Two months later...

When last we heard from our intrepid crafter she had just completed a pair of plain socks and was planning to knit a sweater using some yarn she got for Christmas. Since then nearly two months have passed (and let the record show that one of those months was a short month) with nary a peep. But while the blogging went unwritten, knitting and spinning continued apace (though perhaps at a slower pace than desired.)

The sweater did get designed and knit, though it was in March rather than in February. There will eventually be a full reveal, but for now this small detail will have to suffice:
There was also most of a sock completed and some spinning on both spindles and wheel. All of the above sadly went unblogged.

Here on the eve of a new month blogging will resume. Projects past and present will get their fair airing. First person will supplant third and all will be well. But only after a good night's sleep.

Letting the yarn do the work

A couple of weeks ago my fellow Tuesday coffee knitter was working on some plain socks using one of the more complicated self-striping sock yarns. The socks looked great and she was really enjoying seeing what the yarn would throw at her next. I was intrigued so on my next trip to the LYS I picked up a ball of Trekking XXL that looked like it would produce interesting stripes.

The plan was to knit up a pair of plain socks, but I'll admit that until they were well underway I was still considering something more complicated. Since I intended these socks to be a gift for someone I haven't knit socks for before I was a bit worried about fit. I didn't feel like taking the time to knit a full pair of socks in a ribbing pattern but I was seriously considering knitting yet another pair of Monkey socks. I find that the Monkey socks behave a lot like ribbed socks and make for a more forgiving fit.

In the end I managed to convince myself that, since I had bought yarn that had a lot of visual interest on its own, any stitch pattern would be lost and might detract from the yarn itself. I stuck to knitting a plain 64 stitch sock, top down, with gusset heels:

I really enjoyed sitting back and letting the yarn do its thing. I cast on for these last Tuesday and they were finished Saturday, so they were also a very quick knit. Now I just need to put these somewhere safe until their intended recipient's birthday comes along in early May.

Now I just need to find something to work on during tomorrow's coffee and knitting get-together...

A month in review

Here we are already at the end of January and since I just finished a knitting project this seems like a really good time to cover what I was up to this month. After all of my Christmas knitting I found myself somewhat unmotivated in the knitting department. I spent much of what would otherwise have been knitting time at the start of the month reading a couple of novels. I also read through a copy of "Respect the Spindle" that I was lucky enough to get for Christmas and a copy of "Reversible Knitting" that I bought with a gift certificate that I also got for Christmas.

For Christmas I had also asked for and received a couple of balls of lovely "Shepherd's Own" undyed brown worsted weight wool. I had planned to make a hat and gloves to go with a brown coat that I rarely have the chance to wear. This plan changed when I realized that I could get another 4 balls with a gift certificate I was given. This means that I now have enough yarn to knit myself a sweater and I fully intend to get this sweater knit in the coming month.

On top of reading and shopping I did some more spinning from fleece samples handed out at the guild meeting. I also worked on spinning up some merino on my drop spindles. I am currently plying up the results and reminding myself of why I usually opt to do my plying on the wheel (it is a bit slow and mindless).

Even though I spent much of my time reading and spinning, I did start a knitting project so that I would have something to work away at during my regular knitting and coffee Tuesday nights. I've had a pair of balls of Trekking xxl yarn floating around in my stash waiting for me to turn them into knee socks. I was originally planning on knitting something quite complicated but then I realized that a plain pair would get more wear and fit better with my current wardrobe.
I cast on the second Tuesday of the month and was ready to start the second sock the next week. Sadly the second ball of yarn chose to disappear for a week, which meant that I only got started on the second sock last week. They are done now:


This was a nice mostly mindless project and my fingers really took to the knitting after their early month break. Despite their size they were a remarkably quick and easy knit. I'm looking forward to wearing them with skirts come spring. I might even wear them with shoes.

St. Distaffs Day

January 7th is St Distaff day, a.k.a. the 'Christmas is over now get back to work' day. Most years I only realize this after the fact as I am reading all of the blog posts about spinning . This year mine will be one of those blog posts.
Unless I am much mistaken there is a spinning guild meeting tonight, which seems a perfect way to celebrate the day. My spindle is packed and ready to go. The last meeting I went to, back at the beginning of November we were given samples of fleece to spin up. I have completed this task and now have a nice little collection of skeins:
Well, time is up and I actually have to get to work. Have a nice St Distaff's day everyone.

Christmas hats and a list

I've shown off the completed Christmas sweater but not the hats I was making. The first hat is the green fish hat, last seen missing only its eyes. The second hat is an off the cuff smaller version of the fish hat that I knit when I realized that I still had nothing to give my baby nephew, whom I was going to see the next day. The bodies of both fish are made of handspun yarn and the mouths, fins and tails are Briggs & Little Softspun. I couldn't be happier with how these hats turned out:

Since it is New Year's eve, I had a look at Ravelry to see what projects I finished this year. I'm quite pleased with just how many things I've knit:
1 baby blanket
1 skirt
1 scarf
1 shawl
1 pair of gloves (still unblogged)
1 pair of mitts
5 hats (two of which were for a baby)
7 sweaters (two of which for babies, and 4 of which were for me)
14 pairs of socks (5 of which were ankle socks)

Only three of these projects were started before the beginning of the year, the rest were started and completed in 2009. I'm also happy to say that 11 projects used yarn I made.

I've very pleased with this tally. With all of the upheaval that occurred this year I can't say that my knitting has really suffered. With tonight's forecast of -33 degree weather, I'm really thankful to be going into the new year with a lot of knitted wool clothes.

The sweater story

Christmas preparations (knitting and other) prevented me from blogging as promised but I've finally found some time so here it goes. The last time I really talked about my Christmas sweater progress I was working on the shoulder area and I had a ball and a half left. It turned out that this was not enough yarn to finish the shoulder area even after I ripped out my gauge swatch and knit it into the sweater.

I still had a couple of balls of the brown yarn left so I decided to use some of the orange yarn from the body and make up the length by making the brown stripe wider. To do this I could have ripped all the way back and reknit the body with more brown and less orange. I probably had enough time to do this but I would have had to guess just how much yarn to leave for the shoulders and I would have had to reknit the whole top intarsia section. Instead I decided to cut the sweater in half.
I put the bottom section of the sweater on spare needles and I spliced the end of yarn from the bottom of the top section to my working yarn at the shoulders. I then knit the shoulders out of yarn that was unraveling from the middle of the sweater.

Once the top of the sweater was completed I put the loose stitches on another needle and then I used kitchener stitch to reattach the top and bottom of the sweater.

I'm not sure that it is clear from the picture, but the body was now a good 3 inches shorter than it needed to be. I had planned for this (though I was surprised that it at up quite so much length). My next move was to cut the brown section in half and knit another 3 inches into it. Of course this had to be done once for the front and once for the back because the brown section was knit back and forth to allow for the intarsia. Having knit the extra 3 inches I once again kitchener stitched the sweater back together.

Finally I sewed up my side and underarm seams and tucked in a whole lot of ends. Here is the result modeled by its recipient:
It fits and he's happy with it. Hurray.

I think that this sweater may deserve an award for most seams in a 'seamless' sweater design.

Made it

The sweater is finished. I promise to write about the whole thing tomorrow, with lots of pictures. Now I just need to knit two hats.