Year of Projects: Catching Up

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

Even though I am way behind on blogging, I have been making a lot of progress on my projects. I have two finished projects and two more that are very close to being done!

1. Dark and Stormy - done!

2. Simple Summer Tweed V-neck - nearly done!

3. Sunday Sweater - done! This wasn't on my original list, but my sister asked if I'd make my niece (7) a sweater since she'd outgrown the previous one I'd knitted for her. It was a fairly quick knit and the pattern is very well written.

4. Housewarming Quilt

Pattern:

I'm working on the checkered border:

5. After I finish the v neck sweater, I plan to cast on a sweater for my husband using Peace Fleece yarn in Negotiation Grey with Father's Grey along the bottom, neck and cuffs.

Next week I'll post about the project I plan to make for the Ravelry Ravellenic Winter Games.

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!