Black and White

I finished the white linen lace sweater I started in January, just in time for summer. I coudn't work on it during the blizzards. The yarn was totally unforgving - no stretch - and I'm not totally happy with it. The judges at the county fair gave it a second place - calling it equisite but "a shame there are mistakes". There was some short row shaping in the shoulders I'm not sure I got right, but also a few places whre I picked up dropped stiches tha they may have been referring too - with the stiff yarn you couldn't really even out the stitches after picking up stitches up the ladder.

I'm happier with the black short sleeved cardigan, though it's a little too small in the sleeves. I used the 60/40 cashmere/merino yarn I bought the Atlantic Expo I attended in Baltimore two years ago with a vintage pattern from Interweave magazine.

My current project is a wool pullover of Jasper by Berroco - body finished and working on the sleeves. I'm also looking for some Malabrigo yarn and pattern I saw in Interweave. I ordeed the pattern on-line but it was backordered. I bought some Noro silk/wool Garden Party yarn for it, but I don't think it's quite right. I may return it if I can get the Malabrigo on line after the pattern comes.

Blizzard 2010

I was working on a lightweight white lace linen cardigan for spring when the great Northeast Blizzard of 2010 struck Washington, DC, and somehow in all that white it just didn't feel right.
I had lots of time on my hands but needed to be working on something cozy. So I continued with the hats. I found some leftover yarn from the sweater I happened to be wearing and tried the sideways grande hat again with much better results (I deleted 9 stitches from the cast on strip).

Then I decided I had enough leftover yarn from the first sideways grande attempt to make a tam from the same pattern book.

Finally, I decided to try the two at a time method for knitting socks on two cable needles. So far, so good. If you try this, I recommend finding needles that are a different color. It makes it much easier to keep it straight which row you are on. Mine are green aluminum (from an ancient stache) and bamboo. A trick to remember if you use self striping yarn - not all balls are wound in the same direction. If you want your socks to match, you may need to rewind one skein. I didn't bother so my stripes will be upside down o one sock.

Happy winter. I'm not sure I'll ever want to go back to work after this unexpected knitting break.

Happy October!

Hey crafters! Anyone planning on celebrating Socktoberfest this year?

There's a mystery sock KAL (and how can any of us resist a mystery?!) as well as choose your own sock knitting.

I'm still on the fence a bit, given that I did the gift sock knitting I had planned with my Hello Althea's.

I also have to admit, while my knitting to do list is nowhere near as frightening as heb's, I am making slow progress on the items that are there.

The gifty Melody continues apace, but it grows slowly. I'm hoping this yarn (a single ply merino) will grow quite a bit once soaking and blocking time comes, but the single ply makes me more nervous about breakages as well, so I don't want to plan on pulling it too much.

I have a couple of other projects, half on and half off the needles...

But my sister has made some demands that I very much want to fulfill....

(A note:  No one demands knitting from me, except for my demanding sister!  I partly blame this on the fact that most of my close family are in places where knitting is really more of a quaint hobby, and less something needed to actually stay warm, but still.  I wouldn't mind a couple of demands every now and then.) 

And then there are some of my selfish projects that have been languising all summer, including my someday Honeybee Stole and my former Henley Perfected that I've determined should become a Coraline.

Basically, I am full of indecisiveness!  It is a happy kind though, I openly admit.  What to knit next is a pretty awesome question to ask oneself.  (And the answer might be: the iPod cover I promised my iPod if it started working again!)

so much for doing well on deadlines

As my blog-silence may have suggested, I haven't really had a lot of time to knit this summer. Between the move-that-lasted-forever, the job-that-did-not-slow-down-during-the-summer, and many lovely trips and visitors, I had a hard time fitting knitting in. So when I take stock of my progress on summer knit goals, the picture isn't pretty. In fact, it's downright pathetic. I can't think of a time when I made less progress on a set of self-imposed goals. Here's the (limited) progress that I made:

I'm 11 rows away from finishing my end-of-August goal:I wish I could say that I'm as devoted to this project as Wamps was to her version, which clocked in at 150 rows. But I've decided that mine will be lovely at just around 100.

My save-my-sanity cowl grew, almost without me thinking about it:
It's still a-ways from being finished, but maybe that's for the best.

During the last weekend in August, an unusually long (since moving to the Beat, that is) spell on public transit produced this baby hat:
This wasn't one of my knitting goals, but since it's the closest I came to a FO this summer (only have two ends to sew in!) I'm including it anyway. It's the Umbilical Cord hat in Sheep Feet, Royalty colorway. Having rushed out the door without writing down the pattern, I counted on CH's memory to get me the right number of stitches. Luckily, that was a safe bet. What was not as lucky was how I felt about this yarn once it was knit up. In the skein, I thought it was beautiful, but I think the brown is much too dominant in the final knit. (EW, enter your massive protest here. I don't care. You can't see it in person, so you don't know how overwhelming the brown is.) However, the yarn was the product of my first-ever trip to Webs (which was also EW's first-ever trip to Webs). It is a miraculous place.

Also, I took Labor Day weekend off from everything, and that helped me to jump start some fall knitting.

This lovely is all finished except for the finishing: The yarn knit up just like I imagined, and I learned why so many people love one particular classic knit. You'll have to wait for details until it's gifted, though.

And I'm about halfway through another knit using these colors:This knit reminds me why Blue Sky Dyed Cotton is still high on my list of favorite yarns. All but the green were purchased during my second-ever trip to Webs.

Finally, today was the Coventry Farmer's Market's Fiber Fest. I actually went back to get the most amazing cod in the world, but I couldn't resist a little local yarn:It's the Painted Sheep's Shimmer Yarn in Merlot. It's a superwash merino/tencel blend and I think that I know just the knit for it.

What are you all working on this fall?

Ribbons at the County Fair

I entered four knitting projects in the Arlington County Fair and won two blue (first place) ribbons (for the Ladybug sweater, which you have seen) and a scarf which I finished just in time for the fair and two red (second place) ribbons for the blue sweater you have seen, and a more recent turquoise sweater. Lots of areas have fairs, and it's fun to see what other people have done and satisfying when your hard work is recognized. (My grandfather was a county and state fair manager in the first quarter of the 20th century, so fairs are in my blood.

The scarf was from the Filatura Di Crosa fall/winter 2007 collection pattern book, knit of one skein of "Superior" - 70% cashmere and 30% silk - very soft and fine. It is called Lacy Sampler" because it uses five different lace patterns, with eyelet in between - wicked because as soon as you get into the rhythm of knitting one pattern you have to learn another one. It decreased between each pattern so it was narrower around the neck. It was also knit in two identical sections and then woven together in the middle with kitchener stitch (which went much better than on the socks I tried).

The first pattern is Horseshoe.

The second is Flame Chevron.

Diamond Mesh is the one I had to rip out and reknit (and unknit - yes that is the only way sometimes) repeatedly to get it right.

After Diamond Mesh, The Cloisters was a breeze.

Then Twin Leaf was the center pattern that was joined in the middle. You can see where the pattern changes directions when it is connected.


Here's the Turquoise sweater.


It was a strange pattern, with the bottom band knit first as a long scarf-like band sewn together in a loop and then the stitches for the body are picked up onto the band. (Interestingly the judge at the fair commented that the seam attaching the band was too bulky and I should consider using the Kitchener stitch - which would have been impossible since there weren't unfinished stitches to weave together) I altered the pattern a little by eliminating the side seams and knitting it in the round up to the armholes. The pattern called for crocheting around the neckline and sleeves, but didn't tell how many stitches - so I had to improvise to find out how many stitches to skip when it turned out too floppy when I crocheted into every stitch on the bound off (or cast on) edge.


The Yarn was Saucy Sport, a very commonly available yarn, and the Reynolds pattern number is 82382.

hooked on lace

I'd never been that interested in knitting lace shawls until I saw this one (check out the picture at the bottom of the post). And, then, I pretty much had to have that shawl. I've grown quite fond of constantly wearing a huge scarf and I thought that I'd

like it even more if I made that huge scarf myself. And what is a shawl but a huge scarf? But I'm not crazy. I knew there was no way that I would finish that shawl and still graduate from law school. And, in my current state of sleep deprivation, anything that required me to look at a knitting chart regularly was just going to be painful rather than enjoyable. But then the same designer published this pattern, which looked to be easy to remember and soothing to knit. And then I fell hard in love with this yarn (top picture), which was all sold out, but I found a raveler who had bought it and wanted to resell it (crazy, as far as I'm concerned, but I wasn't going to question it) and I wanted that yarn enough to sign up for a paypal account and contract with someone who is clearly very fond of cats.

Preview

Beyond the compulsion to knit it, I don't really have much more to say about this project. The pattern was easy to remember and soothing to knit. I learned that I enjoy knitting lace shawls, to the point where I've committed to knit two wedding shawls this summer. I really adored the yarn and am so glad that I have quite a bit leftover to do something else with. (Even though it's really hard to capture the actual color of this yarn in photos; it's much more blue than it appears in these pictures.) The end product is so soft and shiny that I will feel guilty knitting those wedding shawls in any other yarn. I've added blocking wires to my graduation wish-list, since I couldn't block a straight lace edge with just pins to save my life. I will definitely reblock this once I do have blocking wires, but, for now, I don't mind the scalloped edge so much. (For those of you who don't want to follow all the links, this is the Gale Stole pattern by Anne Hanson, knit in The Plucky Knitter's Merino Silk Lace in the Bingley Wallpaper colorway.)

There are lots of different ways to wear this, depending on how elegant I'm feeling. Can you all guess which way I'm more likely to wear it?

Knitting for Myself after Christmas

Since Christmas, I've been knitting for myself. I've finished two sweaters and my first pair of socks.


I started the socks rights after Christmas and quickly finished one, and then took a break while I knit a sweater. That was probably a mistake because the second sock is much tighter knit so they don't fit the same. I have a book about using two long flexible double pointed needles instead of a set of five double pointed needles so that you knit both socks at the same time to prevent this problem. Maybe I'll try that next time. I usually wear thinner socks, so I'm not sure about handknit socks in any case, but it was fun to try, and they work well with clogs. It was self striping yarn, so the stripes aren't as impressive to knit as they look.


Next, I hurried to knit a winter sweater before the weather got too warm to wear it, but I needn't have worried! I had plenty of opportunities. This was a very expensive yarn and I had some worries that the lace pattern I picked didn't really maximize it's potential, but I am pretty happy with the finished product. The yarn had two strands, one mohair and the other a loopy synthetic strand that was a little shiny. Very dramatic!

Finally I knit a sweater to wear for Easter. The yarn is 55% cotton/45% silk - very soft. I actually knit the sample guage square twice to make sure the size would be right since fit seemed important. I was glad I did and I'm very happy with this sweater.

I've knit so much I have a pain in my right elbow. I may have to take a break! I have more projects lined up but haven't decided what to tackle next.