noro scarf

This pattern comes from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It's one of those ideas that seems so basic, yet I never would have thought of it if I hadn't seen it. The book calls for two skeins of Noro, alternated every few rows, in mistake rib. I used two skeins of Noro Silk Garden and one skein of Plymouth Alpaca (unbelievably soft, I can't wait to work with this again), and alternated those throughout the scarf. I think it's really pretty. I think I might buy these same yarns and make another scarf, only this time in entrelac.

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.

a month's progress

The cold weather has filled me with knitterly excitement. Or at least, that's how I'm explaining the fact that I have three sweaters on the needles right now. I haven't had much time for knitting recently because I've been busy, but as a freelance musician I'd much rather have little free time than sitting at home and wondering when the next job will come. It is disappointing to see my knitting progress slow, though.

The first sweater I'm making (and hopefully finishing first, too) is another men's sweater out of Debbie Bliss' Cathay in black. The first one I made was a hit, so I'm back to fields of stockinette again. I think I'll try a saddle shoulder instead of a set-in one this time, just to break up the monotony a little bit. I've managed to finish the body up to the armholes, and I'm about halfway through one sleeve. I don't know why I wrote in my notes that I used 10 skeins (1100 yards) for my first sweater, since I think I'm going to be at least two skeins short.

The next sweater I'm making is for myself. Hege I traded knitting books, and I ended up with Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I love all of the patterns, and I started on the Hourglass Sweater almost right away. I was able to use some yarn out of my stash. This is the first yarn I ever bought, and after an unsuccessful lace sweater it's been frogged and waiting for more years than I'd care to admit. I remembered it as being 100% alpaca, but it seems to maybe have some cotton in it, too. It's a solid blue - any variation you see in the picture is the result of lumpy knitting making shadows. Thankfully it will be blocked. The fiber is a tiny bit scratchy, but apparently my Dutch genes have made me invincible to wool's scratchiness, so no problem there. My gauge was one row too short and I couldn't fix it, so I'm reworking some of the shaping in the pattern. Right now I'm 16 rows short of the armholes. I'm pretty impressed that I knew enough way back then to buy enough yarn to make a sweater. At the time I purchased this, I had never heard of Barbara Walker, fair isle, or double pointed needles - when sock patterns mentioned a set of 4 needles, I thought there was some magical way that you worked with the straights, all needles moving at the same time.

The Crichton remains are still waiting until I decide if I want to make something useful out of the body, or unravel it and use the yarn for socks. However, I did buy some beautiful wool from Morehouse Farm and started a much-altered version of Snow Sky, also from Sweaters From Camp. I've downsized the pattern a lot so it will fit better, and have also turned it into a cardigan. I don't really like the way the shoulders are worked in the original pattern, so I'm trying to come to an alternate solution. So far I think set-in sleeves would look nice. I'm going to have to do some charting to see if I prefer trying to match the pattern across the sleeves and body, or if I should let the sleeves have their own design. I've finished one pattern repeat, which is about 6.5".