Delancey KAL - Week One

I dunno about everyone else, but Blue Mountain has finally decided that it's winter. The snow we got wasn't so bad, but the cats and I really didn't appreciate the gusting winds blowing the front door (which mind you has a storm door in front of it) wide open all night. My poor oldest kitty spent the night under the comforter with me because I thought the heat had just broken again and that's why the house was so cold.

Oh hey Winter! There you are!

So a cold, snowy weekend combined with the fact that dear husband is away on a boys hunting weekend made for a TON of awesome knitting time. Mainly on The Sweatshop of Love's Winter KAL featuring the sweetly retro Delancey Cardigan by Alexis Winslow.

I've cast on for the largest size of her standard pattern in a beautiful Wool/Alpaca/Silk dk I'd never heard of before called Balmoral.

Thank god for helpful LYS Ladies!

Even though I had been planning on going with the pattern photo combination of orange and white I'm totally loving this natural and navy blue combination. It's almost gives a South Western vibe to the sweater & I could use a little desert warmth in my freezing house right now.

Panels!

I love a good mitered square pattern, which is kinda what these two bottom panels are, and the same principles of combined increases and decreases carry throughout the pattern to make those iconic bias stripes.

I am soooooo in love with this yarn and color combo!

Our goal for this week was to make it to row 54 and I decided to go ahead and knit to row 56 so I'd have 2 solid rows connecting my two bottom panels.

You know you have a problem when...

I may or may not have been up until 2 AM working on my newly cast on Aidez... and I may or may not have needed to get up for work at 530. Gonna be a rough day.

Beautiful 1x1 ribbing

However, I'm gonna call it totally worth it. I love the beautiful Knit Picks cadet blue that I'm working in, and I can't resist a highly complicated chart pattern. And since I'm doing this following the Sweatshop of Love KAL that I originally bought this yarn for, I've cast on the whole body at once which includes 9 different sections of reasonably complex cabling/stitchery. The thing that made the whole thing possible is the fantastic guide that Allyson made to follow all three body sections at once.

And even though I have no photographic evidence of it; I ACTUALLY SWATCHED! This is going to be a lesson in loose tension for me 'cause the only circulars I have were 10s when the pattern calls for a 10 1/2. (and I'm too cheap to buy new ones right now)

What did you do during the Super Bowl yesterday?

WIP - I will finish these gifts!

So now that I'm feeling a little better and I finally have a bit of a day off (though I will still go to the office today because I am drowning in work from being sick) I can finally show you the two WIP I currently have on the needles.

First of all I have the ultra scary first sweater...

And yes, it's a Weasley Sweater from Charmed Knits! Geek kinda runs in my family, and though it took me years and years I finally got my mom to read the Harry Potter series, and now she's hooked on the books & movies. Last year she got me Charmed Knits for Christmas and very subtly hinted that she really wanted her own Weasley Sweater. Since I had never made a sweater before I kinda dreaded making it, but it's basically been two big rectangles with two trapezoids attached to it, not too complicated except that I had to figure out how to chart that R myself since the pattern only comes with an intarsia H. It came out well in the main except for the loopy bit that looks a little wonky, but just about any curve looks like odd in knit. (or that's what I'll keep telling myself.

 Stupid tiny yarn...

This sweater has been a bit of the bane of my existance for about 3 months now. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm not speed knitter. I am by no means super slow, but these size 8 needles and Knit Picks City Tweed are making me feel like a n0ob. I love the way its turning out, and my mom loves what she's seen of it so far so I'm just gonna keep telling myself it's worth it and keep on plugging on.

And speaking of things that might be the bane of my existence, we have another Gap-Tastic Cowl. When I made one for my office White Elephant exchange, it was an unspoken agreement that it was made for a specific person however, as is custom for this kind of gift exchange, it got stolen from its intended recipient. She was pretty crushed so I caved and agreed to make her one in whatever color she wanted, she requested red (this yarn is much less orange than the picture shows) and I'm about halfway done with it now.

After getting some work done in the office, I think I'm going to come home & put season one of Portlandia on (it's on Netflix now so I can FINALLY watch it) and knit my fingers off to try and knock both of these out as soon as possible. Those who follow me on twitter may have noticed that I have a bit of designing fever, but I'm holding off until I get both of these off the needles.

What do you have on the needles? Anyone else still working on some holiday knits? Anyone? Okay it's just me...

Peace&Love

Quick Updates from the Sickbed

Welcome new followers! I promise the content here won't typically be so lacking, but I seem to have contracted a mild form of the plague and since I work in accounting, the very beginning of the year isn't really the time to be sick so all my energy reserves get used up before I get home.

I managed to finish the first sleeve of my Weasley Sweater two nights ago and (rather poorly) picked up the stitches for sleeve number two last night. Ran out of steam before I could take pictures, but with how fried my brain is right now, I would shudder to think what they would look like.

There's been a lot of great inspiration floating around and I'm finally thinking of dipping my toes in the ocean of creating my own designs. Hopefully I can hold on to all this inspiration after I feel better so I can get my butt in gear and put all these dreams into action.

For now I'm getting back into bed until absolutely necessary.

Peace&Love

2011: The Year of the Swatch

Despite knitting for about 7 years I have yet to knit a single swatch. Thus far I've mostly done scarfs and blankets with the occasional hat thrown in recently and who does swatches for glorified rectangles?

This year I am bound and determined to stretch myself as a knitter and work my way toward mastering two things I've never dared try before: socks and sweaters. These are both four letter words to those of us who prefer to just go with the flow and don't worry about gauge and occasionally treat needle sizes as suggestions. You can play it by ear with a scarf and I've had many a scarf turn out to be what I've deemed "coat scarves" (they're short so they don't add bulk under your coat, not because that's where I ran out of yarn!) despite using the recommended yarns and needles.

This year I will overcome my swatch phobia! I will find a friendly sock/sweater pattern and knit a swatch so I end up with something I can wear rather than something that gets shoved into the back of the drawer. Then one day I'll be able to not only knit all those beautiful cardigans, pull overs and unbelievably detailed socks, but maybe even dare to dream of starting my own designs?

All in good time I suppose. Look out for posts containing sock and sweater adventure updates and possibly even some talk of Christmas projects. Christmas in January? Why not? I didn't do much Christmas knitting this year as I did quite a bit of birthday knitting so my internal knitting clock must be all messed up.

Also, I feel that there should be a clinical name for the fear of knitting swatches. I'm quite sure there are enough out there who share this fear.

Peace&Love