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

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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.

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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/

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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. =)

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