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Pattern: Hilja Vest
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Amethyst Heather, 3.5 skeins (way less than I budgeted)
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm Knit Picks Options circular needle
Mods: Only CO 144 to make it smaller. Probably added length. Did fewer pairs of shaping. Basically, I made it up as I went until I started the V/arm holes. Then sort of made that up as well.
Serious moderation went into this vest. Basically, I didn’t know how to construct a v-neck or a vest, and the pattern taught me how. So now I can make up my own vests. Awesome, considering I fancy myself a budding designer (which you’ll see more of on Thursday).
Anyway, I think the vest came out super cute. I love the deep v (the depth is just about perfect, I think), and the fit is great for me basically making it up as I went along. I think the arm things/straps/not sleeves/shoulders could stand to be a bit narrower, but they’re mostly fine and I’m not really complaining.
I used less yarn than I thought I would, as I said. When I ordered a bunch of things from Knit Picks a while ago, I randomly threw into my cart five skeins of purple Wool of the Andes. I meant to use much of it here, but instead I only used three and a half. So now I have a skein and a half of Wool of the Andes, which will most likely end up in a cowl of some sort because I love cowls and they are quite quick to knit.
Coming up on The Adulterous Whore Club: a surprise, as I said, plus another super awesome thing. It will be awesome, trust me.
Thanks, Demetri Martin for that big of comedic gold. I think it’s funny at least.
Anyway, as the title suggests, I am knitting a sweater vest. Currently, it looks like this:
(sorry for the crappy photo–I wanted a post for today but was going to be too busy to write one, so picture and post writing happened Tuesday night.)
It’s this free pattern on Ravelry. I’ve had to make a lot of modifications because it only comes in a size large, and I am quite small. So I’ve basically disregarded the pattern except for basic directions for making a v-neck and where to cast off the sleeves.
In other knitting news, I’ve had a brilliant idea for both a knitted thing and a pattern that will be available with it. The pattern is largely knit up, I think, I just have to test a few things to make sure it will work. Trust me, it will be AWESOME.
To avoid the above problem, I made this cute little project bag!
Cute, huh? Just basic Walmart mystery fabric and a shoe lace (well, the lining is from a bed sheet), but I love how it came out! It’s small, so it’ll fit in my purse, but it’s large enough to fit a good size project. Maybe not a whole sweater, but it’ll at least hold my Featherweight-in-progress, which looks like this:
It’s going to take forever, but I think it’ll be super cute. Unfortunately, it’s not the weather for light cardigans, so this will probably be an ongoing project. In the mean time, I’ve started a pair of knee-high wool socks out of worsted weight to wear in my rain boots (regular size socks always fall off my heels and my toes get cold). I’ve also been working on a surprise for you all, to be revealed in a couple of days (probably). Stay tuned!
(I can and do button all the buttons, it was just a little warm that day.)
Pattern: owls by Kate Davies, size small
Yarn: Cascade Eco Wool in coffee, about a skein and a half (ish)
Needles: 6.5 mm Knit Picks Options circular and plastic 6 mm dpns, Susan Bates or somesuch.
Modifications: Made it a cardigan. Probably increased length. Moved the waist shaping to the sides.
So I definitely love this sweater. It’s warm and cozy and PERFECT for fall weather when the temperature drops to 50 degrees. Plus, it’s super cute. I used a total of 13 smallish plastic tortoise-shell buttons, none of which match because honestly, who the hell has 13 matching buttons in their button stash? I’ll probably leave the owls without button eyes, though I do have some little silver beads that I might sew onto a couple of them.
And as for the yarn: I am a fan. It’s super economical (I paid like $15 for 476 yards of bulky weight goodness) and softens considerably after a bath. I noticed a little bit of growing, but I was actually quite pleased with that because my first sleeve was started too small and I wanted to add a little length. It came out to the perfect length, actually, and I’m super pleased. The yarn is a little pilly, but I suspect that’s because I do dumb things like lean my elbows on rough concrete and whatnot. And in any case, a quite run with a sweater shaver (which I need to procure…) will fix that right up.
All in all, this is a great sweater and I know I’ll get a lot of wear out of it. Especially since I’ve been wearing it as my outer layer since I sewed on the buttons. Very cozy.
(Why yes, I am ridiculous.)
Pattern: My own, though it’s just a basic raglan cardigan with a picked up button band.
Yarn: Serendipity Tweed in “Poinsettia” and “Water Lily Leaves”, purchased on sale from Knitter’s Cottage in F’Burg
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 8/5 mm circular and bamboo dpns in US 7 and 8 (I only have three of the 8’s, so I had to improvise a little)
So I totally love this sweater. As I said before, I love things that look like watermelons, and this sweater fits the bill perfectly. It fits wonderfully, especially the sleeves, which have a little bell thing going on. Perfect for both fall and spring. I know the colors don’t really go with fall, but I don’t care.
The knitting of this sweater was mostly fine and wonderful, but I ran out of yarn before getting to the end of the sleeves. I did manage to pick some more up a couple days later though (AND there was a skein in my colorway AND it was still on sale). The yarn is lovely though. Soft and lovely and light enough to be a transition sweater, but the wool keeps the shape. I love cotton/wool blends. Truly, it’s great. The colors bled a little in the wash, but it wasn’t really huge, and when I wash it, I’ll add a little vinegar so it doesn’t run any more.
In other knitting news: I’m up the the owls on owls, so that will happen soon. I also started a pair of fingerless gloves, so those will happen too. Stay tuned!
So I’m knitting another sweater, making my total for the year 14 once this one’s done. To be fair, some of those were tank tops. So maybe I’ll go through what I’ve done and let you know when I’ve done 12 legit sweaters, long sleeves and all. Actually, I’ve only done a handful of those… We’ll stick with 14.
Anyway, I’m knitting owls by Kate Davies, everyone’s favorite bulky yarn sweater. I’m modifying mine into a cardigan because I’ll wear it more. Right now, I have the body done up to the short rows and the sleeves both knit. I started this on Sunday. There’s a good chance this sweater will be done before the week is out. Or at the very least, not much more than a week.
So the sleeves of this thing are knit in the round, from the wrist to the armpit. Upon embarking on this sweater, it didn’t occur to me to check to make sure I had the right needles. Except for the ribbing, the pattern calls for 6.5 mm needles (I know, they’re fucking huge). I have 6 mm dpns, so that’s what the sleeves are knit on. But check out these needles:
THEY’RE SO LONG (that’s what she said; tee hee). Seriously. They’re like a foot long. They’re some plastic Susan Bates nonsense that came from a garage sale back when I first started knitting. I mean, they’re pretty smooth and work well with the wool yarn, but still. Huge.
As I said in my last post, I finished Watermelon, so I’ll have pictures of that soon, probably in a couple of days. So that will happen. Stay tuned for knitting. And maybe some other crafts if I feel like it (probably not).
So I’m still truckin’ on the Watermelon cardigan. It looks like this now:
Why yes, I do knit like a fiend. I tried it on, and thought it’s a bit smaller than I would have liked, it’s super comfy and fantastic. I hope to have it done this weekend (but who knows if that will happen).
I’ve also off and on been working on a spinning project:
That would be an ounce of random wool I got with the spindle I’m spinning it on. It’s probably going to stay a single, and I’ll make some sort of cowl or something with it. Only sort of related: light-fingering weight yarn spins up SO SLOWLY on a spindle. I want a wheel. Unfortunately, I have nowhere to put it, so for right now, I’m delegated to spindling.
Speaking of spindles: I want a lighter one for spinning lace-weight. Any suggestions? I want a fairly inexpensive one because A, I’m cheap as hell and B, I’m a poor college student that just spent $60 on yarn from WEBS.
I am obsessed with things that look like watermelons. I love the combination of green and pink, and I love when objects have that color combination. LOVE. So when I saw this while browsing around the Ravelry forums, I knew I had to have it (non-Rav link; to issue one of Petite Purls). Sized up to fit me, of course.
I bookmarked that just about when the pattern came out, though, which was several months ago. Seeing as I really should knit up the projects I have planned before I buy more yarn (college student budget and all that), it sort of fell by the wayside, despite how much I wanted to knit a tank top like that.
And then, last weekend, while happening past the local yarn store in Fredericksburg, Knitter’s Cottage, I noticed they were having a sale. So of course I went in. And found Serendipity Tweed on sale for six bucks a skein, so of course I bought three, two of green and one of red. And then, noticing I had a total of like 600 yards of yarn that I could knit on eights for a nice, drapy fabric, I realized I could knit a whole cardigan! I scoured Ravelry for inspiration, wanting (mostly) to knit something with raglan sleeves (because I haaaaaaate set-in sleeves). And then I found this cute little sweater.
So here’s what I’ve been working on:
The cotton/wool blend will be perfect for the last warm days of fall before it slides into winter (and, of course, it will be amazing for spring). And I finished my super secret knitting project, so for right now, it’s all Watermelon all the time. Probably it won’t take me a whole lot longer to do since I have plenty of knitting time in several of my discussion-based classes.
Next up on the needles is going to be a wool sweater for which I need to order another skein of yarn (Cascade Eco Wool, which I’m getting from WEBS along with Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles and some various other things, probably some Valley Northampton for a sweater and some Huntington sock yarn for some argyle socks). There’s still the inchies swap to be posted (one set was sent to my house instead of to me at school, so I’m waiting until it gets sent here to post). There’s also the super secret project, but that won’t get posted until December. But you will see it eventually, I promise! Stay tuned!
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!
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 