Category: Knitting Update: Works in Progress

This gorgeous piece of cashmere is the Heritage Trail hat I showed you at its start a few days back.  It's a lovely pattern and since I enjoy cables and seed stitch, it's my kind of knit.

This photo was taken while I was flying home from the Plucky Shindig.  I was tired.  Really tired in the way your mind is exhausted from the late night, knitting in the hotel lobby in your pajamas while eating See's Candy, scene.  I shouldn't have been knitting something that required cabling and increasing on different rows. 

Look closely at the third in cable block from the right. I missed a cross.  It wouldn't have been much of an issue had I noticed it at the time, but I'm now several inches and five or six cable crosses further along.  I'm going to attempt surgery tonight.  Although I love this yarn, it is very slippery and wouldn't be my first choice for this dicey little operation.  Stay tuned and keep me in your knitting prayers!

    2010 was the year of the big, bulky, and very definitely knit from cheap acrylic yarn, cabled throw.  Pottery Barn had them. Restoration Hardware had them.  Pretty much every store or designer showroom displayed them as the accent piece in model rooms that I, with four children and multiple pets, could only dream of having.  Perhaps the cheap acrylic was even a response to people in my situation, but it surely wasn't coming to live in my house.  So I started out with this:

Coming up with a simple cable pattern with a garter stitch border wasn't rocket science.  And, I had gotten my hands on a fabulous silk/alpaca/merino super bulky yarn blend, which was a wonder to dye.  I set aside a large batch of it for myself and set to work.  I ended up with this.

It was very simple, but it made me very, very happy.  It was perfect for cold winter days and snuggling with children.  A lot of people asked about the pattern and I kept meaning to do a write up, but I never found the time, even though I had kept meticulous notes while knitting.  Even if I had written it up, I was no longer dyeing yarn for sale, and wouldn't have a yarn to recommend.  The first time I knit with Plucky Snug Bulky, this afghan came back into focus.  It was the perfect yarn for it.  A similar blend, with a similar soft but bulky quality to it.  So, this:

A friend who is a much more technically savvy knitter than I am is knitting it up and making sure my pattern makes sense (I bet she'll put in a few bells and whistles before she is done).  The color is called Happy Camper and it's a stunner! Before the pattern's release, we will put in tips to make techniques like the cables and alternating yarn skeins easy enough for even a new knitter to take on.  It will be a free release.  I'm hoping you all will enjoy it!

Feeling low because you got pranked by the Mars hoax ?  Here's a planet you can see, or at least a picture of my Summer Moon shawl in progress.

This pattern is everything I'm usually not.  It's bright.  It's chevrons.  It's fingering weight and the first row consists of 500+ stitches.  But I was drawn to Knitterella Jill Zielinski's pattern the more I looked at it and took the plunge.  I've been knitting a row here and there when I have a moment and am in love with the color play!

This will be a weekend for much ripping.  Measuring, self-recriminations, re-measuring, perhaps some creative block, and then ripping.  Not just one, but two projects.  

Glacier, my beautiful cabled sweater, has a beautiful back.  But it is too long.  Instead of hitting above my hips it is miniskirt length.  Why did this happen?  Because the yarn is lovely and thick … and heavy. So my gauge swatch under predicted growth in length.  I should have seen this one coming.  I put the project in time out when I came to this realization so I could CALM down and breath before ripping back (this should be fun with alternating skeins to wind and splice) to before the shaping starts and taking out a repeat or two.

This is a new project, my Moto Vest.  It's a clever construction, essentially you knit a big thick scarf before picking up stitches in the middle to knit the back. The pattern is more of a recipe than a pattern. At a glance, my shawl collar isn't long enough (it will eventually get connected to the back) and my back isn't wide enough.  I'm knitting with Plucky Bulky, a yarn that is notorious for growth with wet blocking, so I will wet block and remeasure.  But I think here as well, I'm headed for the knitting frog pond.  My current plan is to lengthen the shawl collar, rip out the back and knit it almost twice as wide, and add some cable detailing on the back for a bit of light shaping at the waist.

Fortunately for both of these projects, I'm still in love with them and am deeply committed to finishing them.  Some day.

I'm off to sulk.  Hope you are having a better knitting week than I am!

Glacier.  More Cables.  Love the pattern.  Love the yarn.  Contemplating ways to clone myself or time travel so I can knit more.

Although this behavior is frowned up in my family, I finished up the last quilt square for my Barn Raising Quilt at dinner yesterday.  Over Pho.  I waited to pull it out until the meal was over and we were drinking bubble tea while waiting for the check.  Still, this is considered slightly bad manners in my family.  But I was so excited, after years and years of knitting one of these squares here and there, to finish up the last one.

Now, I have a lovely basket full of quilt squares, waiting to be edged and sewn together.

They look pretty all laid out, but I need to spend some time putting together a nice variation of color and hue, to make sure it all works.  Some time ago, I purchased some black skeins to use for edging/sewing, but as I look at the squares, I think that may be too dark.  I'm going to try either a dove gray or something in a buff range.

Evil Kitty Dingus REALLY likes knitting.  He likes everything about it — we've never had a cat quite as attentive to the whole process as he is.  He sits in my lap and quietly lulls me into the belief that he is not a threat before striking mid-stitch.  He was delighted to come across some leftovers tucked into this basket, but a lot less happy when he realized I was onto him.  I'm going to have to knit a few yarny toys for him this weekend.