin caps, and sock knitters rule

Knitters brought three FOs to this week's lunch: a pair of altered mittens and two baby hats. (Hmm, maybe that's 4 FOs?) No socks were completed, but there was plenty of sock knitting action.

FO #1

Ange took some unused Google mittens and converted them into useful, stylish fingerless mitts. Here's the before (not the same mittens, but they should be identical):

Frumpy, impractical mittens

And after:

Sexy, useful fingerless mitts

Yes, those are Gmail icons just above the cuff. And no, we will not convert any more mittens. This was a one-time proof-of-concept project given to a coworker who really appreciated them. Come to one of our lunches if you want tips on modifying your own mittens...

FOs #2 & 3

Josie brought in some caps she finished for the twin grandsons of some friends. How cute! They match the school colors of the grandparents: red and gray for Ohio State, and blue and gold for Kent State.

The bottom hat looks gray on my monitor... It should be deep blue.

Sock knitters über alles

Sock knitting outnumbered all other projects two-to-one at this week's lunch. Don't the sock knitters look happy?

One sock knitter is missing from this photo.
(He was taking the picture.)

FO! Latte Luxe

The weather's turned chilly enough that one of us (OK, Patsy) was able to wear a heavy sweater to work. It's her version of the Cable Luxe Tunic, which she calls "Latte Luxe" because the color combination looks like espresso and steamed milk. Mmmm... latte...

Enough drooling. Here's what Patsy had to say about this sweater.

I used the Vanna White's Choice Lion brand yarn in Beige and Toffee. The yarn was easy to knit. This was my first cable knit and it was a bit of a challenge. I felt I could handle it because I joined the Cable Luxe Tunic knit-along on Ravelry. [Note: You need to be logged into Ravelry to visit that and other Ravelry links.] I got great tips and felt inspired by the camaraderie. 

I searched YouTube and knitting websites for instructions on how to do cables and how to use a cable needle. I had to frog the center yoke section a couple of times because of mis-crossed cables. It ended up being great practice for me. I kept getting lost in the cable instructions for the main body. There were so many cables in the main body. I finally wrote out the instructions in big letters on a piece of paper and used a row counter to keep track of where I was in the pattern. That helped tremendously. I think the cable in the body was a 12 row repeat. 

I made several mods to the pattern. I didn't do one of the increases because I am petite and was going to shorten the overall pattern. The net effect is the sleeves and body are shorten than the pattern calls for. Another modification was the back of the sweater. I got tired of all the cables so I stopped the cables midway on the back. I was never going to see the back of the sweater so it didn't much matter to me that the front and back didn't match. I also changed the yoke. The pattern calls for Garter stitches but the feedback on Ravelry was not very positive. The garter stitches could stretch out. I saw a project on Ravelry that had a cabled yoke so I copied that. 

I am glad I did the cables on the yoke because a lot of weight hangs on the shoulders and yoke. I think cables are sturdier than plain garter stitch. 

This sweater marinated for months because I mis-crossed the cables in the front at the bottom edge. I decided to frog back and make the sweater shorter. Turned out to be a good idea, it was a much better fit and proportion for my frame. 

It's a great sweater to wear... It feels like I am wrapped in a baby blanket.

Hooray for Patsy, the first person to have a finished object on this blog!