Granville Complete!

Granville is off the knitting needles, finally! It only took me 504 days. Nothing about it was hard, but for some reason, I kept on starting and stopping, and starting and stopping, and starting and stopping this project. I raced through the front panels and the sleeves, and then it sat. And then I raced through the back, and then it sat. And then I blocked the pieces, and then they sat. You get the picture.

The yarn is Hemp for Knitting's Hempwol in color 040. The cables really pop with this yarn, and it's light and warm. However, maybe due to the hemp, it's a little bit itchy. I'm hoping that this hoodie will soften up the more I wear and wash it.

Tangerine Dreams and Red Roses

Flaming June is off the needles and on me! Already, I know that I am going to wear this over, and over, and over again. The only problem is that it's so distinctive that people are going to notice when I wear the same cardigan 5 days in a row. Maybe I should knit another one in black and green?

Excruciating details can be found on my Ravelry project page. This fingering weight sweater, as well as a 700+ page library book (Inheritance by Christopher Paolini), was keeping me in my own little world.

The boy's beer hobby has been upsized from 1-gallon batches to 5-gallon batches. Before he could take up space in the house for a 5-gallon set up, he had to prove that this wasn't just a passing whim. I should know better than to challenge him, because since January, he's made 14 1-gallon batches of beer. My waistline can only take 1 beer every other day, so this has been a challenge! Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the time it takes to brew 5 gallons is not significantly more time than it takes to brew 1 gallon. Besides the dog-sized pot, we didn't need to buy anything more thanks to his brother who used to brew beer back in the day. Score! I sent out some feelers and got connected with some chicken wranglers, so I won't have to feed our bloated compost bin and red wrigglers any more spent grain (and hopefully I'll get some eggs in the process).

Orange and red have been my theme colors for the past few months. More proof is this little ditty I knit up for a friend's baby.  I've also been making red and gold beet salads, and eating blood oranges with tangerines. Next, I'll be making superhero capes for the cats.

Gaia

Another cardigan down! Wait, didn't I say last time that it was time to stop knitting cardigans??? This makes my 5th cardigan of the year, and I'm beginning to think I should have joined one of those knit 12 sweaters a year challenges.

As you can see, I am procrastinating my sock knitting with cardigans. Usually, that would be just fine, but since I'm going to Sock Summit this year, I do want to have a sweet pair of socks to show off!

This is Gaia by Kristen TenDyke. It is knit using Spud & Chloe's Sweater in colorway 7515. Sadly, I bought this yarn Stash's going out of business sale. Sigh, that was such a fantastic store. I wrote a bunch of notes about this pattern on my Rav page, so I'll spare you them here. The one thing I should mention is that I used a lot less yarn than specified; I could have knit this using 3 balls of Spud & Chloe if I would have made it a bit shorter.

It was fun knitting set in sleeves again, and I'm especially happy with the method used in this pattern to knit the sleeve cap in place. Very, very slick.

OK, socks are next FO. At least one sock. I promise. However, I've been obsessively sketching cardigans in my design notebook, so I hope have the resolve to not knit up that last sweater's worth of yarn in my stash.

Vintage Cardigan

 Another cardigan complete!  This is Miette by TheAndiPants, a free pattern on Ravelry. So far, I've knit 4 cardigans for myself in 2011(Aidez, Ocean Beach, Swingy Cardi) - I needed some more cardi action in my wardrobe.

 

The yarn is Spud & Chloe Sweater, a 45% organic cotton and 55% superwash wool blend. Knitting with the yarn was more pleasant than ordinary cotton yarn due to elasticity of the wool, but the finished yarn does feel very much like cotton to me. And so far, it's stretching like cotton, too. Remember that if you knit with the stuff - add some negative ease!

I'm a shortie, so again many shortie-specific modifications were made. For the details, see my Rav project page.

The flower buttons were a lucky find. The wall of buttons made my eyes cross at the craft store, and I almost missed them.

My next FO will hopefully be a pair of socks, the Twisted Flower by Cookie A. I need to finish up my sock stash before Sock Summit!

Swingy Cardi

Being less than five-feet tall makes it hard to find clothes that fit right, especially when the style I'm after is a cardigan that's long in the front and short in the back. (It's a reverse mullet cardi!) So, what's a knitter to do? She makes one herself!

I added picot trim to the sleeves and the bottom of the cardigan,

 and I added some scalloped edging to the neck.

Madeline Tosh DK is so smooth and soft. I had reservations about knitting with a single-ply superwash yarn, but those reservations melted away with each stitch I knit. MadTosh is a pricey yarn, but I was lucky that it was 20% off at Article Pract (it was a staff pick).

 Speaking of yarn stores, my all time favorite store is no longer. Stash Yarn, you were the best! I am going to miss you.

More details on the cardi can be found on my Rav project entry. Perhaps I'll write this pattern up, too.

Anyone going to Sock Summit in Portland? I'll be there attending the marketplace and hopefully the Sock Hop! My train ticket and hotel are booked, so now I can concentrate on what I'll eat and where I'll visit. A friend works at the Omsi, so that's on the list, and I've love to do some kayaking, hiking, and yarn shopping.  All recommendations are welcome and appreciated.

Ocean Beach Cardigan Sneak Peak

I finally sent out my Ocean Beach cardigan to be test knit. It's an open, top-down raglan with eyelet details. Oof, designing a sweater pattern in a non-me size has been a challenge because I have to believe in the size charts. I'm not so good at the blind faith thing!

 

 Hopefully, I can have the rest of the sizes written up and test knit in time for fall, although the thought of my summer being over and done with makes me weepy.

Green Radiate

Against the backdrop of our living room curtains, once again, I present to you: Radiate.

I finished this cardigan back in May with the notion that it would be the perfect for the summers here. Unbeknownst to me, this year's "summer here" is covered in a marine layer. Yep, fog. Now, to be fair, fog in the summer is a usual occurrence, but peaks of the sun do shine through and temperatures are slightly warmer. The summer cardigans I've been sporting lately are no different from the winter cardigans I wear, so I suppose I should take a glass half full approach and appreciate the unexpected extended wear I am getting out of my favorite cardigans.

This was knit with 5 skeins of Karabella DK Merino Silk, another 50% off yarn I bought at Stash's moving sale last year.

I made a few mods, namely casting on more stitches for the neckband, knitting the neckband and sleeve bands in seed stitch, and crocheting a couple of closures instead of adding buttons. More details on my Rav project page. I'll fill in more details when I can find my knitting notebook.

Overall, I'm feeling meh about this cardigan. I love the color. I love the yarn. I'm not in love with how it hangs, and I wish I would have done less increases on the body. As it is, I knit one less increase to compensate for the wider neckband.

Hoot Hoot!

I finally finished my Owl Cardigan, and it is as cozy as I hoped it would be! I used the owl cable pattern from Kate Davies Owls pattern, and the sweater was a modified Tangled Yoke Cardigan. This time, I used RYC Cashsoft Aran. Since this is the second time I knit this pattern, I shortened the arm length and took the arm circumference in by about an inch for a better fit.

These owls are so stinking cute. I opted to not add the button eyes since 1) I dislike sewing buttons (I did mention how this sat around forever just because of those 11 buttons I had to sew for the ribbed band), and 2) it makes the sweater busy.

I found these sweet wooden buttons at Discount Fabrics in Berkeley. They were just the right size and only had 2 holes (less sewing).


The ribbing along the sides reminded me of tree roots. Very fitting for an owl sweater.


Yoked sweaters seem to fit me the best around my arms and shoulders. The only thing I don't like about yoked sweaters is that I have to make them bottom up instead of top down. I know there are top down yoke sweater patterns out there, so if anyone has one that they've used with success, please let me know.

Now, what sweater should I knit next? I have some gorgeous jade green baby alpaca/wool yarn that is calling to me. I think I'll do a pullover since I want to knit in the round. Perhaps Rusted Root? I really dig the poofy sleeves. Or maybe I can riff off of something in Custom Knits.

Squeeeee! Cardigan Accomplished!

Do you ever finish knitting something, step back, and think to yourself, did I seriously just make this? I am crazy in love with this Tangled Yoke Cardigan from Interweave Knit's Fall 2007 issue, and if it wasn't still oddly warm here, I'd be sleeping in it.

Since I'm a shorty, knitting sweaters for myself involves a lot of math because I can never knit the patterns as written. Even more calculations were needed because this was stash yarn, GGH Wollywasch, with a different weight than the Rowan Felted Tweed specified in the pattern. I had about a page of calculations, and even though I knew my math was sound (math is awesome!), I still was second guessing myself as I plugged away.

Knitting sweaters is like baking. In baking, I make tweaks all the time before I throw the concoction into the oven, and I never know if my changes are good or not until my finished product is cooled down and ready to eat. For sweaters, I am holding my breath until I can try on my garment after blocking. Relief washed over me when I wore the sweater and was able to fasten all the buttons - my main concern was that I designed too much negative ease in the waist shaping, but I was aggressive in my shaping because past sweaters had been too baggy around my middle.

Speaking of buttons, I was able to use the vintage buttons from my grandmother's stash! My aunts and mom gave me some of grandma's knitting notions and yarn stash since they thought she'd want me to have them. Unfortunately, all the yarn had icky poopy carpet beetles in them, resulting in me vacuuming the house about 10 times that day. Luckily, the buttons were immune to the icky poopy carpet beetles, and the buttons are fabulous, so I was waiting for the right project to come along to honor her memory. I'm so happy I got to use them.

Project details are on my Ravelry project page (rav link).