sweater problems

I posted about my breezy cardigan in progress last year on November 3. As you can see, I have made almost no progress since then!

looks just like last year’s shot!

The problem is that i think the sleeve is too big. I knit a whole sleeve and didn’t like it and ripped back but I’m not sure it’s making any improvement.

bunch sleeve?

Then again, the store bought hoodies I wear aren’t exactly form-fitting either.

same problem, different sleeve

So maybe it is not so bad and I can just just keep knitting? That is the plan I am going with for now. The body of this sweater is just so much knitting. I can’t face frogging the whole thing and starting again. It’s an open, loose cardigan, it doesn’t matter if it has loose fitting sleeves as well.

Right?

(Please say right.)

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blocking

I finished my Curls shawl/scarf! It is not as big as I was hoping but it’s knit, ends woven in and is currently blocking.

I guess now that I’m done knitting this, I need to figure out what to do with my sweater sleeve issue. Darn, I was hoping to continue to stick my head in the sand about that one.

current WIPs

As promised, here are my two current WIPs. First up is a Breezy Cardigan in ArtFibers Chutney.

Ravelry Project Page

I bought a sweater quantity of this yarn a while back and started another project with it but gave up on that one. It’s a top down wrap cardigan. I ‘m a little stuck because I knit most of one of the sleeves but it was too loose and I’m not sure how I can make the sleeve more snug when the number of stitches I start with is kind of set. If I decrease too fast it will end up poofy on the top. It’s a conundrum.

I had been working on the sweater pretty faithfully but I was going to travel by plane and I wanted to have a smaller project to bring a long, so I started a Deceit from the Curls book. This one is knit in ArtFibers Ginko.

Ravelry Project Page

This yarn must have been an end cone from ArtFibers because it randomly had 338 yards. The Curls book has these triangle scarves that you knit to any size you like. The increases are all on one side so it causes the edge to curl, hence the name. I am getting close to the end and I hope it blocks out a bit larger so that I can actually wear it when it is done!

There are, of course, other WIPs on my project page, but it might be time to make some decisions about those projects. We’ll see if I do, or if I just keep knitting what I have and starting new projects.

2013 FO Round-up and a 2014 FO

In 2103, I finished 16 knitted, crocheted, and knotted projects. My conic sweater has no photo so it is not pictured below. I should remedy that.

I guess this is about my speed these days, since it’s almost exactly what I made last year. Although, some of these photos are of more than one thing. For example:

I made two bunnies and I organized, knit part of, and sewed up part of the blanket under the bunnies in this photo.

This photo is of two but I made five of these crocheted jar covers.

I only made one of these, but look how cool it looks with a color-changing LED candle in it…

I skipped calculating my stash total last year but here is this year’s: as of today I have 74,438 yards, or 42 miles of yarn. That is only (“only”) 3,000 more yards than at the end of 2011. I do have a confession that I went to ArtFibers for one last hurrah and came home with 700 yards of Tantra and about 340 yards of Ginko.

Aren’t they gorgeous? Lucky for my wallet they did not have sweater quantities of the yarn I wanted to use to make a sweater in a color that I thought would be good on me. Whew.

Moving on…

My most recent FO is not knitting but cross stitch.

I got the kit from Alicia Watkins on Etsy. It is so cute and was so much fun to do that I want to make all of her patterns now. I should mount this finished piece, frame it, and figure out where to put it before I do anything else, though.

Really, I should be knitting one of the projects on my needles. I might be time to cut my losses with a couple of projects and frog them. I have one sweater that I think is going to have to be totally rethought. At least the yarn won’t just sit in my stash that way.

Stitches 2013!

It’s that time again, the time when a knitter’s heart turns to thoughts of yarn. Okay, a knitter’s heart never strays far from thoughts of yarn but we’re even more obsessive when Stitches comes around. Last year I said that Stitches was going to be my only yarn purchases. It wasn’t, of course, but maybe I can stick to that this year. No promises, though.

That said, let me show you what I did get. First, I ran to the Southern Yarn booth to buy Signature Needles.

Her booth was full of nonwool yarns but none of it caught my eye. My rules for shopping were that I could only spend the cash that I brought and that I had to love what I bought. I already love these needles. I got a set of 7s two years ago and sometimes knit projects just because they can be made on those needles. They really are wonderful.

Then I visited the ArtFibers booth and discovered that they now have recycled cotton denim yarn.

This red one had to come home with me. I think I already know what to make with it and it can be made on one of my pairs of new needles, so that’s a plus.

I also succumbed to a skein of RedFish’s new sport weight Silk Floss.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice. It’s very pretty. I am looking forward to knitting with it.

I was hoping that A Verb For Keeping Warm would have Paso Dolce chocolates again. They didn’t but they did have tiny Tcho samplers.

Love Tcho chocolate. The other item pictured above is my door prize! It’s a travel pack from Bar Maids: a cuticle stick, lip balm, and lotion bar. They are yummy and lanolin-free. I am so pleased that I finally won a prize! Maybe this means it’s my year for the grand prize.

In other news, I finished a cowl. It’s the Abby cowl from KnittySpin a couple of years ago.

I love how light but still warm the silk lace yarn feels. Again, I don’t love the color. It is the other half of the hank of silk I used to make the Annis which I ended up giving to Teenuh. She has hinted that she’d take this off my hands too. First I want to take it back to Stitches and show it to owner of RedFish Dyeworks, since it is her yarn. She said she’d love to see it.

Yes, that does mean I plan to go back to Stitches. I still have some of my cash left and if I want to win the grand prize I have to be there, right?

quest for infinity

I know I mentioned it at least once or twice, but I have been wanting to knit Lara Chau’s Dipped Infinity Scarf pattern. Sunshine Yarns was selling gorgeous kits at Stitches but they were all wool sock yarn. I searched at Stitches and then quite a lot online afterward without much success. Finally, I realized that the best solution was a silk or bamboo yarn from ArtFibers. Not only did some of their yarns come in at least 12 colors but they sell it by whatever yardage you like, so I could buy 130 yds of 8 colors without having to break the bank or end up with enough yarn for two or three of these. These past weekend I finally made my excusion to ArtFibers, with much success!

a reference photo so I could remember the color order

If you’ve never been to ArtFibers, it’s a pretty incredible place. All their yarns are house brands and you are free to sit and swatch. So I did. For about an hour!

swatched!

The swatching was useful because the colors I thought would work at first, didn’t. I will not be knitting them in exactly that order and there are two colors on that swatch I’m not using, but it’s more or less the colors.

what I took home

As you can see, the cones I took home were a lot smaller than a full cone, in case anyone freaks out from that first photo. I cast on all 252 stitches last night and am almost around the first row (I had a busy day with no knitting time, really). I am looking forward to knitting this up! I think it will be lovely. I suspect that it’ll be 90 degrees when I’m done though.