finished hourglass sweater

Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (thank you Hege!). My only modification was to use yarn from my stash - it was the first yarn I ever bought, a long time ago, and I only know that it's 100% alpaca. I think it could have stood a little more waist-shaping, but it's growing on me.

goals #1 and 4

Is this my blue period?

Patterned mittens are the Selbu Mittens from Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandowski. I cast on fewer stitches so that it would work with my gauge, and subsequently took out the two vertical patterns that were meant to run up the sides of the mittens. I also forgot to put a thumb on the first one (sigh), so I ended up doing a little snipping and picking up of stitches.

The turquoise mitten is a Mystery Sidways Mitten from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around. I had absolutely no idea what was going on until the very end, when I folded my hunk of garter stitch in half and suddenly had a mitten. I think I'm actually going to make a pair for myself after I finish this pair. The shape is so comfortable, and the garter stitch makes the wool feel very lofty.

And that hunk of yarn underneath the mittens is the Hourglass Sweater, now with one full sleeve attached. It only took me a day to make the sleeve, so now I guess I really have no excuse to make the second. Now all I have left from my goals is to re-work the two black sweaters.

goal #3

Norwegian Stockings from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush. I modified the heels to a salt-and-pepper pattern, as mentioned in this post. Yarn was modified to Morehouse Farm merino in charcoal and natural white, with periwinkle for the stars. And yes, they really do stay up.

by december first

At heart, I think I've always been the sort of person who does best with one knitting project at a time. My Crichton Cardigan from Sweaters From Camp almost flew when I was working on it, and looking through my progress posts I can't believe how fast I was going.

These are my works in progress now:

1) Hourglass Sweater from Last Minuted Knitted Gifts. All I have done is the body, due to some irrational reluctance to pull out my knitting needle case and locate the correct DPNs for the sleeves. (Seriously, this is pathetic. My case is in easy reach on the bookshelf in my room, and all of my DPNs are organized. It would take about 3 minutes.)

2) Snow Sky from Sweaters From Camp. I haven't even finished the body for this one. Again, irrational reluctance to finish this sweater because I like fair isle sweaters so much and I haven't found another pattern to start after this one. Never mind that if I finished it now, I'd get the most use out of it for winter.

3) Two black men's sweaters, each of which need a little tweaking. The first one I made a year ago and it's looking a little over-loved (not like that's really a bad thing). I'm thinking about ripping it down to where the arms and body connect, and re-trying the whole set-in sleeve circular sweater thing. I've never been 100% happy with the way the neck turned out. The second sweater went so fast I didn't even post about it, but after being blocked and presented, it turned out that I had somehow failed to correctly use a measuring tape, and it needs 2 more inches on the body. I'm hoping that the alteration of the first sweater will mean that I have enough yarn to lengthen the second. I would have to buy more yarn otherwise.

4) Norwegian Socks from Folk Socks. I actually only have about 1/3 of the second sock to go, but it bothers me that I'm still working on them. I only work on these when I'm waiting for a rehearsal to start, so that's probably why they're going so slowly.

5) Norwegian Socks from Vogue Fall 2006. I managed to crank out 2.5 pairs, but pathetically, my first sock never received a mate.

6) Two pairs of mittens from Folk Mittens. These are going to be holiday gifts, and have to be ready to present by December 15. After the monster mitten disaster I started a more reasonably sized mitten, and then realized that I had a better way to do it halfway through. I'm going to have to frog my .5 mitten down to the cuff and start again. Not to mention that I haven't even balled the yarn for the second pair.

As you can imagine, having all these projects means that even though I seem to knit and knit, very little progress can be seen, because all of the knitting is spread out on different things. This is particularly bad, since I finally paged through the Rowan Vintage Knits, and subsequently want to make at least half of the patterns. I also bought wool for the shawl-collared sweater in the holiday Vogue 2006, which is currently living in the car because I don't have enough space for it in my little stash box, and if I leave it outside of a locked box my cat will have a field day. And yes, I do mean locked. With a key. She can open all kinds of lids, drawers, and cupboards, so this is what I am reduced to.

Okay, now that all of that is out of my system, here are my goals for the next few weeks. I'd like all of the goals to be finished by December 1st. (There is no particular order, as long as they are all done.)

1) Suck it up and start making sleeves for the Hourglass Sweater.

2) Frog the set-in sleeve black sweater down to the body and sleeves joining point. Re-knitting can be done at my leisure, although I would kind of like to give back both sweaters for Chanukah/Christmas.

3) Finish the Norwegian Socks from Folk Socks.

4) Finish the first pair of gift mittens, and at least get the yarn balled for the second pair. This one is especially important, because it has a deadline.

All the other projects can hang out until I have these goals done. I'd also like to buy Knitter's Workshop by EZ, Poetry in Stitches and Rowan's Vintage Knits by the end of the month, so that I can have them handy as an incentive for finishing these projects. I should look through Sweaters From Camp, too, and see if I can find another sweater to inspire me.

And now off to knit!

when mittens attack

So, what happens when you figure that getting stitch gauge means you can knit your mitten in the dark without trying it on?

MONSTER MITTEN!!!

That's almost a full 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) of mitten there, folks. And it's not even blocked yet. These were meant for someone who has larger hands than me, but this is ridiculous. The cuffs are bad, too - way too wide.

Normal sized mittens just can not compare. Now, to figure out how to make a mitten chart work for a shorter size...