Ramblings of a Knitting Obsessive

Doesn’t it make sense that I should make a hat from a pattern named for a girl who got lured into a candy house out of a yarn called ‘rich chocolate’?

This is the fitted version of Gretel, made for Tabatha as a belated Christmas present. I used less than 1 skein of Malabrigo Merino Worsted, in colorway Rich Chocolate. This pattern was so fun to knit, and I love how the cables come together in the crown decreases. The only problem that I had was that the cast-on (I did a stockinette-stitch tubular cast on) turned out too tight, and didn’t stretch much when I tried to loosen it during blocking. I hope she can still wear it comfortably, though!

I finally got around to putting buttons on my Wisp.

I went through the rest of the little pearly buttons that I used on my cardigan to find 5 of the thinnest, lightest ones and put them on one end at as regular intervals as I could, using embroidery floss and the attachment method suggested in the pattern. I think I might re-block this soon, because it’s gotten stretched lengthwise a little too much, making it a lot less wide than it’s supposed to be.

Here’s the beginning of a My So-Called Scarf, with the extra skein of Malabrigo Worsted (Lettuce colorway) that I got awhile ago (I found out that I only need 6 skeins for my size of Tilted Duster, which means I had a whole other skein to do whatever I wanted with):

The horizontal herringbone stitch pattern may be a little tedious and hard to get used to, but it’s showing off the yarn beautifully. I added slipped stitch at each side as a selvage, because the edges don’t look very pretty on their own. It’s about a foot and a half long as of today, and I can already see that this was the perfect thing to use the yarn for.

Here’s a photo of today’s paper, just because I felt like it and I like taking pictures with my camera:

there’s a low moon caught in your tangles…
~The Decemberists

I now present to you my first FO of 2008: my Tangled Yoke Cardigan.

The lighting in the photo sort of made everything look yellow, but the color is actually kind of a light purple with little slubs of black, blue, and white.

Here’s a not-so-good one to give you an idea of what the rest of it looks like.
I used Rowan Felted Tweed in Melody (I had never used a tweed yarn before and am now in love with it) and my size 4 32″ Knit Picks Options circulars, with pretty little buttons made from shells that I found at JoAnn’s in a pack of 65 for $3. It didn’t really turn out as fitted as I had thought, but I still love it and it’s really comfy. I’m actually kind of glad it’s a little looser, so I’ll be more able to wear it over other things. The cable was by far my favorite part of the sweater to do, and I just love how the two gracefully tangled lines interlock at the center back:

This is what I’ve been knitting since the day after I went yarn shopping with my grandma. I had blocked the finished back of my $1.50 cardigan, and somehow it ended up WAY too long (I held it up to my back and it went down past my hips..NOT flattering in with that shape of sweater). So, it was sent to the frog pond, and the yarn from it is still in a decidedly not untangle-able blob on my bookshelf, perhaps to remind me to be more cautious with my choices in the future. I still have about 5 balls of it leftover, though, so maybe I’ll make something for Paul with it. Those kinds of colors tend to look better on him than traditional ‘baby’ hues anyway.
After talking with my CPF teacher about my mishap with the old cardigan and asking if I could please switch patterns and start over with the Tangled Yoke instead (which was actually what I wanted to make in the first place), I swatched, found I needed to go down a needle size from the one recommended in the pattern, and jumped right into the initial body piece. By Wednesday that week, I was all the way through the garter rib portion and had a couple good inches of stockinette, which is a lot considering that it was about 200 stitches in each row, only to find that I had made a serious misinterpretation of the instructions for the waist shaping, and had to frog back to the 10th row. After that, though, it was smooth sailing, albeit a lot of work. I worked on this all through winter break, and stayed up until 3:30 in the morning yesterday finishing the front bands. I did the sleeves Magic-Loop style, and I think I’m starting to prefer that to using DPNs.
Other than working endlessly on my sweater, I had an alright break. Basically, the only things I did out of the house besides Conner’s New Year’s Eve party involved watching movies: We went to see “Enchanted” on New Year’s Day, our youth group had a marathon of the Bourne movies (“The Bourne Identity”, “The Bourne Supremacy”, and “The Bourne Ultimatum”…I had never seen any of them all the way through, and they were INTENSE, especially when you watch all 3 back to back. Good, though.) and then yesterday I went with a few friends to see “Juno”, which was really good, had a lot of great music, and ended in a pleasantly unexpected way. I mentioned before that I reread the 7th Harry Potter, but that’s pretty much it.

I also have some goodies to show you!

First is a skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in Amber. This is my first purchase from them, and I really like it. I think maybe that I might be more motivated to make socks if I really like the yarn I’m using, so this will probably be a good candidate. I chose this colorway because it reminded me of the Lithuanian amber jewelry that my grandma wears a lot, gotten over many visits to my great-aunt and -uncle, who have been living in Lithuania for a while.

I got a spindle! Specifically, this is a Louet top-whorl spindle (I just love the sheep on the top) and 8 oz. of Corriedale wool (the color’s called Warm Wine) that I bought as a kit from Hello Yarn. Adrian even put in a little thank-you note and the cutest little button that says ‘Hooray Sheep!”
I can’t wait to learn how to spin.