A finished present, only 6 months after the fact

My lovely mother-in-law turned 70 last August, and as a present I gave her the choice of any knitted item she might like. After a bit of hemming and hawing, she said she wanted a sweater. Off I went to Ravelry to search for a pattern. After a bit of back and forth, she settled on a lovely pattern from Artesano Yarns. And now, several months later, it's all done.

Pattern: Rachel by Ros Wilson
Yarn: Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-ply in midnight, just under 5 skeins for the 43" size
Needles: US 10/6.0 mm
Gauge: 15 stitches/20 rows per 4 inches
Start/finish: 4 November 2011 - 23 January 2012
Comments and modifications: Of course I changed things up - it's what I do after all. Can't leave well enough alone...

First off - the arms. The sweater is knit from one cuff to the other, casting on stitches for the body when you get there. The pattern calls for some seriously belled sleeves, but Mermaid wanted normally shaped sleeves, so I did a bit of math and off I went. Not a terribly difficult change, all in all, but I did have to take some careful notes to make sure the arms matched (since they were knit 2 months apart!). The only other change that I made in this version was to work a slightly deeper collar, to match the cuff detail.

However...the pattern, as written, is quite compressed, and I found what I interpreted as a number of errors. Nothing too egregious - mostly around the shoulder shaping and the number of rows that needed to be worked to get both sides to match. And a couple of instances where it seemed like an extra row was thrown in that would mean working things on the wrong side. It's entirely possible that it was operator error, so take that critique with a grain of salt. It's hard to complain with a free pattern after all.

If I made this sweater again (which I'm considering - it's nice and cozy), the only additional mods I would make are as follows: make the body a bit shorter - it's quite long in this version. Might be my gauge at issue, but when I tried it on, it came down way past my hips. I'd prefer it a bit shorter. I'd also change the hem. This has a double thickness hem around the bottom which I'm not a real fan of. I'd add a few of the same ridges that are around the sleeve cuffs and neck to make it a bit more cohesive.

The overwhelming upside of this project was the glorious yarn I used. Bartlettyarns are one of the last mule-spun yarns made. This results in a rustic, nubbly, almost-handspun feel that was a pleasure to work with. And as I was seaming up the finished item, I noticed an interesting thing about the yarn after blocking.

See that? The strand on the left is the unwashed yarn I used for seaming, the one on the right is the end of my blocked swatch. There's a bit of difference, no? I love how much the yarn poofs up after finishing, and I'm really glad I washed my swatch before I checked the gauge and cast on. Imagine the disaster otherwise!

So Mermaid: the sweater is finished. It needs one more bath to even out the seaming, and then it can be on it's way to you. It might go via the Far East though, depending on how organized I get. Hope you can wait! But I'll need some better pictures once it makes it to its new home, ok?

Logo! Logo! Logo!

I am very excited about my new logo, designed by my lovely knitting and spinning compatriot SpiffyJenny. We talked about a logo for the first time waaay back in December, but with the craziness of the holidays and various and sundry other things, we didn't finalize anything until last week. Today she emailed me the final images, and I am thrilled.

I love what she came up with, from my seriously garbled and uninspired ramblings. It's this kind of thing that makes me appreciate graphic designs skills even more then I did before.

The dyepots are cooking

Sadly, I have spent much of the period of time since Christmas sick or recovering from being sick, including being on antibiotics for the first time in about seven years. But over the last week the energy has come back, and I've got some new pretties in the works.

This time around the inspiration is (in no particular order) George R. R. Martin, woodland amphibians, and nanometer size particles. We'll see which ones actually make it into the shop over the next few days.

I'm hoping to have everything dyed and photographed and packaged by 1st February, so check back in that day to see if the update has gone live. Til then, happy spinning!

Can't blog, too busy knitting

My plan was to celebrate the end of this week with a finished sweater for my mother-in-law. Instead I'm pulling together a care package to send to a knitter/spinner friend whose house caught on fire this week. She's not sure if she's going to have any stash left, so I'm pulling out things from my stash left, right and center to send to her. And doing a couple little things for her wee ones as well. So the sweater, lacking only one seam to be a FO, will have to wait a little bit longer. I think Mermaid will be ok with that...

Weaving projects 2 and 3

After my initial foray into the wonderful world of weaving, I quickly warped up the loom again, started weaving and then...took a two week break. Last Thursday I climbed back on the horse so to speak, and finished up Scarf #2 before moving on to Scarf #3 - handspun variation.

Here's Number 2:

The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Blue Violet - I bought two skeins of this a couple of years ago for a pair of knee socks, but never got around to knitting the socks. Now it's been transformed into a wide scarf that I Love. I wear it every chance I get. I'm so pleased with it, even though my selvedges are still not what one might hope for - they've improved though!

Emboldened by finishing off one project, I promptly warped the loom for Dev's handspun scarf (she'd been asking about it). That was Sunday. Yesterday, thanks to some concentrated time with John Luther and a couple of animated features, I managed to finish, wash and trim this little beastie.

Warp is handspun Shetland in the colorway "Happy Dance" from Hello Yarn. Weft is some pale blue fingering weight 2-ply recycled from a Goodwill sweater bought long ago in a galaxy far, far away. I was dubious about the weft color (I managed to talk her down from Bright Electric Blue), but I like it in the finished project.

And what's more important, Dev likes it. She was anxious for it to dry so she could wear it to her first Big Girl School Visit this morning (aka "assessment"), which went swimmingly.

I think maybe I'll warp Boo's scarf tonight...this weaving thing is addicting!