Two Finished Objects ... Glint Lace Jacket and Seduce Spiral Cowl ...

This is the wedding season and I just came back from my niece Lisa's wedding in St. Charles, IL (a suburb of Chicago). We had so much fun and a couple of weeks back I decided I wanted to make the Lace Jacket by Sharon Sorken from Vogue Knitting Spring 2010. See picture here, knit in the beautiful Artyarns Beaded Mohair and Sequins (retailing for about $60 a skein!).

I couldn't afford that so I decided to make it in the new Berroco yarn Glint. I bought 4 skeins from Webs in colorway Goddess to match the Banana Republic dress I had just ordered. Number 1 mistake: 4 skeins was not hardly enough yarn. Number 2 mistake: The Banana Republic dress didn't fit. I ended up getting a dark pink Calvin Klein dress and buying two more skeins of Glint. Here is my finished jacket:

This shot is unblocked.  I blocked the sweater by lightly ironing it with a cloth.  Here is a shot from the wedding with the lovely bride!

Sorry the beer bottles are in the way!! :-)

I have really been manic about starting things and switching from project to project lately.  I had two skeins of Berroco Seduce from the stash my sister-in-law Wendy gave me, and I had a hard time deciding what to do with them since the colors contrasted so greatly: green and purple ... so I found this great free pattern on Ravelry called Spiral Cowl by Kerry McKiernan (it had 971 projects!) and I decided to make it color blocked so so when the cowl folds, you can see the contrasts. I think it worked! Here's a pic:

So on to more knitting madness.  Mantra for today: I can't stop starting ... I must start finishing!

Take care, Sue

Lily's Birthday dress

My grandniece, Lily, turned 1 year old on April 19, and I wanted to make her this dress from the Debbie Bliss Spring/Summer 2011 magazine.  This pattern was #14 and I made size one.  Lily is pretty small and I wanted it to fit her this summer.  Instead of the Debbie Bliss Eco Baby yarn I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fine: two skeins cotton ball and one skein in mint, with size 2 and size 3 straight needles.

This was an easy knit but since I started the dress in late March I knew I had to keep at it or I wouldn't finish.  The straight knitting stripes became boring especially since the fine yarn and small needles made the progress slow.  But I stuck to my guns and finished most of the dress by the day before the birthday party (which was on April 16).

Don't you know while driving with my mom to the party I was seaming and picking up stitches for the finishing touches.  Why can I never get it into my head that even though I've finished all the pieces, the seaming and finishing sometimes takes just as long as the knitting!  Ugh.  I apologized and told Sara, Lily's mom, that she would eventually get this pretty party dress.  I was happy that I joined the party and forgot about the unfinished dress and spent time with my family (instead of sitting in a secluded part of the house trying to finish the damn dress!)

I actually ended up finishing the dress a couple of days later after I came back home.  I had already picked up another project when my daughter Kate said, "Mom, I'll mail the dress to Sara if you finish it tonight."  Ugh, she knows me too well.  So I got the dress back out and finished it in a couple more hours.  It was actually finished on April 19, Lily's first birthday.  Kate put it in the mail the next day.  I'm hoping Sara sends me a picture soon of Lily wearing it.

Damn I forgot to block it.  There you go, perfection messing with my head again.

I would definitely recommend this pattern to anyone thinking about how cute it would look on a little one.  The Brown Sheep Cotton Fine was a very good substitute.  The pattern is very straight forward.  I would put it an intermediate beginner level because the yarn is fine.

Take care, Sue

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'm wearing my new Box Cable socks for St. Patrick's Day.  I made them last weekend.

I used the Toe-up pattern by Ann Budd from Interweave Knits Summer 2007.

I love this pattern because it not only makes nice fitting socks but it is very easy to improvise different patterns.  On this pair I used a cable pattern from my VK Stitchionary for Cables. The Box Cable is #141.  I used the pattern on the 24 sts on the instep and then when I reached an inch beyond the heel I switched to 4st cable and 3 purl st rib.  I have also perfected the sewn bind off by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  This makes a stretchy top so that you can actually fit the socks over your heel!! You can find this method in any of her books.  I used the Knitter's Almanac.

I also made the socks a little bigger so that I could felt them a bit.  I love this wool for socks but if I don't felt them a little right before I wear them, they will felt A LOT the first time I wash them.  I ran them through with some pants and then hung them to dry and they fit really great.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!  Wear your green socks!!!

Sue