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It's been a while since my last yarny pictures. ... right? I have some now though. =)
This evening we will start out with my Coach knock-off scarf.
Recap...
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Chunky in 3 lovely colors, 1 skein each
Pattern: Misty Chunky Ribs & Ruffles, sans ruffles.
Needles: Size 13 Clovers
CO: 27... I think
Finished Length: ~91 inches
I ended up wearing it today. ^_^ While it shed profusely as I knit it, wearing it was a different story. The scarf seemed like it would just explode into millions of separate fibers at the slightest gust of wind, but, it stayed in tact and I have zero alpaca hairs on my sweater. Strange how that works. The scarf itself though is getting a bit fuzzy, but, it still looks good. My biggest worry now is that the ribbing won't hold (alpaca is definitely not the most elastic yarn) and I'll end up with a fairly flat scarf. I guess it would still be pretty cool though.
Overall, this isn't exactly the Coach scarf I saw... although my memories have since clouded over and I swear my exact Coach knock-off was hanging on the rack "on sale" for $200+ at the Coach outlet... Hmm. Yeah, next time the medium brown will be more camel and I'll use cashmere. ^_^ For now, I'm quite satisfied.
My second bit of yarny goodness is my Beau sweater in Malabrigo Olive.
I'm still working on the first piece... the back. The ribbing is actually making it pinch in a lot, which shouldn't be a problem once I block and seam it to the front. I feel like it's taking forever though. I'm almost through 2 balls of Malabrigo and I only purchased 7. Let's hope it's enough.
It becomes more and more difficult for me to work on the sweater. I usually knit at night, in front of my laptop while catching up on my shows... I'll definitely have to blog about my shows 'cause there are A LOT. So, I'll knit a few rows on my sweater as the show starts, and then I'll just put it down and finish the rest of 40 minutes without knitting. I think part of the problem with the sweater is that, me, being the stubborn straight-needle-only knitter that I am decided to pick up the longest needles I could find... and, now they just get in the way. This makes knitting quite the chore. I may have to switch to circulars for the front and see if that makes me knit harder. I'm also still quite worried that my gauge is all off, but, we shall see.
On Ravelry I started a "Malabrigo Junkies" group... I think I mentioned this already. Well, to build community and camaraderie I held a little contest with Malabrigo as prizes. Basically you just had to tell the story of how you met Malabrigo and that entered you into the random drawing. Originally I planned to award the winners with Mmmm from my stash, but, things changed, and I hadn't bought yarn in like over a week so I drove over to Fishbed and purchased some.
This is for the 1st prize winner. One of her favorite colors was hot pink--she mentioned that in in her profile--another great use for Ravelry. I figured Shocking Pink would be a great choice.
For 2nd prize we have a skein of Verde Adriana. It's strange that I ended up choosing colors I've already knit with. ^_^ During my browsing the awesome owner of the Fishbed Knitting mentioned that she had a few more bags of Malabrigo that she had not yet put out (she just moved into a new store). I went through them and came upon this beauty:
Mmm. Whale's Road. A fairly variegated blue. I love it. This was originally going to be the color going to the 1st prize winner... but, I couldn't resist it. Of course, I have no patterns in mind, but, I love it just the same.
Just a few WIP's to share:
That's Branching Out. It's still waiting to be blocked. I had planned to do it tonight, but, I'm feeling a bit lethargic, so, I'll save it for tomorrow. The whole time I was knitting it I had been stretching it out to see that the leaves were fully forming and that I wasn't making mistakes. Without being blocked, it looks pretty decent. I can't wait to see the finished-finished piece though.
Another glimpse of my Coach knock-off. The colors have been growing on me. They remind me of this one ice cream I had. Like... 5 chocolate ice cream or something. It's surprisingly quite long and I'll only need a few more sections in order to complete it. I'm not looking forward to weaving in the ends though. There are a lot of them.
This is my Hemlock Ring Blanket. I'm on row 70 and it's pretty big. The pattern is easy to follow for the most part, but, the endless rounds of plain stockinette are killing me. I haven't switched to brooklyntweed's chart yet. I understand how it works, but, this line-by-line thing is more comfortable for me. And once you do one repeat in the feather/fan section it's pretty easy to memorize.
I feel like I'm just not knitting fast enough. I've hired two friends "r" & "b" to help me out.
r & b are two felt monkeys made by my friend (and knitting student prodigy) Danielle. She hand crafted them for my birthday. ^_^
As you can see, they are quite busy. I have many more rows and endless rounds of stockinette to complete.
I'll leave you with one last image:
That is the current prototype of my DS Lite case pattern. I'm not too fond of the flap so I may have to rethink it. And, originally I planned to use snaps with a non-functional button on top... but, I feel like the constant snapping may damage the DS. I ended up using EZ's after thought buttonhole. She actually asks you to snip a thread in your knitting and unravel it from the middle. It was a mess. Me + knitted items + scissors = disaster. o_O Hopefully I'll come up with a decent flap soon so I can share my pattern with everyone.
I'll need to hire more monkeys to help me with my Christmas knitting.
Knit hard!
The sweater is ALMOST finished. Today I finished basting the neck hem and weaving in all the ends. I gave it a soak with Soak and blocked it. Blocking is magic, it really evened out all my weird stitches and made the fabric lie really flat. Certain aspects of my sweater are a bit scary though.
- The sleeves are too long. Which, isn't too bad, I suppose.
- The bottom edge is flaring out. Even though I put in decreases in the hem it's still flaring out a bit, I think I'll have to run some elastic through the bottom to keep it in check.
- I'm not fond of the shoulders. They're a bit big and oddly shaped. Maybe now that everything is blocked it'll fit me better.
So, now I'm just waiting for it to be dry. I definitely plan to give the hems a good pressing with a hot iron. They're a bit thick and could use some flattening out. I can't wait to start my next one.
Speaking of next one... I hit up Loopy on Thursday with prodigy student Danielle and my cousin Ryan (who I recently taught the basics of knitting). My birthday was September 3rd and my friend Kevin generously gave me a $50 gift certificate to Loopy. It was time to spend it. My first grab was a pair of Lantern Moon needles. I love them. And after more searching there were no yarns that were calling out to me. I decided I'd just grab a hank of Malabrigo (my usual go-to purchase) ... and then I thought to myself, "I have $50 to spend solely on yarn..."
I ended up ditching the needles and buying 7 beautiful skeins of Malabrigo in the Olive colorway. Sweater number two, coming up! =) Pictures of my mountain of Mmm soon. I'm still deliberating on a pattern.
I've been craving the Malabrigo lace. Danielle got a free mini-hank of it from the Malabrigo booth at Stitches Midwest and I've been coveting ever since. I never bought it though because I really have no desire to knit lace... but, I ran into this awesome fan bookmark pattern for crochet a while ago... I decided this would be the perfect project for some lacey Malabrigo. I drove 20 minutes to Wool & Co. Got myself some lace and a tiny crochet hook and I was on my way.
It's in the Polar Morn color way. So soft and delicious. The fan pattern is pretty easy too. I'm totally cranking them out now. Pictures of these will be up soon as well.
Had my first yarn dyeing experience the other day. After the trip to Loopy, Danielle and I spent a few hours knitting. I was working on a bookmark and my Coach knock-off scarf (see below) and she decided to knit a cupcake. She chose yellow for the cake part and white for the frosting. The pattern included a cherry on top but she had no red yarn, so, we decided to dye a bit of the white yarn with food coloring.
Overall it worked. We based it on some of the theory I picked up through reading about knitting. Our process was putting water in a pot and boiling it. Adding plenty of red food coloring and a drop of blue... and then cooking the yarn. After a quick check on-line we realized vinegar was an essential ingredient so we added a splash during cool down. After a good rinse we hung it to dry for like... 10 minutes... Danielle couldn't wait so we ended up taking a blowdryer to it. In another 10 minutes it was completely dry.
Good times.
Here's my Coach knock-off scarf, btw.
The Alpaca is SO soft and great to work with. Sadly, though, the colors just aren't doing it for me. I really wanted the middle brown to be more of a tan or camel color. I guess it works though, and, who can really argue with Misti Alpaca Chunky. SO SOFT!
I'll have to stop myself from starting my 2nd sweater and get to work on Christmas gifts. I've already been getting requests. x_X
I'll have pictures next time of my completed Seamless Hybrid Sweater and the really cool fan bookmarks.
Blocking is magic.
Knit hard!
