WIP Wednesday (6)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting WIP Wednesdays

This week it's just me (Caro), since Susi is being held hostage by her family ;)

I'm still working on my Little Birds cardigan. I finished knitting to the underarm and it went pretty fast. But now I have to knit the sleeves before I can join them to the body and keep on knitting.
Did I mention that I HATE knitting sleeves. If it was only me I'd only wear sleeveless garments! This time it's even worse than usual because I find it hard to knit fair-isle in the round on DPNs. It's difficult to keep the floats/tension uniform between 2 DPNs.
It's taken me longer to knit 1 sleeve than for the entire body! Now I'm starting sleeve #2 and it's a slow progress.
I love the tubular Cast-on, (even if it takes longer to knit). The cuffs are very elastic.
The original pattern sports  3/4 sleeves. Mom wants full length sleeves so I'm making a few mods.

Mods for the sleeves:

• Knitted 4" (instead of 3) of beaded ribbing (20 repeats instead of 15)
• Added an additional repeat of bird/leaves to the top of the sleeve (in the straight part, to keep the same # of stitches). 

I love the Koigu yarn the colors are very flashy (more in real than on my pics). The Spud& Chloe yarn is also super soft and it has a shiny sheen (prolly the bit of silk in it)
I'm hoping to finish the 2nd sleeve by Friday.

In the meantime I also knitted Clue #4 of my Mystery Shawl by Stephen West but it wasn't working out. So I ripped it and I just need to start back. <== I'm waiting for the burn of ripping to pass ;)

I needed something mindless I could knit when I got too bored of the sleeves. So I started a Snug As A Bug Sleep Sack. It'll be a Baby gift for my neighbor who's expecting a girl for the end of September.  I wanted to tame my stash (a little), but now I'm not sure I'll have enough to finish it. =P
I like the idea of knitting a cute sleep sack to keep the baby warm but I'm unsure if the mother will like it. After all...it's a sack! lol
I'm using bulky yarn so I had to cast on less stitches. It might not be large enough though. I think I should have taken into account that fair-isle make it tighter.
We'll see.

That's all for now.  Don't forget to visit Tami's Amis to see what everyone else is knitting

Read more...

FO Friday (3) Part 2: Susi (and bf)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting FO Fridays

This is the 2nd part of our FO Friday! This time we'll talk about Susi (and her BF's projects) for the last 2 months.

Susi:

New Ziggity:

I made another Ziggity, This time for myself. I made this one in laceweight and it really came out smallish. It's more like a shawlette but it is great to wear when it's actually warm outside. I do love the Malabrigo lace yarn. Colors are Marron Oscurro (brown) and Sapphire Green (well green LOL). It's really soft - love this one.

Log Cabin Blanket:

This blanket was a family project. We were a bit broke after some weddings we had to attend so it was finally time to attack the stash. I started the pattern and knew ASAP that I needed some more action in it. So I started to make stripes in the first square. When I was done I needed something new so I looked  up some dishcloth patterns and used those. I listed them all on the ravelry page. I do like how it turned out. It's experimental but well I adore that. Oh and as a finish I added a glittery purple colored icord edge to the whole thing. 

Catkin shawl: 

After seeing Caro's magnificent Catkin I had to make my own. I fondly called it the purple tentacle- I adore this color combination. The pattern was fun. While knitting it I often thought it was a bit over-explained and it actually confused me at times. In hindsight it was a great knit. So much fun and well not boring at all. Makes it hard to find a next knit. *wink*

Shapely Boyfriend cardigan:

My first real garment. I selected this pattern cuz it looked easy and well doable. It was sooo boring to knit. I hate purling and I should never ever try to knit a stockinette cardi (she says while looking at the new stockinette cardi on her needles). It was good to learn how to make a cardi- not sure I will wear it outside though.

Summer Ribbed Lace Bolero

This pattern is fun and easy and I love those boleros. I could use one in every color imaginable. Just sad that the cotton always gets soooooooooooooooooooo huge after washing. Meh. Looked pretty while it was still fitted.

Read more...

FO Friday (3) Part 1: Caroline

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting FO Fridays

As I mentioned earlier this week, it's been a while since we did a FO Friday post. This is about 2 months of knitting so bear with me ;) Since there's so much to show we might need to make 2 separate posts. 1 for me and 1 for Susi (and her BF)

Caro: 
When we left off 2 months ago I was knitting a Taygete Shawl for my mom. Here is the finished one (and it's huge):

I was also nearly done with Mom's Juliet Cardigan. Now it's done:

I did make myself something!The pattern is very pretty but I don't like it on me. *shrug* I  should have made it for mom who really wanted the same. LOL But the edging took SO long there's no way I'm making 2 of them.  Watershed cardi:

My first real colorwork sweater! I made an Umbrella sweater but I changed the design and added Hedgehogs instead. It's FAR from perfect but I'm still happy with it. And mom too so that's the most important.

I saw a wonderful pattern I had to make, Johanna Jacket ! It was such a fun and quick jacket to knit. LOVE it. It took only 1.1 skeins of Cascade Eco +. We should awesome flower buttons and I'm super happy about the result. The jacket is seamless! Also it has a stretchy waist band. Really awesome pattern. I think I knitted it in 3 days

I am addicted to Cascade Eco+ yarn and mom wanted a cardi with a hood. I found a great pattern where I only needed 1 skein to knit a cardi. The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife. I did modify it a bit because the original pattern was WAY too long in the front and it rolled/curled on itself a lot.  Super happy with the  mods.  I only wish my Kitchener Stitch was better. The seam on the hood is still visible.

My neighbor's daughter is having a baby in September. I'm trying to find a pretty present for her. I knitted a In Threes cardi with a cute flower. I just need to find pretty buttons. Also it was supposed to be Newborn size but it's at least a 3months size.

And last (and least lol), I made a Poppy hat but I will NOT give it for the baby it's just not pretty enough (also it's way bigger than newborn size). I will try again and this time with German Short Rows. I don't want the wraps to be so obvious. Well at least I learned how to crochet a pretty flower =)

Phew! That's it. 2 months of knitting. 

Stay tuned later in the day for Part 2 :Susi and BF's post!

As usual if you want to see more FOs check out Tami's Blog:  http://tamisamis.blogspot.fr/

Read more...

WIP Wednesday (5)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting WIP Wednesdays

It's been a (long) while since we posted about our WIPs and FOs.  It's more because of a lack of time (and maybe laziness in my case *wink*) than for lack of projects. Since the last post we (Susi, her BF and I) started and/or finished a lot of projects (Cardis, sweater, shawls, Afgan....) Hopefully we will post about those in a FO post soon.
But for now let's take a lot at what's on our needles ;)

Caro: 
While I have started many projects (too many probably) I'm focusing on 2 of them at the moment. The first one is the Mystery Shawl KAL : Rockafeller  by Stephen West. So far I've knitted the first 3 clues. I'm waiting for the last one on Friday.  It's starting to look pretty cool. I admit I wasn't sold 'till clue #3 (the outside border)

My other projects is a big challenge for me. I'm hoping to knit the Little Birds cardigan by Ysolda Teague. This is a HUGE gamble for me because I've never done steeking. And I admit that cutting into my work is worrying me. Also I can't try it on (on mom actually since it's for her) as I knit to make sure of the sizing so it might come out totally wrong. Right now I'm pretty sure it's too big. I've read a lots of notes from other Ravelers, very helpful to understand this confusing pattern.  The pattern only called for 3 colors but I wanted something more colorful. Of course now I'm scared that it's TOO colorful for mom. We'll see. *deep breath*  I'm adding a row of birds before the underarm because otherwise it might be too short. I've had to change the rate at which I'm decreasing though to end up with the same number of stitches at the underarm.

So far the only problem I had was with how to deal with the floats. At some points I end up with  6 stitches long floats and well that's too long (It's not a sticky yarn). So at first I did the weaving method. I weaved the yarn unused every 3 stitches (Pink bird repeat) but  since it's a high contrast between the white and the pink, the pink is visible on the right side where I weaved it. <== not happy.
So on the next bird repeat I didn't weave. I let the long floats free. It does look neater. BUT I think my tension is not right and the birds are 'fatter'. I'm always too worried that my floats will be too short and the birds will pucker. But now I might have the opposite problem.  *shrug*.  I plan on adding a bird repeat to the sleeves too. I just don't know how to proceed though. Should I cast on less stitches? Or should i keep the same number and knit straight for 1 bird repeat? I have NO idea.
So as you can see I have plenty on my plate ;)

That's it for this week. =)

Read more...

WIP Wednesday (4)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting WIP Wednesdays

Let's see what's hot on our needles this week =)

Susi: 

Daybreak

Not much progress on this one. Last week my needle broke and I didn't have another 3mm handy so I had to order one and it arrived today. Meh. So the Daybreak lay around most of the time. I got some more stripes done. But that gave me time to finally finish my cardi. YAY

Summer Bolero

I started this one after I finished the cardi. I needed something fast and wearable for next weeks convention. I love the color and well it's sooo summery. *g* I got the yarn at a supermarket sale. 4 skeins 100% cotton for like 3€ so it is also a really cheap project, too. It's my second Ribbed Lace Bolero and I really love it.

Caro:

Juliet Cardigan

(on my mom)

(On me)

I've been knitting a lot of Shawls this year and Susi knitting her cardigan made me realize I needed to knit something more than just a shawl. I planned on knitting a Juliet cardigan for the convention so here I am halfway there. My only concern is that I think it'll be too large. Well maybe not too large but it should have a 5" of negative ease and it shouldn't close in the front (that's how I liked it) and mine already closes in the front. That + blocking I think it'll be too large to please me. *shrug* First pic is on my mom (and yes we cheated coz it's actually way too large for her). Second pic is on me. It's knitting up very fast, I started on Saturday and by Sunday I was already starting the lace. BTW my mom wants one too so I'll make her one in her size but maybe I'll knit the yoke in stockinette instead of Garter. I find garter to look messy. Wish me luck I need to finish it before next week.

That's where we stand this week =)

Read more...

WIP Wednesday (3)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting WIP Wednesdays

Let's see what's hot on our needles this week =)

Caro:

Taygete

Looks like an Aries sign! (or I'm just crazy)

Close up of the lace with the MANY markers

Last week Susi convinced me of guinea-pigging knitting a Taygete shawl. It's been in my Favorites for months and I never got to knitting it. So after the usual 2 days of deliberating on which colors to use I finally chose: Madelinetosh Merino Light in Teddy Bear color  and Madelinetosh Sock in Fawn color.  I know most people uses more colorful yarns with greater contrast (with a fantastic result I must say) but since this is going to be a Mother's Day present I tried choosing more 'neutral' colors my mom wouldn't hate  LOL.
Knitting all these stripes was a bit boring but not extremely so. Picking up the right amount of stitches on the other hand was a freaking pain in my a*s! I don't know why but I just never had the right amount on each side. They I realized I'd forgotten a YO in the middle. It took me hours to get it right, so right-ish ;) And I should know better than knitting with a migraine because I had to unravel twice!  I only just started the lace part but I'm excited about it. I put markers everywhere (18 on each side) and now I'm hoping it'll knit fast.
My only concern is running out of Fawn yarn. =S I already went down 2 needle sizes to compensate my loose kniting. Wish me luck!

Susi:

Daybreak

I started a Westknit! YAY. Well I hope it will be one I actually finish. *ahem* I chose some blue sock yarn I had on hand and planned to combine it with black but the dark blue in the sock yarn looked exactly like the black so after first row I ripped it back and started again with a sparkly violet yarn. This actually had a kind of subtle contrast but the yarn has a weird structure. It's kind of crinkly and the stitches looked awfully aymmetric so I ripped out around 6 rows and started again with a gradient sock yarn. It's really light gray-ish blue-ish. So far I like it. We will see if I will keep it.

Shapely Boyfriend

I resumed knitting this one for 20 rows or so. I'm a bad cardi knitter cuz I'm so easily bored so I only knit it at work- when I have the time and well my other knit is too complicated for work knitting. But I started the waist-shaping. YAY! Well after that I tried it on at home and realized that I shouldn't have started yet cuz my boobs are in the way. So I made some more plain stockinette rows after and resumed. It's going great but sloooooow. Perhaps I will be done before the next winter comes. *wink*

Susi's bf: 

Chevry

Isn't it AWESOME???Without kidding, I'm the MAN!! 

Now for real: because I haven't developed the proper knitting muscles in my left hand, I decided to skip one repeat of this tedio...ahh quite interesting shawl. I think it's big enough already. So all that's left to do are the nice stripes at the edge. And I'm really looking forward to see it blocked and... spread wide.  

Read more...

FO Friday (2)

Thanks to Tami's Amis for hosting FO Fridays

It's Friday! That means it's time to share pics of our Finished Objects (FOs).

Caro:
Last Wednesday I told you how close I was to finishing my Catkin. There you are it's now done and blocked. Ok I still have to find pretty buttons but the knitting part is done at least ;)

The Graphite looks blue-ish on the pics because my camera sucks. It's very dark gray and flashy pink. I'm really happy with the result. =) It was an intense knit. All the charts nearly killed me. I had to unravel a bit because I wasn't reading the charts right =P But it's still pretty awesome. 

Susi:

I finished my second Color Affection. I love the colors and the Malabrigo Lace is soooo soft. The only problem I had with this yarn was in the short row section with all 3 colors. The yellow stitches from the previous section started to felt together a bit from the up and down on the needles. That was a bit annoying but it's hardly visible now. Just a pain to knit. LOL
Next time I really should make an extra YO between the first and second stitch though and drop it on the next row. The edge is pretty tight. I really like how soft it is- can be worn even now that it's gettting warm outside. LOVE!

Bf finished his first project- a sleeve for our tablet (pattern was originally for an iPad). *g* We changed the pattern a bit. For the flap he did an icord bind-off and added a short icord loop in the middle for the button.  It looks great for his first real project. There are some mistakes and tension problems but oh well I adore it and he's unbelievable proud- as he should be.

Read more...