Every year I knit a new green sweater for St. Patrick’s Day.

I never mean to do this.  It just seems that this time of year I crave green sweaters and seem to finish them right around the 17th.  Yesterday my bf sent me a link to a dog dressed as a leprechaun and I realized that I had another green sweater on track to be finished for St. Patrick’s.

I think it might have something to do with this:

This is what my yard looks like right now

I started a new green sweater last week even though I have about a million wips on the needles right now.  I think I just wanted something super simple for when I need a break.

Apologies for the weird colors.  My camera does not like sheen

I am using the owls pattern again.  This time I am not planning to put the owls on but I haven’t decided yet whether to do some other yoke decoration or not.  I’m afraid it will be too plain but I rather like the idea of a completely mindless knit and a simple cozy sweater.

I usually have one easy project and one complicated project on the needles all the time.  This week’s Color & Design project definitely fits the bill for complicated:

mmm…corrugated ribbing…

Our theme this week is rhythm in design.  These are knit in sport weight alpaca on size 2 needles.  I am really enjoying these because I absolutely love the colors (otherwise I think I would have had more sense than to use alpaca for colorwork) but they take a lot of concentration!

I am aiming to have one mitt ready for critique in class on Friday and I’ve just started the thumb gusset.

Probably I should be spending more time on these and less on my green sweater!

If I thought I had a million WIPs before now I was wrong…

My third pair of French Press Felted Slippers – just needs sewing and felting

I haven’t finished a project in nearly 3 weeks…

Aestlight Shawl – Almost ready to start the lace pattern

That is a long time for me!  I could knit a sweater in all that time!…

Day’s Eye Hat – Started this with a KAL on Rav with the Obscuriosity Group but got distracted by school

But I have not knit a sweater…

Laminaria – Started this on a recent trip and it has languished since.  I’m rather afraid I don’t have enough yarn

Instead I have knit a couple rows here and a couple rows there…

Monkey Socks – I was really enjoying these but I still don’t have more than a couple of inches of cuff finished

And made very little progress…

Another pair of French Press Slippers – Lacking only sewing/felting

On a lot of different things…

Reflection Hat – I know this one looks done but I still have to weave the ends in before I can give it to its intended recipient

Part of the problem is that this semester I am lucky enough to have a class that I can knit for!  Not during, but for class!

I am working on an Art Minor for my degree and one of the required classes is Color & Design.  In this class we are exploring different design principles and each week our homework is to do a project based on whatever principle we talked about in class.

We are allowed to use whatever medium we want so I have been knitting all of mine.  It’s been really fun but hasn’t left much time for knitting anything else.

Color & Design Week 1:  Unity/Variety

Unity

For this project I knit two watchcaps based on the Marsan Watchcap pattern (I made one for Lou for his b-day but don’t have a pic).  For the Unity version I knit it basically just as the pattern dictates but without the folded brim (for time constraint reasons).

Variety

For the Variety hat I randomized the twisted ribbing.  For each rib on the hat I would flip a coin to determine whether it stayed straight or moved and then I would flip another coin to determine whether it moved left or right.

The other two projects for my Color & Design class I have not been able to finish.  The instructor told us that it wasn’t important whether they were finished but we should present them in class and once I’ve done that and moved on to the next project I haven’t  had time to go back very much.

Here they are in their WIP state:

Week 2:  Emphasis

and

Week 3:  Scale/Placement

I’m hoping to get all caught up over Spring Break (3rd week of March) or before that.  I will definitely share the projects here when they are done!

This week I am working on some flippy-top mittens and exploring balance in design.  I hope to have some pictures of them soon!

I am one of those people whose most recently completed sweater is almost always the favorite.  This sweater is no exception.

Pattern:  This is the o w l s sweater (scroll down) by Kate Davies.  I enjoyed knitting this pattern immensely.

I would not hesitate to recommend this pattern for anyone who is considering it.  The pattern was free when I downloaded it but now there is a nominal fee of GBP 1.50 (today that is about $2.44) with proceeds to Médecins Sans Frontières to benefit Haiti relief efforts.

Personally, I think this price is more than reasonable for this carefully thought out and clearly presented pattern.

Yarn:  I used Cascade Eco wool in a marled colorway for my sweater.  The marling effect of the yarn makes the owls on my sweater more subtle and to the casual observer they may look just like any old cabled yoke.  I like this very much because I think really obvious owls would be a little much for me.

The yarn I chose was also thinner than the yarn called for in the pattern.  To combat this I knit a larger size.  Actually I knit three different sizes, a smaller body, x-tra large sleeves and then a large size yoke.  This seemed to work out very well but it was mostly guessing on my part after the sleeves knit according to the pattern came out ridiculously small for my lumberjack biceps.

I also skipped some of the short rows.  I didn’t plan it this way I just saw the line “Here come the o w l s!” in the pattern and started right in on said owls.  Oops.

There was supposed to be a knitalong for this pattern with some gals in the Juneau Knitters group on Ravelry and my cousin Adrienne even cast on for hers in the same week but I haven’t seen any other finished sweaters yet.

My o w l s took about 1.5 months to knit and I finished it in November.

Final Notes:  I seriously love this sweater.  The fit is fantastic and for a bulky type sweater it is quite light and not too thick.

My two favorite features of this sweater are both down to the attention to shaping in the pattern.  I am quite lazy about figuring these sort of things out so I was really happy to try some new techniques and have them mathed out for me.

The first thing that I especially loved is that the shaping all takes place on the back of the sweater.  Davies (the designer) has explained on her blog that this gives a little more room for your more curvy side.  This absolutely makes sense to me and I hope to remember to employ it in future sweaters though I also like my sweaters that have 4 sets of increases.

The other thing that I especially loved in this pattern was the short rows to raise the back of the neck.  I love this so much now that I’ve tried it that I have pledged to continue the practice in all my future sweaters.

Wish me luck as I’ve always been too chicken to math out my own short rows so far!

My o w l s on Rav

I’m so glad so many of you are still reading this blog!  It was so great to hear from you.  I’m really excited to get back on the blogging train.

Let’s start with one of my holiday gift projects!

All my dad requested for Hannukkah this year was wool socks.  I think he meant store bought wool socks like Smart Wool (he loves those) but I thought if he wanted wool socks for Hannukkah he would probably really like some handknit ones.

I originally planned on making Nancy Bush’s Easti Trail Socks from Favorite Socks but I fell in love with a thicker yarn so I substituted the chart from these legwarmers by DROPS but tried to keep the spirit of the Easti Trail Socks.

The yarn I used was Cascade Greenland and it is a very smooth, soft dense superwash yarn.  I wouldn’t neccessarily recommend it for socks since it is a pretty heavy worsted but my dad’s feet get cold easily so it worked for these socks.  It seems to be a very sturdy and soft yarn so I could see plenty of other great uses for it.

I had a lot of fun making these socks and my dad totally loved them!

The Dad-Socks on Ravelry here

…

I’m back!

For anyone who is still reading THANK YOU for being so patient while I took my outrageously long, unannounced blog break.

I still knit.  I have tons of knitting that just needs to be photographed, photo-edited and shared.  I am going to try to share some of the projects you’ve missed as Time Machine Tuesday projects and just jump right in now with current knitting.

Right this second it is all Winter Holiday knitting all the time.  My Hannukkah presents are late and my X-Mas presents are down to the wire.  So… I actually can’t share any knitting today for fear of ruining the surprise.

Instead here is my favorite picture from this summer!

7/4/09 Maggie Takes in the View