Basking

Spring break is coming to a close and I must say, I've enjoyed myself thoroughly. Now, I generally like to keep this next tidbit on the down low (for my own safety), but this semester I [somehow] managed to schedule all of my classes to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday of each week. That's right, you read correctly: 4 day weekends. My point being that the rest of my colleagues (including the Artist) are back up at school anticipating class bright and early. Whereas I am four glorious hours away from school and not heading back until Tuesday morning. I can bask in what little time I have left, spending some quality time with family & hometown friends. Oh, and knitting of course...

I have been working on the Forest Canopy Shawl, but opted to not bore you with new pictures of it since a triangular shawl with fourteen repeats looks a lot like a triangular shawl with nine repeats. If you're feeling slighted, just scroll down to my last post, squint your eyes, and pretend it has grown a couple inches. I promise I'll give you a real update at some point. Eventually...

In other news, I found a knitted item from Christmas past! Does this happen to anyone else? I guess I feel a little goofy for completely forgetting this poor thing. Though (in my defense), after reflection I remembered it being created during one of my [frequent] knitting blackouts. Problem solved. I give you the DROPS shrug:(The look on my face epitomizes my feelings about my 4-day weekends. heh.)

I was equally excited about finding my [WARM] wool shrug just in time for the heat to stop circulating in my bedroom. Uff da.

Here are some stats:

Pattern: DROPS Shrug (Ravelry)
Designer: DROPS design...? (It's very vague)
Yarn: 5 skeins of DROPS Eskimo in light iceblue
Needles: US 15 Addi Turbos
Estimated time of knitting: 4 hours in a trance

And here is a better picture of the frontIn a nutshell, It was quick. It was easy. And it's warm. 'nuff said. My only complaint is that the back gapes a little bit at the bottom, but nothing a good blocking or cleverly placed front button wouldn't fix.

Stay tuned to see the fate of this yarn, as well as a surprise sneaking up at the end of the week--hooo boy!

It's been a while....

Yes. It's been a while since I did plain stockinette knitting. No cables, no seed stitch, no yarn overs, lace or anything fun-- just plain stockinette.
Yesterday I received the pattern book Jo Sharp 3 from my fantastic manager, Kristy (a slightly belated holiday present). I love the book, it is 39 patterns of gorgeous knitting. Immediately I chose one that I wanted to start and I decided to make the Wide Collared Vest. I think the pattern is classic and beautiful, however is pretty much an endless sea of stockinette. I equally love and hate working on it because It goes quickly but is boooor-ing!

Ideally, I'd like to cast off before I finish work next week Friday so I can wear it before going back to school. I suppose stockinette does have its place, it'll be good to have a mindless project to work on during the Packer/Seahawk game today -- my vest is ready for some football!

Oh I just LOVE surprises!

Here's a surprise FO for your viewing pleasure!
So, operation Holiday '07 was secretly knitting my roommate this vest! This mission was deemed successful tonight when she finally received her [belated] holiday present! The verdict is....IT FITS! A note to self: it is very challenging to knit something in secret with somebody you live with! I can't believe I pulled it off without spilling!

It might look familiar to Fitted Knits fans, it is the Back to School U-Neck vest by Stephanie Japel. The exact same vest that I started (and never finished) in purple- see, here! That is all in the past now because I can have the satisfaction of looking at my version for Jamie instead. Much better. The only modification was making the ribbed portion a little bit longer, nothing crazy. The yarn, Cascade 220 in a happy yellow color, I can't remember the name/dye lot off the top of my head. That mustard like yellow is Jamie's favorite color. My favorite color is aqua blue which is why my title photo above makes me so happy.

That vase of flowers kind of epitomizes the both of us. Okay... maybe in a really oversimplified way. Oh, and size 7 needles were used. The time to knit was off and on for a little less than one month. I am quite pleased! Happy Birthday/Christmas Jamie!

"Pull over!" "No, it's a cardigan, but thanks for noticing!"

WARNING. This is an abnormally long post--continue with caution and remember to blink!

October 6th? really? I feel like it hasn't been 10 days since my last post. I guess that's what comes of starting a knitting blog while simultaneously going to college full time. (What was I thinking?)

Dumb question. I know what I was thinking! I was thinking about how cool it was that this sort of thing existed--blogs I mean. I love getting feedback on my projects and seeing what everyone else is doing too. How fantastic. Okay, knitting update:

Forecast = finished sans buttons. Do I like the result? Errrr Yes?. I mean I do....maybe? I'm certainly not shouting from the rooftops about it. Why? Gauge. I hate the word, and I hate to admit it, but yes; it does make a difference. Here's a photo:

What's that you say? What happened to the notion of this being a cardigan? Wellllllllllll that kind of got nixed after a trip to my favorite yarn shop of all time (Iris Fine Yarns) and some consultations from my mother, who's opinion on such matters I value quite highly. So that's that. Done. Finito. I feel like it's a successful first sweater, and I can't help but feel a certain sense of accomplishment knowing that it's finished. That sense of accomplishment also comes from showing the people who accuse me of never finishing anything that I did indeed finish something. ahem.

Whey else haven't I posted lately? Well, I've found that it's hard to knit and post blog messages at the same time. Very hard. When I tried doing both at once I either ended up dropping a stitch or typing an expletive by accident when my fingers slipped. So, instead of blogging, I was knitting, working, and going to classes. Mind you those are in no particular order.....again, ahem.

SO, here's what I've been up to:

Pattern: The Back to School U-Neck vest from Fitted Knits
Designer: Stefanie Japel
Yarn of Choice: Cascade 220 in Plum #9474
Cast on: 10/6


Top:A photo my boyfriend graciously took while he sat [bored] on the couch watching me knit.
Middle:I always think it's exciting when knitted things begin to look like actual garments...huzzah for a gauge check this time....
Bottom: I'm not exactly sure why I chose to do a closeup on this particular spot. It happens to be the location of a major, but livable, knitting error on my part.




I do like knitting this vest so far, I find for the amount of time put into it (not much as far as knitted things go), it has a high return on investment. Return on investment?? Gah I hate my financial accounting course for pervading other areas of my life--especially my hobbies! Those should be off limits! Anyway, I alluded to it in my caption above, but the only mistake on this one so far is the increases I did for the bust shaping. Apparently I can't read well. More so that I like to read what I want to see. This vest would have been finished twice now if I hadn't had to rip out the waffle stitch portion twice--it was almost enough to turn me off to the whole idea of making this vest. Luckily, I gave it another shot and even though the increases still aren't right, they work and my stitch counts are right on now. This vest still has to be put on time-out on occasion, but that's just because row counting doesn't work when you knit on the go between classes. Now onto the next project

Pattern: Tree Jacket
Designers: the super trendy Zephyr girls from www.zephyrstyle.com
Yarn of Choice: Cascade 220 in Azure #8892
Cast on: 10/15



Left: The neck of Tree Jacket modeled on one of the vases my talented boyfriend whipped up on the wheel.



Below: Another angle of the super fun yarn-overs. I mean who doesn't love fun yarn overs?

Tree Jacket is really fun to knit so far. Granted it's only been one day and I'm only about 4 inches into it, but I have a good feeling about this one. On a non-knitting related note, I'll bet I'm the only one who thinks this, but I laugh every time I read the title "Tree Jacket". For some reason, that name conjures up the image of this thing which is actually Treebeard from the LOTR trilogy. Why the strong connection? I have no idea. Hopefully my sweater will come out looking better than that when I'm finished.

Okay, back to knitting information: I love working with Cascade 220, which is a comment I forgot to mention about my vest too. Before I go any further, I want to apologize to my mom since I sortof told her I was going to send this yarn back to Indiana where it came from. **Mom, I'm sorry...the color and I bonded since I got back to school--you know how I am with turquoise! **Anyhoo, I started this one because it was voted as the SKC Knitalong project for this fall and I obviously had to participate. How exciting! There will be more pictures to come as it grows bigger, but for now, this is what I have going on my needles.

This concludes my obscenely long post. I did warn you that this would be long--feel free to administer eye drops at this time.