I’m making a sweater!

I’ve been wanting to make myself vests and sweaters for at least the last year or so of knitting but I kept being too terrified of knitting things that actually have to fit me. Last winter Jasper’s mom sent me 10 balls of a soft bulky weight yarn that I knew immediately would end up as a sweater for me, and I’ve spent the last year looking for the right thing.

Well, I found it! I’m working on Lia from Knitty. I’m pretty excited.

The sweater is coming along nice and quickly for the most part. I’m enjoying bulky weight yarn!

I did have to restart it like 5 times because I decided I didn’t like the fabric on 11s and actually needed to swatch, and then I couldn’t get the cast on to work and went with long-tail on larger needles after deciding to knit on 10s. After all that fuss, though, the sweater seems pretty easy. I was lazy and cabled sans extra needle for most of the front, a skill which I’m glad to have these days. At this point I’m almost done the bust short rows. When I tried it on last night while hanging out with SCA friends, everyone said “you should make it a knit corset”. It’s an entertaining idea, but I want a sweater.

The poor Crazy Ribs Mitts have been put aside yet again- I did a row on them today out of guilt, actually. I will finish them someday! It’s just hard to keep working on teeny tiny needles when I have this large, easy-to-knit project over here…

Where are they now?

I’ve been knitting for three years now and I thought it would be fun to check in on old projects and how they’ve held up.

Yes, it’s a silly picture. It’s also what I wear most days along with my coat if I’m going to leave the house.

Garter Stitch Mitts: One of my earliest projects and I still wear them daily in the winter. They are suriving ok, although I’ve learned all about how much alpaca stretches. I rarely wear them as intended and instead turn them over as wristwarmers or sort of make a muff. But I still love them. Eventually I’ll finish the Crazy Ribs Mitts and I’ve a got a simple fingerless pattern in mind for a superwash wool to replace these before they become too shapeless to wear.

Sweet Marguerite: It’s very warm. I wish I’d made it a little slouchier, but I still love it.

Picky Hubby Scarf: He wears it. It got much use in our holiday travels.

Not Pictured:
- Mistake Rib Scarf: Too scratchy, never wear it. It is the second thing I ever made, to be fair.
- Everyone else‘s mitts: Jasper wears his occasionally although he says its almost never cold enough for him to wear them. Mom was very excited to get her Treads for Christmas this year, saying “It’s finally my turn to get some! Everyone else wears theirs all the time.” So I guess my brothers must wear theirs? I didn’t see it when we were up but I didn’t really see them leave the house much. I did see Dad put his Thanksgiving Day Mitts on every time we left they house. I restarted the scarf I was making to match that with different needles and I’m thinking another pair of mitts for him this year, maybe something with half fingers? We’ll see.
- Stormcloud Shawl: I still haven’t blocked it.
- Blue Ellen: not warm enough for winter, but I’ll probably wear it a lot this spring again.
- Lemongrass Socks:  I wear them whenever they’re clean. So warm! Makes me wish I could stand knitting on small needles more often. Hand knit socks are awesome.

Finished in 2010

I update the FOS: 2010 page to reflect the couple of projects I finished up in December. All in all a slow knitting year- only 8 finished projects and 2 were started in 2009.  I blame that endless scarf! Well, also a really insanely busy summer with finishing grad school and all that.

I ended up throwing two last minute Christmas knitting projects in, both hats. To match the Green Treads I made earlier this year, I made my mom a hat with the linen stitch in a black band.

Dec 17-27

For Jasper’s Nana, who I want to be when I’m 90, I knit the 16 Cables Hat in a yarn I just discovered, Neighborhood Fiber Co. It’s a nice worsted washable, and the color is totally not captured by the picture. I almost came home with it in orange and red and green too– all the colors are just gorgeously  intense and variegated.

December 17-24

She seemed to really like it, and told me that no one knits anything for her. Plus she asked for the pattern, which you know is a good compliment from a knitter!

I only had my iPhone with me on our endless trek, which made me sad because the photos are not up to par. We drove from Virginia to Cape Ann in Massachusetts to Pennsylvania to Maryland and home over 2 weeks. Also, through a blizzard the day after Christmas. I need another vacation where all I do is lay around the house!

Finished!

Jan 16- Dec 17

I finished up the seemingly endless Picky Hubby Scarf tonight. There he is, enjoying it.

Tea!

A friend of mine shared this awesome read lately: Russian Tea How To.

“In case of emergency — say, if your chainik has broken into a thousand pieces — zavarka can be brewed in an ordinary mug. This procedure, however, requires skill and care. First off, you’d have to find some way to cover the mug in order to preserve the aroma. Secondly, pouring the right amount of zavarka out of an ordinary mug without a spout is a task very far from trivial. You have been warned.”

You have been warned!

—

Right now I’ve been drinking a lot of my favorite cheap tea: Ikea’s Christmas Tea. I know, I know, what is wrong with me that I love this stuff? But I do. I have friends who think that Christmas tastes like Eggnog, and others who think it tastes like Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. These things are delicious, but nothing tastes so much like Christmas as this tea. It’s got nutmeg and citrus and all the other perfect flavors.

I’m on my last bag of it, which means a trip up to  Woodbridge to Ikea soon, and  hopefully they still even sell it. My biggest complaint about Ikea is they always stop selling things I like before I’m done wanting to buy them.

Spider cat, spider cat, does whatever a spider does

My monitor died a few weeks back so I’d been using the internet on my phone mostly. I could’ve posted from there but I hate typing anything long on a phone. Luckily, my parents had a monitor they weren’t using anymore that I brought home from Thanksgiving so I can use my precious computer again.

Thanksgiving was good. Friday after Turkey day proper I got to see my baby brother #1′s new place and we met his cat, who is very docile. He also apparently doesn’t mind playing spider-cat at all, as you can see:

I got a bit of knitting done, including FINALLY finishing the first of my Crazy Ribs Mitts. I had been putting off the fingers and thumb for months, but it’s done and I’m even about to start the thumb increases on #2:

The second is going a bit faster as I’ve gotten much better at pfbs (nothing like practice, right?) but I can’t work on them for very long at a time before my hands start protesting the omg!tiny needles. I will never ever be a knitter of socks that aren’t at least sport weight yarn. (I’m wearing the Lemongrass Socks right now, actually.

I’ve also been working on the seemingly endless scarf for Jasper. It’s long enough to be a finished scarf for me and then some, but still not even close for him. Someday I will finish it. Someday. That’s about all the knitting I’ve managed… I keep wanting to knit a hat to go with the Green Treads since I have a whole ‘nother skein of the yarn, but I have not had the brain power for hat design at all.