sweetgeorgia

It’s raining, it’s pouring

Being a little glum since the weather is just that — dark and gloomy — I got myself to the little LYS on Dunbar (A Touch of Wool) and picked up another skein of the pink Kitten mohair. At $5.49, why not just finish off the silly little Flower Basket Shawl? So, I used a tiny bit off this new skein to finally bind off the FBS. Blocked it last night and it should be all dry and ready to wear tonight!

And here’s the progress on the Manly Sweater. The ribbing squishes together so much that the p1 part is nearly imperceptible! Will need to block this open a bit so that you can see the lovely vertical lines. Besides, men shouldn’t wear tight sweaters. Shudder!

One-armed Willow

Even an entire evening working on Willow was not enough to get the second sleeve seamed up. Really, should it take hours to finish a sweater? But here is Willow, sleeve-in-waiting. This sweater really needs Kim Hargreaves’ styling hands… the collar on it’s own is kind of floppy, so I’m thinking about blocking it into shape. Too bad I sold my old dress form at our garage sale this past summer.

And in the spirit of blocking as we go along, I’ve pinned and sprayed the Ribby Cardi back. I’m impressed that this yarn can absorb so much water! Ah, the smell of wet wool.

I was always under the impression that you are not supposed to block ribbing at all. In fact, blocking my Audrey sweater out to the correct dimensions actually made it too big for me! I should have left it unstretched. So for the Ribby Cardi, I’ve blocked it just slightly stretched — 15.5″ inches wide. There’s no waist shaping in the pattern, so the shaping has to be provided by the 2×2 rib. If you block it out, it will just be a big shapeless tube. So, by leaving it unstretched, the ribbing will stretch upon wear and make a nice close-fitting cardi (rather than a big boxy one).

What is acceptable?

It’s frustrating to see my TKGA swatches come out poorly. Try and try as I might to make all the stitches and ribbing just perfect, I block and find that I’m disappointed with my tension. The stockinette looks (sort of) ok from the front, but the back betrays my rowing-out. It’s obvious and ugly. Ah, redo, redo.

Five days required.

The back of the Ribby Cardi is done and I’ll be casting on for the left front sometime today… maybe during lunch(!)? I’m quite pleased that this is such a quick knit! I just started the back on Wednesday night and after five days of a little tv-knitting, bus-knitting and car-knitting, it’s done! We are zooming along!

Of course, k3 p1 rib of the Ribby Cardi is just so inspiring (!) that I started the DH’s Manly Sweater. It’s pretty much entirely k5 p1 rib. Exciting exciting. The yarn is the Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Charcoal Heather…the stuff I ordered off E-bay that came on two 1-lb cones. Since I can’t carry these cones around town on errands with me, the Manly Sweater is definitely a curled-up-on-the-couch knitting project. Look for progress to be sporadic and slow!

I’ve heard that people LOVE Lamb’s Pride yarn. It’s an unusual yarn to me. It’s single ply and not entirely the same diameter throughout, but knits up in a surprisingly even fabric. It even looks like a chunkier weight but when you measure the gauge, it really is 5 stitches per inch — completely worsted! It’s deceiving… But it’s nice, soft and just a tiny bit fuzzy (something like 4% mohair in there) and for the DH, all he needs is something that’s not itchy! So easy!

The state of (my) knitting today

There are half-finished, nearly finished and completely finished knitted objects floating about my living room today… Of course, there are at least three projects scattered on the couch — I alternate between them during evening tv-watching sessions so as not to get bored (but mostly because I feel guilty working on one project over other projects. Don’t want to neglect anyone!).

Here are two of the scarves that I’m working on: the Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban scarf and the keyhole scarf for my MIL. The HPPoA is knit as a tube on 12″ US 7 Addi’s so the fabric is beautifully smooth and even… I never knew how much those purl stitches were throwing my knitting out of whack, but when you avoid purling altogether, the result is magical! Hopefully you can barely see the “jog”. I didn’t do a jogless jog — I guess I was lazy, but I figure, the scarf will eventually be folded flat with the jog at one edge of the scarf. No one will ever notice.

In the “nearly-finished” category, here are the blocked front and back pieces of Willow… The sleeves are sitting next to the back piece, waiting to be blocked. Can I finish this sweater this weekend?!?!? Hmm.

The finished Flower Basket Shawl isn’t as perfectly flat as it is in the magazine photo… I’m guessing this is all because there is some acrylic content to the Jaeger Odessa yarn I was using. It doesn’t block perfectly flat, so there’s still some of that egg-carton texture to it, and the points aren’t severely sharp. It’s a lot softer looking, but I think it provides good contrast: the dark jewel-toned colour with metallic highlights is mellowed by the natural texture and softness of the lace. I like it!

And finally, photos of the finished Tendances sweater! Like I mentioned before, the neckline was much much larger than I had expected… but once I resigned myself to wearing the neckline lower, the back didn’t sag as much anymore. Hmm, maybe that’s how you’re supposed to wear it!