Finishes and Frogging

I had a swarm of finished objects here at the end of December.  Most were gifts for Christmas and one was a just languishing project. The gift knitting was not coming along as I wanted it too, but I did rally managing to put aside my Fair Isle Vest for the time being.  First up were the two scarfs for my friend Anna's friends, who have now become my friends (don't you love it when that happens?)  The one was a lattice design using a thick aran weight yarn, the other was simply textured in a luxurious angora/silk yarn.  When I finished those two knits I quickly wrapped them posting them just in time for Christmas.  Phew!  Then comes my biggest accomplishment - I finished my mothers' cardigan sweater.  Wow, I just love how it came out.  The best part is the colorwork was much looser this time around (I knit this same sweater for her 2 years ago and my stranded knitting came out pretty tight) so it was a breeze to block into shape.  The collar lays down much better too on this version, as I made a few discrete decreases in the last couple rows.  It is a touch big on her, but she really loves it and that's the main point.  

After that project I whizzed through making some felted slippers for my son.  He asked for them way back in September so I'm a bit late getting to them, but now they are done.  They are Minecraft themed after a famous Youtuber iBallisticsquid who my son watches.  His Minecraft character is a squid and this is what the face looks like.  You see my son already has the same size feet as I do (US sized 8 1/2 Women's) at the mere age of 9 so the "fun" slippers for children don't fit him anymore.  And being only nine he of course wants fun slippers. Thankfully they were a hit.

My last completed object is a pillow of a chicken for myself.  It's the Oluffa doorstop by Lucinda Guy.  I have no use for a doorstop, or a pillow either for that matter, but I adored this pattern the moment I saw it.  It was my Christmas Day knitting and I finished her in just a few days.  We're still thinking up a name for her - any ideas?  The only tricky thing is there are some very long floats, but I did a bit of duplicate stitch in some areas to get around that.  All in all it's a very fun knit with embroidery added and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  

I was hoping to finish my White Russian sweater by Thea Coleman as it was already about 1/2 done, but sadly I frogged it instead of finishing it.  The sleeves were really, really big and I tried to fix them twice, but decided it is ultimately a flawed design for my body shape and desired fit.  I have a large bust, but average sized arms and with a top down raglan the only way to enlarge the bust is to enlarge the sleeves as well.  After reading more about sweater designs I am going to go back to a bottom up pieced sweater with set in sleeves.  You really have lots more control over sizing when knitting all the pieces separately and seaming afterwards.  Thus I frogged it, re-skeined the yarn and gave the yarn another bath so it will be all smooth and fresh with which to knit another sweater.  This is the sweater I'm planning on with an added turtleneck.  It will be my first Custom Fit Amy Herzog sweater so I thought I'd keep it simple.  

Today I'm swatching for a fresh knit to start in January.  My first choice is a Fair Isle turtleneck sweater for myself and second is this cabled vest for my husband.  I really should do my husband's first as he did not receive a knitted gift this year for Christmas, but oh the colors for the first are fabulous!   What are you working on?  Planning for the new year or just winging it?  I'm loosely planning to knit a mix of new and old projects, taking my time and knitting only things that I really love.  Happy New Year everyone!

Joining in with Ginny for Yarn Along.

Here and Gone

I was happily knitting along on the colorwork section of my mom's Blathin sweater when it happened.  I made it through two rows of flowers and two decrease rows when I decided to turn it right side out (I was knitting it inside out to stretch out the floats so they wouldn't get too tight) to measure it and try it on.  Well, it was flippin' huge!  HUGE!  The colorwork was lovely - not too tight or too loose, just plain old too big.  In all honesty I was devastated.  The thought of taking a picture of all the work I had completed that I would then be ripping out was too much so I have nothing to show you.  I frogged it all, wound the yarn back into balls and put it all away in my knitting basket to sit.  I know it seems a bit dramatic of me, it can be knit again and there is no real harm except loss of time, but it felt like a huge setback that shouldn't have happened.  Having taking all these precautions so that the colorwork would come out right gave me a false sense of security, but I guess I've changed enough in the two years since the first time I knit this sweater that they were unnecessary to begin with.  That and my gauge lied to me. 

The sweater will stay in time out until we get back from our little trip to WI.  When we return I am going to start over using the same US size 8 needles I used to knit the body.  Then after the first decrease row I am going to go down a needle size to US 7's.  If the neck still seems too wide after the 2nd decrease I am going to fit in another decrease row after the last section of flowers like I've read from other Raveler's project notes.  Hopefully, all this will work out in creating a fabulous fitting sweater.  Time will tell.

In the meantime, I thought I could use some more stranded colorwork practice and am now back knitting on my Oluffa Doorstop.  The pattern is part of a great collection in the book Northern Knits Gifts by Lucinda Guy.  I'm using yarn leftover from my toy making business - a white angora, indigo dyed Lamb's Pride and madder/weld dyed Lamb's Pride for the orange accents.  It will be a pillow instead of a doorstop as we have no need for a doorstop, or a pillow for that matter, but I simply love the pattern so it must be knit.  Since my yarn is worsted weight I went up to US size 6 needles which I thought would give me a nice dense fabric.  So far so good.  They don't mention blocking it, but I think I will do so before I stuff it to help the colorwork relax and the yarn bloom.  This will be my car knitting for our trip.  It's small enough to stay neatly in my lap, interesting but not too hard and there's a good chance I'll finish knitting it by the time we return.  Honestly, I've spent more time trying to figure out what knitting to take with me on this trip then planning or packing for it.

I hope all your knitting projects are coming along swimmingly as they say and I'll see you all next week!

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

All Together Now

Ping pong comes to mind when I think about how my knitting went this week.  First, I knit on my poncho, then my turtleneck sweater, then a random scarf, then thoughts about starting up some socks and last knitting my mom's sweater.  By finally focusing on a project I managed to make some visible progress.  My mom's Blaithin now has both sleeves attached to the body and lays waiting for the colorwork yoke section to commence.  Whew!  The plain stockinette section is complete at last.  I'm excited to start on the colorwork and use a few tips I have learned since knitting my mom's last Blaithin sweater whose stranded knitting was rather tight.  The tips I'm gong to try are as follows:  knit the piece inside out, go up a needle size and stretch out the stitches in between changing colors.  Now that I know what to look for I think I can catch early if I'm getting the right tension in the strands and make adjustments accordingly (at least I hope so.)  Do any of you more experienced with stranded knitting have any other advice?  Above you can see the colors I will be using:  apple green for the flower stems, bright teal and the main body color for the flower petals and dark navy for the background. 

This was also a week with a few new purchases.  Seems funny to buy things before going to a Wool Festival, but each of the above items was love at first sight, which doesn't happen that often for me.  The sock yarn is a rich mix of navy blues from Leading Man Fiber Arts called Dames at Sea.  This will be the first skein of immensely practical sock yarn that I've ever bought.  Usually, I get sucked in by fabulous color combinations that don't exactly combine with my wardrobe.  Next, are some stitch markers made by Lantern Moon (who also made the flower stitch markers seen in the first photo) of little crocheted squirrels and acorns.  I like soft stitch markers for my main beginning of row marker and these were too cute to pass up.  Last, is my favorite of the three.  A Star Trek large wedge project bag.  It has the original Enterprise on one side and the Next Generation Enterprise on the other.  I've been a Star Trek fan since I was four watching the original show with my Dad and older brother.  We even had dolls of all the main characters and the Enterprise Bridge to reenact the show as well as acting out our own stories.  So, I completely flipped when I saw this on Stitched by Jeesalu's website and had to get it. 

That about wraps up this week's Year of Projects Update.  With both my turtleneck sweater and my mom's Blaithin on the list I'm feeling pretty good about myself even if I did start out rather scattered brained.  Check out the other YOP contributors by clicking here.  Have a awesome week everyone! 

Slow Progress

The thing about knitting a sweater is it takes a fair amount of time and while progress is definitely made it seems slow due to the size of the project.  My mom's Blaithin sweater is coming along nicely, but it's the slow stockinette "things don't look too different" phase and I'm a bit discouraged.  To help alleviate this feeling, I decided to take a break from the sweater body and start a sleeve as that is the next step in this sweater's construction.  And since I still have troubles knitting with double pointed needles (I discovered my pulling the yarn too tight is what is causing the ladder effect), I purchased a 12 inch circular needle from Chiaogoo so I could seamlessly knit in the round.  Well, let me tell you it's awesome!  I knit the above 10 inches of sleeve yesterday with ease and their are no ladders to be seen.  Yay!  I've tried 9 inch circulars for sock knitting in the past and my fingers cramped up quickly, but the 12 inch seem to be fine in that regard.  So, I think I am a convert and will be knitting my in the round sweater sleeves like this in the future.  Ah, more needles to collect :) 

I'm not reading anything presently, but I'm thinking of getting this book to help conquer the mess which is my house.  It has pretty good reviews and being from Japan with their small housing spaces (small by western standards) I think it might be a good match to our own tiny home.  Many western De-cluttering books have solutions for your home office, but not your home office/dining room/computer gaming room which is how our house functions.  It's not our living room.  It's our living room/ craft room/ exercise dance space/ music room.  See where I'm going with this?  Well, I feel it's at least good enough to download to my ipad for a read as the wait at the library is some 600 requests long and I certainly don't want to buy another book to add to the clutter ;)

Joining in with Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On and Ginny for Yarn Along.

YOP Update - The Scots Won!

 

 

My debate with myself as to which cardigan to cast on last week, the one for myself or the one for my mother, was a tricky one, but I decided to go with casting on Kate Davies Blaithin for my mother's Christmas gift.  The Scots won out!  I say this because Kate Davies is Scots as well as my mother so they make a good pair I think. What tipped me to that verdict?  Well, I have been really digging the idea of getting all my gift knitting done by Fall and then having uninterrupted selfish knitting time all Winter.  So, onward with the gift knitting!  You can see my progress on Blaithin in the first picture.  I finished the pockets and am onto the boring stockinette section.  It's a cardigan that's knit in the round and then steeked up the middle which is marked by my little flower stitch holders.  The yarn I'm using is Jamieson's discontinued Soft Shetland some of which was leftover from a previous sweater of mine and the rest I purchased from another Raveler.  All have been in my stash for about 2 years.  Thus, it will be really nice to finally get this stash yarn knit up and the sweater in use.

Because I am on the boring stockinette section of the sweater I find myself wandering over to Ravelry often to give myself little breaks from the monotony.  Maybe that, coupled with looking through my stash, is the reason I cast on for something completely unplanned for - a poncho.  Growing up in the seventies my mom and I had matching ponchos that she knit us and I really loved mine.  It was for mainly wearing outside as it was pretty thick and came down to my wrists , but this model is knit in sport weight yarn and is shorter making it more of an inside garment.  I think it will be a chic way to dress up my boring turtlenecks this coming winter.  The yarn I'm using is one I purchased online here and sadly it was rather a disappointment.  It was purchased it in a effort to buy more environmentally responsible locally sourced yarn.  And it fit the bill being 100 percent alpaca grown and processed in the US then dyed with marigold flowers that were grown on the same farm as the alpacas.  The color is fantastic, but the yarn is a bit rough and has lots of neps that I have to keep picking out.  Also, it was also supposed to be DK weight not sport. Well, I probably should have returned it, but I just didn't have the heart to do so.  This poncho I think will be the best use for this yarn since it's not next to the skin and the alpaca's natural drape will only add to the style.  Since the size I am knitting takes about 1000 yards it will be some time before I see the results.  

The last photo is of some yarn I purchased yesterday with my son for a pair of felted slippers.  He actually asked me to knit him something!!!  This is very thrilling for me.  You see, a couple of years back he told me he didn't want me to ever knit him anything and said he hated sweaters (proving this point by wearing only short sleeved t-shirts all winter long - brrr!) as well as hand knit hats and mittens.  Oh, the knitter in me was very sad that day.  So, of course I have to jump right on this project when he asked.  He wants simple navy blue slippers like the ones my husband and I have which I knit from this pattern.  The only twist is he wants a Minecraft pixelated squid face on them.  If you've heard of Minecraft (which is a video game) you might have heard of iBallistic Squid who is a Youtuber Minecraft personality.  I'm going to create the squid face out of colored wool felt sheets which I'll cut into squares and then stitch onto the tops of the slippers.  Sam's feet are as big as mine so he is out of children's footwear sizing and all the fun slippers they make for kids.  And, being only just 9, he is still very much a kid and wants something fun to wear on his feet.  I'm really hoping I can make these slippers to his liking and then maybe, just maybe, he'll ask me to knit him something else.  Ah, a mother can dream...

With these unplanned for projects popping up I think I will make an "Additions" section to my Year of Projects list.  That way I can still see my original intent at the end of the year and can better gauge my progress.  To check out other YOP participants check here.  Enjoy these last couple weeks of summer everyone!