Charlotte Winter Sweater Progress Day Two

My Charlotte Winter was my Christmas vacation progress. I seized the opportunity of grandparent and auntie baby sitting time to see how far I could knit on a bulky sweater project.

Here is my Day Two progress:

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I managed to complete all the garter ridge stripes and I’m finishing the raglan increases. It’s getting to be a lot of stitches on the needles at this point.  But man it was nice to have some soothing garter stitches to watch my kids play and catch up on some Christmas movies.

I did take some time here to bury some of the ends for the color changes in the yoke. I didn’t trim them because I want to block them first. But it really helped to make this project less messy and more manageable. I have one more day’s worth of progress to show you before I had to go back to real life.

Happy Knitting!!

Finally In The Round

My Jellybean has been PATIENTLY waiting for his sweater. It’s a sport weight top-down raglan cardigan in his absolute favorite purple. But I have had trouble mustering the mojo to work on it.

I had trouble getting it cast on and it took two tries. I was making good progress until the rows were getting really really long. And the work is really bunched up on the cord of my needles. And I have been to busy (read: lazy) to get a longer cord from downstairs. I am ALMOST at the sleeve divide and thank god have gotten this thing to the point it’s in the round. So yay, no more purling!!

I really do love this pattern so far. The only thing I’m not wild about is the button holes. But I’ll reserve judgement until the buttons are installed. Either way Jellybean is really anxious to be able to wear this thing so I need to get to knitting faster!

Happy knitting!!

Better The Second Time

My buggered cast on has been rectified. I was able to restart and *correctly* follow the first set of increases.

This is my Mackenzie 5-ply for Jellybean in the 7 year old size. It’s a pullover but it has a button placket at the neck. So I am slogging through the knitting across and purling back right now. I’ve done the first button hole and ready to start the second.

I have the project living in my Bags by Awesome grannie bag. It’s the PERFECT sweater size and Jellybean likes that it has donuts on it. Win win 🙂

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Mackenzie 5 Ply

I had been wishful knitting a sweater for Jellybean. And Jellybean LOVES purple and I just so happen to have a sweater quantity of purple Knit Picks Brava Sport in my stash. I decided to cast on the Mackenzie 5 ply by Rebecca Newman

So I printed and read my pattern. Dutifully cast on after some gauge swatching and promptly knit the first page of instructions. Well….PB is on a sleep jihad much like her brother as an infant. So what little knitting time I get here lately is deeply affected by lack of sleep. I completely buggered the raglan increases. So an evening’s worth of work you see above? Yeah….it needs ripped. Sigh

I’m not too mad because it’s my own bonehead fault. And I know the yarn will stand up to ripping so I guess there’s that!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Leksak

I had finished PB’s Second Sporty Cardigan and I couldn’t stand the thought of not knitting cute baby girl sweaters. So I did some Ravelry searching and stash diving to find a good match.

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I found Leksak by Yarn-Madness. It’s a top down raglan style tunic (or pullover if you prefer) made for DK yarn. It has an interesting button band construction I found intriguing and I had two colors of Berroco Comfort DK languishing in my stash. Comfort DK is a 50/50 acrylic and nylon blend so very washable and very durable. And I like the idea of a tunic for my sweet PB. And I am for SURE making the open front construction versus the pullover closed construction. (P.S. Leksak is Swedish for “toy” and I am of Swedish decent so I that kinda hooked me as well.)

The colors are a minty green and bright blue I originally got for making hats. While not a a pairing I would normally make I think they actually work well now that I can see them knit up together. I will be playing a small bit of yarn chicken on this project but I think with some strategic order of operations and yarn management I can make it work.

Happy Knitting!!

FO Friday: PB’s Sporty Cardigan #2

Well, ladies and gentlemen….PB has a new sweater! The Second Sporty Cardigan is finished, washed, blocked, buttons added and ends trimmed off. Now I just need cute baby photos to put the icing on the cake.

I went with the round two tone buttons. As you can see I really worked a lot of buttons into this sweater. And the top two turned out really close together. But I kind of like it. Now I can fasten the top two buttons and let the rest of the sweater hang open to show a cute onesie underneath.

Note: Blocking didn’t completely correct my buttons bands but it greatly improved them. I’m marking this a win and moving on.

Pattern: Sporty Cardigan for Boys and Girls by Cecilie Clark

Yarn: Frabjous Fibers Messenger Kit and Knit Picks Comfy Sport. I used roughly 266 yards or 89 grams of yarn to make a 12 month sized sweater. This included every last drop of Frabjous Fibers so no pesky leftovers hanging out in my stash!

Needles: US 4s (I forgot to switch to 6s for the body so I just kinda rolled with it. My gauge is just a little tighter and my sweater a smidgen smaller than I wanted but it’s still lovely)

Mods: See above or check out my Rav notes.

Happy Knitting!!

Then Come The Button Bands

In pretty quick succession I managed to add the button bands to PB’s second sporty cardigan.

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I was eminently pleased to finish both bands with a decent amount of the lighter color left. As a knitter I am still working on making my button bands better and perfect my picked up stitches. This sweater may not be my best outing. But it’s done and they match and PB will never ever notice.

Plus I’m kinda hoping blocking does me some good with this 1×1 rib by evening it out and stretching it so the sweater doesn’t pull in. I know from the first sweater that I have a decent shot at this. For this second sweater I made more button holes and put them closer together. I’m hoping this makes for more customization in this sweater on a growing wiggling baby.

The only thing is that that my top two button holes aren’t as evenly spaced as the rest. I’m going to call this an unintentional design feature and roll with it, lol.

Happy Knitting!!

 

Stripes For PB’s Sporty Cardigan #2

My second Sporty Cardigan is moving slowly along. I’m working my way down the body working in two row stripes.

I am kind of digging how tonal the yarn looks within each stripe color. I didn’t get to see while I was knitting the first Sporty Cardigan.

I may very well be playing Yarn Chicken with this sweater. I’m too scared to weigh my remaining yarn or even measure the body of this sweater. Honestly…I have no clue where I am at in this sweater, I just keep knitting neat little stripes. I’m torn between just knitting until I run out and figure it out then. Or, doing some measuring and math to figure out if I need to dig out more coordinating sport weight yarn.

Maybe PB just needs a short sleeve cardigan??? Or I need to put my big girl panties on and just be a good knitter and figure this out.

Happy Knitting!!

WIP Wednesday: PB’s Sporty Cardigan #2

Well even after my greatest attempt to screw this up, I made it through the raglan increases on PB’s second Sporty Cardigan.

With this second attempt I didn’t even count my stitches in the various sections when I divided for the sleeves. I just put all the stitches between the markers on holders and figured I can fudge any extra or missing stitches later. I’m the boss remember?  The Knit Picks Comfy sport is definitely a little rounder yarn than the Frabjous Fibers sport. But honestly I don’t care, this will be cute a sheep’s nose regardless!

I’ve started striping in the Frabjous Fibers yarns. I plan to knit the body to pattern and then add the button bands. The sleeves….well they will be determined by how yarn I have left in what colors, lol. But this should be a great satisfying “use up most of the yarn” kind of sweater!

Happy Knitting!!

Oh Yarn Balls

You guys….baby brain and sleep deprivation are a real thing. I’m back to work (and I take PB with me) and I feel like I run ALL DAY LONG. I am happy with my choice but boy is it a different way to work. It definitely has it ups and downs. I have found myself doing the silliest things.

Case in point….PB’s Sporty Cardigan #2….I picked this up and merrily knitted during a nap. I thought I knew where where I was but that was a bald faced lie. I started doing my increases on the wrong side of the work. And after three garter bumps my issue became apparent. I literally exclaimed “Oh Yarn Balls” to the bewilderment of my hubby.

I took a deep breath and told myself I was the boss of my knitting. I knew that this would bother me and I really needed to fix it. So I pulled out some fingering waste yarn and put in a lifeline where the work was correct. And then….I ripped out the needles and frogged.

I was totally racing the clock of PB’s naptime. But I managed to get all the needles back in the stitches without too much headache before PB woke up.

I was quite pleased with myself and I know I’ll be happier with the finished product. I’m just mad I lost an ENTIRE nap time worths of progress on this baby sweater to a stupid sleep deprived mistake. I literally ended back right where I started. I guess the silver lining is that even when crazy tired I can still read my knitting….after a few row anyway, lol

Happy Knitting!!