This is what I was referring to in the last post when I said my knitting ADD is pretty much as bad as ever: I started another new project! This is the Metro cardigan by Connie Chang Chinchio from the latest issue of Twist Collective. When I saw the latest issue this pattern jumped out at me more than any other. I absolutely love the simplicity of the design and the small cable detail at the neckline, and I’m excited to try top-down set in sleeves, too!
The yarn I’m using is String Classica cashmere which I’ve been hoarding for over 3 years for just the right project. I only have 10 balls but I think that should be enough. I’m just past the waist decreases and on the second ball, so that seems to bode well for having enough to finish the whole thing. This past week we finally had a break in the weather and it’s become possible to think about the coming fall . . . I can’t wait to wear sweaters and scarves again! This summer’s been absolutely brutal and I’m really hoping the cooler weather holds out.
As for the pattern itself, it’s incredibly well-written and brilliantly thought out, down to the last detail. Following a pattern like this is pure pleasure and I’m looking forward to getting to the top-down sleeves to see how they work and how the instructions are written. If only I had more time to knit I would be making more of Connie’s designs for sure!
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Long time no post! Sorry all! I’ve been swamped at my new job (did I mention I started a new job last month?) and have had a surprisingly busy social calendar recently, meaning most of my evenings are spent out with people instead of home knitting . . . which is so weird! I have been making some progress on a few projects though, and am getting ready to release a new pattern as well! Here’s a sneak peek of that new pattern, which I’m calling City:
Can you tell what it is? No? Well that’s the point! All will be revealed shortly, I promise. The pattern will include two versions, and I’m currently knitting the second one. And have already written the instructions! So it really is close to being done. Hopefully within the next few weeks.
And here’s another sneak peek into the pattern I plan to release after City:
Not much detail in this one either, huh? I’ll tell you what it is: a mitten! I have the first one completely finished and the second is about half done, but haven’t even started on the pattern yet, so this one will not be out all that quickly. I love these mittens and have already started planning a second pair in a completely different colorway!
Both these designs are knit with St Denis Nordique yarn, which I absolutely adore. The hand is woolly yet soft, the color range is awesome, and each color is gorgeous and unique. Perfect for colorwork! I plan to come up with several colorways for each design and sell kits with the yarn. I’ll take a picture of the Tower O’ Nordique and share it soon, you may just choke . . .
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It’s a totally random coincidence that after finally photographing Shana’s blue Koigu Nutkin socks the next project I picked up was also in blue Koigu, and also for someone named Shana! What you see above is one bootie from the set I am making for my other friend Shana who just gave birth to an adorable baby boy. I’m using the Christine’s Baby Booties pattern which I’ve made before and they’re just as cute as I remember. Every time I knit something for a baby I’m again shocked at how tiny and cute baby stuff is — I know it’s obvious but when I’m actually holding a tiny bootie in my hand it’s still shocking to see just how little it is! What you see above was the first bootie of a set which is now finished, but when I realized I had about half the skein of Koigu left over I went ahead and started another set. It’s always good to have a baby present in the closet for a last-minute gift, right?
Oh and you see the book that’s open under the bootie? That’s The Happiness Project and I’m on the last few pages. I haven’t been able to put this book down since I started it: I’m loving it and it’s making me think and examine my own life and attitudes. The author, Gretchen Rubin, decides that she has a great life on paper but that her mood doesn’t always match, so she sets out to make her regular life happier by making small changes. She blogs about the process here but the book documents her year spent focusing each month on a certain aspect of her life and adjusting her behavior and attitude to ensure more moments of happiness. What I really like about this book is that she doesn’t do anything drastic or scary (no moving to India or even quitting her job) to reach her goal, she makes tiny changes in common everyday behavior so that her life doesn’t change but her ATTITUDE does. Before embarking on this challenge she did exhaustive research into happiness and read everything from ancient philosophers to Oprah, and throughout the book she references these sources . . . I love that because it means I don’t have to go do the legwork myself . . .
As soon as I get to the end of the book I’m going to re-read it while taking notes so that I can start my own (much less intense) Happiness Project. If this description sounds at all interesting to you I definitely recommend browsing the book the next time you’re in a bookstore, I bet it will speak to you, too!
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Keep your eyes on this blog for the major destashing post I’m working on which will go up tomorrow around noon eastern time. I’m selling off yarns including cashmere, lots of sock yarn, and yes, lots of Koigu! This major clearing out was prompted by my attempts to streamline and manage the chaos that is my designing — I want to be more productive and organized, and having too much “hobby” stash is a constant distraction. And you get to benefit!
If you just can’t wait to see what I’m putting up for sale, check out my Ravelry for sale/trade page for a preview . . .
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I’ve had a bit of design ADD recently and am trying to streamline my process. Last week I got it in my head to start working on a new sweater project and went stash diving for the yarn I had in mind, a wonderful organic-looking Rowan Purelife undyed wool I bought in the winter. When I started swatching it up I remembered how great it is to knit with and was hooked right away! The body is all stockinette so I decided to knit it in the round in one piece, and I’m almost to the armhole decreases already . . . which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that the gauge of this DK yarn is 6 sts/inch! I’m totally in love with the design can’t wait to get to the interesting neckline and sleeve details. It will be a classic pullover that’s light enough for indoor wear and simple enough to wear often, but also interesting enough to make people wonder if you made it yourself. In other words, my favorite kind of knitwear!
I’m working on something fairly big behind the scenes, stay tuned for more details before the summer is over . . . it involves new patterns and kits for them . . . I’m so excited, I can’t wait to show you!
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No, don’t worry, I didn’t knit while running the race! The race was really hard and I’m slightly ashamed of how close to last place we finished (I ran with my friend Elissa who’s a beginning runner like me) . . . but I’m really REALLY proud of myself for FINISHING! I’d never run that far before and I’m happy to say that I was able to keep my usual 5K pace throughout the 10K. That’s pretty awesome! Of course that means that my regular runs still include some walking, but I’m getting better and better every week. My friend Lauren also ran with us but when I say “with us” I just mean in the same 5,000-plus-person race. Since she’s a real runner, she finished in 2/3rds the time it took me and Elissa.
I’m finding that now that running has become a regular part of my life, that when I don’t keep it up I feel significantly worse physically. You always hear that running is “so zen” and that people got addicted to it but I never believed it. I’ve always regarded runners like a type of masochistic cult and I used to always say to people “if you see me running it’s because someone’s chasing me!” But now that I’m an entry-level cult member I have to admit that I get it. Not only is running really good for me physically, it’s incredibly helpful mentally. Knitting brings me that sort of zen peace as well, but after running I feel much more energized than I do sitting on the couch knitting. And I’ve been sleeping better since I started, too! Bonus!
Oh and I have no pictures of the race to share with you because I had no one there cheering me on. =( Next time I’ll round up a cheering squad so that I can at least get some documentation.
Elissa and I are considering running another 10K in a month just to prove to ourselves that we can do better than we did on Saturday . . . so basically, I’ve lost my mind. I guess I’m officially part of the cult.
Now onto the “race knitting”:
After the race ended and I had brunch with everyone, I headed over to Knitty City to find a set of size 4 DPNs. You’d think it would be impossible for there to be a size needle I don’t own, but after half an hour of searching I couldn’t find any size 4′s and I need them for the thumb of a mitten I’m designing, so I made a mental note to pick up a set next time I hit a LYS. Of course I couldn’t walk out of there without a little somethin’-somethin’ in addition to plain old boring needles, so I bought myself a little “congratulations for finishing the race” present.
Just one skein of Sweet Georgia’s worsted in the color River. Incidentally, when I got home I realized I own this color in her sock yarn. I’m nothing if not consistent in my color choices! I also found 5 sets of size 4 DPN’s when I got home. That, unfortunately, is also consistent for me. Which explains why I already had 5 sets and now own SEVEN. Oy.
After I got home and showered I started knitting the yarn up into little fingerless mittens, inspired by motorcycle gloves. I’m probably going to offer this as a free pattern. How do you like them?
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First things first: how the heck is it June already? This year has absolutely FLOWN by and it’s freaking me out. You always hear that time moves faster the older you get but this is ridiculous!
Anyway, onto what you come here for:
Sometimes all I want is some mindless stockinette to knit . . . granted that doesn’t explain starting yet another new sock instead of knitting the mate to one of the many single socks wandering my apartment, but it’s definitely the main reason I end up starting a new sock project. In this case, I wanted to knit stockinette that had some challenge to it, and the Skew socks kept popping up in my mind. This pattern is so subtle yet interesting and unusual, I queued it the second I saw it.
Knitting the sock was an exercise in “just trust the pattern” — this thing is knit in a crazy manner! I marveled at the designer’s skill in coming up with the design in the first place and also writing a clear and easy-to-follow pattern. This isn’t the sort of design that you can just say “keep going until the foot is 7″ long,” almost every line is written out and half the sock is different for the right foot and the left! Once I got past the heel I grafted it together to try to figure out what was going on, and after that I was able to visualize the sock and knit the leg almost without referencing the pattern. The way she handled changing directions to knit the ribbing straight instead of on an angle is pure genius too, I will definitely be using that technique sometime in the future!
The yarn I’m using is Madelinetosh in the color Bearded Iris. I bought this so long ago that I think they’ve changed the yarn base, as my skein has more yardage and weighs more than the Ravelry entry for this sock yarn specifies. Unfortunately this turned out to be one of those colors that is MUCH nicer in the skein than knit up. I look at the picture of the skein when I bought it and remember why I couldn’t leave it behind:
(I’m also reminded of how much worse my old camera was than my SLR!)
If I had seen the yarn knit up into a pair of socks I probably would have passed on it . . . but it doesn’t matter, I know I’ll wear these even if they aren’t the prettiest socks ever. I think it’s really interesting that even after all these years working almost exclusively with handpainted yarn, I’m still so often surprised by the way a colorway knits up. Looking at the knitted up fabric vs. the skein now, I can totally see that I should have been able to predict it would knit up like this: this is a high-contrast colorway with long pieces of each color, so of course it’s going to knit into a barberpole-type effect. Somehow even though I know this I still manage to picture the skein knitting up into something more subtle . . . I can’t explain it. Well actually, I can explain it: I just love yarn! The truth has always been the I knit because I love yarn, not the other way around. =)
Oh, and I will probably knit this pattern again in another color to better do it justice, too! Plus it’s tons of fun.
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My friend Ben sent me a link to this today and I just had to post it. Isn’t it awesome!?!? This was someone’s surprise birthday cake for her 60th birthday. It was made by Pink Cake Box in nearby New Jersey, which makes lots of amazing sculpture-like cakes. Check out their blog to see more incredible examples of baking art!
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Over the weekend I decided to clear out some backlogged blocking work that had been neglected for far too long. I’d just finished this lace pullover and it needed a thorough blocking to open up the stitches so that was first into the pool. This sweater came together so quickly it makes me remember how I ended up with 60 handknit sweaters in the first place . . . they’re addicting! It’s crazy to think I haven’t finished a sweater in over a year, but then again the last year has been anything but typical for me so maybe it makes sense . . .
This picture is pretty awful and I promise to take a better (read: modeled) shot soon, but I was in a rush this morning and didn’t want to forget to document it. It’s knit in the round from the bottom up, with the sleeves knit flat and then joined to the body and worked in the round with raglan decreases. I was feeling lazy about doing math when I got to the join so in the end I had to knit that section twice — that’s ALWAYS what happens when I’m too lazy to figure out the math ahead of time. And in the end the armhole depth came out a bit short even after reknitting, so the finished sweater is not as good as it could have been if I hadn’t gotten lazy. But it fits and I love it, and that’s all that matters! I’m not writing this one up as a pattern because it’s too generic in my opinion.
Oh and Babette? I joined section 7 on last night and have started on section 8. I realized I need to work on this during daylight hours so I can document the process to write up that tutorial, so I’m putting it aside for the next few nights and will hopefully get the tutorial done over the weekend. Thanks to those of you who chimed in to say you would appreciate it! Stay tuned.
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