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Pattern: Studio Shorts available on Ravelry here.
Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy in Marlin, about two skeins
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm Knit Picks Options and 16″ circ
Mods: Went up a needle size cause the sevens were closer and I knit fairly tightly. Left out the huge increase row because my thighs are not half the size of my hips and instead increased about five stitches around the back to accommodate my ass. Skipped the short rows in the front. Probably added extra short rows in the back.
These actually went by quite rapidly once I got the right amount of stitches around the hips, and I think I would definitely make these again. It’s so hard to find shorts that fit, and once I got a drawstring in these, the fit is perfect. And they’re sooooo comfortable. I love Knit Picks Comfy. It feels like kittens on my thighs. : ) I think I would decrease right before the ribbing. The ribbing on the waist isn’t really stretchy at all, and I think a smaller circumference would help that.
I’m extremely pleased with these though. The pattern is staying on my queue.
In other knitting new: super secret project is coming right along. Started another secret project (but probably only secret til next week or so since I’ll be giving them to the recipient then). Unfortunately, super secret projects are really all I’m knitting lately.
Fortunately, my partner for one of my swaps has already sent, so I’ll be showing you that by mid-next week ish. I’ve also been working on my inchies, and I’ll be ready to send out soon. Plus there’s a Post Secret swap (which I am thankfully not organizing). I love swapping, and I’m sure readers are fond of them since they provide tons of blog content. Stay tuned!
So, I don’t know if you can tell from previous pictures I’ve posted on this here blog of mine, but I weigh about 110 pounds, sopping wet. I’m a tiny little person. So I’m not sure what I was thinking when I blindly followed the directions in my shorts to k1, Kfb around the circumference after I joined the legs. This is what I got:
Yeah. Those are not going to fit. The legs fit perfectly, but there is literally a foot of extra space at the hips.
I though about giving up and moving on to other things. But when I tried them on, the yarn felt so soft and lovely on my legs that I decided to take the plunge and frog back to the join and reknit them, this time without the huge increase row. At this point, I’ve reknit back up to the waist ribbing, which took half the time as before because the rounds are half the size. I’ve had to add more short rows, but I think the size now is just about perfect.
Pattern: My own! This is my first sweater I designed myself! I based it on Lillie, but I didn’t want to do it in pieces and I wanted to make some mods anyway, so I just made it up as I went. It’s top-down, raglan style.
Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy in “Marlin”, fourish skeins
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 8/5 mm circ and some Clover dpn’s
I LOVE this sweater. It doesn’t much resemble my original sketches for the sweater, but I love how it came out. The fit is perfect, I love the angle of the fronts, and the cotton makes it perfect for layering over tanks in fall/spring. Perfect for back to school! I could probably wear it on cool summer nights too… Immediately after I finished it, I put it on over a short red dress I had on, and it looked fantastic, so I’ll definitely have to put it in rotation.
The buttons came from a swap (the Craft my Wish Swap, if you recall), and I used four of I think the five i was given. I think they fit quite well. And the yarn? The YARN. I’m in love with this yarn. It’s kitten-soft thanks to the microfiber acrylic and cool and pretty sturdy thanks to the cotton content. Did I mention it’s soft? Plus the color I used, Marlin, is such a lovely deep blue. And slightly shimmery. Amazing. AND, as a bonus, I only used four of the eight skeins I ordered, so I have enough to make something substantial. WIN. No idea what I’m going to make with the left overs, but I am quite happy to have it in the stash. I would definitely order this yarn again, and I probably will with my next Knit Picks order (whenever that will be).
Also: This marks number 12 in my dodecathon of sweater knitting! Since I finished in July, I may well go ahead and make 24 sweaters this year. Maybe. Right now, I’m in the mood for lace. Complicated lace, after the seemingly endless miles of stockinette in this sweater. And I did just buy some yummy alpaca lace in a lovely maroon color…
(Obviously it’s big and awkward on Mr. Frog. Go with it.)
Pattern: Green Zebra Baby Sweater at Dove Knits
Yarn: Nameless sport weight acrylic my grandmother gave me ages ago.
Needles: US 8/5 mm Knit Picks Options circ.
Mods: None, really. Accidentally knit the sleeves on US 6/4mm needles cause I forgot what needle size I was supposed to be using. *shrug*
A good pattern, I say, though it’s basically just a bottom-up raglan cardigan. I like the knit-on button bands, though keeping track of three balls of yarn in order to do it was a little fiddly. I didn’t bother with button holes cause I hate to keep track of them, so I just sewed on little loops for the buttons. It came out great though, and I’ll definitely keep this pattern on my list of knits if I should need another baby sweater any time soon.
It helps that this pattern has a bunch of sizes. I used the 24 month size cause the recipient, my cousin Colin, is just under a year and already in 18 month clothes. Hopefully this will fit for fall/winter! Regardless, it was pretty fun to knit.
Unfortunately, there are no modeled shots cause it’s July and I’m not going to stick a baby in a hot sweater in July for a photo shoot. Also, it’s too big cause he’s not quite in 24 months clothes yet. Maybe come winter I’ll get some from the parents.
In other knitting news: I finished the Razor Cami, pics to come soon. I also started a sweater and I’m halfway through a spinning/dyeing project. Stay tuned!
Pattern: Lelah from the Knitting for Booze Hags blog.
Yarn: Cascade Sierra, color 66 (they really ought to name them), about a skein and a half. Oh, and a little Lily Sugar and Cream, for the tie.
Needles: US 10.5/6.5 mm and US 9/5.5 mm Knit Picks Options circular
Modifications: Nine repeats of the lace pattern instead of 7, decreased rapidly over three rows so it would actually fit my bust, added ribbing to the top and left out the elastic.
I really love how this came out. It is actually a little bit long, but the fit is great and I think it’s really cute. I definitely think I will get a lot of wear out of it, and I think you should know by now my love and adoration of Cascade Sierra. It’s amazing yarn and I’ll probably make at least one more garment out of it by the end of the summer. Maybe another tank top.
Speaking of tank tops, I started another one, this time out of Caron Spa, an acrylic/bamboo blend that is really quite lovely. It’s a sport weight though, so the knitting is fairly slow going, plus I haven’t had nearly as much time to knit as I normally have.
Speaking of garments: For those of you playing along at home, here is where I am in my sweater-a-month challenge:
January: Corona/Talia (I did them both in January)
February: Burgandy (Cable Cardi from Knit Simple)
March: Spring Cardi (Hey Teach)/Lime
April: Lime/Superman
May: Climbing Vines
June: Lelah/Tank top yet to be finished
Which MEANS if I was aiming to complete 12 adult-sized garments in one calendar year, as is the goal of this Ravelry group, I would currently be good for 8/12 with number nine about two-thirds of the way there. Why yes, I do knit like a fiend. AND I have a fairly good idea of what I’m going to do for both ten and eleven AND I have the yarn already. One of them is completely weather inappropriate and the other will only sometimes be. And I haven’t decided which to do first.
Coming up soon: stuff from the Ongoing Wish Swap (my package), a cold weather thing, and that tank top. OH, and a shawl which I need to block when I get home. That’s coming up too. Stay tuned!
I did, you know. That’s the only explanation for why I’ve taken up card making in earnest. It all started with these books I got out of the library. Cardmaking books. About card making.
And it was all downhill from there. I gathered as many supplies as I could find in my house: Construction paper, elmer’s glue, ribbon, a magazine, scissors, fabric glue, buttons, and water colors. Plus these books I got at a sale at the Fredericksburg library, one in German and on in French. At the time, I figured they’d be useful in some sort of papercraft. Anyway, I spend several hours with the supplies and the books, and this is what I came up with:
My favorite is definitely the one with the pink bow and the panties (or I guess it could be bathing suit bottoms), but I am really quite fond of the wine glasses too. They’re not perfect by any means, and I am definitely more crafty than artsy, but I rather like them. I would prefer to use cardstock and I would eventually like to get better supplies/better quality so I can sell them in my artfire shop (in the sidebar). At the moment, I’ll work on my technique and use them for friends and for swap packages. These are definitely a lot prettier than a sheet of notebook paper. : ) Also, I’ll include a note that they can just glue a sheet of white paper over my note to reuse the card. Eco-friendly! I mean, they are already because of the books and the magazines, but still.
In knitting news: Climbing Vines is DONE and all sewn together. Pictures soon. I also just finished a tank top out of Cascade Sierra, so that’s coming also.
At long last, the items for the Craft my Wish Swap on Craftster have been sent and received by the intended parties, and I have finally received my final package from sg1psychopath, which came all the way from Great Britain and somehow managed to do that is less time than it took for Nikimac’s package to get from Virginia to Washington. *shrug*
Anyway, here’s what I got from sg1psychopath:
Sweet buttons (the red ones will probably go on my version of Lilith, which I think I’m just going to design myself), a phone holder, which I will make an honest effort to use, a bookmark, a little box with shells (which she didn’t make but had around) and a pillow cover, which doesn’t have a pillow in because she (understandably) wanted to save on shipping, and one of these days, I’ll just haul my ass to Michael’s to get my own pillow form.
And here is what I made for my partners:
For Nikimac:
A little itsy-bitsy sweater for her baby due in July:
I’m so excited I got to make this. : ) I used Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, US 10/6mm needles and the 5 Hour Baby Boy Sweater pattern. It’s so tiny and so cute! Now I want to make a ton of baby sweaters. : )
Also, this little earflap hat for her two-year-old son:
I freehanded the pattern top-down using US 7/4.5mm dpns, red Ella Rae Class wool, and blue Lion Wool. The earflaps were picked up after casting off, and there’s a border of single crochet around everything. I love this hat too because it’s cute and tiny.
And also this kickass apron:
Oh my God… This apron. It is my opus. Okay, not really. But it WAS extremely frustrating and turned out extremely AWESOME. I am kind of sad I don’t cook and therefore have absolutely NO use for any such thing because I really love it. Niki really loves it though, so that’s good. : )
I was going for a retro sort of look, and I think I got it. I found the fabric at Walmart on the day before send out (yep, I did this all the night before, as I do everything) for $1.50 a yard and bought a yard. And I used every inch. The white bits are pieces from various t-shirt scraps. The ruffle at the bottom was extremely frustrating and I did not enjoy sewing it on and poor Mary, my sewing machine, did not enjoy sewing it on either. She does not like knit fabric. Nor did she like this this, seersucker-ish fabric that the main bit of the apron is made of. But she pulled through like a champ, and it looks awesome. I am SO SO proud of this thing.
For JanelleJ:
Amigurumi Fruits and Veggies:
With faces! Cute. Had to put these off til the last minute because I lack food-colored yarn at school. Fail. I actually intended to make many more of these than I actually did, but I ran out of time and also desire. And food colored yarn. So I have a pear, a lemon (which I made up and did NOT use a pattern for, even though there’s one on Ravelry), and an orange which actually looks more like a peach and I guess it doesn’t matter which. Pretty basic patterns.
A stuffed elephant:
I improvised this design using Vanna’s Choice, left over from Talia way back. It’s based on the crochet elephants I used to make, and I definitely like the knit design much better. Mostly because I prefer knitting and find it’s much faster and much less annoying. *shrug* I think this little guy came out looking pretty cute though. : )
Headbands for her two-month-old:
Basically some elastic and some fabric scraps. These were definitely a last minute decision, and I, of course, made them Thursday night. I like how them came out though. They were very simple, and I would definitely make them again given an occasion.
Decorated Notebooks:
The smaller one I got in a previous swap but knew I would never use, so I slapped on a carrot (one of her desire themes/motifs) and called it a day. The other one I am MUCH more fond of, but I went through a couple different octopuses before settling on that one. I think that one is adorable though. The paper inside of it is the innards from a small notebook that was missing a cover. So I glued some black construction paper to the spine, slapped on an octopus, and called it a day.
And because I didn’t make anything large like the apron I made for Nikimac, I also threw in two skeins of Bernat Matrix and two spools of ribbon. You don’t need pictures of those.
I’ll be honest. I picked the Matrix because I wanted it out of the stash. I have no regrets.
So I’m officially home for the summer, which is less than great, but it does mean I have lots of time for knitting and blocking and sewing and other such crafting. Which means I’ve finally had time to finish and block and photograph the Superman sweater. And I looove it.
Specs:
Pattern: Button Me Up by Lauren Chau (I really like her patterns, actually).
Needles: US 8/5 mm
Yarn: About 2.5 skeins of Ella Rae Classic in red and a half a skein of Lion Wool in blue.
Modifications: Pretty much ignored the sleeve instructions and did what I wanted, ignored the striping pattern because a stripe across the boobs looks good on no one. Probably made it longer, cause I do that. Long torso. Made the ribbing shorter. Don’t need five inches of 2×2 rib on my stomach and also I hate knitting ribbing. Also, did the button band different (one button) mostly because I fail at reading directions and did it incorrectly, though I like my mod.
So, I’m totally in love with this sweater and it’s definitely my favorite sweater that I’ve made to date. It fits wonderfully, it was fun/quick to make, and I love the color scheme. I am a huge fan of this sweater. Unfortunately, it’s made of wool and it’s currently almost May, so that’s a bit of a bummer. It almost definitely won’t be cold enough to actually wear it for a couple of months. 
Maybe I’ll be able to wear it around the house. My bedroom is a good 10 degrees (at least) colder than the rest of the house, and I actually have a little air conditioner back there. Hmm… I’ll find an occasion to wear it. : )
The yarn is nice, but it’s a little itchy, so I would definitely wear a long sleeved shirt under it. It’s lovely though.
Also, one more picture:
Meet Elizabeth, the mannequin bust my mother picked up for me in Florida over spring break. The size is off, but since I’ll mostly use it for modeling FO’s (easier to take pictures of it than myself) it’ll be close enough.
Currently on the needles: Various swap things, a string bag (Everlasting Bagstopper, if you’re curious), and fixing to be either a cabled bag (I need to get yarn for it though) or Climbing Vines pullover. I also recently finished a shrug, pictures of which will be up shortly/whenever I get around to it. They’ll probably be on Elizabeth. Cause that is WAY more convenient. : )
After many moons (or at least, a couple of days), Hey Teach has been photographed:
(More pictures can, of course, be found on the Ravelry Page for this project.)
Here are the specs:
Yarn: Cascade Sierra (LOVE)
Needles: US 8/5mm
Pattern: Hey Teach from Knitty.
Modifications: None, I knit it as-is.
The buttons came from the very small button stash I have (I stole them off a cardigan I chopped up) and I think they suit this sweater very well. It fits fantastically and I can’t wait for the weather to really warm up so I can wear it out and about. This is the perfect little cardi to wear to make a cami more office-appropriate or to cover your shoulders on a cool spring or summer evening.
And the YARN. I love this yarn. It’s super soft and lovely, and in the right light, it sort of SHIMMERS. Amazing. Plus, it is in a fantastic color that I love to death.
In other knitting news, I am nearly finished with Lime, my Cavern Cardi in Cotton-Ease. I’ve finished everything except for one sleeve, and for that I have something like fifteen inches of stockinette in the round left. It’s perfect for mindless movie knitting, though it’s gotten a little unwieldy for classroom knitting. Something smaller for class that I’ve started is a pair of socks! My first pair! They’re the Striped Footies from Lion Brand, though I didn’t use stripes and just knit the toe and heel in a different color. More on those when I actually finish them (though I did finish one already).
I also recently signed up for two swaps (and am considering a third) but the send-out dates aren’t until May (the third swap isn’t til June), so I’ll refer to them vaguely, but no pictures or specifics til May.
Greetings, all. A couple of knitterly things have been in the works lately. For one thing, I recently started the Cavern Cardigan in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in Lime (I had it on hand and have been meaning to make a light little summery/springy cardigan). I’m going to have a bit of trouble with the sizing because I’m small, and the size of the pattern is medium/36″ bust. I’m either going to have a lot of ease of a lot of fiddling. We’ll see. That’s being worked on.
Other things: I made a hat!
From a chart I found on Ravely. Unfortunately, it came out weird. My large gauge made the motif too wide and also I fucked up the chart a couple of times. Also, it was coming out too long, so I hurried with the decreases, making it really bunchy. It now looks like this:
Yep. But I made some other things too:
It’s the Zune/iPod Wallet found here on the Internets. I used Red Heart Strata in this blue color, which would have been a lot nicer if they hadn’t included the black and white bits. *shrug* I made one using the pattern exactly for my iPod and cast on a couple more and knit a couple extra rounds to make a similar one for my boyfriend’s Creative Zen mp3 player. It’s really a quite useful little cozy because it means I don’t have to search through my whole purse for my headphones and because the cord isn’t EVERYWHERE, the headphones will last longer. So that’s good.
Pictures of Hey Teach are… nonexistant yet. I’m waiting for the weather to warm up and stop being wet so I can take spring-type pictures in the sun. Patience, children. Also, I’m expecting a swap package some time in the realm of soon, so you have that post to look forward to also. : )
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 