Planifications...

My obsessive nature began spiraling out of control with the seaming saga I had with the Best Friend cardigan. After literally 50 or so tries I recently put it to bed with a simple flat stitch. I had been making myself insane trying to do some sort of an invisible stitch, thinking that would make it less bulky. But, it looks fine now and I have my life back.

I'm about halfway done with the 2nd sleeve of my Phildar cardi, and realized that making sleeves is probably a lot like making socks...which I thought would be extremely tedious and unexciting.
Yes, folks, I thought right.
I hate making these damn sleeves. I'm trying my hand at knitting in the round with 2 circulars, which is going fine, but it's slow and I can't wait for this sleeve to be done.

And with that, I'm already looking ahead.

I had jokingly sent a photo of an afghan I saw on ravelry with the Nine Inch Nails symbol/logo/whatever on it: the NIN ( but the last N is mirrored along the long edge) to a friend of mine that I know to be a huge NIN fan.
She then had the brilliant idea of doing an afghan exchange. I would make this for her and she would make one for me. It seems she needed a while-I-watch-TV activity. I interestingly enough took up watching TV as something to do while I was knitting.
In any case. I love this idea and just went over to Stitch DC to get some beautiful Cascade Baby Alpaca for the job.



Now that I have this stuff in hand I'm even more excited to begin. It's so soft and beautiful with just enough fuzziness to blur the color breaks. I also think it's probably a nice irony to make a soft fuzzy Nine Inch Nails blanket. This one will sort of be made up as I go along, but I think I'm going to generally follow the KBB Blanket pattern, which I think is simple enough to go with the color pattern. It will also be substantially bigger, since I'm using size 13 needles and chunkier yarn than the worsted that is called for.

My one concern is that I feel like afghans are a bit of undertaking...it seems like they take months to complete. Given all the time and effort, I'm afraid the exchange will be like giving up a baby. Ok, maybe having a baby is a bit more involved than knitting a nine inch nails afghan. I say tomayto, you say tomahto. Then again I'm not much of a nine inch nails fan...

Another project that will sort of be happening at the same time is the Muir shawl to be made with this gorgeous sea silk I got...I love love love this yarn. It's gorgeous...and I envision an equally gorgeous gold silky shawl when it's all knitted up.



These two projects should only take the rest of my life to complete...or maybe the year.

My New Best Friend...

I remade this cardi about 5 times.
The first time I made her in a small. And I loved her because she was my first sweater. After some time and a few wearings the novelty wore off and reality set it...there is possibly nothing more unflattering than a too-small chunky sweater painfully stretched across my somewhat muscle-y shoulders and not-small chest.
And so I realized that the larger size would look better. So I made it in a large (the laid flat measurements are for a 33" bust--one inch shy of my size). But chunky yarn does stretch A LOT, so this in fact was too large and looked bulky. So finally I went for the middle ground...the medium. And goldilocks-style, it worked.
The thing is, I'm never a medium. I'm always a small. So the notes about Twinkle sizing matching up with your normal size just didn't work for me. I made the Shopping Tunic in the XS, but think I will remake that in a S as well....I'm going to go with the second smallest size listed rule.



I also joined the Twinkle buttons bandwagon. At first I thought they were insanely expensive and not worth it...but a) they look so much better than the cheap black buttons I had before and b) they are really nice buttons--beautiful and substantial...again, so much better than my cheap plastic black buttons.



I found seaming to be a nightmare. So to eliminate as much as I could I did a 3 needle bind off for the shoulder seams, which worked quite well. The sleeves were another story...I may try and redo the seams for the 100th time. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this for this sweater (or for chunky yarns in general) I would be eternally grateful.
Aside from the horrible sleeve seams, I'm finally really happy with this. And I can see myself getting a lot of use out of it...and I just really love the buttons...

Finished! Shopping Tunic

This was a quick diversion from the Phildar cardigan, which I've been delaying because the sleeves are so slow going...
But I guess all the yarn shops got their Soft Chunky orders because last Friday I came home to a lovely surprise of 3 skeins of French Grey. By Monday night I had my own Shopping Tunic...



I don't look quite this pregnant in real life. While the Best Friend Cardigan makes me look chunky chunky chunky, I don't feel that way about this sweater. The tunic maybe gives me only one chunky. I think it's the longer length. Actually, after making this I decided to frog the cardi and make it in a bigger size which I think may help. I love the design and the shape and would hate to see it never worn...
But, as for the tunic, I actually made this in the XS, which is crazy when looking at the measurements given for that size. (Although, I wonder if I should have gone a size up to accommodate my non-model-sized bust.) Before I put it on it looked like a long skinny little girl's dress...but damn do these things stretch! I also only used 2.5 skeins...which makes these knits so much more affordable than they initially seemed.



I loved this pattern (after I got through feeling defeated by the pockets, notes to follow). It's so simple, but the shape is so nice! The sleeves I thought were genius as is the short row shaping for the neck. And there's a ton of waist-shaping, which I think may be necessary for chunky knits like this.

So the pockets.
the m-f-ing pockets.
This was the first pattern where I felt like it was me against the pattern (only for the first 10 rows or so though). I had never made pockets before and this was a bitch.
I thought at first that the pockets would be flipped up and sewn on...but that didn't seem right after looking at others' tunics. But from the model in the book it didn't look like the pockets started at the first row--which they'd have to do unless the pockets flipped up since they are joined at row 7 and are 7 rows long. After several different join attempts I decided to add 4 rows (which I think maybe are supposed to be there in garter stitch, but are not in the pattern) and start the pockets at row 11, sew them down and leave the 7 body stitches on the holder until the end to add the ribbing to.



I think it turned out well. But damn was I pissed for a while.



One last note--one of these skeins was completely annoying with at least 4 knots that I had to join and tons of little stems and stuff...as though my virgin wool was rolling around in some hay. bad. very bad.

Finished! Aspen Hat

I had made an Aspen Hat (again from Twinkle) a while ago, but made another one for myself.
I made this one with Cascade Magnum in spring green and used these old Czech glass buttons that look like bottle caps.
I love this hat.
It's warm and a flattering shape. And so soft!

I also wanted to report some progress on the Phildar cardigan.
It's all done except for the sleeves, which I'm doing on 2 circs for the first time. It took a couple of tries before I got rid of some gnarly ladders. She's looking good so far...I even sewed the buttons on already.



I've also decided that I will indeed make the Jcrew dress below in Blue Sky Alpacas organic cotton...I think in Pickle, a bright green (much like this Aspen hat).
I will also stick to my pledge for 2008 using only organic or socially responsible yarns.
yay.

I Can Make That

Part of why I'm excited about my newfound knitting skills is that I can at least try and make many of the things I love that are available in stores I refuse to shop in because of political/social practices (like Anthropologie*) or that are made in China (like some stuff I reluctantly love at JCrew).

The Twinkle knits are an example of the former and the following is something I'm pretty sure I can make without a pattern from the latter:



I figure I should start simple with my experimentation given that I'm relatively new to knitting. But this seems to just be a long sweater...with some buttoned on waist strap things...

I used to go through stores with overpriced clothes and brag to myself about how I could sew those things myself...it's nice to be able to do it with knitwear now too.

*note...just in case someone was wondering, the owner of Anthro/Urban Outfitters financially supports extremely right-wing causes (such as those of the aggressive anti-abortion variety)...meaning that shopping there is indirectly supporting those things as well...which is sad because I did love that store...did.

We Can Do It?

I saw this parked across the street this morning. A maid service car..."Maid to Clean".

I find this usage of the "We Can Do It" imagery, a symbol of women's liberation, to be really just wrong.

Finished! Fad Classic

This was another relatively quick knit (though I guess not compared to the Twinkle knits). I really love how it turned out. This is probably the most wearable thing I've knitted yet and I'm actually really excited to wear it. It's a little bigger than I would like, but I think that may be ok.



The pattern was really interesting--worked in one piece from the top down. The lack of seams is great, because I suck at seaming. Unfortunately there's a lot of picking up stitches. Which I also suck at. But I think it turned out ok on this one.

Onto the Phildar cardigan (#13 from this winter's issue)...I'm almost done with the back, but I'm now wishing I had done the front pieces and the back together instead of seaming all the pieces. I guess practice makes perfect.