Inga

Pattern: Inga Hat by Sheila MacDonald. It is true that following the pattern as written produces an awfully long hat, but I like awfully long hats.
Yarn: Cascade 220 in dark purple and light blue, a scrap of Ella Rae Classic in bright purple left over from my first crochet scarf

The top of this pattern is quite pointy, so I decided to celebrate the pointiness with a tassel. I think it pulls it all together.

This was the most complicated colorwork chart I’ve ever followed, and I was proud of myself for doing that. My issue was not with following the chart, it was maintaining even tension while holding the light blue in my left hand.

As you can see in this pre-blocking photo, my tension was somewhat uneven. I definitely think I’m improving though, and I am quite happy with how this turned out. I don’t think people are really going to get close enough to my head to notice the few wonky stitches.

Flora

I got so caught up in the fiber fest frenzy of the last couple of weeks that I forgot to show you the Flora Hat I finished before Rhinebeck.

Pattern:  Flora Hat from tentenknits/Margaux Pena
Yarn:  Jo Sharp Silk Road DK Tweed, about half a skein of blue and half a skein of green.

I knit this to match my knucks and it worked perfectly!

Mods:  I decided to to a square top to the hat, I forget why.  I ran out of the blue, so the very top is green.  I didn’t like having a random green square up there, so I made little tendrils like I did on the knucks.  It’s a design element!  ;)

I enjoyed the pattern, and it inspired me to make some more stranded hats to practice the technique.  Currently on the needles: Inga.

Serrano… finally

Is that…? Could it be…?

Yes, I’ve finally finished Serrano!

Pattern: Serrano, by Laura Chau (Knitty, Fall 2006)
Yarn:  Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Mill End from ebay (color close to Loden)

Please excuse the pictures, it was getting dark but I really wanted to get it in for Finish or Frog Friday. After two years in sweater purgatory, it is finally finished!

Good God, what a saga this has been.  I started it in April 2007, when we were still living in Boston.  In September 2007 I declared that we were in the home stretch.  Ha! I had intended to finish it in 2008, but I didn’t.   So here we are, nearing the end of 2009.

I’ve had two main problems, the first of which was the sleeve caps.   They just aren’t as rounded as most sleeve caps, they’re pointy.   As a result, the shoulder area did not fit well at all.   I’ve re-blocked it, and while it still isn’t perfect, it is much better than it was and certainly good enough.

In March I declared an intention to actually finish this. Later that month, I noted that I was having a hard time figuring out how to close it. And indeed, it took me another seven months to figure it out.  The original Serrano was made from Schaefer Anne, which is just not as stretchy or “sproingy” as Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. CTH is very stretchy, so the whole hook-and-eye tape thing was not working out. It just didn’t hang right with a non-stretchy closure along the whole front opening.

I finally found the right closure at Sit-n-Knit.

I’m really happy with the way the closure works with the finished sweater.

It took so long to do the pattern that I don’t really remember what, if any, mods I did. I do know, however, that I did a more cropped shape without the waste shaping. My gauge with the CTH was coming in smaller than the pattern was written for, so I basically followed the directions for a larger size and the gauge made it my size. That would have messed up the waist shaping, of course, so I just omitted it. I think it worked out.

I love the lace pattern, and I am very happy that it is finally finished.  I met the designer Laura/Cosmicpluto at Rhinebeck, which reminded me that I really ought to finish Serrano.  The best part is, I finished it just in time to wear it to Stitches East which is hitting my hometown THIS WEEKEND!  I’m sure I’ll have many more FO pictures after this weekend.

Let me know if you’ll be there.  I would love to meet you!

Dotty Cat Bed

I finished the knitting for Dotty a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to let Fiona give the finish product a review before I posted about it.

This project is kitty approved!

Pattern: Dotty Cat Bed by Kelp/Kelly Porpiglia
Yarn: Cascade 220 in purple, green, and gray

She’s a small kitty (5.2 lbs when we found her, maybe 7-8 lbs now) so I only cast on 192 stitches.

It fits her perfectly!

She’s also really taken to it, which delights me. I put it next to our bed, so she’d have a nice place to sleep. She had been trying to sleep at our feet, but we would kick her accidentally so it wasn’t a good situation. This is much better, and she’s actually started going to her Dotty bed of her own accord.

I think it also really helps that she can use it as a place to sit while she watches birds out the window.

I messed up on the pattern a little bit, so it’s more like squares than like dots, but Fiona doesn’t care.

I think we’re both really happy with how it turned out!

Knucks!

As a law student, I try to live frugally.   We keep our house really cold.   I’m also up late typing or studying a lot, and last winter I kept wishing for fingerless gloves to wear while typing.

Pattern:  Knucks, Knitty, Summer 2006
Yarn:  Jo Sharp Silk Road DK Tweed, about half a skein of blue and less than a quarter of a skein of green.

I should have made these earlier!  They are exactly what I wanted and I can still type quite easily with them on.

For the embroidery, I did very simple tendril designs, so they match the Flora I’m almost done with.  I think the simple rustic design works well with the rustic yarn.

I’m sure I’ll get a TON of use out of these this winter!

Seraphim

Happy dance!

Seraphim is done!

Pattern:  Seraphim by Miriam Felton
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock, Tiziano Red, approx 1.5 skeins

I love how it turned out!

Not that I’m any good at wearing shawls.

It’s the largest shawl I’ve ever made at just a touch over 80 inches across the top.

My love of Malabrigo Sock as a lace yarn continues unabated. I love how crisp the stitches look, and how the shawls turn out warm yet light.

I chose this color because the YOs before the feathers start remind me of sparks drifting up from a campfire, so I had intended this to be my Fire entry for project spectrum. I missed the deadline, but oh well.

I don’t usually wear this color, I’m more drawn to cool colors. Also, this is my mom’s favorite color, so stuff this color feels like it should be hers rather than mine. It looks good on me too though, I think. And as a bonus, I have a skein and a half of this color left over so I can make something for her!

Thank you to Miriam Felton for a beautiful and well-written pattern!

Purple Ishbel

I LOVE it.

Pattern: Ishbelby Isolda Teague
Yarn: Tosh Sock, in Clematis, 1.5 skeins
Size: I made an extra-large version. The stockinette portion in the large size has 48 stitches more than the small version, so I did mine with 48 stitches more than the large version. I worked the lace charts as follows: A, B, A, B, A, B, A, C, D, E.

As I was knitting it, I was concerned that the color variation would obscure the lace pattern, but I don’t think it did at all.

It’s such a wonderful purple color, I think it will look dynamite as a scarf with my black winter coat.  I hereby declare this project to be a success.

So hey, want to see a cute kitty picture?

I thought so.

Yellow Ishbel

Much to my own surprise, I finished the yellow Ishbel in time to give it to my friend Jennifer at her graduation party yesterday. I chose the color yellow for my own reasons, but it doesn’t hurt that it fits with Project Spectrum too!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and happy that I could get it done so fast. I went to Sit-n-knit in Wethersfield on Wednesday on a mission to find the perfect yellow yarn. The ever-enthusiastic and helpful woman there helped me find all the yellow fingering and lace weight so I could choose the shade I liked best. Online yarn sources are great, but I was really glad I had an LYS nearby so I could talk to a live human.

Malabrigo sock (in Ochre) really was the perfect yellow yarn. There was enough variegation to make the stockinette portion interesting, but it didn’t detract from the lace portion at all. It also has great yardage – I was able to make the large size (turned out to be 61 inches across the top) and have 8 grams left over.

The yarn is also super soft and it blocked into the lace pattern nicely.

Speaking of blocking. What do you do when you cast off for a lace project less than two hours before you need to get in the car to go give it to the recipient?

I’m sure speed-blocking wouldn’t work for every project, but it worked for this one, anyway.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. No wonder it is such a popular pattern!

Cathode

Have you ever seen a pattern and said “what a preposterous garment.  I would never wear it in public, non-knitters wouldn’t get it” . . . and knit it anyway?

Meet Cathode. It’s completely preposterous and non-knitters don’t get it. Heck, even knitters don’t get it. Just ask the new SnB I’ve been going to (God bless them for humoring me so ).

I don’t hate it. I actually kind of like it. The superdeep ribbing with extreme negative ease makes it about as flattering as any sweater with bulky boucle could be.

Look at that negative ease! It doesn’t even look like a sweater when not being worn, it looks more like a washed-up sea creature.

The thing that makes it cross the line from simply odd to utterly bizarre is that collar. It looks particularly weird from the back.

The real reason I knit this, I guess, is that Artful Yarns Circus was on sale at Woolcott about three years ago when I was living in Cambridge. I completely fell in love with the colors, and Cathode was the most obvious use for it. I found this yarn to be a real bear to work with – it was so fluffy that it was much easier to pierce the stitch than to knit it properly.  The finished product is very warm though, even with the short sleeves.

Oh, who am I kidding? It doesn’t make any sense (at all!) but I like it anyway.

Wicked

Wicked is finally finished, after two years of hibernation! Hooray! Thank you Finish or Frog KAL!

 

Also, thank you to my law school knitting buddy Diane for providing some inspiration.  Did I ever tell you that I admired your Wicked in Federal Income Tax last semester?

I like the way it turned out. I think I was unhappy with it before because I (sound familiar?) wasn’t happy with the way I looked in general. To be honest, another reason I let it sit for so long was that I wasn’t thrilled with the pattern itself. I find Zephyr Style patterns to be so simple (which is a good thing) that sometimes make silly design choices (which is not such a good thing). For example, the instructions for my size call for 33 cable motifs around the neck. I hate the way it looks when prominent seams fail to align with prominent design elements. Why not 32 cables, so it DOES align?  So anyway, I did 32 cables, and aligned the raglan increases with the cable motif. It only added like a centimeter in length.

I knit the cuffs two years after the bottom hem, so they don’t match exactly. But who cares? Close enough, right?

I decided to do 3/4 length sleeves because it’s such a great color for spring that I didn’t want it to be excessively warm. I used Knitpicks Andean Silk, which is quite cozy. I’m happy with how it turned out, and happy that it’s the perfect weather this week to wear it!