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!

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!

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

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

Despite my blase expression I am actually quite pleased

Pattern:  Leftovers by Alison Hansel from Knitty

Yarn:  Cascade 220 about 2.5 skeins

Modifications:  Lots!  First of all I didn’t do any stripes.  Also I changed the ribbing, in the pattern you hold two strands of yarn together and do 3×3 ribbing but I just used one strand of yarn and did 2×2 ribbing.  I guess I am contrary like that.  I also did my own waist shaping although there is some in the pattern.

I am yelling at my dogs in this picture

It turns out I really did need a sweater vest.  I have worn this tons since I finished it!  I love how warm it is without being constricting.

I might even make another one if I could decide on a color and if I find a couple more collared shirts to wear them with.  I am definitely on the lookout.

My comments are not working as usual so I haven’t been able to write you back but I have been thinking about what you’ve said and how I want to proceed with Snow White.
I put a life-line in and I think I am going to go with my first instinct (half as many increase rows) and see what happens. I can always rip back if I need to.

In the meantime I have been giving a lot of attention to my Thermal Sweater. I figure that I had better knit as much as I can on it while I am feeling motivated to do so (hence the title of this post). This plan has been working very well! In fact I wrote most of this post and I kept having to re-write this section as I knit more and more of Thermal but took no pictures. I finally took pictures so here ya go!

Thermal lacking only the right front and collar

I have also started some knitting for Winter Holiday. Unfortunately I think most of the people I plan to knit for read this blog so at the risk of ruining their Winter Holiday surprises suffice to say that I have been knitting. There will be pictures on Ravelry (my name is alligator) so you can follow my progress over there if you’re not a member of my immediate friends or family.

However, I have been working on one present the recipient of which I am fairly certain does not read this blog.

Orange mohair + beads = pretty

This is an Odessa hat in some sort of laceweight orange mohair held double. This was a really fun project, what with the mohair and the beads. I don’t think I would ever wear something like this but it was so much fun to do! I was absolutely certain I would run out of yarn (but kept knitting just in case as this yarn would be impossible to rip out anyways) up until about 10 minutes ago when I got to the last row and still had a few inches of yarn left. Hooray!

I have quite a bit of Winter Holiday knitting planned and I’m taking it as an opportunity to knit exciting things that I wouldn’t bother with for myself.

I wonder if anyone else I know likes beads..

I usually blog in the evenings and by 4:30 it is already too dark for pictures. sigh.

This weekend I went to Seattle on a whirlwind car-buying (not for me), REI visiting, ferry-going trip.  We flew down Thursday night, bought a car Friday morning, drove to Bellingham, hopped on the ferry and cruised back to Juneau by Sunday night.  Whew!

The ferry was lovely, I’d never taken it for such a long ride before:

Sorry about the crappy picture.  It was really nice and we had mostly good weather.  Unfortunately for me the view I saw was mostly this:

The Malaspina (the ferry we rode) has wifi(!!!) so it was pretty much a homework cruise for me and my bff (it was her car).  I think we did a solid 14 hours of homework on Sunday.  Crazy.  I’m pretty sure we had fun though.  There is cocktail lounge in the ferry.

I don’t think I am going to finish my NaKniSweMo sweater this month. I got to knit on it a bit on the ferry while I wasn’t doing homework but I’ve hit a bit of a snag.  If you remember I am working on Snow White.  Well, I was very worried that it was going to be too small so I cast-on for the size M.  I got up through the waist decreases and tried it on, now I think it is too big!

Actually in the hips and waist it is a pretty good fit but if I knit the chest according to the pattern I think that it will be too big.  I’m thinking that it might be a good idea to knit the top section as per the S size of the pattern.

Basically between the waist for the M and the chest for the S there are half as many increases.  I was thinking that I could just treat every other decrease row as a “work-even” row and end up with the same length and the right number of stitches but I’m afraid it will muck up the lovely shaping which is pretty much what attracted me to the pattern in the first place.

The other option would be to rip back to the waist decreases and work a few extra rows of those so that I still have the hip measurement from the M size but the waist for the S.

Any advice for me?  Will my original plan work?

In the meantime I have put the sweater completely on hold and have been working on an older WIP:

Long lost Thermal

Last night I finished this sleeve and today I cast on for the 2nd.  Is the end in sight?!

The days are getting short and dreary around here.  People are gearing up for ski season (yay!) but it’s still raining.  It’s really pretty as long as you get out while it’s light!

It’s pretty in the dark too but it’s hard to take pictures.

It looks positively tiny so far.  I checked my gauge but it looks impossibly small.  Maybe this is because it’s squished onto a 24″ circular (instead of a 32″)?  I think I am going to put it on a piece of scrap yarn and try it on already.

Also:  I blocked the Emergency Sweater Vest today.  It still needs the ribbing picked up from the neck and armholes and then it will be done!  I’m very excited to wear it.