Monday, December 29, 2008

The hat show

Just for those of you who are following the very slow progress of the Aran Sweater, I now present the back. Yes, after months of very sporadic work, I finished the first piece while in Florence for Christmas. (Oregon coast, hotel with one wall of windows, unimpeded view of the ocean.)
I have also been addicted to the Foliage pattern from Knitty. I made two from my handspun yarn. (A beautiful BFL roving dyed by Dicentra Designs). Here is Alexa's. (The white peeking through is the lining I put on hers so it wouldn't itch her forehead) And mine, arm out photograpy.

And my sister's Christmas present..(also arm out photography.)

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A newly discovered cowl, and another present finished.

This is something I made about a year ago from some my first yarn spun on a drop spindle. It was a BFL roving from Dicentra Designs, and I love the color, I meant it to be a headband type thing, or a sort of hat with a ponytail hole. This year, it turns out that it is a cowl..excuse the self-photography. And I finished another Montego Bay type scarf, although I altered it quite a bit due to different yarn.
I actually cast on 21 stitches and used 5 stitches for the edges instead of the 7 stitches in the pattern. I used a number 6 needle, and I can't remember what the yarn is called.
I took it to Ravelry knit night at Border's and no one else was sure what it was either. I think it is some cotton rayon blend, with one of the plies being a shiny one and the others more dull. I keep thinking maybe it was called Twist.
Alexa's doll is a wonderful model, she holds still and smiles nicely for as long as I need. The scarf is my mom's Christmas present, but I think I am safe because she never looks at this blog.


Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Alexa's Yoke Sweater

I finished Alexa's Yoke Sweater from Reynolds Yarn. I saw the sample sweater at Fiber Nooks and Crannies and fell in love with the yoke. The cables are so awesome, they decrease from being 6 stitch cables down to two, and thereby carry out the yoke shaping. The Hopscotch yarn is really neat too, a sort of underspun single thick and thin stuff. Very soft, superwash 100% wool. The sleeve striping here is different than the pattern calls for, they used two different colors and only one stripe of each, but honestly I didn't want to buy that other ball of yarn, so I just used one other color and did Fibonacci stripes, 21 rows, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1..
Alexa isn't really into holding still for photos. I also made the sweater a lot skinnier. Alexa is a very thin girl, so I knit the 12-18 month stitch counts and approximately four year old length. I didn't separate the yoke and make a little flap for snaps either. I just skipped the final decrease round, and bound off loosely (I used the K2tog, transfer back to left needle, K2tog etc.-although I am not completely sure this bind off is significantly more stretchy than the basic bind off.) It goes over her head quite easily.
This was my first bottom up seamles sweater, and I really enjoyed it. I am hoping to make more in the future. I grafted the underarms instead of binding off and then sewing up, and they look good.
I am really please with how the sweater came out, but the pattern is awful. There are a lot of errors, I have detailed them in my Ravelry description, so I won't include them here.