Friday, February 24, 2006

I've started the doll-size placket neck sweater. I'm just about to start the arms, but it should go pretty quick. I'm a little worried that the neck won't be wide enough, this doll has a monster head, but we'll see.

I bought 4 skeins of yarn in a blue veregated colourway to make Teagan a matching style sweater. I debated on a more girly colour, but this way I can hand the sweater down to the boy, getting more use out of it. She looks good in blue, too. The yarn I got this time doesn't do the fake fair isle thing, but I figured that the larger size would distrort the effect away anyways, and this colour was nicer.

No photos of the yarn because I'm currently sorting my 18million photos on the computer for printing and archiving - damned if I'm going to take more knitting photos to add to the mess until I'm done!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

It's finished!

I finished the Child's Placket Neck pullover tonight. There was so little finishing, just kitchener under each arm and sewing the front of the placket down. The knitting itself was fast and easy, so it was a great pattern/project. My daughter was confused about which baby this sweater was for (we got her a baby doll for christmas she promptly named 'baby brother') So I'm thinking of making a matching one for her doll with the 3rd ball of yarn I bought. This sweater only took 2, so I am hoping I could squeeze out a doll size one with one ball and the little leftovers I have.

I am considering making another for Teagan, too, in another colour. The yarn is soft and nice to work with for an acrylic, and the pattern is just so nice.

Monday, February 13, 2006

The Olympics sweater is progressing nicely. I really like this yarn, it's very soft for an acrylic and the colourway is so pretty. At this point I'm considering making the sweater in a larger size for Teagan, too. Of course, I'm still on the stockingknit body section so it's all easy at this point - we'll see if I still want to make another after dealing with the upper part. Here's the sweater so far:

Friday, February 10, 2006

I finished the baby cardigan last night. It still needs blocking (in a bad way!) and buttons, but otherwise it's all done. I'm still not thrilled with how the sleeves attached, but even with fiddling that's as good as it got:

I'm hoping some blocking will help them out. It ended up bigger than I expected (Debbie Bliss' sizes do run large) so it may be for the fall rather than when he's a newborn.

Here is the yarn and the start of a swatch (warmups) for my knitting olympics project. It's an acrylic yarn but really nice and soft.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

I really, REALLY dislike finishing work on knitted items. One or two simple seams I can handle, but putting together a whole sweater is so frustrating for me. It seems like the pieces don't match up, my sleeve ends up crooked, or there is some other problem.

I finally finished all the knitting for the baby cardigan I'm knitting, and started the assembly today. Several hours of seaming in, and I'm only halfway done. What I have done doesn't look right, so I may be ripping it to start over. The sleeve looks kind of puckered, I think I need to space out the stitches more than I did. Unfortunately, that means ripping all the seaming I've done on the arm so far, which is most of the work I did. The sweater is looking cute, but at this point of the project I remember why I always favour top-down/seamless projects. Once the knitting is finished (the fun part for me) I still have to tackle this frustration, and I end up feeling like the quality of my finishing work detracts from the end result.

I'm going to work at it, though. I want to finish it tomorrow night, so I can feel free to start my next project (a SEAMLESS baby sweater) for Friday's Knitting Olympics beginning.

Monday, February 06, 2006

The Knitting Olympics!


This sounds like too much fun to miss:Knitting Olympics. Basically you have to cast on for a new project during the openning ceremonies of the olympics (Feb 10th)and finish before the flame goes out. (Feb 26th)My plan is the Child's Placket-Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I have some neat self patterning acrylic I'll use, assuming it swatches up alright. It's not a very ambitious project, but I don't have tons of free time these days, so I think it's enough of a challenge to finish in 16 days. The additional challenge is finishing the cardigan I'm working on now, first. I don't want to start the new sweater until the old one is done - better get knitting!