Project Spectrum April/May - Green

I just joined Project Spectrum (I'm quite the joiner lately), and this month's colors are green, yellow, and pink.

Green is probably my favorite color these days, and it comes up a lot in my knits. I have quite the stack of green WIPs, in all kinds of shapes and shades.







To me green symbolizes springtime and new life, vitality, energy, and health. Every shade of green inspires me in some way, and I am reinvigorated looking at it.

Of course, one of my favorite kinds of greens is in leaves and trees, especially for the way that every other color looks lovelier against it. Even pink.



I had planned on putting together more images and projects, but this month just got away from me, so I wanted to at least post what I had. More to come soon.

Imminent FO

It's not the accursed baby sweater (though I'm still plugging away at that), but I am trying to finish a project this evening. If I do, I'll be sure to take photos tomorrow since I am already head over heels in love with it.

Progress

I finally finished knitting the body of the seamless top-down raglan baby sweater!



Now onto the sleeves!

Eye Candy Friday

For my first Eye Candy Friday (which is now apparently a Flickr group), I thought I'd share a few shots I took this past weekend of my parents' new double knock-out roses. I'm nuts about the color.







I have some more flower photos in a Flickr set as well. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Sweater Dilemma

I just got back from a long weekend visiting my family, and because I got some really nice clothes while shopping, I was inspired to clean out my closet to make room for them upon my return.



I came across these two store-bought sweaters while doing so, and I was faced with a bit of a dilemma.



They are both 100% cotton, and both appear to be about DK weight. I recently read this page on recycling yarn from thrift store sweaters, and I wondered if I could unravel these sweaters of mine. (Click to enlarge photos).





I almost never wear the red one. Something about the bulkiness of it, the shape of the turtleneck, and the fact that it's too cropped. I doubt it will ever really look good on me, even though I adore the color and feel of the yarn.



This oatmeal one, however, I wear frequently... though maybe I shouldn't. It fits a bit like a sweatshirt, and the cables add bulk in places I don't really need it.

My question now, though, is whether or not these sweaters have serged seams.





I compared mine with the photos in that article and am still baffled.





The other aspect which keeps nagging me is almost a moral dilemma. I believe very strongly in donating wearable clothing to charity so someone else can get good use out of it.

A selfish part of me says "I'm donating boxes and boxes of other clothes - I'm allowed some DK cotton yarn from the process!" but then I still have a nagging conscience saying "These sweaters are already knit and pieced, and it could take you years to get to doing that. They could be keeping someone warm all this time."

So before I tackle that quandary, I figured I should at least query the internet regarding the seams: will it even be possible to unravel these sweaters? Any advice would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

I got gauge

Because I really am trying to improve myself as a knitter, I did something fairly out of character: I knit a gauge swatch for the Summertime Tunic. Further, I checked both the stitch count and the row count.



I wanted to make sure that the yarn actually held up to the gauge it claimed to be (yes indeed - you'll have to take my word for it), and I also wanted to see what it felt like to knit with.



It is a dream. I love the color, which is called Sky Blue. I can just imagine how it will look against a nice Mediterranean tan. I'm happy with the stitch definition, and the feel of the squishy, cuddly yarn in my hands is fantastic.



The best part? It's Red Heart Soft Baby. Each skein is 575 yards and costs $4.19. This means I will be able to knit the body of my Summertime Tunic for $8.38 (and I got free shipping). I can't really argue with that.

Oh happy, happy day

Let's just call it an end-of-semester present to myself. A terribly fantastic, incredibly indulgent, and way, way exciting present.

This sweater is cursed

I've been knitting merrily along on the top-down seamless raglan baby sweater, and I just finished my 76th row, split for the arm holes, joined the body, and knit another four rows down.



I started wondering, though... why doesn't my sweater look like the example? I scoured the pattern for where my math went wrong, and I counted the purl ridges to see it had about half as many rows before the arm split as mine did. Still I really couldn't figure out where I went wrong.



I reread the pattern over several more times, checking my stitch counts, the number of stitches increased per section, and everything.

Finally, I figured it out. This is what I was doing:

• Knit row with increases - 8 stitches increased
• Purl
• Knit straight across
• Purl

This is what I should have been doing:

• Knit row with increases - 8 stitches increased
• Purl
• Knit, increasing again - 8 more stitches increased
• Purl

Which means I knit twice as much as I was supposed to, got a weird misshapen shoulder (err, baby capelet?), and will now have to rip it all back.

Sigh. Third time's a charm, right?



I can't believe I did something so dumb.

The good news is the father saw the sweater in progress today and said it was beautiful. He was really amazed by the evenness of the stitches and the softness of the fabric. I also learned that his wife just started knitting - another new knitter in the community!

(Let's hope for her sanity that she doesn't make mistakes like these.)

Summertime, and the knitting's easy...

I've joined another KAL - this one for the Summertime Tunic from the summer Interweave Knits. I'm really looking forward to this one, though I'm not sure I'll be able to finish it before leaving for Italy. Fortunately, I will still have a bit of summer when I return, so I'll get to enjoy it.



I'm actually ordering two colors of yarn for the Summertime Tunic, and I'm planning to choose between them when they get here. The other will probably become some other summery top, depending on how bright it is in person. Perhaps I'm getting overly predictable in my color choices...



I'm waiting to see what the colors look like to order my ribbon, but at this point I'm seriously into these floral jacquard ribbons from M&J Trimming. I particularly love the grey/rust/khaki version, and I'm already picturing how it will look against tan skin. They also have lovely contrast-edged grosgrain ribbons, so it will be a tough decision.

Because I am an absolute sucker for free shipping, I also bought yarn and supplies for some other projects, to be discussed eventually. I had a heck of a time ordering it all, as the site kept timing out and then not recognizing my shipping code. I had to reenter my order at least four or five times - talk about frustrating! Eventually I succeeded, and a box of wonderful is now on its way.



I color-coded my handy-dandy spreadsheet, and it's a bit dismaying. The light green denotes projects which I've finished. Yes, there is only one. No, it doesn't include things like coasters, scarves, or things I'd finished prior to setting this up. But still. The light blue indicates projects for which I've bought the yarn and supplies, but not yet started. The yellow, well, those are my WIPs. At current count, that's 16, and I already know I have a real finishing problem. Perhaps at some point I should regain my sanity, stop buying or casting on, and get to the actual knitting and finishing of things.

It's discouraging because I have an increasing list of items I really want to finish in the next month: the baby sweater, my shrug, the Lippitt halter, and another top I haven't shown yet... it's getting a bit tight. I may table the Lippitt because I can't imagine learning to seam well enough to really love it right now. It is a shame, though, as it's nearly all knit. I guess that's just more incentive to learn (and practice) finishing techniques as soon as I can.

Interweave Love

When I first saw the preview for this summer's Interweave Knits, I wasn't terribly impressed. There seemed to be some okay pieces, but nothing that was particularly compelling.

Then I got the magazine in my hot little hands and took a good look at the details in the photos. What a big difference!



I am now totally in love with the Summertime Tunic (above left) and the Oriel Lace Blouse (right).



I also see great possibilities in the Josephine Top, the Little Smocked Cardigan, the Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke Sweater, the Ogee Lace Skirt, and the Spiral Boot Socks.



So I guess that's quite a lot of love for this issue!

The Summertime Tunic is available free in the web projects, along with the Bella Blouse, which I rather like too.

May MagKnits

Soon I will have something of my own to post, but since it is the last week of the semester, I am a bit under siege.

That said, I was excited to see the new May MagKnits is up!



This version of a plastic bag-bag is really rather well designed and seems like it would be fun to make. The stripes could be killer. As a New Yorker, I have more than a few dozen plastic bags kicking around (seeing as I have not yet gotten the Envirosax I preordered). The only question is... would I really use this bag once knit?



I could see it as being great for taking to the beach or toting around art supplies, or any occasion when I'd want to rinse my bag clean. Come to think of it, that's quite a lot of use.

I keep squinting at the Diamond Girl top, thinking if it were all one color and the ribbing started under the bust... maybe I could love it. The ever so slightly puffy sleeves are fabulous.



Maybe if the diamonds went all the way down the bodice? This might be a really fun pattern to modify.