The Pictures

Jim is feeling better today so I got a chance to steam the two knitted FOs and get some pictures of them.

The first one I finished was the Frontier Blues Jacket from Knitscene Winter 07 / Spring 08. I used the yarn called for which was Rowan Cotton Rope and it took me 11 and a half balls to make this in the 41.5" size. As I mentioned I did find some ribbon to go on it but it turned out not to be wide enough, as I had gone to all the effort of knitting the moss stitch I figured it may as well be seen! I used 5.5 mm needles, dpns for the sleeves and a circular for the body. For the first time I can actually see the difference in my tension between the dpns and the circs, I knit much more evenly on the dpns and a little bit tighter. Normally there isn't much difference, I'm wondering if it was the knitting back and forth on the circulars that caused the difference this time, the 5.5mm circulars really hurt my hands and I could only do a few rows at a time. I also found the yarn really splitty and not a great pleasure to work with so I won't be buying any more of it in the future.

Anyway, here it is:

It is bright but not quite as bright as this picture. The yarn shade is 071 and my Mother said it's coral so I will trust her on that! I actually went off the colour halfway through knitting which is one of the reasons it took me so long to finish. I cast on in March and didn't finish it until October 30th, stalling stupidly once I had joined the sleeves onto the body and only had the yoke to knit. Once I picked it up again and got going it was finished within a matter of days so it was a nice quick UFO to get done.

I'm not going to put any sort of fastening on it, it will make a nice throw on cardigan for the summer over t-shirts or dresses I think so hopefully I will get a lot of wear out of it. I did worry about it being a bit shorter than I wanted it to be but once I tried it on I realised that although it is a little shorter than my Sitcom Chic (which I wear all the time) it's still an ok length for me and not cropped.

The next UFO I finished had been under construction for even longer than the Frontier Blues Jacket! My ex started this when he was going through his knitting phase which must have been 2 years ago now. He knit the back and one sleeve and then gave up on knitting and it sat in my knitting basket until a couple of months back when I picked it up again. At some point I had knit half a sleeve but never got any further.

I've talked about how I had to re-knit the back and the sleeve as I discovered that our gauges were totally off and it wouldn't fit together. You can tell which bits have been knit from the unravelled pieces but I'm hoping that the first wash will even it out a bit. When I picked up the stitches for the hood instead of stopping just before the front ribbing I accidentally picked up across it and I wasn't picking up 157 stitches all over again so I left it. When it came to sewing in the ends I sewed down the ribbing where it joined so it looks like I've done it properly and I don't think anyone will notice unless they look really hard.

Sorry, it's hard to take a picture of something with a hood...

I used Sirdar Denim Tweed DK for this, it's mainly cotton with a little bit of wool in it, my ex picked it out as obviously I would personally have bought an all cotton yarn or a synthetic. It was a really nice yarn to knit with though and my Mother says she'll be using it to make things for the boys from in the future. I made the 5/6 year size and used 4mm and 3.25mm needles and four balls of yarn so it wasn't too expensive. It fits Jim perfectly at the moment so he should be able to wear it for at least a year. The pattern starts at 1/2 and goes up to 11/12 and has a cardigan version on it as well so I'm sure I'll be making this a few more times for both the boys in the future. Unfortunately I will have to tape the pattern back together as Piggle got hold of it and it's now in three pieces!

So, I'm down to just the shawl out of the long list of things I wanted to get done before the end of the year. I have 22 more rows of the first simple chart to do and then I move onto the more complicated lace but it's not a big proportion of the shawl so I'm confident that I can get it done by my deadline if I keep working on it each day.

I'm now looking for a project that has some simple plain knitting in it as I will be going to 2 knit and chat things soon and I can't count and knit very well at the same time, I always loose my place. Right now I am swatching for the Printed Silk Cardigan from Interweave Knits Spring 2008. I had this cardigan in my list as soon as I got the magazine but couldn't think of a substitution for the yarn and I want to try and knit up some of my stash as I have 2 drawers of it and can't really afford to buy new yarn. Looking on Ravelry I discovered that someone made it out of Rowan 4ply Cotton and I have a ton of that waiting to be knit so I decided that as I need a black cardigan I will use up the bag of black that I have. I'm a little bit short on yardage but I'm hoping that the 42" size doesn't actually use up all the yarn called for in the pattern but should I get right to the end and run out I have the Lucky Clover Wrap Cardigan that I made from the same yarn that I have been intending to rip out ever since I finished it and saw how bad it looked on me so I can always start taking that apart to finish this off.

I am still debating the size to make actually, I am steadily loosing weight at the moment but I think the 38 would be too tight even when I do get to my goal weight, however a 42 seems a little too big (I'm shooting to be a 38/40 inch bust when I'm done dieting) but I guess if I want to wear it over things then it's best to go for the bigger size. I am swatching on 3.25 mm needles at the moment (the pattern calls for 3.75) and it seems to be on gauge so far, the 3.5mm needles I tried with first gave me the wrong gauge in both stitches and rows. The pattern seems like a nice combination of easy stocking stitch with some patterning thrown in at the top of each piece so I'm looking forward to making it and using up a bag of yarn I've had now for probably going on 4 years!

The Groovy Socks are coming along slowly but I'm in no rush to finish them off, they're just to give me something different to knit on when I get bored with the shawl. The shawl will still obviously be my priority but I will take the Printed Silk Cardigan when I go out and work on the stocking stitch sections when I actually want to watch something on tv rather than just glance at it every now and again!

Still no sewing, I was shocked to realise that I've not sewn for 2 weeks now, I just seem to have lost the mojo which is silly when I have so many Christmas presents to make. I'm dyeing some fabric for some pyjamas for me at the moment and I'm hoping that they will give me back my mojo and get me going again as I'm pretty excited at how the fabric is looking in the machine and about having some nice new cozy pyjamas to cuddle up in during the cold weather. I did cut out the Soulmama Gratitude wrap that I'm going to make for my sister, that is the project I really want to get on with first, then there's 2 nightdresses and 2 bags that I want to make for presents as well so I should get going. I do have the advantage this year of not having to deliver presents early or post them as the whole family is coming up here this year so I can sew through until Christmas Eve if I need to, but I'd obviously prefer to get it done sooner than that so I can finish up some other things on the many piles I have made yet again (although I'm not sewing it doesn't seem to stop me from planning sewing and pulling out patterns and fabric...).