Travel knitting again

While I was packing on Friday, I kept thinking of the knitting things I wanted to work on, and try out, and oh maybe I should bring that just in case. By the end of this internal dialogue and random collecting of yarn and needles and patterns, I had a pile of stuff larger then the pile of clothes I was bringing. Ehem. This is what happens when I pack for a trip and Himself isn't around to quell my hoarding impulses.

So I took a biiiiiiiig step back and realized that I really am looking at three major knitting times - two plane rides and knit night on Thursday with the ladeez (which, to be fair, is likely to involve lots of wine and food, and not so much on the knitting). So I whittled the pile down to:

1) the handspun Sprout Tappan Zee for the elder child-demon*
2) a hank of Cascade 220 Heathers and a bunch of charts from BW's books to try out some swatches for a new design

That was it, until I 3) tossed in a couple of balls of grey DK weight superwash merino to try for the Gherkin mittens that should have been released in pattern form almost a year ago...still, three projects isn't so bad, is it?

* so designated because, after arriving at our home for the week at 8:30 pm local time/2:30 am our time, she decided that 2:30 am local time was time to be awake. I managed to keep them corralled with a combination of threats, sheer force and DVDs on my laptop until almost 6:30, but I'm still considering child-icide.

A week in sweaters, part III

Subtitle: The Unfinished.

One of my goals for the past week while Himself has been away was to finish the body of the River Run Pullover. I'm happy to say that I reached that fantastic point last night:

There it is, complete with front and back neck steeks. I started the three needle bind off at the shoulders, but it was 10:30, my silly movie was done, and I needed to go to bed early. I'll finish the bind offs tonight, then put it away while we go back to H-town. The plan is to do the neck ribbing next (just in case so when I have to spin and dye more, it will be in the sleeves), then get going on the sleeves. I'm hoping for a 23 December finish for this (so it has time to be blocked and dried).

I also had a bit of startitis this week and did this:

Started a Tappan Zee for Devil out of the handspun I did earlier this summer. The yarn is quite a bit lighter then that called for in the pattern, but I managed to pull together a nifty little spread sheet that converted the numbers in the original pattern to actual measurements using my new gauge - turns out that instead of re-jiggering the whole thing with new numbers, I can knit the second size and have it fit her perfectly.

I am beyond obsessed with how this is turning out. I can't manage to get a good picture of the really bright greens in this yarn - it's electric! - but I am enjoying the knitting immensely.

So, we're off for half-term tomorrow. I am busily planning my travel knitting list which includes this sweater, some long neglected mittens I should have finished and published last winter, and a new design idea involving orange worsted weight yarn and short-row shaped scarves. Hmmm...

A week in sweaters, part II

I am so grateful that my kids are still small enough that I can work up a sweater for them in about a week. From the front,

and the back.

Pattern: my own, using the same stitch pattern as in this sweater, but with YOs instead of M1s
Yarn: random worsted weight yarn bought many years ago in Florence, originally grey but we dyed it with fuschia and ended up with purple.
Needles: US 6/4.0 mm
Start/finish: 29 September - 7 October 2011 (that's when it was wearable, not knitting finished)

The story: so I've got this men's sweater pattern that's being test knitted, and one of the testers noted that it would be easy to make it girly by substituting yarn overs for the make ones in the stitch pattern (that syntax would only make sense to other knitters, wouldn't it?). I was intrigued by the idea, but not enthralled to work up another adult sized garment trying it out. Boo had laid claim to this yarn for a sweater for her, so I whipped this up relatively quickly.

The sweater is knit in one piece to the underarm, then split for fronts and back. Sleeves were knit separately and sewn in, the neckband was picked up and knit, and then the button bands. I've had these buttons for ages and they were just the perfect match.

And Boo was a most agreeable little model, although I can't quite manage to get behind the purple lace sweater over pink with white polka dots. So be it.

A week in sweaters, part I

Last week was a big finishing up things week for me. To whit:

Pattern: Dahlia Cardigan by Heather Zoppetti, Interweave Knits Fall 2011
Yarn: Elspeth Lavold Silky Wool (the old version), 65% wool/35% silk, don't know how many skeins, but I'll weigh it and find out
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm
Start/finish: 13 August - 5 October 2011
Comments/modifications: The moment I saw this cardigan, I knew I had to make it. I loved the flowy style, the back panel, the three quarter length sleeves. I even had yarn in stash. So I cast on just before we left for our trip back to the States in August.

I was a bit worried that I would knit the lace panel and then stall out on the stockinette sections. There was a bit of that going on, but it actually made for excellent TV knitting - I had to pay attention enough to get the borders right, but it was mindless after that.

The modifications: well, surprise, surprise, I didn't use the yarn called for in the pattern. Silky Wool (my favorite yarn ever) is listed as a DK weight, but is kind of a light DK, so it worked perfectly for the sportweight yarn recommended by the pattern. The silk gives it a nice nubbly, slightly crunchy texture that I really like knitting with, and it drapes beautifully once it's blocked.

I also used Judy's Magic Cast On instead of the crochet chain provisional cast on (which I despise)(I despise it because I always screw it up and end up having to unpick it stitch by stitch. Always). My lace panel ended up slightly bigger then called for in the pattern, so I adjusted the amount of knitting needed to get to the armholes accordingly. That being said, if I were to do it all over again, I might make the back slightly wider - the afterthought armholes/sleeves mean there isn't any shaping at the shoulders, and it pulled the tiniest bit when I first wore it. Thankfully, it's stretched out a bit now, so it's fine.

No idea why this photo is so washed out/overly bright

I like it with the fronts open and closed - I think it's going to be a very versatile item. I finished it last week in time for Ally Pally, and was very gratified to have someone ask me about it. Hooray for a new fall sweater! And there will be more to come this week. Bwahahahahaha!

Current 2011 sweater tally: Four. Uh oh...I must be forgetting something...

Truant

This week somehow totally got away from me, but it has been productive. This hasn't, of course, helped with the backlog of as-yet-unblogged projects, but there you have it. Sometimes life gets in the way of the whole blogging thing and that's just how it is.

Yesterday, I played hookey and took myself off to North London to Ally Pally, aka Alexandra Palace, the home of the Knitting and Stitching Show. I hadn't realized the show was coming up until my spinning group on Tuesday night, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go. The girls had an after school club yesterday, so I took them to school and marched myself off to the train.

On the one hand, it was the kind of event where you pay for the priviledge of going in and spending more money on stuff that really, do you even need? But, in addition to loads of booths of stuff to buy, there were the most incredible displays - tapestries, textile artists, design students' final projects, various guilds displaying samples...It was just such an amazing variety of the things people do with fiber in all its myriad incarnations.

There were beads, miles and miles of beads...

There were clothes, of various degrees of wearability,

and yarn, lots of yarn (this is just one example).

Have paid my £14 to get in, I wasn't too interested in spending a lot more. I spent most of my time wandering around just looking and taking in all the colors. But I got sucked in by a new-to-me local magazine (to which I now have a subscription),

a gorgeous orange sketchbook,

and a cone of mohair boucle to use in some core spinning, which I've been dying to try for a while now. I managed to make it out without getting a new sewing machine (though it was very tempting), or with any yarn. I was on a mission to find some DK weight, dark grey-slatey blue handdyed yarn, but by far the vast majority of the yarns available were sock and lace weight. Bah! Any UK-based indie dyers up for producing some heavier weight gorgeousness? Please?!!!!