Burned by bum patterns

Well, looking at the placket neck sweater pattern hasn't started off well. I noticed that right off the bat, the number of cast on stitches is wrong. Doh! That's not enough to make me rip yet though - I think I might be able to fix that part. I'm still analyzing the rest of the pattern to figure out where things went wrong for me.

But, I was knitting some baby booties from a pattern I got in one of those 'Pattern-a-day' calendars that a co-worker gave me last Christmas. And the pattern burned me again! This time, my knitter's intuition told me that things might be a bit weird. But, some other part of me said, "Well, maybe the construction isn't what I think it is, and the pattern is right after all." And so, I knitted along following the pattern.

Lesson? I should listen to my intuition more. Bleh.

Photos!

Alright, photos just like I promised!


That's one of the socks that I made. Of course I made a second one to go with it (haha!).


Here are my two sock on one needle. I haven't made much progress with them though. I'm debating with myself as to how much ribbing I want to put on it.


And here's my messed up baby sweater. I downloaded the corrected pattern, but haven't gone through to compare yet. Hopefully I won't have to tear the whole thing out. Man, that would be a pain.

I've also started some baby booties, but I'll take pictures of those when they're closer to being done.

Something weird...

So, I've been knitting my own version of that baby sweater out of Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I think I've screwed something up. I'm at the part where you're supposed to make the neck placket, and I think I've somehow messed up the decreases at the shoulder. For one of the sleeves, I'm getting dangerously close to the actual seed stitch section as I continue to decrease. I'm going to re-read the pattern again. I sure hope I don't have to rip away too much of my work.

In other news, I've started knitting some socks. They're toe up socks made from that blue/aqua worsted weight Dream in Colour stuff that I bought when I got the peach yarn. I'll take some pictures soon. I know worsted weight isn't usually what you use to make socks with, but it's been a nice fun and quick knit. And remember the beautiful blue, sock weight Koigu Adrienne gave me once upon a time? Well, I've started some socks with them too. I'm trying an experiment - making both socks (toe up) on a single circular needle. It's a little hairy sometimes because I've realized that the needle isn't quite long enough to do the magic loop comfortably, but other than that it's working pretty well.

Pictures of everything to follow!!

Lotus Blossom, at last!

I started knitting the Lotus Blossom Shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting last August, when I went home to Toronto for a little vacation. I knit most the shawl there, then came back to Boston and finished the rest of the knitting in pretty short order, leaving only the bind-off to do. Of course, since the bind-off involved scary bobbles, I put off finishing it until earlier this month, and of course it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Only took a couple of hours or so!

Here is a shot of the stalks (top) and blossoms (bottom):



And a view of a bobble:



And a poorly modeled shot of the shawl being worn:



This was a very enjoyable project, the yarn was lovely to work with (Fiddlesticks Country Silk in the Autumn colourway), and the pattern was incredibly clear and well-written. I would definitely recommend both!

Baby stuff

So here's the stuff that I sent off to Janice and Harold last week. I hope it makes it in time for the baby shower!

Child's Placket Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Made in the 6-12 month size. The yarn is Laines du Nord's Giunco, lovely soft superwash merino. I really liked the fact that there was very little seaming to do for this sweater (just some grafting in the underarms), but also disliked having to do the sleeves on dpns. Can't win, huh? =)



And a closeup of the little ladybug button:



I also threw in some of these baby bibs from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Sorry for the very poor quality of the photo!

More baby knitting

So much for stash busting. I ended up buying some new yarn at Lettuce Knit.


Some Dream in Color superwash merino. The photos I took are pretty bad, and don't do justice to the lovely colour of the yarn.



And here's that peachy one knit up into yet another baby sweater.

Counting the days to Janice's baby shower, and I'm thinking that I might need a little more to give her than just the sweater I made (o.O) What to do?! I need to think of something fast!!

Knitting again, slowly

Have I ever been a terrible blogger/knitter! Truth be told I just haven't really had the time to knit in recent months. But I have been chugging along very slowly on some projects, I've been knitting the same pair of socks for the past 4 months, and I'm working on some baby stuff (which should be quick knits, but which seem to be taking forever). I've also done a bit of knitting from stash, here's a Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts done in some Koigu that I bought at Lettuce Knit last August (click for bigger):



Project specs:
Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Koigu KPPPM P539, 3 skeins
No modifications to the pattern, except I only used one colour instead of alternating two colours.

Next up, some baby stuff!