I don't knit for people/pets I'll never meet. It's a self-preservation thing, really. If I won't meet these people, how can I tell they're knit worthy to me? They might be to the person asking but if that connection isn't there, than I can not make something for them. Same with pets too, believe it or not. If I won't meet their dog (most of the time it's dogs), then that says something about our relationship. If we'll never be in a position where I'd meet your dog, then, one can gather we're not friends. We might be totally cool but we're not friends. And if we're not friends, I'm not making something for this puppeh I'll never meet. (or cat but I can't say I've gotten many requests for cat stuff. And I certainly know how that'll end…making a cat a sweater….

THEY'RE HUMAN BARBIES TO KNITTERS!!!!

I can't think of another way to say it, really. I love making cabely-cardigans but I also appreciate that there isn't the pretty significant time commitment as there is with an adult. I must know the parents well enough…so as to avoid random requests “hey Laura, can you knit my neighbor's kid's granddaughter this?” and luckily, I've been able to gift two cardigans and a pullover to the short people in my life.

First off, I'll start with lil Eva's Sweater:

So needless to say I was FREAKING OUT when Sandy came through. I was nervous that the above would happen to us and then my brain started to get really creative–our stuff! our cats! where in God's name will all of us stay if that happened?!?!

Wook at heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Evidently she liked wearing this at a ski lodge.

Secondly, we have Emily's Cardigan

Finally Lil Mikey's Grandpa Cardigan

All this cabely goodness in one little sweater!

That's it for baby stuff for a while at least. It feels odd making baby sweaters as temps start to increase.

Posted with Blogsy

Good Evening!

This is the weather report for this week:

And I couldn’t think of a better time to finish a worsted weight cardigan

My hair is actin' a 'fool! please forgive it.

Pattern: Rocky Coast Cardigan by Hannah Fettig From Coastal Knits
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Brooks Farm Yarn Four Play, 4.5 Skeins, 1215 yards
Colorway(s): Blue
Needle(s): US 8 – 5.0 mm & US 6 – 4.0 mm
Casted On: January 8, 2012
Casted Off: March 13, 2012
Modifications: I read on Ravelry about folks having this cardigan slide of their shoulders. So I did what Executiveknitter did and readjusted the stitches so that there’s one extra stitch repeat on each sleeve and two taken from the back. I also made the sleeves a little longer than both the pattern and what I would have liked. But hey…usually I’m complaining that the sleeves are too short so… Also! I did not knit this at the stated gauge. I just did not like this lovely cable pattern on such a big needle! The yarn just looked too stretched out. So I knit it on 8s and went by the size 52 pattern so it can fit my 38 self

I really liked how this cardigan turned out despite its long sleeves. It fits well. It’s nice and long so it can almost be like a jacket. Ya know…when it gets cooler again

The yarn was luscious to work with! The wool content gives it some weight but the silk gives it a nice drape too. Definitely will get some more when I go to Maryland Sheep and Wool!

And here is Ms. Layla out on the deck with me. She’s enjoying the nice spring air even if she looks a little scared. (It was the first time she was out on the deck.

Happy Spring, Everyone! Go celebrate it with a nice wool sweater

…and they went to the same recipient!

Meet the newest member of our family. Michael William O’Neill, son to my cousin and his sweetie wife, Jeannie.

wook at thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

Random question: Say your cousin has a kid. What genetic relationship do you have with it? I’m a little sick of saying “my cousin’s and his wife’s kid.” Cousin twice removed sounds impersonal.

So yes. I am COMPLETELY comfortable with being a crazy aunt to lil Mikey. Let’s just make it simple shall we?

Mike is serving in Afghanistan and he was able to come home to see his son born on December 7, 2011 in the wee hours of the morning.

And since knitters view babies as their own personal Barbie, I made two items for him.

Jeannie asked for a stocking cap for the little guy. Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre. Why not? IT’S FOR CHRISTMAS TIME!!
So I made this:

Pattern: The Duketer – Stocking Cap by Jenny Wiebe
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Loops & Threads Charisma
Colorway(s): Red and Green
Needle(s): US 10 – 6.0 mm
Casted On: November 27, 2011
Casted Off: November 29, 2011
Modifications: None

And this is him wearing it, two days old:

Which one is bigger? Mikey’s head or the yarn ball I put at the end of it?

Secondly, I knit Mikey a sweater to show off his Irish heritage:

Pattern: Trellis by Britta Stolfus Rueschhoff from the Knitty Spring, 2005
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Cascade 220 Superwash
Colorway(s): Green Heather
Needle(s): US 6 – 4.0 mm
Casted On: December 8, 2011
Casted Off: December 18, 2011
Modifications: None

I made a mixture between the 6-12month size. And let’s just say he has some time to grow into it

So this wraps up 2011′s finished objects. Ended on an adorable note.

I have been brewing many future blog entries of my 2011 Wrap Up and Plans for 2012–knitwise, stashwise and readingwise.  What are your goals for 2012? Maybe there’s something I didn’t think of.

we just moved

The move went very very well. We are about 97% unpacked with some few stubborn boxes here and there. This is starting to feel like home now and both of us, as you can see, the kittehs are quite happy here:

Our kittehs look out their front screen door

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what else I want this blog to be other than a digital scrapbook of all my finished objects. My life is so much more than that. I might hesitate writing about events in my life because they might involve people that do not want to be talked about online. I can’t say I blame them. Or perhaps maybe I think too much – Do people really care about a book I just read and absolutely loved? But this is for me first and foremost. I have readers, many of which know me in real life, some do not. If they don’t care about a particular topic, it is totally within their right to move on to the next blog listed in their Google Reader account.

[which reminds me...I have to work on my confidence in writing book reviews! I have read some really fantastic books lately too!]

ANYWAY!

This is a knitting blog and in my attempts to improve my writing in my professional life, perhaps this can help me share my thoughts on knitting and all the things that come with it.

My knitting buddy Carol mentioned this in a blog post a few months ago:

I did a blog post a little while back about some of the similarities I noticed between the quilting blog world and the knitting blog world. One thing I’ve seen on a lot of quilting blogs lately is a “Process Pledge.” The Process Pledge is a vow to not just “show finishes or occasionally confess about our moments of indecision, but chat openly and often about our works in progress, our inspirations, and our moments of decision,” to quote one blogger.

She went on to talk about writing a knitting book but it got me thinking about the knitting process. I know of various times in this blog where I have some hesitations about writing about Works In Progress Entries. It just comes to this: They’re not as fun. Let’s face it. What if you post a picture of a work in progress and four inches have been completed. Next week rolls around and you have done a whopping additional 2.5 inches to it. Wow. Not all that exciting.

But there are decisions you make as you knit something that would be interesting for your fellow knitters to know. I always appreciate a good heads up about charts or yarns for example. I like reading friends’ reviews of books. So why not add my own?

So I start now, in this new chapter of my blog, showing off my Featherweight Cardigan project.

At first, I’ve been so hesitant about such a pattern. There are thousands of projects on Ravelry and I noticed that a lot of them are sheer. And if that’s what people want, then FINE! More power to them. But from my point of view, I questioned the point of a cardigan so thin. My friend Darsana, who has made four, I’m pleased to note, mentioned that there are times in her office when it feels like a meat locker indoors. It’s not the time for a heavy sweater because it’s often summertime with ACs jacked up so high. I started thinking that and I said to myself, “Yuuuuup….I can see myself needing a few summer sweaters for those times.” She modified the pattern, too, to add more shaping to it. As you can see, many, have found these mods helpful.

One can’t take bulky yarn and knit this pattern. At the same time, I wanted to see more finished ones with fingering weight yarns as opposed to the laceweight it calls for. My friend Cam recently finished one that I just fell in love with! Let’s take a moment and gawk at her lovely cardi, shall we??

Sure, she used fingering weight yarn but you can’t see through the cardi. It fits her wonderfully and I particularly like the ribbing collar. It gives it a very nice border. She added length to the torso, which is something I’m probably going to have to do as well. All in all, a very well tailored cardi. Ms. Cam can probably wear this to the office if it gets too cold with the AC or she can wear it hanging out with her man on the weekends.

Ok I’m starting to sound like one of those announcers on a makeover show when they start talking about the clothes they picked out for the person.

So I started knitting one with Dream in Color Smooshy. This pattern can sometimes turn into a bore because it’s, for the most part, straight stockinette. But I am particularly interested in how the yarn I picked changes every so slightly:

This is just the swatch I made a few weeks ago but it still kept my interest. This is the progress so far:

The specs of purple, lighter blues and even some hints of green if you look close enough just make me giddy!

I plan on making this with Darsana’s modifications too and adding length to the torso. Haven’t made a decision about whether I want full sleeves, like I usually do, or go for more snug  and more fuller and longer ones. I usually go for longer sleeves but perhaps 3/4 length ones will allow it to look more professional and tailored? I don’t know. (I’m on this professional self-improvement stint as you can probably tell. I want to write better and look better and perhaps….maybe…feel more confident? I digress though)

Up next will be a finished test knitting cowl I did for my buddy, PAKnitWit!

Finally! A Finished Object! A cardigan that flew off the needles

Pattern:Icelandic Star by Sarah Hoadley, Interweave Knits, Winter 2009
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Cascade 220
Colorway(s): 3.7 skeins of 9474 Plum, .4 skeins of 2410 Purple, .45 skeins of 9427 Duck Egg Blue and .4 skeins of 7920 Shaded Spruce
Needle(s): US 7 – 4.5 mm (ribbing), US 9 – 5.5 mm (stockinette, non-stranded areas), and US 10½ – 6.5 mm (for stranded areas
Casted On: February 5, 2011 (during the Super Bowl to be exact)
Casted Off: February 23, 2011
Modifications: The pattern calls for stranded knitting on the right and wrong side resulting in purled stranded areas. ummm….NO! So I added a front steek for the opening so that I was able to knit this whole cardigan in the round.

I did learn something very important with this project–the importance of fair isle blocking.

See, I often wondered what the point of it is, given that there is no ace pattern that needs to open up. Since fair isle is often so dense, I wondered what good it would do. Also I feared that colors would bleed. But…observe the before and after shots:

Note the bunchiness around the stranded knitting

Ahh...it expanded!

I enjoyed knitting this cardigan. Its filled with my favorite colors too, which brings me to something else I realized. The original colors for this cardigan weren’t really me. So how do you pick colors that will give enough contrast but still be you. So, thanks to Ravelry, I found this color palette on the site Colour Lovers

Color by COLOURlovers

So…next time you’re stuck on rearranging, changing, adjusting colors, Google “color palettes” and you’ll be helped, immensely. Might not be instant but after some searching you’ll find a great substitute.

Here’s one more shot of the back, my favorite part

And, as it turns out, the buttons from Joya Fibers in California were a great choice!

Have a great remaining weekend everyone. I hope to have some other finished objects soon too. Yaaaaaaaaaaay

Say you finish a cardigan and all it’s missing are buttons…

I ordered these loverly buttons from an Etsy store and they’re still traveling from California

I thought I’d get them by now but I quickly forgot about the three day weekend. I have woven in all the ends and here you see my cardigan just waiting for these final touches.

So that leaves me wondering, fellow knitting buddies–What counts as a finished object? Technically I got all the knitting done so it could be an FO? So is an FO when all accessories are sewn on and ends all woven in or is a cardi a FO when all the knitting is complete?

I just love this cardi so much. I’m wearing it now. And I’m contemplating wearing this to work on Monday not caring that I’ll be wearing a cardigan with buttonholes and all…just without buttons

Last year, I had intentions to participate in the IntSweaMoDo, which is a knit-along where you make 12 sweaters a year. It didn’t work. I only knit one cardigan.

Instead of committing myself to something like that this year, I simply told myself that I wanted to knit more sweaters. Going from one cardigan last year to knitting twelve this year seemed like a bit steep.

That said, in mid-January, I thought I was doing pretty well with getting at least one sweater done in one month. I was making fabulous progress on my Cerisara cardigan:

Look at that! I just had one more sleeve to work on! GO LAURA!!

But then I got distracted…

I got the urge to make some fair-isle:

And I started the Icelandic Star Cardigan from Interweave Knits, Winter 2009 magazine. That’s been moving quite along lately. I am about halfway done with the body knitting before I start on the sleeves. The pattern says to knit it flat but there’s no way I’d do purl fair isle. That’s a headache I can avoid by adding some steaking in the middle, which is what I did (in case you noticed the random alternating of colors above)

Aaaaaaaaaaaand in an effort to think ahead, I started Apres Surf Hoodie again, this time with Valley Yarns Charlemont, a new line of yarn from Webs that is a wool/silk fingering weight yarn.I had originally started this hoodie with Dream in Color, Smooshy, but I decided to frog that because I was worried about DIC’s tendency to expand a lot after blocking, especially given that the hoodie is entirely lace.

And sure, I’m not finishing things as fast as I would like but I’m still having a lot of fun with all my projects, and that’s the whole point, right?

Ever have a pattern/project you’re working on that just takes a long time and have no idea why?

Sure. EVERY Knitter has at least one!

I finished a project that was about a little bit over a year in the making. No idea why–the pattern is wonderful and the yarn is luscious. But hey…it happens, right?

Pattern: Botanical Lace Cardigan by Margaret Atkinson from the Twist Collective, Spring 2009
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Brooks Solo Silk
Colorway(s): Burgundy
Needle(s): US 4 – 3.5 mm, US 5 – 3.75 mm & US 6 – 4.0 mm
Casted On: July 6, 2009
Casted Off: July 26, 2010
Modifications: This pattern didn’t have a great deal of shaping so I improvised a little with changing needle sizes. The lower third of the sleeves, I used 6s, second third I used 5s and you guessed it, last third I used 4s. This made for a nice flare at the end of the sleeve. I also lengthened the sleeves and the cardigan, something I often do because I’m tall

I think if I were to knit it again, I’d probably use 6s in the chest area. It’s a little tight there but it’s not something I’m stressing over. Shoot, it might stretch out a little more with time. Who knows?

I certainly love the yarn. Brooks Solo Silk is a little rich for my blood but it was a “Why Not?” purchase at Rhinebeck a few years ago. I was a little concerned about what I’d do with 1200 yards of it–the yarn is sport/DK weight so it’s not enough for a full fledged sweater. And it might be a just a little too thick for a shawl. So when this pattern came out, I thought it was a great combination. Turned out I was very right.

This is the start to a great many lace cardigans and sweaters. I love ‘em. Can’t get enough of ‘em!

And YAY for getting a year-long project done!!

I finished Kelmscott. And What a great pattern that is!!

Pattern: Kelmscott by Carol Sunday from Twist Collective, Winter 2009
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd’s Wool (5 skeins)
Colorway(s): Great Lakes
Needle(s): US 7 – 4.5 mm
Casted On: April 28, 2010
Casted Off: May 30, 2010
Modifications: I’ve come to the realization that I have gumby arms so, of course, I added about three inches more to the arms than what the pattern instructed. Other than that, none, really.

How much did I love this pattern? Let me count the ways….

• There was a nice mixture of repetitive stockinette but a very interesting lace motif at the same time
• The collar, which is often a drag to make, was a fun accessory that complimented the rest of the cardigan quite well.
• At first, I thought knitting lace on both the wrong and right sides of the fabric was going to be confusing. I won’t lie- there were times when that was in fact, true but I got used to it

The yarn I used as well–Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd’s Wool–is an absolute dream to knit with. Soft without pilling. Warm but not overbearing. Nice quality yarn without breaking the bank. Love the yarn. Will definitely go back to Fibre Space in VA to get some more.

The Buttons

I didn’t have much difficulty making this puppies. Sure they were a little annoying but I got the hang of it and popped out four. I might change them though, looking at this picture. The cardigan doesn’t look bad or sloppy but I would like the cardi to close complete. So I might get some nicer buttons or I might just move the current ones over a little. I do like the idea of having buttons that are covered in the same yarn I used. This feature couldn’t be used with every cardigan but I think it compliments this pattern very well.

This was a very fun knit. I certainly look forward to more Carol Sunday Patterns in future Twist Collective Magazines and I am eying up some more Shepherds Worsted for maybe the Blackberry Cabled Cardigan Who knows?

Have a great weekend, everyone. Be Safe.

I finally finished Abby’s Starlight Starbright Cardigan and it’s gorgeous

Pattern: Starlight, Starbright by Kirsten Jensen from her Ravelry Store
My Ravelry Project Page
Yarn(s): Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Superwash Sport & Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport
Colorway(s): Romantic Rube & Grey
Needle(s): US 2 / 2.75 mm
Casted On: November 29, 2009
Casted Off: February 22, 2010
Modifications: none

I test knit this for Kirsten on Ravelry when I saw her finished sweater. I asked her if she needed test knitters and she took me up on it. I don’t think I’ll volunteer again to test knit a pattern. I had a wonderful time knitting this, don’t get me wrong, but I guess I don’t knit fast enough. The last few weeks, I held up Kirsten and I still feel terrible about it. I do not like holding things up and I did this during the test knit process. It didn’t help that I had a ton of Christmas knitting too during this time.

I knit this cardi using a 9 stitches/inch gauge as opposed to the 8 stitches/inch gauge the pattern states. That’s ok though, Abby’s a little on the small side. I really hope Rose and Abby like this.

I thoroughly enjoyed knitting this cardi, as I often love me some fair isle. The yarn I used, Brown Sheep Sport, was a pleasure to knit with as it is tightly spun.I found it easy to knit two colors with this yarn and I hope to use it again in future projects.

This pattern was very well written and it’s a great first steaking project for anyone wanting to do it for the first time.

Up next some more works in progress. I like this starting thinngs thing