Nerd Alert

I was so excited about the buttons (I have a thing about buttons) that I sewed them on before I knitted the sleeves.  To further cement my place as uber-nerd, I have created a "Button" label for future posts... because there is a high likelihood I will write about them in the future. Riiiiight.

Update

Okay, so 28thirty is more than halfway done.  The body is finished and I just need to go back and finish the sleeves.

I've abandoned the Herringbone Project.  Um, colorwork.  Enough said.  I knitted until my right hand was swollen last night (more on that later.)  Also, I think the Rainbow Shrug broke my brain.  Anything tedious makes me twitch these days.  I just can't.

So anyhoo, to attempt something not unlike Fair Isle in this state of mind and when I have a deadline would just be ridiculous.  This is being replaced by the Fresh Moss bag-- which I can't post about in detail until after October 5th... or whenever it will be gifted.  Maybe sooner.  I made the decision to change so that I would be working with a single color then previously mentioned swelling started.  My hand still hurts.  A row of triple increases nearly breaking my needles from the tension will do that.

Speed knitting???

Okay, this just made me laugh.  I move at about 100x this woman's speed and 1% of her efficiency.  I am so ridiculously slow compared to her!  But I'm tickled all the same-- it looks like the video is sped up but it isn't.  I can't even fathom how fast she must complete projects.

Maybe I should learn continental style.  HA!!!!

28thirty: Part II

Just the neck and the beginning of the shoulder increases.  Good times.

The Emerald Garden Cardigan Finished

Might do hook & eye closures in addition to the buttons.  Haven't decided yet.  Lessons with this project:  Wrap & Turn (to build up the back collar via short rows) and chart reading.

the zenith of laziness (as illustrated by my lack of capitol letters)

just realized I have multiple completed projects on which I never bothered to weave in the ends or block.  woopsie.  pretty lame considering all the real work is done and blocking makes a huge difference.  maybe i'll go back to bed.

28thirty: Part I

The Emerald Garden Cardigan is done as of yesterday.  I just need to weave in the ends, buy and sew on buttons then I can take photos.  It turned out really nice.  The leaf pattern gives it a nice hour-glassy shape-- even through the sleeves.  My elbow sits right in the "butt" of the leaf.

Now that I've completed a fast 100% instant gratification project, I guess it's time to get back to some of the tedious stuff.  I'm really going to miss knitting something chunky.  (Guess I needed a recovery project after the Rainbow Shrug from hell.) 

On deck is a "28thirty" sweater.  I'm still not sure if I'm going to do any mods on this.  As written, I need about 700 yards to make this.  I have about 880.  If I want to do a non-cropped version, long sleeves could be a problem.  So I could do long body/short sleeves or short body/long sleeves.  OR I could buy more yarn.  Er.  I'm about a million 4.5mm stitches away from that decision.  180 extra yards may be JUST enough to do absolutely nothing.  Anyway, using Cascade 220 in 2444 which is a nice heathered red-- like lava or something.  Very pretty.  I don't own anything in red anyway.

So, this makes my seventh sweater (if you count shrugs) since I started knitting in mid-June.  How many am I going to do seeing as I'm knocking them out so fast?  Well, I have yarn for a buttony after this so definitely eight.  After that, I don't know.  Maybe I'll try something more complex.  Or maybe I'll try to make my own pattern.  Or maybe I'll try my hand at sewing.  Who knows.  I'm about a billion stitches from that decision.

Emerald Garden Cardigan: Part I

Started Veera Välimäki's "Modern Garden Cardigan" today. I'm using Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Chunky in Emerald.  This is my first project that involved a chart… Um, knitting charts are apparently not like cross-stitch charts. I don’t know why it took 3 tries at row 3 on chart A and then 5 or 6 on row 5 for me to catch on to that little concept. I kept trying to do that first purl on the leaf pattern one stitch before I should because on the chart it looked that way. Ugh...  Once I got it, it became surprisingly easy.

So multiple redo’s and unmeasurable anguish later, I’m on my way with no problems at all. Actually, the tears have dried up and I’m really enjoying this pattern. The yarn is fabulous too. I’m liking the jewel-tone color and the fuzzy goodness.  I spent 2 or 3 hours sorting out the chart issue and now, having spent about that much time since the issue is resolved, I'm about halfway done with the body of the garment.  Should be able to finish sometime this weekend between baking Mocha cake and concert on Sunday.  Yay!

Finished: French Press Felted Slippers

Finished: Rainbow Shrug

My hands are killing me.

French Press Felted Slippers

I went to Michael's to buy a needle for the next project on deck and, what do I do?  I buy a ball of Patons Classic Wool so I can indulge a compulsion project: French Press Felted Slippers.  This pattern has been in my ravelry queue for a while and while at Haus of Yarn over the weekend to purchase yarn (for the project I needed that needle for) saw a printout of it.  It got into my head, I guess.

Anyway, 100% compulsion.

I get home with the Patons, print out the pattern and realize it calls for a 10mm needle.  I do not have a 10mm needle.  I am unwilling to go back out and purchase a 10mm needle.  I do, however have a 9mm and decide to go with that.  I don't know what size I would have knitted if I did have a 10 but the 9 definitely cemented my decision to go with a Large (for shoe size 9-10.)

I start knitting.  Now this is a truly "quick" project.  I broke it up over two days but probably only spent a couple of hours knitting if you added it all up.  I did not have the wherewithal to just sit down and do it all at once.  My hands were already sore from working on the Rainbow Shrug and mentally I was getting testy.  Last night I forced myself to do the last of it and assembled everything.

Yarn Logic A: If you are thinking about trying a pattern, you can go through all the projects, get a good look at the good and bad of everyone's work with that single pattern and visually calculate the odds of what you can expect to end up with.  If you look at the project gallery for this pattern on Ravelry, every single one looks amazing. I felt pretty confident that this would be an easy win.

Yarn Logic B:  Felting is tricky. It can start out like a total Frankenstein and come out great or it can be the other way around. Every time I hold that piece over my washing machine I think, “My work is about to be seriously altered.” What you start with really has little to do with what you will end up with.

A + B = I should have a good product when I'm done.

BUT

A+B+crankypants=PANIC!!!!

I have to say, I had no faith for a minute there. These puppies were ridiculously HUGE, even when I checked them in the washing machine. For a sec there I thought, “WHAT!?! Every single photo of this project ever done is adorable but mine are going to be the freak show of shoes?  Did I seriously just flare my carpal tunnel for CLOWN SHOES???”

I was contemplating how I could rate a pattern that would produce such unspeakable results. So I put it through another hot cycle and let it run through the cold rinse, spin etc. I walked away mentally preparing myself to throw them in the trash and to try not to think of the $5 and 3 precious hours of my time I invested in them Sarcasm!!!  When I went back, they were quite tiny. Commence with the eating of words. Hooray!!!

I put the slippers on and let them mold to my feet, as encouraged. The weirdness of some of the shaping was corrected by doing this.  The cupping on the back of the heel that helps them to stay on your feet stretched out some, the bulb that forms at the toe flattened.  Freshly felted pieces can be pretty moldable.  All I have left to do is sew on the tab on the top, sew on the buttons, puffy-paint the soles for traction and take pictures.  And possibly apologize to the creator of the pattern for trash talking my non-clown shoes.  Um, yeah.

Oh, Rainbow Shrug...

This dang thing is like a healthy relationship.  Not exciting but highly functional.

Seriously.  I wish I could enjoy the process of working on this project more because, to be honest, the pattern is kind of badass.  The handful of people who have seen it have LOVED it-- even in it's embryonic state.  It's just so boring to do.  It's a shame because I think I could seriously fill some gaps in my wardrobe with more versions of this.  I could really use a black one but...

Finished the sleeves and am ready to start the ribbing around the neck/body.  Thankfully, I am now working with the Noro and the bright, changing colors are distracting me from the monotony.  Bleeaaaaahhhhh!!!!!

The Rainbow Shrug (or Two-Tone Shrug from "Fitted Knits")

People on ravelry constantly refer to this project as "quick."  Quick?  If you say so.  I started this last month, did about 10 rows and put it down.  In the meantime, I've knitted a cardigan and a full sweater that didn't feel as tedious as this.  I have other projects ready to go but I need to force myself to finish this.  Blerg.

So I pick it up again, reread the pattern and realize that in my previous ignorance of the finer points of raglan, I may have done my increases incorrectly-- and  I'm not positive what row I'd gotten to.  So I frogged the first attempt and started over.  (deep breath.)

I'm now about about halfway through the back and upper sleeves in Brown Sheep - Lamb's Pride worsted in "Oregano."  It is going faster than before but I still wouldn't say "quick."  Next, I work the sleeves then I get to the fun part:  the ribbing around the sleeves and neck which I'm doing in Noro 170.  The self striping will be fun and colorful and (thankfully) very, very gratifying.  Maybe that will be quick.

This isn't going away.

And I'm thinking about the Buttony Sweater again.  Sigh.  I'm thinking gray.  Maybe Malabrigo in Pearl Ten.

I was told once that when I get my hooks into something (or needles, as it were) I get obsessed.  I won't deny.

The October Mug Cozy O Gratitude

Projects just don't get any easier than this.  I finished this in a couple of hours as a thank you gift for a very generous friend.  I used Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Terracotta (so, washable).  The pattern called for seaming the two ends together but I opted to give it a garter stitch edge, chained loops and buttons so it would be compatible with handle-ridden mugs.  Can you tell I'm full-on romanticizing autumn?  This is not just a mug cozy.  No, this little sweater scrap represents all the hayrides, pumpkin-carving and jumping into piles of orange leaves I will not be doing.  I start getting all misty eyed for October this time every year (symptom of heat stroke???) Next thing I know I'm making sweaters and planning what classic horror novel I'll read for Halloween.  (Ahem... Frankenstein.)  As long as it's less than 75 degrees outside, I can skip jumping in leaves and we can call it even.

The Herringbone Project: just plans for now.

I know what I'm making next and, I have to say, I'm a little excited, a little obsessed.  Lots of color and texture and I think I'm having a mini stroke at the idea of it.  I'm frogging two old projects-- both in Noro, to harvest the yarn to make it happen.  So, TWO Noro colorways and a solid.  More later as the details come together.

Global Warming Sweater

This is my first full sweater. The pattern is called "Global Warming." I knitted it in Cascade 220 Superwash in "Summer Sky Heather" which is a nice robin's egg blue (my favorite color.) I CO last Tuesday and finished late last night. In order to complete this in a week, I knitted a lot but I wouldn't say excessively. Or maybe I did. I don't know that I can accurately judge myself on this so I'll leave it alone for the moment.

Anyway, I love this sweater. It was my first attempt at raglan construction and it was shockingly easy... Not sure what I was expecting. It is much cuter on a body than a hanger. It is somewhat cropped (sits just at the hip) and is slightly fitted. I made the torso bigger than the pattern just for a little extra room, added about 15 extra rows for a little more length and I think it turn out pretty dang perfect. The puff sleeves are adorable! Now if the temp would just drop about 40 degrees so I can wear it!

This is what a twisted cardigan is supposed to look like:

 It's cropped, which I love. I think this is due to the previously mentioned worsted yarn issue.

Hard to believe that chunk I put up here previously contributed to a wearable garment, yes?

Now I'm working on a raglan sweater... Not the buttony. I decided to do a Global Warming sweater instead. I suspect raglan construction will be a real breeze after this-- not that this was hard. It just needed a little finesse during assembly. Matching horizontal seams with vertical can be odd.