Remember the striped sweater I am knitting? Progress has been slow because my day job is a lot of work, but when is it not? Also, I’m reluctant to work on it on the commute because the yarn is a really special hand-dyed 100% Merino and I don’t want to spill my morning coffee on it or something.
Well, the back side is fully done, and so is the part below the armholes because it was knit in the round. Have a look.
knitting
Now that is what I have been doing, This is the sweater I tested for Mona NicLeòid, as you see, the buttons at the neck are still missing and my photographer was less than competent. In real life, the colours are much warmer.
I did a few modifications, for Example I botched one pattern in the front yoke. Also, I mad the neck band wider and introduced decreases to make it lie flat.
One of the reasons I don’t get to stitch these days is that I’m knitting like mad. I’ve done socks for a gazillion of people for christmass and tested a few patterns for designers. I did two fingering weight sweaters between Christmass and end of March! So I give in and post about boring knitting when I have nothing else to post about.
Now I’m knitting another fingering weight sweater, 286 stitches in the round this time. This is my own design, or let’s better say no design. I’m curious how it’ll turn out.
The wool for this sweater was on special offer, I bought it almost 4 years ago, and have been working on it on and off for about a year. I couldn’t find a design that fits the bulky, hairy yarn and my petite figure, so I swatched and designed until I thought I knew what to do. Today I finally finished it. I love the colours and the sweater. It took so long because I didn’t want to work on it on the commute, because the yarn is hand-washing only and the pattern complicated.
This is the pattern close up. It is an old pattern, called grape vine, trees (where I live) or print o’ the waves.
The only problem: the sweater doesn’t fit me. At all. That’s what the title of the posting is about. It looks actually worse on me than the photograph suggests. I’m small and skinny, so overly big and bulky sweaters do not exactly look flattering on me.
The stuff is really hairy and has a lot of wool and mohair, frogging it would ruin the yarn. So I’ll probably sell or gift it, although it’s breaking my heart.
And now that I’m on vacation, I actually find time to photograph and post a few of my knitted things. I’ll show more over the next few days.
This is a little bag I made. It was inspired by seeing the leaf pattern on a cowl I didn’t want to make. I know the thing is lacking a drawstring – I’ll buy some satin band as soon as i get round to it.
I quite like the improvised pattern and may actually write it up for download, but I want some braid between the seed stitches and the rest of the bag. I will have to test knit that before publishing.
the empty bag:
The same, filled with a pack of tarot cards (which is what I knit it for):
Once more, from a weird angle:
And a closeup of the pattern:
Would that be something you might knit?
I just keep doing what I do…
This time, I’m knitting no socks but a fingerless mitts/scharf set. The are “Merletto” pattern from ravelry.com. The scharf is an improvised bias knit triangle with the merletto pattern. Maybe more on that when it’s finished. I want something that keeps me warm but is not looking like i’m wrapping myself for deepest winter.
Last weekend would have been sketch crawl. I had family visiting and was exhausted from a hard week at work, so I didn’t make it there. I did a little sketch anyway. It is a charcoal sketch illuminated with watercolours. I realized again how much I love natural chacoal. I will have to do more of that.
Yes, I’m still busy knitting socks. The first one of my paraphernalia is done. This is a free pattern from ravelry.com with minor modifications. I added the colours because I had wool leftovers to get rid of. I also ignored their toe instructions and did them as I always do them.
I also have started a new project. This one is my own pattern. I’m thinking about preparing this one for public release, but you know how notorically bad I am about seeing such projects through to the end. These days I’m proud of myself if I finish any craft project at all.
I also have been painting a bit this weekend, but that will be for another post.
I love knittting socks, and I’ve done a lot of them over the last year. So I show you socks today.
The first picture shows the heap of baby/young child socks I have done during winter. Most went to aquaintances or coworkers who got new babies.
These two pairs of socks were knit for the newborn of a coworker. I hope they keep the little one warm. Pink is the mother’s favourite colour, and she told us upfront it was going to be a girl.
This is the heap of baby/child socks I knit the last two or three months. Again for relatives and aquaitances with little ones.
This is the first sock on one of the pairs for me I currently work on. The safety pin holds a lost stitch which I will secure when the sock is done. I only saw the lost stitch a few row above it so I fudged a new one instead of working this one up through the cables. I’m not going into all the other adult socks I knit because you want only so many pics in one posting.
I’m sorry for the long blogging break. I’m especially sorry if I scared anybody. I’m reasonably well, but life kept getting in the way. Also, my bad shoulder has somewhat healed and now that I can do it again I’m absolutely, totally addicted to knitting. If you are on ravelry.com, search for tenar72 there.
Still, I’m missing the blogging world and want to be back. Maybe never as regular as before, but I’ll try. And I won’t preasure myself to do things I don’t feel like just for the sake of blogging about them, so it may well be some time until there’s stitching again. But there will be.
For now, just some random pics about what’s on my needles.
These random parts will be a frog one day. Note to self: knitted amigurumi are not the right project for learning short rows and kitchener stitch. There’s just too much of it, and it’s my first time doing both.
The next is an arm of the sweater I’m currently knitting. Yes, my camera is out of order again, so no better pics.
Two pairs on baby socks. there are more socks in the works, so I guess you’ll see a sock special here soon.
So I have decided to start my new knitting project. I am using the diamond pattern from last wednesday’s post in 3 repeats and a few rows knit/purl pattern at the sides.
This is how far I’ve got. I’m using 4,5 mm knitpro needles and regia silk socks wool, which is fingering weight.
What do you think, will this be wearable?
A closeup of the pattern:
Tenar's cave 