Yay! I've finished something! After a long, long time, I finally finished my toe socks! And this marks the last set of socks I will make on size 0 needles. Adrienne, I'm sending those needles your way. You're okay with bamboo, right?
With the finishing of something, it heralds the desire to start something new. Even though I'm not really suppose to be enhancing my stash right now, I really wanted to start on some new mittens. My current mittens are getting kinda old, and the thrums inside are thinning out and getting matted down, and hence not very warm any more. And so...
Starting from the left are three skeins of Cascade 220, which are slated to become Fiddlehead Mittens. The two skeins of alpaca are going to be the lining for the Fiddleheads. The last two skeins are just some pretty, pretty Koigu that I just wanted - they'll probably become socks. I also got the latest issue of Knitscene.
Why did I feel that it was suddenly okay to buy more yarn? Jamie confessed to me that he bought two books even though we no longer have any bookshelves :)
Oops, I guess I forgot to continue posting. I have 2 sweaters and a pair of socks to post about! I also have a sweater-in-progress that I'm knitting for someone else, and a new scarf that I've started. Work's gotten busy though, so I haven't actually picked up my knitting in a couple of weeks.
I remember buying the yarn for Salina from Rowan Vintage Style way back in 2004 (too lazy to look up the actual post), so I figured that I should probably get to knitting this thing already. I started it sometime in Spring 2008, and had all the pieces finished and blocked by July:
I seamed it up and tried it on, and discovered to my dismay that the sleeves were actually too long. Well, too long to be 3/4 length sleeves, which is what I was going for, but also too short to be full-length sleeves. It looked pretty stupid.
I let the sweater languish for several months (August-November), then around mid-November I decided that I had to do something about the sleeve issue. So some surgery was called for.
Step 1: Determine optimal sleeve length. See how there's at least 3 inches of extra stockinette in there? Duh.
Step 2: Put stitches on dpns, unravel sleeve seam. It's a good thing I hadn't woven in any ends yet.
Step 3: Cut yarn (!!), unravel back to marked stitches. Fingers crossed that all the stitches on the dpns were actually from the same row of knitting.
Step 4: Join new yarn, reknit the cuff in the round. And voila, a sweater that I'd actually wear out in public!
There are 4 buttonholes, but I only used 3 buttons. When I wear it, I generally only have 2 buttons buttoned anyway.
This was a fun and pretty successful knit overall, the only thing I don't love about it is the fact that the collar doesn't sit down properly in the back. It's not wide enough, so it keeps flipping up. I'll have to try to block it down, or something. Other than that, all is good.
The pattern is Salina from Rowan Vintage Style, the yarn is Rowan Felted Tweed in the Crush colourway (Rav link). I had to go down to US3 and US1 needles to get gauge (recommended needles are US5), which actually wasn't quite as painful as it sounds. I love this yarn, it's tweedy and soft and I haven't noticed any pilling yet. I will definitely be using it again.
Just hours before the end of 2008, I wanted to make one last post for the heck of it. First off, here's a little something I made for my mom for Christmas that I forgot to post about.
A pair of Fetching wrist warmers made of the same Berroco Alpaca that I made mine out of. I modified the pattern to make mine extra long, but I didn't do the same for my mom's. When I gave them to her, she was a bit puzzled as to what to use them for, but hopefully she'll find them as useful as I find mine.
As some of you might already know, the hubby and I are now house-hunting. We're packing up our condo in preparation for putting it up on the market, so that means a HUGE de-clutter, and sending a ton of things into storage. And so, my knitting corner had to disappear from the premises (ack!). I've had to select a few key skeins to tide me over, but the rest had to be packed away. So here it is. My entire stash.
Yes Adrienne, that includes all that Silk Garden you were so kind to bring me. I seriously thought I had more yarn than that. Maybe I can treat myself to some more yarn when we've got ourselves a house :)
Have a safe and happy New Year's celebration, everyone! See you all in 2009!!
First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their very helpful input. After reading all the comments, and thinking about it a bit more, I've decided to continue with the sweater. As for my own thoughts, I have to say that I really love the way the cables look. But like Adrienne said, the check pattern on the sides (a simple k2, p2 alternating), seems a bit visually distracting. However, I find that I really like the way that part feels when you touch it, so maybe Baby will like how it feels too. And yes, I agree that the sweater is not quite gender neutral. I'm not knitting it for any baby in particular, so I'll just hang on to it until someone I know has a baby girl.
Man...you know what this means? I'm going to procrastinate on that second toe sock even more!
I took the opportunity to photograph what I've knit so far of Baby Yours in some natural light this morning (and let me tell you we've had very little natural light lately), and that's what it looks like.
So, before I venture forth with the rest of this sweater, I'd like to solicit some opinions from you. Keep on knitting, or start a-froggin'?
[And in case any of you are wondering, I do have my own opinions about this, but I wanted to see what you all say without me polluting your initial thoughts.]
Many of you know that finishing is one of my least favourite parts of the whole knitting process. I try to take as many sneaky tricks as possible to minimize the amout of it I have to do, but sometimes there's just no helping it. And so, after having put it off for a little while, I decided to sew the seams and put the buttons on that Baby Surprise Jacket.
Having learned from the first BSJ that I knit, I resolved to do a better job of the seams this time.
I think they turned out pretty well this time around (and my camera fails at taking close-up shots like that).
With all sorts of friends with something cooking in the oven so to speak, I decided to start yet another baby sweater.
DETAILS
Pattern: Baby Yours by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Jasper
Needles: US size 4 Addi Turbos
I'm not sure about the colour, to tell you the truth. Or rather, I'm not sure about how all those lovely cables will look considering the amount of striping that's happening. I'm not really an experienced cable knitter, so I'm not sure if cables+variagated will still turn out to be perfectly lovely. The only time I've really done cables have been with non-variagated yarns. I do admit to being quite enamored with the pattern so far, and have been enjoying it greatly, so the only question now is if I should really be getting a different colourway. Any thoughts before I get too far with it?
