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The same weekend that my pink sweater sat blocking, I bought the yarn and cast on for a February Lady. People are not kidding when they sat it is a fast knit. I am already this far along:
The yarn is Charlotte Bronte worsted from Yarn Love in the colorway Bella, and I am in love with it. The yarn and the color both. Currently, I’m about two thirds of the way through the body, and just recently dipped into the second of three skeins. My plan is to let the body be as long as I can get with this skein, which should be plenty, and use the third for the arms.
I totally understand why this sweater went viral, and its one of the only patterns I have ever knit that I can see myself making again. I already have designs on making the baby version.
What I do not understand, after working two adult sweaters and a failed baby sweater this way, is why anyone would ever knit a sweater from the bottom up.
Pattern: Opulent Raglan, by Wendy Bernard (Fall 2008 Knitscene)
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Rose Spice
Needles: US 5 circs and dpns
I am so seriously tickled by this sweater, which of course I managed to finish just as the weather is warming up too much to need it. It took almost exactly three and a half months, but that was only because I worked on a million and one other projects at the same time. The cables were just enough to break up the stockinette without being so complicated that it needed serious concentration.
I knit it in the smallest size so that there would be a few inches of negative ease, but worked the sleeves in the next size up because they were a little too snug under the arms otherwise. The pattern called for a series of decreases to taper the arms towards the elbow, and I left those out in favor of straight sleeves. I also opted out of the bells that were meant to be on the cuffs, instead using the twisted braid that runs alongside the large front cable.
My only real issue with the sweater is the bottom edge. I think that it needs to be straight and clean to avoid distracting from the cable, but I don’t love the bulk that turning the hem under adds.
Believe it or not, there has been knitting. There has been so much knitting that the Very Pink Sweater is finished. I still haven’t managed to get decent pictures of it, though, so this post is not about that sweater.
The day after I finished with that project was the second annual Homespun Yarn Party. The crowd was a little intimidating for me (and by a little, I mean that I didn’t even make an attempt to see most of the vendors, and my camera never even left my bag. I did get to chat with Gryphon of Sanguine Gryphon and meet Sharon of Three Irish Girls and bring home some of their yummy yarn. And, since I haven’t managed to take any good pictures of any of my current projects, I think that means that we’re due for some yarn p0rn, no?
This is Bella, on Yarn Love’s Charlotte Bronte worsted organic merino. (It was shelved next to Twilight and I think that is terribly clever.) I am currently turning it into a February Lady sweater for myself. (I realize that I may have said something about knitting Ms. Marigold next. I don’t know what to tell you about that.)
This is Aiden, on Three Irish Girls McClellan fingering, a wool and bamboo blend. I loved making fingerless mittens from this yarn when it was a club option, and I’m beyond thrilled that it’s being stocked now. Jason doesn’t like this color. He says it has too many pukey greens. I disagree. I love the teal and brown with the chartreuse, and the way they all get frosty looking on the bamboo base.
(That’s all the 3IG I have to share right now, but their spring collection was posted the other day. There are 20 new colors and if you’re the sort of enjoys drooling over yarn, you really owe it to yourself to go look. I am particularly taken with Alana, Niall, and Maeve.)
This is Nebula on Gaia Lace from Sanguine Gryphon. Its a cashmere/silk blend and is going to be some sort of small shawl or lacy scarf. Yes, it really is as soft as you imagine.
And this is Robberfly on Bugga! (A merino, cashmere, nylon sock yarn.) I ordered some of this for Chris for his birthday and almost kept it, so this was my consolation skein. It is also as soft as you would think, and I am still stunned stupid that Gyrphon voluntarily dyed something pink.
And with that, I am putting myself on a yarn diet for awhile. (I am not putting a time from to that, because my husband might read this and then he would hold me to it.)
I am THIS CLOSE to finishing my pink sweater. There are maybe six rounds left on the last sleeve’s cuff, if that. Its very exciting.
With maybe six rounds to go, I have exactly 16 little loops of yarn left in this ball, the ones that formed the very center of the center of the center-pull ball. Sixteen of them. I’m thinking it might be about two yards?
And I would just like to point out that if I have to dip into another whole hank of yarn just to finish a few rounds, things are going to get ugly.
I’m not sure what made me think that beginning my first full scale lace project was the prescription for not being able to knit anything decently, but that’s what happened.
Its the Adamas Shawl, and I really wish that I could type that without thinking of Battlestar Galactica, which I don’t really even watch. The yarn is a skein of merino/tencel fingering weight from Three Irish Girls that has been puzzling me for a few months. I knew the second I saw it (it was a club shipment, and I expected it to be more robin’s egg blue than Tiffany box teal) that it wanted to be something for a baby. I tried Baby Yours and the BSJ, but it just didn’t hold up to either of those patterns.
When I got it into my head that I wanted to knit a small shawl for my brother’s baby as a receiving blanket (Rob and Ash, if you’re reading, pretend you didn’t just see that), my mind went back to this yarn and I set out to find a pattern that looked easy to adapt to be smaller, and the darling little hearts in this pattern sold me.
I think it took me about the first chart to understand why people get hooked on lace. Its enchanting and magical, and within what is just about the least badass hobby one can have, lace feels as badass as you can possibly get and that’s a really, really good feeling.
I’m three repeats in to the second chart now (which means its a little bigger than in the picture), and the only question I have left is how many I can do before I need to move on to the third chart. I know from Ravelry research that if I do 9 repeats, I won’t have enough yarn left to do the last chart properly. I also know that it gets a little bigger every row, so I can’t really base how much yarn I need on how much I’ve used. This is probably something I should figure out soon….
