Tuesday, January 04, 2005

The Knitting Parade

**Finished Object Alert**Finished Object Alert**Finished Object Alert**

I was able to finish all of my "I'm going to see your face so you get a finished object" holiday gifts. There are a few that I am still working on, these fall into the "I'm not going to see your face so you have to wait" category.



Dad's Scarf was finished in the car on the way to Rochester. I love this scarf. It was B-O-R-I-N-G to knit after awhile. However,
the pattern (its free) is great and I would recommend it. The cables are fun to do and they look beautiful. Reynolds Turnberry Tweed yarn was stiff as I was knitting it but it bloomed nicely after a good soaking in hand soap and then Aveda conditioner (smelled good too!) It is the perfect yarn for cables. I blocked it out and it grew quite a bit. Dad loved it and christened it with a trip out to use the slow blower.



Mom's caplet is just about done. I wanted to wait until I saw her to seam up the sides. This is a very simple pattern. I choose to do garter stitch to show off the texture of the yarn. I dropped two stitches to add a bit of interest. Mom has lots of pain in her shoulders and neck (I swear, I had nothing to do with this!); this should help keep her insulated! I really liked the yarn (
Interlacements Periwinkle Petite) and will use it again in the future! Those colors...yum.



My brother's wrist warmers. I used
Noro Big Kureyon for these. It was my first time knitting with Noro. Wow. How fun is the color change?! The pattern is Voodoo Wrist Warmers from Knitty. I modified it to fit my gauge with the chunky yarn. Despite the look on his face my brother seemed mildly impressed. I'm hoping he'll use it while "gaming" on the computer in the basement. I found them later under the Christmas Tree. Maybe I'll have to super glue them to his wrists?



Gma...isn't she cute? She is my soul mate. She will be 80 years young in less than 3 weeks.

I'm a bit upset with her at this moment. She is a wonderful caring human being and she really disappointed me this past week when her righteous right wing religious conservative bigot side came out. She usually can be all of these things without righteousness bigotry - but for some reason she let it all fly over the holidays.

Anyway... I knit this for her in about a weekend. I love it. The pattern is from
Knitty's fall surprise. I used the called for yarn (Reynolds Blizzard) and whew! it is a bit fluffy. I kept hacking up pink fur balls. It IS super soft and knitting Gma was quite impressed with my handy work. The one pitfall of this pattern. K4tog with bulky yarn is never fun.



And last but not least...my lovely sister in
Banff. I know I never continued the Banff saga. I just couldn't bring myself to it. This sweater. Argh. The pattern was not the problem...I was the problem. It is a fun easy knit. I was able to find more yarn IN THE RIGHT DYE LOT, a minor miracle that should be celebrated.
Ummmm, I guess in keeping with the story line. Reverse Flash found the yarn (Araucania Nature Wool - CHUNKY). He was able to lasso some in Michigan at ThreadBear. They had the same dye lot and the yarn was on sale. Pretty great. It took two weeks for the yarn to get to him...at which point The Bookish Girl was about to loose her marbles. Same dye lot. Hmmm, icing on the cake. Yummy pink wooly icing. Hold on to marbles.

Yarn in hand we thought for sure The Bookish Girl would finish with flying colors, ahhh hubris.

Long story shorter? She finished...she had to bind off the neck FIVE times. But she finished. Can anyone please explain to me, I mean The Bookish Girl, the proper way to bind off 2x2 ribbing on a turtleneck without strangling the intended wearer?

The sweater is finished and I don't really like it. In fact, I really really don't like it. I'm going to block it out again and hope for the best. Basically, it's the fit. Everything was done to specification. This is the second adult sweater that I've knit and I think I've learned how to get things to fit. Making the fit suit the model? That's another story. The pieces came out to size.
I love the feel.
I love the yarn.
I learned a lot with the full fashion (why do I find that phrase so funny?) decreases on this sweater.
I just don't love the way it looks.
My sister and I have small frames. I should have shaved off some of the width. I should not have blocked out the ribbing along the waist. I should have made it a few inches longer. And again, we have the back that flies up?! This happened with Robby's Big Sack Sweater. It's annoying and it makes me mad. Argh mad. So there. I may take drastic measures. We'll see.

In spite of the last bit of frustration I was happy to clothe my family in knitted gifts. I must admit, it is a bit of a let down. All that work and the unwrapping was over in minutes.
**btw - most of this was bought at my LYSs - the links are there to provide visuals..not to endorse a particular seller.**

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Take Allison's finishing workshop, and she'll show you a ribbing bind off.

Cheers,
Colleen
http://subwayknitter.typepad.com

1/04/2005 11:07 AM  
Blogger Katie said...

Hey, nice job on the family knits! I don't think the Banff looks as bad as you do, although I would say I have seen only two that I thought actually flattered the wearers (one was Jenna the designer's, the other Alison of Blue Blog's). Your sister looks nice in hers, though I might agree about the ribbing. It definitely seems like a pattern for the lissome who look cute swimming in an oversized sweater. On me, who has had two kids, it would look like a bunchy rhino hide.

Check out the book Knitting in Plain English - great info on finishing, picking up stitches, etc. There's also a chapter on how to tell how a pattern might look on you. Oh, and I agree about the clown. Eek.

1/04/2005 11:26 AM  
Blogger melanie said...

That picture of your brother is priceless - it looks like he's wondering where his fingers came from and what he should do with them.

I'm very impressed that you finished so much!

I noticed you're reading Aimee Bender - I just put two of her books on my amazon wishlist. How are you finding it? Should I get them from the library or buy them?

1/04/2005 1:37 PM  
Blogger Heidi said...

I love all your FOs!

The color you chose for Banff is very nice. I made that sweater for myself last year and I had all the same reactions as you, including the neck bind-off problem. What someone showed me at my knitting group was to either use one giant needle (like a 15) and one of the ones you were already using, or tape two needles together and use them with one of the others. It helped me a lot.

As for the fit of that sweater, the pattern pics made it look so cozy but on certain bodies it's just not the right style. Hard to tell until you knit it though, isn't it? Even with length added to mine, it's still way too boxy.

OK! Enough blabbing. Thanks for the post holiday FO wrapup!

1/04/2005 3:10 PM  
Blogger alison said...

Great holiday knits! Love that Banff! Glad it got finished and came out so well. Hooray!

Can't wait for a picture of your sweat pants. :)

1/05/2005 11:46 AM  

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