Quick Update

I have woefully neglected this blog all summer. Shame on me.

On the other hand, I have finished a sweater I blogged about back in January. This is just a "teaser" post, though, because the sweater isn't making it's debut until the Yarn Harlot's visit today.

11 for 2011

I started 2011 with 11 sweaters in WIP status. (I know, I know, I'm completely crazy.) Most of them were started during NaKniSweMoDo 2009. I did manage to finish a record number of sweaters in 2009, but I didn't finish ANY in 2010.

It's time to rectify that. I have decided to finish all 11 of those UFO/WIP sweaters this year. NaKniSweMoAlmostDo 2011 here I come!

One of the things I DID manage to do in 2010 was to keep my yarn purchases down to very little. At least my stash was not expanding exponentially while I wasn't knitting much!

As a carrot/reward this year, I have decided to allow myself 1 yarn crawl or major purchase for every 3 sweaters I finish.

This one is the closest to being done. The knitting was actually completed in 2010, but it still needs finishing work.




It's the matching cardigan to a vest I completed in 2008.
The yarn is Louet KidLin Laceweight that I bought on sale when Knit & Hook in Kirkwood decided to have only the rug hooking side of their business.






Finishing work includes doing a 3 needle bind-off on the second shoulder, sewing in both sleeves, & crocheting around the front opening & neckline. I decided not to do a regular buttonband because of how loose this cardigan is. I've lost weight since casting it on, so it flows loose even more than designed. I'll just close it with a shawl pin if I ever decide to wear it closed.

Third Time's a Charm

At least, I hope the third time is a charm. I'm going to have the entire Aleita Shell pattern memorized by the time I'm finished with this vest. Between the initial false start & the sizing adjustments & my latest mistake, I'll have done as much knitting on this vest as I would have on a full-sized long-sleeved sweater.

As evidenced by these pictures, I thought I was making great progress. However, it turns out it’s not a good idea to glance at the instructions once & then not bring the pattern with you when KIP’ing. That's 4 inches into the top section of decreasing every FOURTH row instead of every THIRD row. Oops! Back to frogging.

Originally I thought I'd pick the stitches back up on the row after the first decreases, so as to re-knit as little as possible. However, I tried the sweater on again after removing the needles for this latest batch of frogging, & discovered that I really needed another inch of stockinette between the smallest part of the waist & the start of the reverse stockinette/neck division part. Perhaps the latest problem was a blessing in disguise, as otherwise I wouldn't have realized I wanted another inch in the stockinette section until I was either much further along, or perhaps even finished with the vest.

That decision meant frogging back even further, not being able to save the fiddly rows where the neck divides, & more boring stockinette in the round. I think I’ll be happier with the end result this way, though.





It's amazing the difference between decreasing every 3rd row & decreasing every 4th. One good thing about it is that the number of stitches per row decreases faster, which makes for less knitting.
At least re-doing the neck division was much easier & faster the third time around, since I already figured out the directions on how to do it.
Now that I'm back on track, I still hope to finish this before the end of "Vest-uary".

Works In Progress Wednesday

I have the same things on my needles as I did two weeks ago, so there's nothing new for What's on My Needles. I have made progress, but haven't had much chance for pictures. We're more than half-way through Vest-uary, & all I have to show for it is 3 half-finished vests.

I had to do some sizing adjustments on my Aleita Shell, so I've been doing some frogging & re-knitting. I'm reached the neckline division again, though, & am now closing in on the armholes.

The red & blue is the Shawl Collar Vest by Amanda Berka in Elizabeth Austen "Andes" wool from Chris' Needlecraft. The pattern is doing a reasonable job of breaking up the colors. Because the piece is folded & sewn together, I'll also avoid the dreaded vertical lines across my front, so I'm continueing with this experiment.

These are the possible colors I'm considering for yoke section of the Vormorgun Létt-Lopavesti by Védís Jónsdóttir. I went into Chris' Needlecraft to find the grey yarns, since I knew they carry Plymouth Galway.

What's On My Needles This Wednesday

In honor of Vest-uary, my knitting so far this week has been all about the vests. I'm nearly finished with the plain stockinette section of my Aleita Shell. I'm not sure when I'll have enough free time to puzzle through the start of the divided section, though.
To that end, I've started another project to have plain stockinette available for KIP knitting. This is the start of Vormorgun Létt-Lopavesti , free pattern at Istex. I'm using Plymouth Galway Worsted from my stash of going-out-of-yarn-business wool, purchased at what used to be Knit & Hook. (It now only sells rug hooking supplies.)

Another Finished Object for Friday

This is the Boogie Vest from an older issue of Knitty.




The yarn is Madil Yarns Iceland, purchased on sale at Knit & Caboodle in St. Charles. The vest used just under 4 skeins. For the most part, I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn, & I love the color. However, I found a knot in a couple of the skeins, which didn't make me happy.

It's my second completed NaKniSweMoDo 2009 sweater. By getting something quick out of the way, there won't be as much pressure to only work on simple knits. Some of the sweaters I have planned for this year are definitely multi-month projects.

What's on My Needles Wednesday

This month has been all about the sweaters. I'm slowly but surely making progress on my Susie Hoodie, but have also been lured into starting new things. The pinkish beige is the start of Mr. Greenjeans, from Knitty.com, in Dream In Color Classy that I bought on clearance as Kirkwood Knittery.

I'm also experimenting with a vest/shrug pattern for this two-tone yarn. I haven't decided yet whether I like this or not.

Finished Object for Friday

My first finished NaKniSweMoDo 2009 sweater is my February Lady Sweater, which I started last September. I bound off on Monday night & wove all the ends in during the Inauguration Tuesday morning.

The yarn is discontinued Colorado Yarns Knitaly bought on clearance from Webs ages ago. I used a little under 5 balls (500gr) for a size large.

False Start

Is it a bad sign when the first new project of the year doesn't work out? I picked a project involving lots of stockinette in the round, for mindless New Years Day Time-With-Family knitting. In keeping with my goal of using stash yarn this year, I took out 3 skeins of purple sport-weight Louet Gems that I had bought on clearance with the idea of making some sort of vest, & found a project from the Spring Interweave Knits that appeared to be a good fit.

However, I think I goofed the first time I cast on for my Aleita Shell.
I had experimented with using the cable cast-on for this sweater. Cable cast-on is supposed to help with rolling. However, because this sweater is knit in the round, the cast-on-edge ends up backwards from how it would sit when knitting back & forth. (Wrong side out, in other words.)

I made good progress on Aleita over New Years, but it was rolling like crazy at the bottom, so I was contemplating ripping it out & trying a different cast on.


I ended up taking the second ball of yarn & experimenting with the cast on. As the knitting progressed, it became obvious that there was much less rolling going on with the experimental second try. There’s still a bit that may need to be blocked out, but it isn’t quite as bad.


The second time I did the cable cast on, but then knit back along the cast on before joining. That way, the opposite edge of the cast on is towards the outside of the fabric. It does mean a tiny bit of sewing the first back & forth row together, but not much. You can sort of see what I mean here:



Is it too much to hope that this may get my "false start" mojo over for the year?

The Year of the Sweater

This year I am focusing on enjoying & using my stash -- primarily big projects, so that I remove the temptation to break up any of the larger "sweater's worth" amounts only run short later.

In the process of knitting somewhat from stash in 2008, I realized I had several sweater's worth, with only vague ideas of what sweaters I might make. So last November, I decided 2009 would be the year to knit some of my "sweater's worth" stash yarn. I spent Thanksgiving break matching up my "stash list" with my "queue list".

Catching up on my blog reading the following week, I came across this post by Margene. It seems I'm not the only one making 2009 the Year of the Sweater.

Over 400 other folks are also concentrating on sweaters this year, with the goal being a nice, round dozen sweaters over the next 12 months. That's an average of one a month, but not a requirement to finish one every month. A month of no Finished Objects followed by 2 sweaters the next month is still right on track, in other words.

Speaking of words, the word for this insanity is NaKniSweMoDo. Button to be added to my sidebar later...

Last Finished Objects for 2008

This week I finished two final projects for 2008.
Yesterday morning I finished the crochet edges around my vest from the "Quiviut Twinset" by Linda Romens, from The Natural Knitter. I loved knitting this sweater. It was so much fun, in a knitterly kind of way. It took me a little while to figure out the short rows to create the scalloping effect at the bottom, but it was worth it.

The yarn is Louet KidLin Lace Weight, which used to be called Kidlin Pixie. (No Quiviut in it at all, despite the pattern name. That's a bit beyond my budget right now.) The color is called "Smokey Grape", though the purple in it is very subtle & doesn't show much. I used somewhat less than 3 skeins, which were purchased at Kirkwood Knittery in Kirkwood, Missouri. The leftovers might be enough to make a lace cowl at some point.

I also have 6 skeins of this yarn in another dyelot, purchased at a big discount when a different Kirkwood LYS decided to sell off their yarn inventory & focus exclusively on wool rug-hooking. I cast on the matching "Quiviut Twinset" cardigan from that batch of skeins this past week, after finishing the knitting part of the vest. I wanted to finish the scallop part on the cardigan while I was still on vacation, with plenty of time to focus on it.


Yesterday afternoon was glorious & unseasonably warm, so I got unexpected knitting time in while taking the kids to the park. Because of that, I also finished the January socks this morning. Those are the socks which hadn't quite gotten done for Socktoberfest. I'm wearing the socks already, & will be wearing the vest to a New Years Party later on this evening as well.

2008 Wrap Up

I haven't been as good about keeping up with my blog this year as I have in the past. I blame Ravelry, since putting my projects there gives me less incentive to be sure they are documented here.

As much as Ravelry takes away from my blogging, though, it also helps me come up with information far more rapidly. One (of many) handy feature in Ravelry is the ability to sort projects by date completed, which makes figuring out what was completed in 2008 a whole lot easier.

2008 was the Year of the Hat & the Year of the UFO for me. I have to say that working on UFO's & knitting small things on big yarn can have an amazing effect on the number of completed items in a year. (Though the last two items I finished this year were neither pre-2008 UFO's or on bulky yarn.)

My final totals for 2008 are:

20 pairs of socks -- 14 of which were UFO's from prior years.
8 sweaters -- 1 child, 4 vest/sleeveless, & 3 with sleeves.
14 hats -- 12 of which were on bulky yarn.
5 neckwarmers
1 set fingerless mitts
1 scarf
1 shawl
& 7 squares for Warm Up America.
(8 charity items, since 1 hat was for charity.)

The 3 sweaters involving the most knitting were also UFO's from prior years.

According to Ravelry, I also have a lot fewer UFO projects on the needles right now, which was one of my big goals for 2008. I also managed to make it to more Knitting In Public events this year, though I wasn't able to participate in any classes. All in all, I have to say it was a good year, knitting-wise.

My only knitting-related regret for the year is that I haven't been able to keep up with posting on other knitter's blogs very well this year. Doing better with blogging is one of my goals for 2009, both keeping up with my own blog, & also keeping up with reading/commenting in a timely fashion.

Disappearing December

Where did two-thirds of December disappear to? Or, for that matter, the year 2008?

I don't have much in the way of finished objects to show for the past two months. The small items I did finish are Christmas presents, & thus aren't going on the blog yet.

My KIP/carry-around project for the month has been these socks. They are the "Christmas is Coming" colorway from Dyeabolical Yarns. I cast them on Thanksgiving afternoon, while waiting for the turkey to settle enough to have pumpkin pie.


The one finished item I can show is a hat that I knit for the Caps for Kids charity & handed in at the St. Louis Knitter's Guild luncheon.


I have finished both sleeves on my February Lady Sweater, but it remains to be seen whether or not I'll finish the body before the remainder of 2008 disappears.


I've barely touched my Susie Hoodie at all this month, & still have a little bit left to go on my lace vest. I'm hoping to finish the vest next weekend, in time to wear it to a New Years Eve party. That might very well end up the last Finised Object of 2008.

Where did November Go?

Last month went by in a big rush. There is no way I'll be able to sign up for anything like NaBloPoMo or NaNoWriMo until my kids are all grown & gone, that's for sure. (Well, maybe if I win the lottery & retire early -- unlikely since I never buy tickets.)

I didn't participate in the official NaKniSweMo, because I already have plenty of sweaters on the needles. Stash & Burn had a set-your-own-goal Sweater Contest for the month of November though, so I joined that & spent the month focusing on sweater knitting whenever possible. I didn't manage to finish any sweaters in November, though I did finish some Super-Secret-Gift-Knitting.

However, I made a lot more sweater progress than I would have without the contest. Here is the proof:

Cable Fixing

Some cable errors can be left in if it's a matter of a wrong direction crossover 20 rows down. When an error in a travelling cable interferes with going forward in the project, however, there's nothing to do but to fix it. This time, I decided to document the fix, in case it helps anyone else who runs into a similar issue.

I thought I had the Susie Hoodie cable chart memorized, but a four or five rows later, it became apparent that I had started to turn the outside cables back towards the middle two rows early. Oops!

Because the body of the Susie Hoodie is knit all in one piece, tinking back all those rows would be a LOT of stitches. (Not to mention how much of a pain it is to frog mohair.) Therefore, re-knitting just the offending cable sections was the solution.

I put stitch holders through the stitches below the first wrong sets, as extra insurance. For the correct stitches on the very edge of the sweater, a stitch marker of the plastic safety-pin type was the perfect solution to hold only 3 stitches. Then I undid just the stitches I would need to re-knit.

I normally prefer metal DPNs, but wooden ones are great for something like this. When working with only a very few stitches, they stay in place better on wood, & the needle is less likely to fall out.


I re-knit the stitches with the cable travel starting on the correct row. Once the cable closest to the edge had been fixed, I used a wooden DPN to hold all the correct stitches while working on the cable closest to the body of the sweater.

For the side of the sweater where the yarn was, I did go ahead & tink back the entire purl-across-the-cable section, & re-knit all 20-something stitches before resuming work on the sweater.

The cable fix was a bit time consuming to do, but considering how long it takes me to knit each row of the Susie Hoodie, I think I came out ahead by fixing it this way versus frogging 5 rows & re-knitting.

Sunday Sweater & Socks (Final UFOlympics Update)

I kept working on my UFOlympics projects right down to the wire. I ended up finishing two more Works In Progress by Sunday morning.

**Project Specs**
**Yarn:** 3 skeins of Cascade Sierra yarn as part of my efforts at Stashdown 2008
**Needles:** Addi Turbo sized 8 & 9 (US)
**Pattern:** Lutea Lace Shell from Interweave Knits

**Finished:** August 23 2008
Originally started June 29th, 2008. I set this sweater aside after easy-KIP-Stockinette-in-the-Round was completed, in favor of working on my Green Mirage sweater earlier this summer. I added this to my WIPs wrestling just in case I managed to finish my other UFOlympics sweaters, since I wanted to be able to wear this sweater at least once or twice before summer is over.


**Project Specs**
**Yarn:** 1 skein of Lime & Violet Shuanmi Squared yarnin colorway Agate
**Needles:** Metal DPN's sized 0 & 1 (US)
**Pattern:** My standard plain-vanilla, with eye-of-partridge heel & 80 stitches around.


**Finished:** August 24 2008 (Finished knitting toes while watching the men's basketball gold-medal match live in the wee hours of Saturday night/Sunday morning US Central time. Kitchenered Sunday morning.)

These socks were originally started back in December of 2007. The socks are my eighth and final Finished Object for this Olympics!

I'm thrilled with how many mostly-done projects I managed to clear off my needles in the past 16 days. I guess I just needed some motivation.

Sky, Socks, and Sweater

I haven't much time to write today; I'm still madly trying to see how many more Finished Objects I can get done before the Olympics are over.

In the mean time, here are some pictures for today:

Finished Objects Friday; UFOlympics Post #2

The Olympics have been good for my knitting this time around. It's hard for me to imagine that I hadn't even picked knitting back up again at the time of the last Olympics, in Winter 2006.

These socks were originally started back in October of 2007. This is my first completed FO for this Olympics!

Project Specs
Yarn: 2.1 skeins of Panda Wool
Needles: DPNs in size 00 for cuff, size 0 for basketweave, & size 1 for plain remainder of sock.
Pattern: My standard Plain-Vanilla, with basketweave on the leg. 80 stitches around for Ladies size 9 foot.

Finished: August 13 2008 (Knitting was finished during the Women’s Gymnastics Team Competition August 12th, & Kitchenered early morning of August 13th.)


Project Specs
Yarn: 6-7 skeins of Zitron Prisma Mohair blend (started multiple skeins to match stripes -- have about 2 full & 2 partial balls left, plus some odds & ends.)
Needles: Bamboo sized 8 & 9 (US)
Pattern: Women’s Side to Side Cardigan #202 by Diane Soucy from Knitting Pure & Simple


Finished: August 14 2008 (Knitting was completed & bound off during the Women’s Gymnastics All Around Competition August 14th, shown live in the USA on Thursday evening.)

This sweater was originally started back in January of 2007. This is my second completed FO for this Olympics!

UFOlympics, Post Number 1

I've made quite a bit of progress on my UFOlympics knitting so far. The first two pictures are show the status as of midday August 9th.

While watching the opening ceremonies, I more than double the amount of knitting I had done on the brown body of the lacy sleeved sweater. The following morning I got tired of the "talking heads" & muted thme out. I continued watching but also listened to Lime & Violet's latest podcast while finishing the heel flaps & turning the heels on both of my sea-blue Apple Laine socks. I didn't want to be trying to figure out where I was on the striped sweater while listening to Lime & Violet.


It turned out to be a good thing that I waited to tackle the striped sweater until I could concentrate better.

The third picture shows the status of my striped sweater sleeves, before I resumed knitting on them this morning, August 10th. It took a quite bit of wrestling with them to get to this stage, though.

They were a bit frustrating to start with, & it quickly became apparent why this project had been a UFO for so long. On Saturday, I ended up frogging to fix problems I didn’t realize were there when the UFO stalled originally. Prior to the UFOlympics, I had picked up the stitches & knit two inches of sleeve in the wrong size needle. (I had originally meant to pick up the stitches with one size smaller of needle & then switch to the same size I used for the body.) The first thing I had to do was go hunting for the right size needles. It took me a while to remember where I had put them. Sigh… So much for having done “proper training” prior to the start of the Olympics.

I ripped that sleeve down to one row above the picked up stitches, switched to the right size needle, & picked up stitches on the other sleeve so that I could work them together. I was pleasantly surprised at how much easier it was to pick up stitches on the second sleeve as compared to how I recall the first one, back before it became a UFO.

After getting about 3 inches into both sleeves, I realized there was a problem with the stitches I’d picked up a year ago. “Saving” the picked up stitches & the first row actually ended up costing me time! ARGH! Because I’d picked up half the sleeve’s worth of stitches through the middle of the bindoff, the join of the sleeve to the body wasn't a solid as I'd like. I decided I couldn’t just let it be. Yet more ripping of mohair… Double sigh… I'm very happy to have that behind me now & have made good progress on this sweater since then.

In Under the Wire

I signed up for the UFOlympics this year, because I have a couple sweaters which I started early last year that I haven't touched in months.


In order to have a relatively clean slate for resuming work on UFOs, I managed to finish the last row & bind off on my Green Mirage sweater early Friday morning.

I was glad that I decided on 3/4th sleeves, because I ran fairly short on yarn by the end.




I LOVE how it turned out. I definitely plan to knit this sweater again in a completely different yarn -- perhaps a silk/wool blend that I can wear in the wintertime.

It's kind of awkward trying to take my own sweater-modeling pictures, so this is the best I can do for now. The yarn hanging down the front is because I didn't want to cut the last piece until after I'd checked the fit of the neckline.