SSS

That is Second Sleeve Syndrome. A major case of it, to say the least... This is where I'm today, after finally picking up and starting yesterday:

I have not as much as touched it all summer, although I have to admit that knitting has been slow over all. But I know that with a few days of knitting, I can have this thing done, and can feel better about moving on to other things. The pattern (in the picture) is from last winter's Vogue. Surprisingly the pattern is written for Cascade 220, which is an unusual choice of yarn for Vogue, since the cost of the sweater only ends up being around $ 50, instead of at least double that. I'm enjoying the pattern, but there are a couple of weird things about it. In the front pieces, the stitch count is reduced in an odd way before binding off for the shoulders. Not sure how it will work when I'll piece it together -I may end up having to re-do the shoulders. The other thing is that in the pattern they don't mention any other closure than the belt, but obviously in the picture there's something holding the front together at least at the tip of the shawl collar. I think I'll just add a couple of buttons but that would mean I also have to add a button band. Or maybe I'll use some hooks instead.

The way I was able to overcome SSS was to compile a list of unfinished projects, and projects on my to-do list. I don't have a ton of things on my unfinished list, but there are 4 sweaters that are only a couple of days worth of knitting away from finishing. So I thought I should pick up the slack and stop feeling guilty about them. Here's the list:

1) Petrol blue cardigan, I have to re-do the shawl collar
2) Oxblood sweater, needs second sleeve and collar
3) A sweater for E, needs the collar finished and sleeves lengthened (I've piddled around long enough on it that the sleeves are already too short...)
4) A light blue cotton sweater, needs 1 1/2 sleeves
5) A hat for E
6) Socks for S

The things on my to-do list are all projects that I already have yarn for. I actually don't have any yarn (at least not in large quantities) that doesn't have a project planned for it.
1) Cable sweater from moss green wool
2) Cowl neck sweater from brown boucle
3) Mohair sweater
4) V-neck sweater from Art Yarn's light green wool/silk
5) Christmas scarf
6) Christmas scarf 2
7) Sweater from black alpaca
8) Sweater from blue wool
9) E socks
10) lace scarf from blue-green wool
11) lace scarf from purple silk (could be a gift)
12) lace scarf from Art Yarns silk
13) Sweater from brown/tan wool

Obviously, I don't have to go buying any more yarn for a while, at least until most of these are finished...

Stop and smell the roses

I do still blog, I swear I do! Life just got in the way for a while. I have not only enjoyed the summer (and smelled the roses), but also covered North America from Seattle to New York in the last two weeks. In knitting terms, this means one finished object and lots of time thinking about new ones, and even some swatching (no photographic evidence of this).

May I present to you, Rose:

Rose is made out of Plassard Coton-Lin, a 60/40 cotton and linen blend, about sport weight, I would say, 195 m to 50 g. I used about 8 balls, I think. The finished fabric has a nice drape to it, and feels cool to the skin, like linen fabrics usually do.


I used a 3.75 mm needle for the lace in the bottom of the body and sleeves, and 3.25 mm for the stockinette top. I didn't like how loose it looked with the bigger needle -I'm usually more a fan of a smaller, tighter gauge, than a looser one.


I used an I-cord edging for both the front and back. Or in the front I actually just took advantage of the rolling of the stockinette, but the back side is true I-cord up to where the neck curves. And the cool thing is that you can't even tell where it switches from I-cord to stockinette.



I took the measurements from one of my favorite sweaters, and it fits perfectly. Me love Rose. :)


And if I ever get to it, there might be a pattern available for Rose. At least I wrote my notes so that it would be possible.

The other craft(s)

You know all these babies I've been talking about? Well, with each gift, there needs to be a card. So off to shopping for cardstock and paper I go... (by the way, I've calculated that I'd have to make well over a 100 cards for this hobby to pay off, assuming the average card from the store costs aout $ 2.50... oops...)

Here's two "boy-cards" and one "girl-card" (click for bigger).
Materials used: cardstock, patterned paper, plain paper, bubble stickers, glue, color pencils.

I was going to make more, but ran out of ideas and inspiration. Oh, well.

I was also going to take pictures of my jewelery, so here goes. These are all from the last 2-3 years. I combined the pictures into collages so I wouldn't have quite as many pictures in the post. Again, click for bigger. First the bracelets:

From the top left, specks: 1. a three strand bracelet with amazonite and silver, 2. a garden themed bracelet with mostly glass beads and silver charms, 3. a two strand bracelet with pearls, mother-of-pearl, citrine and gold 4. Check glass, mookaite, mother-of-pearl, silver, 5. my 4th of July -bracelet with glass beads, silver and pewter (I lost the cutest charm ever, a small stage coach with moving wheels and all -boo hoo!) This bracelet tells a story of immigration to America. The first charm is a US map, the second one Statue of Liberty (connection to early immigrants and Ellis Island), the third one was the stage coach, because that's how the settlers got across the country, especially to our neck of the woods. Fourth is a map of South Dakota, fifth is a baby, because Mr S is my American baby, and he connects me to this country more than anything else. The last one is an American flag. Where was I... ok, 6. One of my most used pieces of jewelry (I like green!) with handmade glass beads, silver, yellow jade (I think), and pearls.

My latest addition to the bracelets is this, with matching earrings:


This is one of my favorites, made with fire agate, carnelians and gold. It oddly reminds me of a plastic bracelet from my childhood. The problem with this is that I can't stop touching the smooth oval beads. :)

I've also got a bunch of earrings that I've made:

From top left: 1. amazxonite and silver, 2. rose quartz, pewter and silver, 3. handmade glass beads, gold, 4. glass beads, pewter and silver, 5. jade and silver, 6. glass and silver.

And my favorite pair of earrings:


Made with citrines, mother-of-pearl and gold. Love them!

And the only necklace I've made, that I'm also in love with:


The dark wood beads are bayong. For the crocheted beads I just used whatever wood beads from the craft store and crocheted in mouline thread over them. The cord is leather and the closure silver.


I get most of my beads from Artbeads. They have a large selection, free shipping and no minimum order. So for someone like me, who doesn't order large quantities, it's perfect. Even if I need just one thing, I can get it without worrying about shipping. I make jewelery mainly out of "necessity", that is, when I want a pair of earrings or something else to wear with an outfit. It's at a very random frequency, even though I enjoy doing it a lot.

Travel knitting

Another work trip, another chance to spend hours on end just knitting and minding my own business. :) I sort of like work trips! This time I flew to Houston for a day, which meant two travel days with a total of 14 hours of time at airports and planes. The result?

Two baby sweaters using the Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby surprise jacket -pattern, and a little felted cozy for my new phone/toy from work.

I really enjoyed the EZ pattern -this was a first for me. The Baby surprise jacket is a fun knit and a perfect way to use leftover yarns! I used up 5 balls of miscellaneous yarns in making these two sweaters. Pretty good, I would say. So the total cost for making two baby gifts was $ 3.50 for the pattern (plus shipping) and about $ 3.00 for the buttons. Not bad.

Here's the front of the first one before finishing the shoulder seams and weaving in the ends:

The back with the shoulder piece folded down to show the construction:

The back with the shoulder piece up:

The finished sweater:


This one was knitter using a dark green, a sage green and a white DK weight yarn and 3.25 mm circular needles. The fabric is maybe a little on the dense side, and the sweater is quite small (0-3 month size), so I used a 3.75 mm needle for the next one, and added a few stitches across the back and sleeves. The pink and the maroon are left over yarns from the Argyle vest, and the white is the same as in the first sweater above. Here's the sweater from the inside, spread out:


The front folded up:

The back:

The sleeve:

And finished:


And the felted phone cozy, using Paton's Soy wool:



Pattern from the "make it up as you go" collection, using 4.5 mm needles, 48 stitches around, attached I-cord edging and loops. The stripes just happened to turn out symmetrical, which made me very happy.

More baby stuff...

I have to admit that knitting baby stuff is addicting. Everything gets finished so quickly and it's all so cute! But this addiction is actually ok, since so many of my coworkers are having/have recently had a baby (the baby in the last post is not mine, she belongs to a friend -just thought I'd clarify). So I can easily knit a whole bunch of baby garments without feeling weird about it. ;)

This is for a little baby girl that was born last week:

It shoul fit her just as the weather starts to get cool again sometime this fall. The pattern was the usual "make-it-up-as-you-go", using Blue Sky Dyed Cotton and 4.5 mm needles. It's a little thick for a baby, but I had ordered this yarn and the color wasn't what I expected -not something I'd wear, but fits a baby perfectly. And the yarn is soooo soft!

I've also ordered the pattern for the EZ Baby Surprise Sweater, and I think I'll be making a couple of those, once I get the pattern in the mail. Unfortunately Schoolhouse Press can't send their patterns electronically, so you have to wait for the mailman to bring it. (What business these days doesn't have the capability to PDF documents and e-mail them?... I just wonder...)

I finished Pippa last weekend, and I have to say I'm most happy with it. I love the color, love the softness of the yarn (I hope it wears well) and love the fit. This sweater will get used a lot!


Pattern: Pippa by Anna aka Amelia Raitte
Yarn: Rowan Wool Cotton, 11 balls, 50 g each
Needles: Addi bamboo 3.25 mm circular
Mods: I started the neck line a little earlier than specified in the pattern.

This was a very nice basic sweater pattern, nothing goofy or too complicated. It is fairly short, so there are no waist shaping or decreases, just increases for the chest. The sleeves are pretty long, which I prefer, and my arms are quite long anyway. But if your arms are short, you might want to make them a little shorter.

And one more shot of the matching earrings I happened to have:

Which reminds me, I should take and post some pictures of my hand made jewellery some time...

The Dark Side

Yes, I admit it. I take occassional trips to the dark side. Every now and then, the urge hits me, and I just have to do it. It doesn't last long, but passes fairly quickly. This time it was inspired by the fact that I noticed a little friend of mine was missing a summer hat. And a fine lady can't very well go around without a hat! This problem had to be fixed immediately.

Enter Rowan Cotton Glace and a crochet hook and two days later, The Hat:


Modeled here by a very conveniently sized foam ball:

This would have taken even less time, had I had a pattern and had I crocheted a test swatch, or at least done some planning. But without any one of those, I made the whole thing at least 2 or 3 times with all the ripping back.

I added a little flower to hold the brim up:

And here's the young lady with her new hat. It ha a little room for her sweet head to grow yet, but all in all it fits pretty well.

Sweater progress

I guess I'd better write an update on my progress on the green cardi, since Maud said to come look at my blog for another version of Anna's Pippa. ;)


I've actually made pretty good progress, what with the trip to Quebeck and a quick turn-around in New York a couple of weeks ago. I was actually hoping to finish this weekend, but the good weather and gardening interrupted my knitting in a very effective manner. It's about midnight, and this is the first time today that I sit down and have a moment to knit.

I have both the fronts, the back, and one sleeve done, and have just started on the second sleeve. I initially bought 10 balls of yarn, but half way through the sleeve it was obvious that I was going to run out, so I went and bought 2 more. Now I may actually have a full ball left over, but this being one of my favorite yarns (Rowan Wool Cotton), I don't mind.

Yesterday at the garden store, we got something a little different just for fun. We saw these water plants that are for fish ponds, and I thought why couldn't we have a little pond in a pot and a couple of plants in it.

The big one is called water lettuce, and is such an interesting plant. The leaves are all thick and puffy. The little things floating on the water -well, I can't remember what they were called, but those were sold by the quarter cup. They are very cute up close: In the water we also have a few long skinny plants that Mr S calls snakes and I would call just water weeds. They are the same ones I just hate when they touch my leg or foot, when I'm swimming. But in a pot on the deck, they are just fine. ;)

Here's a few more garden shots for your enjoyment (click for bigger):

The container garden on the deck, mainly herbs and salad greens:

Some berries and vedgetables, and a garden helper:

FOs

As you may have noticed from the added photos in the last post, I finished the red Pinheads and Picot socks. They are super comfy, and even though today was a fairly warm day, I've been wearing them all evening. I just love how hand knitted socks feel on your feet, and whenever I get a pair done, I have to wear them right away. And talking about wearing your hand knitted socks, I ordered a pair of shoes that will allow me to wear them to work, too. When the weather cools down again, that is.
I think these will look very nice with wool socks. They are Red Wing Alexandrias -a brand I've never worn before, but they look comfy. Most of my shoes are SoftSpots, because they have really nice ones for wide feet. And I order all my shoes online, because so few store carry wide sizes any more. I could go on and on about this...

But there's something I've been wondering about when it comes to wearing your own handmade socks. Do you wear them to work? And do you have certain ones that you can wear to work and others not? (I'm thinking black or other more subtle colors that wouldn't be too obvious if you have any kind of a dress code.) I've wondered about this for a while, and would like to hear from you.

I also finished something else, namely the Clementine shawlette. I actually finished it over a week ago already, but didn't get a chance to take pictures, other than of the blocking.


I used sock yarn to knit this to get it a little heavier than lace weight. This took almost 200 g of yarn on 3.5 mm needles. I really enjoyed knitting it, it was fairly mindless with the easy to memorize pattern and all. I made a couple of changes to the pattern, though (hey, that's new! Who would have thought...) Other than knitting with a different weight yarn, I added two pattern repeats sideways, because with just 5 repeats it would have been way too narrow. I also added some short rows on the last row to make the join work better. The zig-zag pattern would pull otherwise, when you join it head to head. I thought I'd try short rows (very short, 6 stitches for each pattern repeat), and it worked. So the zig-zag is still a zig-zag even at the join.

Here's a couple of modeled shots, too. It works perfect for keeping me warm in my chilly office.



My husband says I look too serious... but look at those pretty skies and the slough in the back of our house getting all green! It's full of birds, as you might guess. So much so that we can't sleep with the windows open, because the birdies start screaming EARLY in the morning and wake us up.