Cattywampus

And one more for the road

So, here I go and tell you that I'm thinking about bailing on my blog, and now all of a sudden I have all this fun stuff to show you!  Maybe I just went through a slump in the early summer...knitting doesn't seem to be on the top of my mind when I know that temps below 90 are too far away to contemplate, but now with fall right around the corner (the weather at least) I am picking up speed.

This is the Inversion Gansey, to be honest, I had NO IDEA what was going to happen with this when I finished it.  I figured it could go either way, a total winner or an OMG I want my 60 hours back.  This pattern was seriously complicated.  Seriously.  It had cables and lace, a gussett, two different sections of increases and decreases in the body, saddle shoulders, and a seriously wide boatneck that I think I successfully thwarted.

I had a hard time getting into this one because it was so complicated, I had started it thinking it would be TV knitting, a bit of entertainment, but mostly stockinette and it just didn't work out that way in reality.  

Mods:  Instead of leaving live stitches on the front and back which would have had me with over 140 stitches for the collar, I bound off and then picked up at a 2:3 ratio, giving me 110 st.  I did this because the FOs on Rav looked sort of off-the-shoulder, not a look I favor, and HOORAY! it worked out for me.  It's still really wide in the neck, but I think it will stay on my shoulders, so it'll be fine with a cami.

I am excited to see how this yarn wears, it is Ella Rae Merino Heather, and it is SOFT.  I usually need any undershirt even with most merino yarns, but this feels like cotton on my skin, so soft and smooth!  Maybe it's the cable construction...I'm not sure, but I'll definitely be using it again if it wears well.

Bottom line, I guess I would recommend the pattern, obviously it worked out fine, I'm just not a fan of following blindly along and hoping things work out for the best, but if you want to knit it, be aware that it is not an easy knit!

I have one more sweater 2/3 done...a bit more persistance and I'll have to show you soon!

It's all about lace

For some reason, the fall brings with it thoughts of lace, maybe it's the idea of wrapping oneself in lovely warm shawls, whatever it is, this book was timely for me.

I received a review copy of Wendy Knits Lace, and there are some really sweet things in this book.  

This book would be good for someone who is ready to jump into lace and wants some options, some mitts with a touch of lace, a sweater with a bit (or a lot) of lace on it, or ultimately a full-on lace shawl.  There is a bit of instruction in it, but it is not a how to knit lace book.  I think an intermediate knitter could use this book as an introduction to lace, but it isn't in depth.

Of course, it would also be great for an experienced knitter if you simply love one or more of the patterns.  Personally, I love this one. 

 

Isn't that just luscious?  Delicate and summery, the perfect addition to a summer dress for the evening.  Gorgeous.

If you're feeling a bit more wintery...

A pair of pretty gloves that are dainty and feminine, but ultimately practical and warm.

Or of course, a lovely shawl

There are quite a few of these, both stole and traditional triangular shapes.

Take a gander at all the patterns in Ravelry and see if this is one that needs to go on your holiday wishlist!

Moving on

I recently finished this quilt top.  It took me 3 years.

Not three years to actually sew it, but 3 years after cutting it out to get to the act of sewing it together.

And can I tell you one thing?  I hated every minute of it.

It's lovely, I can see why people make these quilts, but I really, really didn't enjoy doing it.  And if by "really, really didn't enjoy" you have interpreted to mean "I considered cutting it up into teeny tiny peices and/or setting it on fire because its evil was overtaking my life", then you are right on point.

I HAD to finish it though.  This is where stubborness can be either a boon or a curse.  A more sane person would have just given up and given it away to someone who would enjoy doing it, but not me, oh no, I will not be defeated by mere fabric!

So, there it is.

If you're wondering what was so awful about it, I'll tell you:  I hated the triangles, I hated that the seams had to be ironed open instead of to one side, I hated that when I was sewing it together I had to keep checking that everything was in the right order, I hated the small cutting errors that prevent it all from being exact, I hate that it doesn't have any straight lines, I hate that it isn't symmetrical.  Mostly though, it's the triangles, the ironing, and the matching things up and how timeconsuming all those things were.  I currently hate that there is some odd sewing issue going on in the middle that makes one side pull in and I don't know HOW I'm going to quilt that out.

For those of you who sew, I know you'll know what I mean by all that, and those of you who don't, I'm sure you get the gist.

It's done and I'm moving on.  Once it's quilted I will put it in the bottom of a drawer somewhere and hope that when I take it out in 6 months to a year I will have forgotten how angry it made me and just be able to appreciate the fact that it really is quite pretty.

Oh - does anyone want a One Block Wonder book?  I will HAPPILY donate mine if anyone out there wants to give this a try.  I will definitely not be making another one of these.

Stashdown

I am still working on my stashdown this year.  It's a good thing I didn't try to go cold turkey because that NEVER would have worked.  Forcing myself to use anything less than the perfect yarn for a project (aka something from my stash instead of whatever yarn I think is best) would have made me a very unhappy knitter.

So far, I have knitted approximately 11000 yards, sold approximately 13000 yards, and purchased approximately 15000 yards.  So, I am more on a 2:1.6 ratio than a 2:1 ratio, but the key is that I am still ahead and I'm not going to beat myself up over it.  As long as more yarn went out than in, I am happy.  This was the first year I was trying to do this and I have learned a great deal about my purchasing habits that I can hopefully use to curb those same habits in the future.

1.  As we all do, sometimes I impulse purchase because yarn is a "good deal" on sale, bulk discount, etc.  Sometimes this is worth it, and sometimes it's not, I need to be much more discriminate about these purchases.

2. Sometimes I stop at the yarn store because I have had a really bad day or week and I just need a pick-me-up.  If I restrict this to physically going to my LYS and don't do this online, I think this is okay every once in a while.  I'm only human!

3.  If I feel like I need to shop, I can spend an hour or two shopping online, putting things in various carts and baskets, and know that if I want to buy them later, I can.  It's the act of selecting that fills the immediate desire to shop (this MUST be part of the gatherer instinct), I don't have to go through with it to "take the edge off".

4. If I buy yarn to make a particular project but then can't get gauge or my passion for it fades, I should just go ahead and sell the yarn on Ravelry instead of waiting for the next "perfect project" to use it for.  Somehow I associate the failure of the first project with the yarn and steer away from it for future projects.

5. Some yarns, like Brooks Farm, Lisa Souza, Briar Rose, Sweet Georgia, Sundara, etc, are hard to come by and when I find one I like, assuming that it is unique, I can and will buy it and have absolutely no regrets. 

6. Sometimes it's nice to have random yarn on hand, because when you see a cute little pattern, you just might have the perfect yarn to knit it with.

Like Leaflet, in O-wool, that I got crazy discounted because it was discontinued.

I didn't love this sweater when I first saw it, but I thought it was cute and I had yarn that would work, so after thinking on it a bit I decided that I would love it if I added 3/4 length sleeves to make it more of a transition sweater, eh voila - and now, still, waiting for colder weather.

So, basically, I am still trying to stash down, I put even more stuff on my Rav sell/trade page, but I am not trying to get rid of my stash completely.

Wearing Luxury

While realistically one could say that wearing a hand knitted shawl of any kind is a luxurious feeling, the other shawls I have knit don't have anything on this shawl.

This is 250 yards of Quivik/Silk laceweight, and it feels AMAZING around my neck.  No slightly itchy feeling that I often get even from merino, no weight pulling on me, just a brush of silk and something warm and cozy, feeling like a little bit of heaven settled on my shoulders.  

Seriously, if you can ever buy this stuff - do it.  Don't balk at the price tag, don't think about all the other yarn you could buy for how much 28 grams of laceweight costs, just close your eyes, hand over your credit card and do it.  It is absolutely worth it.

This actually used 32 grams, so I have 24 left, which I think is enough to put in the cuffs and collar of a sweater like the Galvanized Cardigan, I am determined to knit every gram of it!

Knitting a Mystery

I decided, on a whim, a few weeks ago to join the Stephen West Mystery Shawl KAL.  It called for 3 colors of fingering weight that would go well together, and I have plenty of that, so it seemed to me a fun adventure as well as a way to knit off a bit of my random fingering weight.

I haven't done a mystery shawl in many years, according to my Rav page - 4 to be exact.  I had signed up for this mystery shawl and got half way in, and the pattern stopped being symmetrical and I freaked and stopped knitting until I could see what the final product looked like, I like symmetry and I was worried.  To be fair to the designer, it is a gorgeous shawl, and she did provide directions so you could make it symmetrical if you wanted, but somehow knowing that she didn't plan for it to be symmetrical made me not want that finished product either.  So I put it down, and sometime last year, 3 years after I stopped knitting on it, I gave up, frogged it, and sold the yarn.  

So I felt rather brave and daring when I signed up for the Stephen West mystery shawl, but as a knitter I knew more about what I was doing and had looked carefully at all the other shawls he had designed so I could be fairly sure that whatever it was I was getting in to, I would be happy with the final product.

It involved intarsia, which - to be honest - I wouldn't have ever gone for voluntarily, and I probably won't go for it voluntarily in anything more involved than this shawl, but for this, it was worth it.

I used three different sock yarns, I figured what the heck, they looked nice together, and I am trying to stash down, so I'm not buying anything just for this project when I have so much already.

It worked fine, so I would do it again.

The blues are true in this pic, but the other color is really a deep plum/eggplant that looks much darker (and prettier) than this in real life.

I enjoyed this mystery knit so much that I have already signed up for another one, this time with Susanna IC, sign ups are here .  I am quite shawl happy lately, and I have another one to show you soon!