Sweater Mania

Never one to concentrate on one thing at a time, I am now knitting two sweaters at once. Henley Perfected in a duck egg blue and Arisaig in a bluey/lilac heathery yarn. Am a bit nervous about fitting given my podgy bits, and the lace making it hard to see what might fit. Am not very experienced at sweaters for people over a foot tall. I am trying really hard to finish the Arisaig before I start anything else. It is hard. Back and 2 fronts finished. 1.5 sleeves to go....

Spring Bunnies

A treat for the girls for Easter. They sit on eggs. I love them, although annoyingly the girls were more interested in plastic tat eggs from the 'Easter Bunny'. Humph. They are from a pattern from Little Cotton Rabbits.

Whisper Cardigan

And I finished this. It is so hard to photograph, so you will have to put up with a pick of my boobs. I do love it. But I wish I was thinner, it makes me look like a podge I think. Its so soft though. MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Must loose weight. Meanwhile, the designer has published a similar cardigan with better coverage for the bloaters amongst us, so I might do that one. Or loose weight. Sadly (or not!) I did manage to acquire even more laceweight yarn during my recent trip to the US and am very into the idea of using it for proper garments, not just shawls....

The Beast

So I got distracted from my Whisper Cardigan with another Girasole, this time a present for my mother in law. I used some New Lanark Aran in a speckled blue to make quite a heavyweight blanket. Boy did it take a while to get used to the thicker needles and chunky wool and at the beginning I wasnt sure I was going to enjoy this at all. It was a bit of a slog at times, but having finished one already I know the results would be great so slog on I did. I was also up against a deadline as we were visiting soon. I think it took me just over 3 weeks in the end. It got so so heavy! But all was made much easier by the purchase of some cable connectors so I had a 40" + 32" cable joined together. Hence the name: The Beast.




I blocked it by soaking it in the bath (it got even heavier!), rolling out the worst of the moisture in towels, then spreading on my bed (a king size, but still barely big enough). I carefully pulled and tweaked it, but didnt pin it, as I dont like the edge too pointy. Mercifully, it mostly dried in a day so we could actually go to bed.



And MIL loves it :)

And I have already bought yarn for a third, this time a sage green DK weight, so the size should be somewhere between my delicate #1 and my beasty #2. I am going to concentrate on other projects for a while though...the queue is long.

Another Use for Lace Yarn

Yes, I have cast on yet another project. How could I resist when it addresses one of my current problems: what can I knit with a million skeins of laceweight yarn when I cant figure out what to do with shawls when I have finished them?? I do love knitting with the smaller needles and tiny yarn, so imagine my joy when I saw the pattern for the Whisper Cardigan in the latest issue of Interweave Knits. The only thing that held me back was wondering what it is going to look like on my lumpy torso, but then I thought, what the heck, who cares. And maybe the floaty back part will hide some of the back flab.

So I am using KnitPicks Shadow in Oregon Coast Heather, which is divine to knit with, so soft, and has some lovely colours in it, fawn (no not beige!) with hints of pink. The construction is basically a shrug with a dangly back part, which sounds awful, but I am hoping it turns out nicely. I have already done the basic shrug part and am onto the ribbed edging.

One slight snag is that I only have 2 skeins of the yarn and I will probably need a third. And you cant get it in the UK. Oh. But a lovely raveller is supposed to be sending me some. At least I hope she is lovely. She has my money, so hopefully all will go smoothly. Meanwhile, I knit on in hope and faith!

Bamboo

Isnt it remarkable that they can take a big pointy scratchy stick thing and somehow turn it into something that looks like this:



The yarn is 100% bamboo and glorious and shiny and silky with quite a lot of weight which makes for a lovely drapey scarf. I bought it in PurlSoho in New York City last summer and wanted to buy enough to make a drapey cardigan wrap thing, but they didnt have enough. So I ended up only getting one skein which was barely enough to make this scarf (its short!) but still.


The pattern is the Montego Bay scarf which is so simple (K2tog, YO) basically but for some reason is impossible to get right and is very unforgiving as you can see all mistakes. But I got into the rhythm of it eventually. I do love it. I might have to revisit bamboo at another point, although will have to find something cheaper this time.

Meandering Vines

Another big project that seemed to go on and on, but I only worked on it between other things. The lovely lovely Araucania Ranco Multy. MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


I was a bit concerned that the varigation in the yarn would take away from the texture of the lace pattern, but I think its OK. It just makes it look more like something that is growing rather than something I knit.


I wanted a stole kind of thing that could be worn as a big scarf basically and it fits the bill wonderfully. It feels great too. Lovely and scrummy and bunchy all up inside your jacket.