FO: Icarus Shawl

I was so excited to finally finish my first lace shawl project. It took me years. I didn't work on it very steadily, it went into hibernation for long periods, but finally my knitting skill increased to the point where it wasn't painfully difficult to knit this. In fact it got to be kind of fun. The pattern is the Icarus Shawl, published originally in Interweave Knits by Miriam Felton. She sells it now on her website Mimknits.com

I wore it to the Black Sheep Gathering on Saturday, which is a wonderful place to receive compliments on your handknits!

It was much easier to wear than I expected. It stayed on my shoulders with no trouble at all.I am afraid I may now have caught the lace knitting bug, I have started more already, althlough not with laceweight yarn this time.

P.S. The yarn is Misti Alpaca Baby Alpaca Laceweight.

FO: Ingenuity

I finally got some photos so I can post the details! DH and I have such a hard time with this..perfect strangers take better pictures of me than my own husband! Anyway..here it is, my Ingenuity, knit with Plymouth Tweed, which turns out to be a lovely yarn. Regarding the sleeve bagginess..a problem common to top down raglans, I found a helpful article by Ysolda Teague here. You have to do something called a compound raglan.

The major things I had trouble with are the edgings..the gauge of the ridge stitch is much tighter than the stockinette stitch, and I had to increase right before the edging about 1 stitch to every 15 stitches and also go up 2 needle sizes to prevent the edgings from pulling in.

I also made the neck significantly wider than called for, it was too narrow originally, partly because I used the smaller needles, but other people on Ravelry have experienced the same problem, it comes out looking like a turtleneck, which is not the idea.

For specific details, see my ravelry entry. Despite my little quibbles with it, this is a very wearable sweater, and I have learned much from knitting it!

Marissa's Poncho

I am embarrassed to have left off blogging for so long. My knitting has been a little slow lately too. I did finally use this yarn that I bought off ebay a few years ago. I really ended up disliking the color, but is is Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande and is very soft, so I didn't want to get rid of it either. Finally I found a little girl who liked the color, so I made her a poncho from it. I really enjoyed knitting garter stitch again. I have been mostly knitting stockinette or more complicated cables or lace, and this was a relaxing change. The poncho is modelled by my daughter Alexa, who is smaller than Marissa, so the poncho slips off her shoulders a bit, but I think it will be fine on Marissa.

A Review of Fifi

I finished the Fifi sweater from French Girl Knits last April. It is made from Rowan Calmer. I have been very pleased with this sweater. I wash it in the machine on cold and dry it flat. The yarn color is fading a little, but it still looks nice. I really love the soft feel of the yarn and the way it holds up. It is still smooth and nice looking and elastic. I would love to knit with it again. The sweater itself is still very nice. If I were to make it again I would probably do a couple rows of K1P1 rib at the neck to avert the rolling. I don't know enough yet about top down raglans to know if there is a solution to the slight bunching at the underarm. The sleeves seem to need to be a little smaller overall. I also probably should have knit it a little longer. I wear it with a shirt underneath because otherwise my tummy shows. Most of my skirts sit a low on my hips. This sweater is one of my greatest knitting successes. I wear it quite often and it is holding up well.

A review of the Apres Surf Hoodie

I have been thinking about something which I see very few(if any) knitting blogs do, which I would find extremely helpful, and that is review a sweater after it has been worn (or not worn) for a few months. I have knit many things which looked cute in the pictures I took right after I finished it, but don't get worn for a variety of reasons. So I am going to try and review a few of the FO's I completed this year. The Apres Surf Hoodie was my first choice, possibly because it took me a long time to knit it and I tried to be careful to knit it correctly. I bought the yarn for this from a lady at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene in June. Her Ravelry name is sweetodie, and her business is Sweet Grass Wools, in Helena, MT. She was also at the Flock and Fiber Festival in September, and I wore this sweater to show her how beautifully it came out. (Due to good design by Connie Chang Chinchio, and good yarn more than knitting skill!) The yarn was called Panda, and I have found a couple different yarns registered on Ravelry here and here, and here too. It is one of those yarn bases that is dyed by many indie dyers, but I can't find what I think is the right one from Sweet Grass Wools on Ravelry. Anyway, the point is, I swatched, and I knitted the sweater with a bit of positive ease as was recommended by the Interweave Knits staff (or the pattern writer). The sweater was beatiful, and it fit pretty well, but then it started to grow, the sleeves inched out over my hands, and the body grew at least three inches, possibly more. The other problem was the hood, it pulled the sweater down at the back, so I had folds of sweater fabric hanging at my waist. It also slid off my shoulders all the time, which was really irritating. I would put it on in the morning, and then a couple of hours later I would take it off and put on something else because it was driving me nuts. Finally I decided to try and shrink it. I washed it in the machine, (cold, delicate, with wool wash) and put it in the dryer and dryed it all the way to dryness..and it worked, it didn't felt (the wool part of the yarn is superwash) and it shrunk quite a bit, which is perfect because the lace pattern is really stretchy and now it fits again as shown in the photo. There are a few less than perfect things, the i-cord bind-offs on the sleeves and hem pull them in a little bit. This creates a little bunchiness there. The i-cord bind-off on the hood and neck rolls, so it looks like a rolled stockinette edge, but excessive blocking only temporarily combats this, so I have decided to live with it rather than fight it.

The yarn is starting to be a little fuzzy and pill, which is surprising, because I think it was intended to be sock yarn, I would have expected it to be tougher than that!

Anyway, please leave a comment if you find this sweater review helpful, or if you do a sweater review yourself. I am trying to choose a new sweater project, but I really wanted it to be something that I can wear and wear so your sweater reviews would be helpful for me.

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.)

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.