Stash Flashing Time!!

Click here for the YARNAGE

I finally got photos of all of my yarn, needles and UFO's uploaded. I have a LOT of yarn, ove 100 skeins! Still lots of "cheap" yarn, but a bit of an improvement over last year, I think:

Last Year's stash flash

I was amazed to see I have 12 UFOs right now, not counting the THREE baby hats I found almost done, and finished up, while sorting this morning. Lots of stuff close to completion, too. I should get busy and finish things up!

I started a new project, We Call Them Pirates From Hello Yarn. I'm Knitting it in a thin alpaca yarn and it is SOOOOOOoooooo soft! I've never knit with alpaca before, but wow, it's so nice and cuddly! It sheds a bit, and sticks together somewhat, but it's cuddle factor makes up for that. The hat is coming out a tad larger than I want, I'm making it for my baby boy, but I'll felt it down a bit I think. The edge tension is a little looser than it is where I'm getting into the pattern, but hopefully it will all work out. Overall for my first fair isle I think it's going well:



And it's just so fun knitting a design that is so not-traditional, especially in soft fuzzy yarn!

I THOUGHT that the baby sweater I was working on seemed 'off' in a way, but I carried on. I've mad this particular sweater twice before with no issues, so I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Unfortunately, I should have paid better attention when I thought it was wrong, I had screwed up pretty badly. Instead of continueing to increase the shoulders/sleeves to the THIRD buttonhole, I stopped at the second, a difference of 18 rows. That makes for a pretty warped sweater with tiny little arms. It's totally unsalvagable. I can either rip back about 80% of what I've done and fix it, or just start over completely. I'm not sure I feel like doing either.

The baby is due mid April, so I have a little time, but not much. I checked my stash and I don't have any other "gender neutral" yarn so I'm sort of stuck redoing this sweater, or something similar. I hate when knitting, which is supposed to be fun, gets frustrating.

I finally finished the doll-sized placket neck pullover:

It's a little bigger in the body and the neck than I'd like, but at least this way it will be easier for my daughter to put on and off the doll. She seemed pleased with the sweater, but I think the real joy will come when her doll and baby brother can dress alike.

I'm starting a simple cardigan in Patons Look at Me for a friend - the mom of a child at Teagan's daycare is due 8 days before me!

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!

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.

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:

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.

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.

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!

Petal Baby Hat

Petal Baby Hat
Originally uploaded by wendymc.

I made This Petal Hat intending it as a baby gift, but as you can see it ended up a bit on the large size. Teagan likes it, and it looks cute on her, so I'm not worried it came out so large. The pattern is written flat but I just knit it in the round. There is a wide plain patch because I forgot to remove the 'seam allowance'. The top came out nicely, too:


I really like this pattern, once I get it started it was easy to remember and just knit away. I started a second hat in some cascade fixation yarn. The yarn is pretty crazy bright, but hopefully ok for a young baby:


I altered the pattern to cut out the seam allowance which eliminated 3 stitches and the cascade is thinner yarn, so even with the same size needles it's coming out smaller. The cascade is knitting up quite stretchy, too. There is a lot of yarn so I may be able to make matching socks or mitts.

I lost my hook. I settled in at the hospital yesterday (waiting for an ultrasound) ready for some time to work on the star blanket, and I didn't have my crochet hook! I looked at home and can't see it, so my only hope is that it't in the car, having fallen out of the bag. I don't know what size I was using so replacing it won't be easy if it's not int he car.

Someone linked to an amazing shawl at http://www.needlebeetle.com/lace/swallow.htm. I have never had any desire to make a lace shawl, but this one is tempting!!

Star Blanket

Star Blanket
Originally uploaded by wendymc.

Got a little farther on the star blanket. I like how it looks framed in blue, though I really REALLY wish I had made the yellow part in the centre bigger. Too late now! I'm not sure how much blue to do, and I was thinking about doing some blue, and then some yellow, or striping back and forth, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

I brought it to work with me, because I had an ultrasound appointment this morning. I knew I'd be waiting so I thought I could get a lot done. (I finished a round and a half doing my glucose test at the lab the other day, over 800stitches!) I get to the waiting room, pull out the blanket and.......no hook! So I had to sit and read out of date magazines and curse myself for not double checking that the hook was in the bag this morning.

Star Blanket

Star Blanket
Originally uploaded by wendymc.

I've been working on my star blanket a bit. It's an easy portable project where I don't need to refer to a pattern, and I can stop and start easily since I'm not counting stitches or anything. It's really slow going, though. I realized why - it's over 400 stitches per 'round' now, and each round only nets me another cm around the blanket. I don't know how big I'm going to make it, but it's going to take me a while.

I'm wishing I'd made the middle yellow part bigger, but I am NOT ripping back now. I'm going to edge it in light blue, but the bulk of it will be white, I think. The pattern is neat, but if I made it again I'd use thicker yarn and a bigger hook. The blanket wouldn't be as fine and soft, but it wouldn't take half a century to finish.

Given it's taking me so darn long to make, I think I'm going to keep this one for our baby boy to use.

I'm very excited, my friend is getting a local Stitch n Bitch organized. There is another group that meets monthly, but I never clicked with them. They're nice, I just didn't connect, plus they meet downtown on weekends, which is harder for me to manage. It's just going to be the two of us this week, but hopefully next week there will be more interest. Lots of folks off the local parenting board are interested, they just couldn't make it tonight. I'm looking forward to dedicated knitting time, out of the house, with a fancy coffee drink :)

The Debbie Bliss sweater is annoying me. The shoulder shaping made NO sense, so I'm adapting it and hoping I can make it all work out. I've just started the second front piece, so there isn't too much more to knit. I need to make the second pocket before I can progress much more, though.

I'm working away on a simple baby sweater for the boy. My goal is to finish this one BEFORE going into the hospital to have him! I'm using the Simple Baby Layette pattern from one of Debbie Bliss' books, and some cotton/acrylic yarn by Patons. (Rio) It's looking a bit big, but then he can grow into it. I've already got the back and one pocked finished, so it's working up fairly quickly.

Matching Socks

Matching Socks
Originally uploaded by wendymc.

Teagan and her new baby doll model matching socks. I made the socks for Teagan first, and then thought I may as well whip up a matching doll pair with the leftovers. Various (stupid!) mistakes caused the doll socks to take longer than the toddler socks to make, but she seemed happy with them in the end.

I did find that homemade socks don't seem to stay on kid feet as well, so I may stick to knitting her hats and things for now. They'll be fine in shoes, but running around in the socks they kept slipping down on her.

I'm killing the Accordion sweater. I've been frustrated with it all along, it's just not fun, and I'm getting too many signs to "give it up already":

• the ribbing will need MUCH blocking to widen out enough
  
• it was painful to knit woolease on bamboo needles
  
• now that I switched to metal needles, it's only bearable, not fun.
  
• I'm questioning the colour choice
  
• I saw a sweater that would be much nicer than this one promises to turn out, for a mere$12 in the store
  
• I just realized I knit the left front backwards.
  

SO I think this sweater has a date with the winder, to be turned back into centre pull balls for some other purpose. I'm both frustrated and gleeful about this.

I'm looking forward to my next planned project - tiny knit doll socks to match my daughter's, so on christmas she and her brand new baby doll can wear matching socks. (they're girly sock colours and her doll is a boy, but she won't care)

The socks have been knit, though I still have to weave in the ends. I hate finishing work, seaming, weaving, all of that stuff. In this case I have only 4 short tails to weave in and I haven't done it. I really should, then I can wrap the socks up and be done with them!

I'm back to working on Teagan's Accordion sweater (from knitty.com). I have done too much to abandon it, and if I don't finish it soon she'll get no wear out of it before she's too big. I've done the back and the left front, and am about 1/3 done the right front now. It's moving much faster on metal needles, if I really work at it I might finish it for christmas.

Teagan's sock

Teagan's sock
Originally uploaded by wendymc.

Progress so far on Teagan's sock. I haven't had a lot of time to work on it, but it goes fast when I do get to it! It looks small, but the ribbing stretches quite a bit. Seemed like a perfect fit this morning. Teagan knows I'm knitting them for her, but I'm hoping after finishing (and trying on) the first one, she'll forget for a month so I can gift her with them at christmas.