Year of Projects: At last

Dark and Stormy Simple Summer Tweed V Neck     Mork              Color Affection    Husband Sweater    Creedence       Striped Sweater   Boneyard Shawl

I finally finished the 1x1 ribbing on my Dark and Stormy Sweater! It was a slog but I just kept at it and finally bound off last night. I used Jenny's Surprising Stretchy Bind off because I'd read the collar won't lay right with too tight of a bind off. I debated about doing JSSBO on the whole band vs just the collar but ended up using it on the whole band and it looks ok. Whew! 

Now on to the sleeves - the reason one is half done is because I worked on it on a vacation several months ago. This is my oldest UFO so I'm very glad the end is in sight!

deepest part of the collar showing the 1x1 ribbing

Year of Projects: Bouquet, Bags and Buttons

Dark and Stormy   Simple Summer Tweed V Neck     Mork              Color Affection    Husband Sweater    Creedence       Striped Sweater   Boneyard Shawl

My sweet husband brought me a bouquet of flowers last week and coincidentally they matched the bag I had been sewing! 

I finished the bag this weekend:

I belatedly realized I should have turn the lining fabric the other direction so the words wouldn't be sideways. . .

I signed up to take a class at my local quilt store to make yet another bag but for various reasons, primarily that I didn't find out until last Tuesday that we had to have everything cut out and the interfacing fused on (= over 50 pieces) by tomorrow night, so I'm not going to be able to take the class. I'll just have to make it on my own :)

Here are the fabrics I chose:

I've also been slowly plugging along on the 1 x1 ribbing on my Dark and Stormy. I finished the short rows so now I have to do another 1.5" of ribbing then make the button holes. I thought I should go ahead and get them so I'd know what size holes to make. My sweet husband picked these out. I think he did a great job!

Year of Projects: FO Bali Bag

Dark and Stormy   Simple Summer Tweed V Neck     Mork              Color Affection    Husband Sweater    Creedence       Striped Sweater   Boneyard Shawl

I finally finished the Bali Bag! I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out but I won't mention the issues I had with the lining and how I finally gave up on it. . .

I've also gotten quite a bit done on my V Neck Sweater redo. Yesterday I put the sleeves on waste yarn, so it feels like I've reached a milestone on that project.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Year of Projects: A Trip to the Frog Pond and Back

Dark and Stormy   Simple Summer Tweed V Neck     Mork              Color Affection    Husband Sweater    Creedence       Striped Sweater   Boneyard Shawl

After much debate, I decided to frog my Less Than Perfect sweater. I measured the gauge on the body and the sleeves and while it was the same throughout the sweater, it had stretched so much that it was more than a stitch off. I decided it would be too difficult to try and reknit the sleeves to make them fit so it was off to the frog pond. 

What made this process a little easier (if there is such a thing) was that it occurred to me that while I didn't have it me to reknit the exact same sweater, I could knit something else! 

I checked Ravelry for patterns that used the same yarn (given my issues that seemed like a good plan) and I found the Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V Neck sweater. Not having to seam the sweater again was also very appealing! 

First I undid the seams:

Then used my ball winder to unknit it - that was really hard!

I used my swift to make skeins:

I soaked the skeins for about 30 min then hung them up to dry:

Once they're dry I'll wind them back into balls then I'll be ready to cast on again!

Year of Projects: Less than Perfect

This week I sewed the side and sleeves seams on my Perfect Sweater. After I'd sewed in the sleeves last week I had a feeling they were too big but I was hoping it would be ok. It's not. They look ridiculously huge and you see a lot of puckering at the arm hole:

I think they got stretched out during the blocking process. The fact the the sweater was so long after blocking probably should have told me something. . . I talked to my mom (my nickname for her is the yarn yoda) and she said I could either a) turn it into a vest or b) take the sleeves out and reknit them. Right now it's in time out until I decide. . .

One problem with this pattern is that there's no schematic showing the dimensions of each piece. There's a general description with the basics but not a detailed picture. 

I had this vague feeling that I should finish this sweater before starting the second one in case I had issues so now I've decided to listen to that feeling! I've stopped work on that project and am going to make Mork instead. Since it's ribbing it's stretchy thus making the exact fit less critical.

But today I'm going to work on my Color Affection because in a shawl one size fits all.

Year of Projects: Deja vu

Dark and Stormy     Perfect Sweater    Color Affection     Husband Sweater                          Creedence           Striped Sweater         Boneyard Shawl

Leftover from last year's YOP's list was to seam the first Perfect Sweater I made. Since I've had all the pieces done for about 6 months I thought it was about time I finished it! 

I sewed the sleeves into the arm hole then tried it on. I had a feeling that it was going to be too long (a feeling I'd been trying to ignore. . .) and yes it was really too long. 

 So I took ~4 inches off of the back:

Since I had the bottom off I decided to change the bottom edge. I was modeling it after a sweater I own that has rolled stockinette edge but it didn't really look good with this sweater, so I added a seed stitch border to match the neck and cuffs. 

When I did the same thing to the front, I took ~4 too many rows off so I had to reknit those and you see the line where that happened. I'm hoping it will block out. . . 

After I finished the back, I realized the bind off was a little too tight so when I did the front I used Jenny's Surprising Stretchy Bind Off. I then went back and unknit the bind off row on the back and redid it using JSSBO. Whew!

Now all I have left to do (hopefully) is seam the sides and sleeves then weave in the ends!

Year of Projects 3: Stopping and Starting

Dark and Stormy     Perfect Sweater II     Color Affection     Husband Sweater                          Creedence           Striped Sweater         Boneyard Shawl

This week I finished the ribbing on my Dark and Stormy sweater:

Since I don't feel up to the miles of 2x2 ribbing needed for the shawl collar just yet, I cast on for the back of my Perfect Sweater II:

The front came out a tad too big (21.5" wide instead of 20") so I decided to make the back one size smaller so it should come out 19.5" but it's knitting so one never knows. . .  When I do the decreases for the arm hole, I'll bind off 1 less stitch on a few of the rows such that I'll end up with the same number of stitches left for the shoulder seam as the front. At least that's the plan. . .

Year of Projects 3: Clear and Calm

Dark and Stormy     Perfect Sweater II     Color Affection     Husband Sweater                          Creedence           Striped Sweater         Boneyard Shawl

My Dark and Stormy sweater has been stuck in the post-sleeve divide for almost  a year!

so I thought I'd better get it out and work on it again. Why I chose the hottest week of the year to do so I have no idea, although we finally had some dry weather instead of storms and flooding. 

I initially decided I'd just work on it each weekend because it takes more concentration than some of my other projects, but once I got it out and re-familiarized myself with the pattern I picked up speed, so decided to just push on and get the body done.  I'm not quite there yet, but I just have the ribbing left to do.

Hopefully by next week I'll have bound off!

Year of Projects 3: Going Green

Dark and Stormy     Perfect Sweater II     Color Affection     Husband Sweater                          Creedence           Striped Sweater         Boneyard Shawl

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my Year 2 Summary and Year 3 Project List posts! One person said they missed me when I stopped blogging which blew me away! I will try and post more often this year :)

A couple of you asked about the Bali bag - here is a link to purchase the pattern: http://www.auntiestwo.com/pattern.html

It's the 2nd one from the bottom. I bought it a quilt show a few years ago. 

I spent the July 4th holiday weekend in Asheville, NC  which meant  car knitting so I got quite a bit done on my green sweater. 

Before I left I had this much done:

And now I have the front done! 

It was a cloudy day so I had to use the flash. 

The color in the top photo is more accurate. 

Hooray for car knitting! I bought the yarn at Purls Yarn Emporium in Asheville, NC when we were there last July so thought I'd better get going on it so I could buy more yarn while I was there this year which I did :)

For those interested: blog post about the trip/yarn purchases is here.

Weekend in Asheville II

A year ago my husband and I spent a weekend in Asheville, NC and we had such a great time that we decided to go again this year. On our way to Asheville we stopped in the town of Black Mountain so I could visit the Black Mountain Yarn Shop:

and buy yarn for a future striped sweater project:

We stayed at the same B&B as last year (Carolina Bed an Breakfast) which was once again fabulous!

But unlike last year when the temps were near 100, the temps were in the mid-80s so we were able to open the windows in our room and get a nice cross-breeze.

They also have the most amazing food: a delicious 2 course breakfast, hors d'oeuvres in the evening and a dessert left in our room while we were out at dinner:

Downtown was only a ~15 min walk away and with all of the rain we've had, the 

yards we walked by were green and lush.

Saturday morning we walked into downtown so like last year, I could check out 

Purl's Yarn Emporium:

Some of the yarn is arranged by color:

I bought some yarn for a future shawl project - it's 100% baby alpaca and is SO soft!

The next morning we set out for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway and 

went through some interesting tunnels:

 

We had planned to take a short hike on a trail just off the parkway but turned 

around when we ran into dense fog:

So we headed back into downtown and spent the afternoon drinking coffee and reading in this amazing bookstore:

Since the weather was so nice, we had dinner outside at this restaurant (Carmels) and watched interesting people go by:

It was a great weekend of relaxing, reading and knitting!