Month: February 2010

Vine Yoke Cardigan Stretched like Magic!!

vine yoke cardigan 003

I stayed up utnil 1:30am this morning weaving in the ends and blocking this sweater.  Before it was blocked it looked like it would fit an 8 year old, I was very nervous to see if it would really stretch enough for me to wear.  But it suprised me!  It did as promised and stretched.  It grew by 3.5″ in length and the sleeves grew by half an inch as well.  I’ll post measurements in Ravelry, but for now I have to do some party preperations for the hubby.  Happy Birthday Paul!!

Oh – I’m going to take this sweater to StitchesWest and see if I can pick up some nice buttons to complete the sweater 🙂

Thank you Green Planet Yarn!

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First of all you have to listen to this knitting song from NeverNotKnitting, this great blog/podcast I just discovered, with wonderful pictures and lovely patterns. I made the show & tell group at Green Planet Yarn in Campbell listen to it and we were rolling with laughter as one of the knitter’s husbands was completely identifying with the song 🙂  The event was very fun, it is inspiring to see what everyone is making!  To top it off you get a raffle ticket for each item that was made from yarn from their shop and there are door prizes!  I won the yarn pictured above!! It’s a scarf kit from ravelry with their little boston terrier mascot on it.

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I won’t be making the scarf, although it is very cute.  I’ll probably end up making a little baby girl cardi out of it with all those variations of pinks and greens and white.  If you are local to Campbell, CA you should definitely go to the next one, it’s planned for May 8th at 3:30pm.

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I completed the back, and started the left sleeve on the vine yoke cardigan!  I’m trying to get done in time for stitches west this Sunday 🙂  I’m still very worried about how it will turn out because it looks so so tiny, but blocking is magical, so we’ll see!  I’m getting a lot of practice with wraps and turns (w&t).  The pattern says that you don’t need to pick up the wrapped yarn and work it along with the stitch, but I found that it looks a lot better if you do pick up the wraps in the raglan shaping for the sleeves.

Here’s what the raglan shaping looks like without picking up the wraps (see the stretched stitches in the armpit?):
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Here’s a what the raglan shaping looks like with picking up the wraps (no streched stitches):
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I’m not picking up the wraps in the yoke shaping though.  I felt that it could use a bit of stretch in the yoke because the curve is so sharp already.  Here’s how that is turning out, without picking up the wrap:
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This pattern also calls for the provisional cast on which was a first for me… hope I’m doing it right.  It leaves a row of live stiches on the bottom with scrap yarn to holding them in place, to be picked up later:
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Fun stuff!  I’m looking foward to Stiches West in Santa Clara, CA on Sunday.  My knit nighters (or crochet soiree’ers as has been renamed recently) are going to meet up.  I’ll have to bring a fixed amount of cash so as not to get too crazy 🙂

Koigu Painter’s Palette

Koigu
I have obstained buying new yarn since our budget is tight these days, but I couldn’t help myself when I came across Koigu at 40% off!  I bought 2 of each color pictured above.  Now I have some projects in mind for these, but dreaming about what they could be and who they could be for is so much of the fun of knitting.  Colors and patterns swirl around in my head until the magic “aha” moment happens and I just know I have to create that thing for that person.  Right now, I’m thinking one more chevron scarf and maybe a few skeins towards this blanket inspired by stained glass windows that I want to make for my mom, but HELLO, a blanket made out of sock yarn is going to take me FOREVER.  I am still determined to do it though, piece by piece.

Sweater mojo is back!

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Here’s my new sweater project.  It is coming along quickly after a few re-do’s and slowness in with the initial vine pattern.  I have a solid understanding of the pattern now and it is knitting up quickly!  The only problem now is that it looks so short.  I am considering ripping out and adding some length.  As it stands it will need to stretch by 4 inches to match the pattern.  No sense in making a super short sweater right?

How was your valentine’s day?  I follow this blog by Amigurple who had the most amazing gift from her boyfriend that she blogged about.  Check it out, so so so awesome.  She is a knitting maniac too, FO’s fly off her needles daily it seems.  And they are super cute too.  Oh and she made a really cool little cozy calculator for anything rectangle that you don’t want to do the math for 🙂

Hats!

simple ribbed hat

I have been busy making hats lately.  Above is a hat that I made for Katy, my best friend of 20 years!  Wow, it’s been a long time.  I got a random text message saying, “I need a beanie, can you make me one?”  I was delighted to oblidge, but she had no colors in mind, and no idea what she wanted.  It took me nearly 2 weeks to finally decide out what to make for her.  Fair isle would look nice but take too long, blue would look good with her eyes, a simple ribbed hat is cute… I want to make them all!!  I finally settled on something that was quick and in her favorite color, red.  That way she would get it while it was still winter 🙂 

Here’s the final product:
Hat for Katy

I improvised on the top decreases.  They are not ideal, I will try a lot of things differently next time… like making sure I have an even amount of ribs so that the decreases match.  Here’s how it turned out:

bungled attempt at a nice top

I also finished a hat for my hubby.  I used a free pattern called “Turn A Square” from one of my favorite designers, Jared Flood.  I used Noro yarn for the first time and liked it better than I thought I would.  I really love the colors, but it’s not very soft to work with, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel close the the skin.  It’s actually ok… certainly not the softest hat, but not itchy or rough like had feared.

Noro Square hat - Jared Flood design

You can clearly see the square pattern in the top.  Such a neat and clean closure.  Jared’s knitting is impeccable, if you have a minute, do check out his flickr images if you want to be inspired.  I’m signed up for his sweater class in March.  Here’s his touring schedule.  I’m so thrilled to learn from him!!

And last but not least, I cranked out a ribbed hat for my dad with a free pattern called “Just a Beanie“.  I used Cascade Yarns Lana Bambu.  The yearn is super soft, I really enjoyed working with it.  I was worried that it wouldn’t have enough spring in it for the ribbed pattern, but it turned out really nice.  The cool thing about this pattern is that the flipped up ribs match the ribs on your head. The only thing I didn’t like was how visible the decreases at the top (not that my own attempt turned out any better). It just looked kind of sloppy, but since it was a speckled yarn, it wasn’t very noticable – especially to a nonknitter.  I need to do some research though, because I really want to find out good decrease method for a ribbed hat.  What’s your favorite ribbed hat pattern? 

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