Andean Chullo

Please note: If you found your way here via Google, Ravelry, or other search engine, I appreciate you kind comments. I am not, however, affiliated with Knit Picks. I don’t know where the pattern is available. I will not copy the pattern or charts for your use, nor is my copy of the pattern for sale. Emails that ask me to violate copyright, ask me to sell the pattern, or ask for sourcing info will be deleted without response. Please contact Knit Picks to request information regarding the pattern, the kit, or the designer.

This is the Andean Chullo Hat Kit from Knit Picks.

It became the first finished object of 2009 because I was up until the wee hours weaving in little ends that I stupidly did not weave in as I went. And there were a @%#! bunch of them, gentle reader. After sleeping for a few hours, the hat got a very quick steam-block, which fortunately turned out to be all it needed. I sewed the tassels on in between dinner preparations and such. It was finished, photoed and wrapped about an hour before #1 Son showed up for dinner. Whew.

#1 Son’s take: Mom! you are really rockin’ this knitting stuff! This is the best hat ever, and it fits perfectly. Look at the little alpacas on the earflaps! Too cute! My friends are going to be so jealous. They couldn’t believe all the kitted stuff from you that I wore when it was cold and snowy. [ed. that warms the cockles of my heart! what more could a mom want to hear?] So you had to finish this and is that the reason I couldn’t come up on Christmas? [ed. No! that wasn’t it at all!] Haha… Oh, yeah… there was this snow thing, huh.

Andean Chullo closeup

Here’s a closeup of the main body of the hat. I’m using this picture as my iPhone wallpaper now. 😉

The Particulars:

• Pattern: Knit Picks Andean Chullo Hat Kit
• Yarn: Knit Picks Pallette included in the kit – 100% Peruvian Highland Wool, 231 yds/50 gr per ball – portions of 9 colorways: Sweet Potato, White, Bark, Semolina, Pimento, Blue, Clover, Masala and Pool. There’s plenty left over for another hat, or two, or three.
• Modifications: none. Really. The pattern is a choose your own adventure. You pick one of two earflap charts, four of six pattern band charts, and one of two different hat top charts. Colors are suggested but not dictated and I did change one or two.

Andean Chullo inside

And for those of you just dying to see the inside (you know who you are), here you go.

I’m a two-handed fair-isle knitter — that is I hold one color in my left hand and pick it, and the other color in my right and throw it. Philosopher’s Wool has a wonderful video that shows this technique. Their technique recommends not having floats longer than two stitches. On this hat I have floats up to 5 stitches. Do watch their video if you have not done so before. Their weaving stitches are very cool.

I will probably knit another of these hats and be a bit more adventurous with the colors. The kit came with enough yarn to knit several.

modeling the goods

Happy #1 Son with his hat and mittens. 😀 He wore the hat for a goodly portion of the time he was here, so I think it was very successful.

unburied Barry Bear

I escaped on Saturday.

I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt just to do normal things like buy groceries. But my first stop was to one of the LYS, where Cindy happened to be working. I gave her a big hug! It was so good – so good, gentle reader, to be back amongst my peeps. And I got to show Cindy my finished secret project, and she agreed that it’s pretty kick-ass. I bought some Addi Turbos in celebration.

Well, and because I really needed some shorter circs for the new secret project that I’m working. I knew I wouldn’t finish it by Christmas. But New Years? I might make it if I knit really a lot between now and then. And Christmas, you know, is coming a little late this year since everything was put on hold by the snow.

Since I have no knitting pictures I can show you, I’m giving you one last picture of Barry The Berry Bear, finally uncovered from his long winter nap. I took this on Saturday, when there was still a bit of stubborn ice and snow left to melt. It’s all gone now. The ruler is for size comparison. It’s 16″ long. In the end, the snow completely covered Barry. Not even the tip of his paw showed through. I don’t have a picture of that because, well… all you could see was snow. But, I would guess that the chez PI unofficial snow depth was right around 18″.

That’s a lot of snow.

I haven’t seen that much snow since I left SE Idaho. Although Bro, who is in SE Idaho for Christmas along with SIL and amazing niece Z, assures me that they do have a bit more snow there.

They can keep it.

P.S. The robin is still guarding the Asian pear tree. 😀

P.P.S. I made a slight change to the blog look. There are little pictures for commenters now. If you have a gravatar already, it will use it. If not, it will assign you a little face. It uses your email address in some sort of hash routine to come up with one that is uniquely yours. Comment and see what you get. The assigned pictures will only show up in the comments list under the post, but not in the sidebar. Your own gravatar will show up both places. I think the little pics are cute, but we all know I’m easily amused. Let me know what you think!

whine and cheese

I’m sick of it. Since last Sunday it has been snowing off and on. And when it’s not snowing, a repeated thaw/freeze cycle has left the street perilous even for walking – let along driving. I have managed to leave the house once: on Thursday, when there was a brief respite, I drove to the store. Then the rot set in again.

The local media are droning on and on endlessly. Coming today it’s The Storm Of The Decade (if not the century), and The Roads Are Dangerous and Oh! My! God! It’s! Snowing! In! Portland! and look a car just went sliding down a hill and here, let’s give you the forecast for the umpteenth time this last hour and here are some emails from viewers who are sick of their programs being preempted by useless weather coverage, how cute! and did we mention It’s! Snowing! In! Portland!?

There are no pictures I could take to show you except snow. I’m guessing you know what that looks like, gentle reader? I have no knitting I can show you because I’ve been working on The Secret Project which cannot be revealed.

And, to add insult to injury, I’ve now apparently come down with a cold.

Why, yes, I would like a little cheese with that whine, thank you very much!

inside the barn

Dear blog,

I haven’t meant to neglect you. Every day I think of things I’d really like to chat with you about, like the 2nd annual Blue Moon Fiber Arts destashing / barn sale. I’ve just been so busy, and when I remember I haven’t talked to you, it’s way late and I’m always afraid that you might be asleep. But I do want to tell you about the barn sale. I know I have a bit of yarn already, but sock yarn doesn’t count, right?

I went with a purpose. I had started a small project — finished object to show soon, and everything. And in going through my stash I found that I didn’t have hardly any yarn of the correct weight. You see, I usually knit socks on size US#0, or at the most US#1, at about 11 – 12 stitches/inch. So I like rather lightweight fingering for my socks. And this pattern called for a more DK-ish or heavier fingering weight. And, despite the size of my stash – not as large as some, true, but certainly holding its own – I was hard pressed to come up with any.

And, with her usual perfect timing, Blue Moon’s depraved dyer Tina destashed. It seemed like fate, don’t you agree?

OK. So I can justify anything when it comes to yarn. But look, gentle reader, look at that picture and tell me that you would not have been overcome by all of the loveliness that was there. And that’s not even all of it. There’s more behind my back, but my camera doesn’t take 360-degree views.

a few things came home

And I was pretty successful finding things to come home with me. Just a few things. Ahem.

Everything is either medium- or heavy-weight STR, except for one, lone skein of light-weight. A couple of things are Rare Gems and the rest are Mill Ends, so they are not marked with a colorway. But, you can tell what most of them are. The one in the very middle, for example, is a Mill End of The Cookie Next Door. I don’t mind buying mill ends at all as I have had wonderful luck with them in the past. They may not be perfect, but that doesn’t mean they’re not lovely.

There’s also one skein of a gorgeous ribbon yarn called Streams. There’s no colorway on that, either, but you can see it’s lovely muted colors. Be sure to click on the pics to see the biggy versions.

And, if it looks like there are some colors that don’t usually show up in my stash, like gasp hot pink, well… I can only, once again, plead yarn fumes. I like some pinks, and pinks in combination with greens and browns. And the skein that’s white with pink, red, teal, blue and purple? What can I say, except it’s really hot.

Got yarn?

Moo wanted to help me photograph my yarn. She has a different outlook than I do. I declined her generous offer.

double-knit moebius

I knit fairly obsessively all weekend and finished the double-knit Moebius. Or Klein bottle. Or whatever it is. I am pleased – both to be finished and with how it turned out.

It came out just the right size — just long enough to wrap snugly around my neck and tuck into my coat, but not so long that it will be overly bulky. The silk in the yarn gives a nice drape, and the Merino makes it soft and cuddly. I didn’t block it, per se, but I did think it would benefit from a bit of steam. So I steamed it for just a bit with steam from my iron (iron not applied – only steam) and then hung it up to dry thoroughly.

confidential to Cat — Yes, I swatched. Gauge matters. I can be taught. You should be proud of me because someone asked how many stitches I cast on and I remembered the look you gave me when I asked how many would be a goodly number and I refused to tell them. I said they should swatch.

I changed colors rather randomly, but once I’d changed, that sequence was knit for 5 rounds before I changed again. So sometimes I got rather wide blocks of color, as you see on the left, and sometimes I got a more stripey look, as you see on the right. In real life it almost looks like someone started to draw a petroglyph but wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be and just sort of doodled around – for practice maybe.

close-up

I decided on an applied I-cord bind-off. Because, well, why should anything about this thing be easy. My brain hurt the whole time I knit it. I started binding off last Thursday. By Friday night I’d decided I didn’t like how it was turning out and ripped out the bind-off to start again. I’m much happier now. I ended up striping the I-cord: 5 rows of white / 5 rows of green. I think it nicely shows off the moebius-ness of it. It’s not apparent that it’s a Klein bottle. We’ll let that be our little secret, eh? 😀

I was hoping for better light to shoot pics. But this is Oregon and it’s winter and that’s just not going to happen. But it doesn’t look entirely out of place cozying up to my mossy cherry tree. The colors are pretty true.

ed. 11/20/08 7:47 am — When writing this post, I didn’t have the ball bands with me, so I tried to figure out the colors by looking online. There were two greens that are very similar, and I picked the wrong one. I have now changed the info below to the correct color: 123 (Dark Bronze). No, I don’t know why it’s called that. It’s really green.

The Particulars:

• Yarn:
  Cascade Venezia – 70% Merino, 30% silk; 100gr (102 yds) per ball; 1 ball each of 101 (White Heaven) and 123 (Dark Bronze). There was a goodly bit left over – enough for a hat, maybe.
• Needles: Denise US#7 (4.5mm) on a 52″ cable (purchased separately from the kit)
• Miscellaneous: strong drink, naughty words said in my out-loud voice

new toy

Yes, I have a new toy. I’m not going to talk about it much – just show you a picture. I only have one of them, but thanks to the magic of Photoshop, I am able to show you both sides at the same time. Love it. What I really love is going to meetings with a bunch of geek types. For quite awhile, now, I’ve been forced to watch them casually set their iPhones down on the conference table, carefully arranged to be in sight of everyone there. I kept my poor little PEBL in my pocket, so it wouldn’t feel inferior. The last week I’ve been casually setting my lovely, obviously gen 2 because it’s white, iPhone down on the table, carefully in sight of those with their gen 1 iPhones. It was noticed. I’m a geek grrl. I admit it.

And why did I make this little purchase? #1 Son’s birthday was a week ago last Friday, coincidentally the same day as the world wide launch of the iPhone 3G. I decided that I deserved a present for his birthday, what with all of his travels and the gray hairs I’ve gained (nicely covered up by Carla The Wonderstylist) and such. Don’t you agree?

At any rate, speaking of #1 Son, when last we spoke he had missed his plane from Germany on Wednesday, but we were hoping that he would be able to get on the plane the next day.

There was no 3:30 AM, I missed my flight, wake-up call on Thursday. So that gave me hope that at least he was actually on the plane. I had asked him to call me from Philadelphia, but no call came. When I checked online, however, I noted that there was probably just about enough time between his flights for him to get through customs/immigration and make it to the connection. Assuming that I would hear only if something went wrong, I hied myself to the airport at the appointed time. I had looked online to see what gate the airplane would be coming in at, and parked on that side of the airport. I remember his return from Brazil and the crazy heavy stuff he had to carry.

And then I went to the waiting area by the security for that concourse and I waited. And waited. And waited. I could see via my new toy that his plane had arrived. A stream of people came up the concourse, met their loved ones and headed off. And no #1 Son. I was beginning to feel a bit of panic, when I finally spotted him. I breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a big hug. Can’t begin to tell you how glad I was to have him in Portland!

We walked to the baggage area, hauling his carry-on bags. He had a small duffel, a tote bag full of records (remember how heavy those are?), and his guitar case. We marched to the side of the airport where his plane had arrived – the side of the airport where I had parked. An announcement came that baggage from his flight would be coming on a belt on the exact opposite side of the airport.

OK, I thought, it’s going to be that kind of evening.

We hauled his carry-on bags across the airport to the designated baggage carousel. And waited, and waited, and waited. And his bags did not come. What are we looking for? I asked.

#1 Son: A black, sort of Euro-style backpack and a cymbal case that I brought back for Drummer Boy. All of my clothes are in the backpack. And, uh, my wallet is sort of in the backpack, too, with all my ID and my driver’s license and money and stuff.

Mom: You should always carry your ID on you, not check it!

#1 Son: I’m traveling on a passport. I don’t really need my driver’s license.

Mom: You will need it to drive home from my house.

#1 Son: … that’s true.

We waited. Passengers picked up their luggage. The number of unclaimed bags became smaller and smaller. No new bags came out of the bowels of the airport. Eventually the belt stopped.

Well, I said. The good news is that, since we had to come over to this side of the airport, we’re right next to the lost baggage claim area! You go talk to them and I’ll sit here with your stuff.

Off he went, and I waited. After a bit, a goodly bit, he returned. The airlines didn’t have a clue where his bag was. But there was a second flight coming in at midnight, and his bags might be on that.

After some discussion, we decided to stay and wait, in the hope that the bags actually would be on the second flight, and thus he would have a few rather necessary things like clothing, a tooth brush, and his wallet. But there was no reason to schlep his heavy stuff all over the airport. Instead, we schlepped it to the parking structure across the airport, where I had thoughtfully parked, as you will remember gentle reader, to be close to his arrival. At the car, we had this conversation:

Mom: Did you managed to make it to a yarn shop?

#1 Son: I did! I had to go to two of them, because the first one was closed. But the second one had tons of yarn. The lady in there was really nice, but she was the only person I met in all of Germany who spoke absolutely no English. I had a hard time communicating what I wanted, but finally I pulled up my pant leg and pointed at my socks and said “socks” a couple of times. She pointed at some shelves in the back and I picked up a bunch of yarn and bought it for you. I’m pretty sure it’s sock yarn.

Mom: I suppose it’s in your backpack.

#1 Son: No! It’s in my guitar case! Made great padding.

He popped open his guitar case, and, sure enough, there were 5 balls of yarn. I picked up a ball. There was no ball band, but it looked sort of like maybe Trekking or Opal — that kind of ball and some sort of self-striping colorway.

Mom: This looks… OK. Where’s the ball band?

#1 Son: The what?

Mom: The ball band. You know. The label that goes around the ball of yarn to tell you the fiber content and the manufacturer and the color and all that stuff.

#1 Son: I don’t know. I don’t think there were any. Is it OK? I didn’t get any that was pink.

Mom: Yes, sweetie. I’m sure it’s fine. Thank you for avoiding the pink.

#1 Son: You’re going to blog this, aren’t you.

Mom: Yes, I am. I’m going to brag about how wonderful my son is, who brings me sock yarn all the way from Germany. And who managed to be understood in a yarn store outside his native country. And how wonderful is that?

#1 Son: Is the yarn OK?

Mom: Sweetie, it’s not quite what I expected. But it’s yarn, and it looks pretty, and it will be made into socks. I am so happy that you did this. Thank you very much! Now, let’s move the car over to the side of the airport where your bags will come (if they come) and get you something to eat.

#1 Son: I’m not really hungry, but OK.

He kept protesting that he wasn’t very hungry as he devoured a huge veggie sandwich, a carton of yogurt and a pint of orange juice. We had a nice chat as we waited for midnight and flight #2 to arrive.

#1 Son: Can you look on your phone thingy and see if they’ve found my bags yet? Here’s the claim number. Look how they described the cymbal case as a hatbox. I kept telling her that it wasn’t a hatbox, or even really the shape of a hatbox, and it would be better to use the other category and describe it. But she insisted on using hatbox. And not a clue where the bags were at all.

Mom: Hopefully they’re not looking for a hatbox, because according to the claim lookup online, they are still attempting to locate your bags and that will make them harder to find.

#1 Son: I can’t figure out why they don’t know where they are. Shouldn’t they scan them when they load them on a flight, or something?

Mom: I don’t know. If I’d designed the system they would. And most times when my bags didn’t arrive on the same flight as I did, they’ve been able to tell me what flight they were on. So I don’t know what’s going on with this airline. I’ve never flown it before.

#1 Son: I’m never flying them again.

Mom: OK

At the appointed time, we stood next to the baggage carousel of doom. And waited. And waited. And passengers picked up their bags and left with smiling faces. And we waited. We were both sure that we were waiting in vain. All of a sudden, I spotted something…

Mom: Is that your backpack?

#1 Son: OMG! It is! [grabbing it off the belt]

Mom: Look! Look! There’s the hatbox… er, cymbal case.

#1 Son: Very funny. [grabbing it off the belt]

Mom: Is there anything else?

#1 Son: That’s all!

Mom: Yea!

He dug around in his backpack for his wallet, and pulled out another skein of yarn.

Back we went to the car – now closer than last time. Mom, I’m really tired. I can’t begin to tell you how tired I am. Please just drop me off at your house, and I’ll come over tomorrow and pick up my car. OK?

So that’s what we did. And when he walked in his door, all of his friends and roommates – who had been waiting for his return – sent up a shout of joy that was probably heard all the way to Salem, and scared him half to death. And, what with all of the excitement, I left the yarn in his guitar case. And that’s why I have no pictures of it to show you. But he has promised to get it to me on Monday, and then, gentle reader, you can maybe help me figure out what it is.

P.S. On Friday he came over with his roommate E to pick up his car. When he opened its door, he said, Ah. You knit me a steering wheel cover. How cool is that!

Mom: Notice anything else different?

E: It’s clean! It’s really, really clean!

Mom: Yes, it is. It’s also full of gas and has brand new registration tags.

#1 Son: It does? Mom, you’re the best mother ever!

We’ll see how long that lasts, eh?