Sweater For Fall

I’m less than two months away from Jellybean’s arrival and I find that pregnancy has fired up my urge “KNIT ALL THE THINGS”. I’m almost done with Jellybean’s blanket. Only one more row to go and then a simple crochet edging and it’s done!!

Yeah yeah…I have two pairs of socks on the needles for #sockswithsarah. And I haven’t really touched them except for a stitch here and there. I’ve been really busy nesting in my nursery, cooking tomato sauce, making apple jelly, and having some alone time with the hubby before Jellybean gets here.

I perused my Ravelry cue looking for an easy to wear open front sweater. Something I can throw over a long sleeve tee in winter or tank in the spring! And I found the Cuff to Cuff Sweater by Julie Farmer.

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(Photo: © Coats & Clark)

I love this sweater for so many reason not least of it will be forgiving to my post baby body as I adapt to being a mom, lol. This sweater was Knit ‘n Style in 2012 and I’ve had my eye on it since. I have some smushy Berroco Vintage in a lovely teal/blue color burning a whole in my stash. I picked up a sweaters worth at a LYS closeout sale last year for a steal.

Any change to get this done before Jellybean…who knows? I’m not stressing about it. Everything will get done eventually. Just need to take good pattern notes along the way in case it takes a longer than expected time out!

One downside to this project….the yarn is not caked. Sigh, time to break out the yarn swift and ball winder. So much winding to do before I can put yarn on needles!!!

Yarn Splurge

I was a bad bad girl on my birthday. I hit the “Going Out of Business” sale at my LYS like a Kansas tornado. I couldn’t pass up the 30% discount on the entire store stock. I snatched two sweaters worth of worsted weight, three single skeins of DK weight, some sock yarn, and finally some yummy tweed for a cowl or hat.

Wanna see?

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Berroco Vintage in teal

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Berroco Vintage in oatmeal

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Berroco Vintage DK in pink

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Berroco Vintage DK in purple

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Berroco Vintage DK in black

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Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet in burgundy

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Knit One Crochet Two Brae Tweed in green

Now to head over to my Ravelry queue to find some perfect patterns…..

Happy Knitting!

WIP Wednesday: Stashbusting Gloves

I feel like shouting….”Once more into the breach!!!”

Are these gloves starting to look familiar? Well guess what, they should be! These are some Simple Fingerless Mitts (take three) or my Stashbustin’ #42 project.

P.S. sorry for the bad lighting….it’s getting so dark so early it’s hard to get good pics!

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I wanted to make another gift pair and do a little odds and ends stashbusting. I had some Berroco Vintage DK in orange from my first two pair of gloves and some Berroco Vintage worsted in yellow from my Brick Sweater.  They colors looked good together so off I went.

I weighed each remaining lot of yarn and divided in half. One half for each glove. I worked the orange (dk) in 2×2 rib until I ran out. Then I proceeded on with the pattern in the yellow (worsted) until I ran out of yarn. I wasn’t able to fully complete the 2×2 rib at the top, or really at all. So the mitt curls a bit…ok a lot. I’m going to give this first mitt a bath and a block to see if it solves the curl. Otherwise I’ll rip back and correct it. Then of course….knit the matching mate to go with.

Honest opinion time….do you guys think this glove works?

Only a few more weeks till Xmas…..

Not FO Friday: Fingerless Gloves

Looks like a FO doesn’t it?

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Sadly, I only have one glove complete. I really really liked my first pair of finger-less gloves. I just had to cast on a second pair. I had exactly half a skein of my orange Berroco Vintage yarn left so I took that as a sign to make another pair.

While starting the second pair, I realized I didn’t follow the directions correctly the first time. I inadvertently worked the first 32 rows in the 2×2 rib instead of 10 rows in rib then 22 rows of stockinette. So for this pair I followed the directions as written.

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Based on how this glove turned out, I think I prefer my accidental pattern interpretation of the first pair. Those gloves were much more fitted right up to the wrist and flexed with my hand. This glove bunches slightly at my wrist when I wear it.

But I shall persevere and work the second glove to match. But I think this pair will definitely land in the gift pile.

Only 54 days to Christmas!!!!

FO Friday: Warm Hands

I managed to overcome “SSS” or “second sock syndrome” and I have completed my fingerless gloves for fall!

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These Simple Fingerless Mitts were very easy to make, despite being on DPNs. I had a single skein of Berroco Vintage DK in orange with a few slight tweed flecks. I knit on size US 6 needles because I didn’t have any 5s. Gloves still turned out and fit pretty well. They might have been too small on the smaller needles.

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I probably only have 8-10 knitting hours in these gloves. I like to take my time and make sure to keep my dpns from getting all boogered up. I used 46 grams or 132.5 yards of yarn.  And I did make one significant mod:

  • knit 20 rows total of ribbing at the cuff

I wanted to make sure the gloves were long enough to tuck inside the sleeves of my coat. And I was very happy with this mod.  And the best part is that I only used half a skein, so I can knit a whole second pair for a Christmas gift.

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Now I’m off to refill my cup. I wish everyone a very happy Friday! And as always, Happy Knitting!!!

FO Friday: Brick

Stashbustin’ #33 is complete!

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Love love love this sweater!! Despite all the ups and downs it came out wonderfully.  And after a bath and some drying time it’s ready to wear just in time for fall!

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Nice and roomy and I had just enough yarn for the project. Only have a skein left! I used 452 grams or 4 1/2 skeins of Berroco Vintage DK. That’s about 980.8 yards of yarn in one garment! Start to finish I think this garment took about three weeks?

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My one complaint is that the sleeves are still pretty loose even with knitting the tapered instructions. As I have said before my arms are not necessarily proportional to the rest of my body, lol. So as I was knitting I noticed the sleeve getting very long and I still have an entire decrease section to do before the ribbing. I measured and confirmed my fears. So I only worked five total decreases in the tapered sleeves with the final decrease having only 8 rows of stockinette following it. This solved my length problem but I feel the sleeves deserved to be tapered more to fit my arms.

I managed to make both sleeves match this alternation. So I didn’t have the heart to rip out and re-do. Besides this is going to be my cozy winter sweater anyway!

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P.S. Totally wish I was headed to Rhinebeck and this was my sweater….

TGIF and Happy Knitting!!!

Gloves For Fall

Due to Columbus Day here in the US, the hubs and I had a three day weekend. Which we turned into a four day weekend with the creatives use of leave time from work. It was a glorious break. I got to snuggle a tiny human, get in 18 holes of disc golf with the hubby (I’ll post pics tomorrow), see my dad’s football team play, eat waaaay too much, and chill out with the family.

I didn’t want to pack around my Brick or Nutmeg sweater, so I grabbed a single skein I had hanging out in my stash, a set of dpns, and a easy fingerless glove pattern.

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This some Berroco Vintage DK in a orange-y color way. I think I picked this up a fee years ago in a birthday splurge. I have been wanting to venture more into dpns and small projects.

So I cast on Simple Fingerless Mitts from Tink’s Knits. It is very fiddly for me to get a project started on dpns, but after a few rows I can usually cruise. I managed to finish the first glove and half of the second one over the extended weekend.

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Here’s hoping I can finish before the first fall frost!

A Brick Update

Huzzah! I have one sleeve complete!! And it’s a pretty one to boot, if I do say so myself! It only took me a couple evenings to finish one sleeve since I picked up at the armholes.

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This pattern has tested my patience, but I’m finally feeling in the groove. Here’s hoping I can slog along on the second sleeve and have this sweater ready for a bath by the weekend!

I did have to do some pattern mods to shorten the sleeve. But I’ll wait to finish the second sleeve before I post them.  Here’s hoping I can make them match! Apparently I have moderate T-Rex problem when it comes to the length of my arms in relations to my torso. Ugh…

Until then, Happy Knitting!!!

I Am The Master Of My Own Knitting

For this WIP Wednesday I give you, Stashbustin’ #33 aka Brick is finally making serious progress!!

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After some major frogging and frustration, I think I have conquered the body of my sweater. And being of top down construction, I have tried it on and it fits exactly how I want. It’s loose without being baggy. I’m shooting for a cozy sweater to cuddle up with on weekends this fall/winter.

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I have picked up the stitches for one of the arms. And based on the size of the opening and numbers of stitches, I’m definitely going to knit the sleeves with a taper. Otherwise I think they would just be WAY to big and loose. Good news is that I’m going to have enough yarn. Maybe even enough leftover for a small hat?

Happy Knitting

Sweater 911

I was sooo happy to finish my Shalom Cardigan (Stashbustin #18) that I snapped a few quick photos with my iPhone….

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I was so happy and excited! It fit great and I had the perfect button for it….and then I found them! Did anyone notice the two glaring mistakes in my sweater above? Here is one of them….

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I totally messed up the sweater edge/ribbing. I know exactly what I did, I was on a purl row and purled row all the way across…sigh. This happened in two obvious places. I didn’t even notice until I was ALL the way done and bound off and washed/blocked.

After much brainstorming (drinking a little wine) and consulting of the online tutorials and blogs, I have settled on a solution. I have lots of yarn left over. So I am going to cut a small length and with a tapestry needle sew over the stockinette stitch to create an artificial garter ridge. So that is my mission today is to fix these oops.

Wish me luck! I hope to have a success story to share with you later….fingers crossed!!