An old project, finally finished ... and a new one, too

I spent lots of hours this past weekend on finishing work – if I have to weave in one more yarn end anytime in the next week, I may actually run screaming into the streets! When will I learn to weave in some of those ends along the way, instead of saving all 8000 of them (there were 8000, weren’t there?) until the end? Or maybe learn to spit splice to eliminate some of the ends? Luckily, TCM was running a Paul Newman marathon, so I recorded several movies I’d never seen before. Watching Torn Curtain while I worked made all that weaving quite a bit less painful.

The end result of all those hours of sewing and weaving was two finished sweaters. First, an old project finally done. I started the Urban Aran Cardigan way back in March, and got most of it done within a month or two. But once the weather turned warm, I set is aside for something lighter weight. I picked it up again in September, and finished all of the knitting three or four weeks ago. I kept procrastinating on the finishing, though, because I was intimidated by the zipper.

Most of the sweaters I’ve knit have been pullovers. There have been a couple of button-front cardigans (the Tangled Yoke and Nantucket Jacket), but I never put a zipper into a handknit sweater before. And I was awfully nervous about it. I started obsessing about it almost from the day I first cast on. Should I hand sew it? That might not be strong enough. Machine sew it? All my hours of knitting could get mangled up in the sewing machine.

So I started searching the internet for zipper installation tutorials, and found some really helpful ones. In the end, I followed the instructions here, at Pickin’ and Throwin.’ For anyone about to tackle a zipper, I highly recommend using the Wash-A-Way Wonder Tape she recommends to help position the zipper. That tape made it easy to line up the two front pieces, press them down onto the tape, and then unzip before pinning into place. Then I hand-stitched the zipper, using a backstitch from the wrong side.

So here’s the finished product:

And here are the details:
Pattern: Urban Aran sweater, converted from pullover to cardigan following the example of Brooklyn Tweed.
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky in chestnut. The color of this yarn is gorgeous, much richer than you can see on your computer monitor. I bought 24 skeins (so long ago, I can’t remember how I calculated that amount), and I’ve got a lot left over.
Needles: sizes 10 and 10.5
Zipper: 2-way separating zipper, shortened to fit at the fabric store. The sweater is fairly long, so I wanted to be able to unzip it from the bottom when I sit down.

Now for finished project number 2. This one only took about 9 days from start to finish, because it’s knit in a very bulky yarn, and has no sleeves. Here’s the v-neck slipover from the cover of the new Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine.

I fell in love with this sweater as soon as I saw it. A good friend of mine has been knitting Twinkle patterns lately using the super-bulky Twinkle Soft Chunky yarn, so I was inspired to try something in a heavier weight than I ordinarily use. I love the big cable up the front of this sweater, and the moss stitch shows up beautifully at this gauge. Now I just have to find a very lightweight top to put under it so that I can wear it here in Virginia without overheating.

The details:
Pattern: V-Neck Slipover from Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine, fall/winter 2008-10-14
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Como in gray, 13 balls
Needles: size 13.
Gauge: The pattern calls a gauge of 3 stitches to the inch. I had to go down to a size 11 needle to get gauge, and thought the fabric was too stiff at that gauge. So I used the size 13s, and went down one pattern size to compensate.

A few baby gifts, finally finished

I finally got some baby gifts finished and packaged for shipping. For some reason, these projects having taken me ages to get finished. First, there are two pinwheel blankets:













































These are knit from the pinwheel blanket pattern in the book knitalong. The yarn is superwash merino from Tess' Designer Yarns.


And this little Baby Surprise Jacket has been 98% finished for months -- all I needed to do was to sew up the seams at the tops of the arms, and add buttons. The baby it was originally intended for has probably long since outgrown it, but luckily there's a new baby in the family that I'm going to give it to. Maybe I should stick with blankets, since they can't be outgrown?!

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (and socks)

I spent several hours on Saturday at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This was only my second time there, but since last year I've taken up both spinning and sock knitting, which are reflected in the day's purchases. I left home early to be sure I'd arrive by the 9 a.m. opening. That's because I wanted to join the sock yarn madness by getting in line at The Fold to buy Socks That Rock. I got in line around 8:35, with maybe about 20 people there ahead of me. The wait was pleasant enough, though -- I worked on a sock, and chatted with the other knitters. I even got a gift -- I admired a sheep pin that a woman behind me was wearing, and she pulled out a bag and gave me one!

Once I joined the crush inside the booth, I managed to squeeze my way back out with these, in Little Bunny Foo Foo, Waterlilies, Mystic Kelp, and Henpecked:



It was only about 9:15 at that point, so I raced off to see if I could get some Koigu, too, but it turned out the Koigu folks hadn’t made it to the festival after all. Since I didn’t have another crazy sock yarn line to stand in, I just started wandering around to check out all the other vendors. By the time it was over, I had acquired all these goodies:


Bamboo knitting needles with glass tops, from Sheila and Michael Ernst; one fat skein from Seacolors, for a felted bag; and baby alpaca from The Fibre Company.


Terra yarn from The Fibre Company, at a great price; a case for circular needles; and some gorgeous glass buttons from Moving Mud. I plan to design a felted bag around the big blue and gold one. No idea yet what the others are for, though.





Lots of gorgeous, fluffy fleece from Grafton Fibers. This should keep my spindle going until next year’s festival!



And while I was photographing all my goodies from the Festival, I finally got around to getting a picture of the socks I finished last weekend.




Pattern From Sensational Knitted Socks, beaded rib stitch, knit toe-up.
Lorna’s Laces in the Gold Hill colorway, on size 0 needles

EZ Baby Surprise Jacket

I've spent the past week working on an Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket, for a cousin's baby shower. I knit like a maniac for days because I couldn't wait to see how this ingenious design was going to work. The sweater is knit entirely in garter stitch, in one flat piece. The finished knitting looks like this:


A little bit of folding, and it starts to look like a garment:



Fold a bit more, sew up the shoulder seams, and you get this adorable sweater:



I'll definitely be making more of these.

Pattern: Babies Garter-Stitch Surprise Jacket, from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop.
Yarn: Socks that Rock heavyweight superwash merino in the Barney Rubble colorway, 7 oz/350 yds. The sweater used all but a few yards of the skein. This yarn was a great choice for a baby garment -- beautiful colors, very soft, and machine washable.
Gauge: 5 sts per inch on size 6 needles.
Modifications: My only variation was using a slightly heavier yarn than the pattern called for, 5 sts per inch instead of 6. This first time around, I couldn't envision the finished product enough to even think about changing it. Next time, though, I think I'll put the buttonholes one ridge closer to the edge of the jacket.

Shetland Triangle Shawl

Well, here it is -- my first post on my new blog! A couple of people on the Knitty Coffeeshop responded to my posts about this shawl by asking to see photos, and this seemed like as good a way as any to make them available. I'll post more later as I figure out how to use Blogger, but for now, here's the shawl:




Shetland Triangle Shawl, from Wrap Style.
Knitted in Alchemy Synchronicity yarn, Foxglove colorway, on size 7 Addi Turbos.

I followed the example of another blogger by using a heavier yarn than the pattern called for, and by eliminating rows 13 and 14 of the edge pattern to make the scalloped edge less pointy.

I really enjoyed making this shawl. The yarn is the softest I've ever used -- 50% merino and 50% silk. These photos don't do justice to the color, which is a rich, purple-red that reminds me of the color of red onions. The curving leaf-shaped design looks complicated, but the pattern was simpler to memorize than I expected. I finished the shawl in under a week. And while I was excited to see the finished product, I was a bit sorry to be finished with it. I may make another, maybe larger, in a different yarn. Maybe just a different color of the same luscious yarn.