hats and mitts and WIPs, oh my

I need to set one day as my blog posting day and just talk about whatever it is I'm doing, otherwise I think I just posted and then it's been more than two weeks since my last real post! Oops.

Anyway, after my last post I knit one more Oh, Honey hat (Ravelry details), this time out of Calmer. I got some Rowan Cashcotton to make one for Christy by request, and then I appear to be done with the hats. I seem to get addicted to patterns and just have to knit them a certain number of times to get them out of my system, more on that later.

oh, honey, calmer

After the hat I had some secret knitting going on. I decided to knit Cookie something for her birthday. I started with a hat (Ravelry details) but that was done too fast so I picked out a gauntlet pattern that kind of went with the hat (Ravelry details) but then I was totally powerless to stop myself from knitting a pair for me (Ravelry details).

cookie!

I'm modelling Cookie's pair in the first picture of the gauntlets there, I only knit myself one pair. I find it baffling though, I tend to fall for these patterns. Granted, usually it's small, instant gratification patterns like, oh, say, bunnies, or dish cloths, hats or gauntlets. I just knit and knit and knit until I feel done. I wonder what that says about me, and if it's something good or that I'm a crazy person. I think I don't want to know.

In WIP news, I'm still working on Niels striped cabled sweater. I'm on the second sleeve, so I have to knit that, the hood and then the sewing up begins. Oh, and the ends. I'm not sure it will be done by Christmas. I'm fairly sure it will not, which is probably for the best because then I'd feel bad that I didn't make something for Stefan.

I started Rogue for my mom. It was secret there for a little while, but then I had her try it on, which was good! It was too small. Darnit. I had measured her and decided on a size but then talked myself into knitting one size down. I think I wanted to get it done faster. Ah well. I ripped it out last Thursday and cast on again. I haven't gotten very far. I have until the end of January if I want to have it done for her birthday.

Before that, I have a baby shower to attend and I want to knit an Avery sweater. Two actually, because she's having twins. Maybe I should stick with the bunnies and give her the sweaters after the babies are born since I plan to make them the right size for the fall or so, and these two are due in March. We'll see.

I have a lot on my plate! Wish me luck!

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wearing rogue

We went up to the mountains for a few days this week to play in the snow. It was fairly warm, in the high 40s, low 50s and I was very comfortable in just Rogue over my long-sleeved shirt. It is surprisingly warm. I don't know if it's the thickness of the yarn or the acrylic content or what, but it's quite comfy.

I did have one problem with it, some of the backstitching on the zipper got caught on the edge of a counter or something and has been pulled out. I also realized that I should have backstitched at the edge away from the zipper rather than right next to it. I'm going to redo the backstitching and take out the old. I'm tempted to redo the whole thing because the edge of the sweater doesn't quite cover the bottom of the zipper but that is just too painful to contemplate.

With all the wear I got out of it, there aren't any pictures of me in it. Ah well!

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Rogue sweater captured

Rogue Mosiac

Rogue is done! I am very excited. It fits very well, it's not longer in the back, like most sweaters I wear. Also, it's actually fairly warm considering that it's cotton. My mom asked me to make one for her and said that she'd sew in the zipper so I might just do that. Not immediately, though. Thanks to Cookie, I have plenty of All Season Cotton to knit one for her.

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blocking and swatching

Rogue is blocking away peacefully on my dining room table. I am excited by every step of this project. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because I think it is turning out so well and I am thrilled to see it coming together. Tomorrow: seaming! After that, a finished object picture (or two) of Rogue and then I promise to stop posting pictures of it.

As you can see, since I can't work on Rogue, I've started something new. I swatched for the cover sweater of the Spring 07 Interweave Knits. I'm using Soy Silk from my ill-fated top-down cardigan. Ugh, what a disaster that was. I'm hoping that the good sweater knitting mojo from Rogue carries over to this sweater. I will definitely leave off the ruffle and make the sleeves longer. The woman at the Interweave booth at Stitches said she thought it would be nice with 3/4 length sleeves when she was showing me the actual sweater. I think she's right. I will also hopefully make the sleeves not poofy, if I can figure out how to do that.

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rogue knitting done

Rogue hood

I have finished the knitting portion of my Rogue. I ended up ripping back the 30 rows and fixing the mis-crossed cable. I'm glad I did. It would have made me nuts otherwise. I need to weave in some of the ends (I want to weave all that I can into the seams) and fix the hem on the one sleeve before I block it to seam and sew in the zipper. I may actually be able to take this with me to the mountains next week!

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stitches west and rogue drama

I went to Stitches West yesterday. I had orginally thought of taking a market session or two but instead I just walked around the market, bought a few things and hung out with my knitting friends. Oh, and knitted, of course. I had to go back to my car after about an hour of being there and get my magic homeopathic allergy medicine. Being around all that wool was making my throat hurt. I don't remember having that problem last year which seems like a bad sign to me. My allergy is getting worse! Feh.

In any case, here's what I got:

Stitches Purchases

I didn't get Rogue finished to wear at Stitches. It's probably fine because I wore my cotton clapotis and ended up leaving it in my car when I picked up the medicine because I was so warm. I am very close to being finished with Rogue… but… there has been a mistake. Can you spot it?

mistakes were made

I have been thinking about how I am going ot fix it. I remembered the Yarn Harlot's post about mis-crossed cables and went right there today. Unfortunately there is far too much complexity going on above the cable to drop back the stitches and fix it. I considered her duplicate stitch fix but I feel fairly certain that if I do that, I'll never be happy with it. I'm going to rip back. The mistake was on row 53 43 and I'm currently on row 74 so it's only 20 30 rows. (Yes, only, don't tell me that's a lot, I'm trying to be positive! On second thought, that's a lot of rows. I bit the bullet and ripped back though.) At least this didn't happen two days ago when I still thought I was going to meet my deadline.

There is one more fix that I need to do before I sew the sleeves on. When I knit the first sleeve I left the provisionally cast-on stitches at the bottom and sewed them down. I also didn't really pay attention to how many rows there were when I started the second one. For the second one I knit the provisionally cast-on stitches together with one of the rows and I did fewer because I wanted a less bulky seam. When I posted the picture of the two sleeves one of my eagle-eyed readers asked me if I did the hems differently so I went back and looked at them and now it's really obvious to me that one is bigger than the other. See:

the rogue sleeves are taking over!

The one on the right has the smaller hem. So I need to pick out the sewn down hem on the first one. Of course, I was trying to be clever and also wove the end back in. That's what I get for being clever, eh? 

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rogue home stretch

I love that at this point I can actually put Rogue on. The sleeves are still not attached and I just picked up for the hood (after I took the pictures) but I can put it on easily and see that it's going to fit. This may be a turning point in my sweater knitting: the first sweater I've knit for myself that I've completed because it actually fit in progress!

The only bad news is that I'm fairly certain it won't be wearable in public by this weekend for Stitches. I had given up on having the zipper in but at this point it seems unlikely that I will even get the hood knitted and the sleeves sewn in. I certainly won't if I sit here and write about it rather than knitting!

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rogue progress

I have completed the cable section on the side of the body, added short rows to the bust and am currently working up the back to the shoulders. I hope to finish that section tonight so I can start working on the fronts and hood. I am getting there but I doubt I will be done by Stitches at this point. Fooey.

Rogue Progress

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rogue sleeve

I have finished the first sleeve of my rogue sweater. I am really pleased with the hem in particular.

rogue sleeve

I am working on the second sleeve and have decided to knit the hem together with the sixth row rather than sewing it down afterwards but I messed up somewhere and don't have enough stitches in one of my cable sections so now I have to rip back where I already knit it together. Boy is that a pain. I think it will be worth it in the end though.

I hope.

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