September 2010

September, I can't believe the month is gone already.  Seems like time is just flying by.  Oh well, on to the knitting. 

I finished the cute sweater knit with Lang's Tosca Light.  I knit it as a Child's size 6, but the pattern is written in Children's and Adult sizes.  This is great yarn.  It is a machine washable blend that has graduated colors.  The 100g skein has 440 yards (oh my!)

I also finished the sweater knit with Noro's new yarn, King.  This yarn is so pretty, I couldn't wait to knit with it.  It is fairly thin and could be a fingering or sport. It's an acrylic/silk/wool/mohair blend and I wanted what I made to have some drape. It has great yardage and would be perfect for a shawl, but I wanted to do something different than that; a sweater.  So keeping the drape issue in mind, I did a loose, drapey cardigan and I love the results.  I knit it at a slightly looser gauge than I normally would and made the front panels oversized and flowy (is that a word?).  Anyway, here it is and I have worn it and named it Comfy Cardi, because that is exactly what it is.  Since I loved this so much when I wore it, I also decided to write the pattern in multiple gauges, so you could easily make it with different yarns.

Now, a little story... this is why I carry more (3-4) projects than I can possible finish in a weekend when I go away. We went to our boat for a day, then to Rochester for the rest of the weekend in mid September. In my bag, I had the socks (since forever) on my very nice Darn Pretty Needles (colored wood needles), the lace shawl (about halfway up the border), and 2 unstarted sweaters. One I wanted to do for the yarn tasting in two weeks, the other was a ripped out sample that I was going to reknit into something else. 

Here’s how the weekend went. I thought maybe as well as the sweater I could get the lace stole done in time for the Yarn Tasting, so I worked on it all day Saturday . I got up to the corner and counted my repeats, hmmm, one more than I was supposed to have, oh well, keep going. Read the corner instructions, hmmmm, that’s a little confusing, I’ll set that aside and think about it while I start the sweater.

Pull out the yarn and the pattern… I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right. I was going to make the pattern in a smaller size (not mine) and thought maybe someday my daughter could wear it. She would not have picked out the pattern I did, so, I’ll wait until we see her tomorrow and see if she likes something else in the book.

Ok, let try the socks. One of my Darn Pretty Needles is broken, Oh No! I am bummed, I really like those needles, but not too upset that I don’t have to knit socks (haha!). So on to the last resort sweater. I got that started and it is going fine.

So the moral of the story is… always have a back up project (or two, or three..).

Just so you know how the story ends, I showed my daughter the book and she picked out a sweater “she’d wear”, but I don’t like it and don’t think it would make a great sample, so I started a different one altogether, maybe she’ll wear it, maybe not. And the lace stole, urg… I came home and read the book again, the corner instructions are right there, not where I was looking and so were the instructions telling me where to start the border (which I didn’t do), so I have ripped out the entire border and have to start again. It has been set aside for now, until I feel up to it. Patterns are so much easier when you read them right. You will hear about the lace stole again, after a little time has passed and I am over the pain of ripping.

So of 2 other sweaters I started, one is out of Noro's Yuzen.  This was a Sample Sweater that wasn't doing it's job (selling yarn), so I ripped it out and am knittng something much cuter with it. 

The other is out of a new yarn from Twilley's Spirit.  This one I wanted to get done in time for the Yarn Tasting, October 3.  Now I am going to whine for a minute... We had to cancel the Yarn Tasting due to lack of interest. I am very dissapointed, we have had so much fun at it the last 2 years and this year we only had a couple of people sign up.  I was pretty down all weekend about it, I guess I was frustrated.  Ok, done whining, back to knitting.  The sweater is not done yet, but will be in time for the almost-yarn tasting.

That's where I am at the end of September.  October will bring both of these sweater to a finish and a few holiday projects started and I want to make another Comfy Cardi in different yarn. I am sure a few more thing will add them selves to the finished and unfinished list.

Happy Knitting, Nancy