16 Days...

That has to be the longest a back piece of a sweater has ever taken me! The viking cables are so simple, but they really slow you down when you have the rows with 6 consecutive ones in a row. No pictures yet, I'd like to try and figure out the math to cast on one of the front sides tonight. So I'm about 25-ish% done if I decide to do the hood on this one.

So much for getting this sweater done by the end of February. (:

The fronts *should* take less time as they're the easier cable pattern I have memorized. I'm thinking I should be done around mid-March on this one, but we'll see how the sleeves and hood go.

I could have knit all night...

I could have knit all night, and still have knit some more. /bad singing

Joking aside, I seriously could have. It has been a long time since I have been so enamoured with a knit that "just one more row" turns into 4, 6, 12. I'm so into this one. The feel of the yarn, checking every row to take in how the colorway is knitting up. Watching the plump cables emerge.

It makes me want to break out in a bad 80s power ballad. I am in l-o-v-e. (Hah, I just remembered it is Valentine's day, how appropriate.)

Of fabric stash and excess...

Before I got into knitting, I was into quilting. For awhile, I thought I was going to do a metric ton of baby and kid quilts. I bought fabric accordingly. It has been sitting in my tote for no fewer then five years, barely touched. A few days ago, I got brave and halved what I have in my fabric tote, but with this comes a problem...how do I go about getting rid of all this fabric?

I could measure everything, price it, put it up on Etsy or Ebay...but man, that sounds like a total pain in the rear. There are a few sewing related groups on Ravelry I could post in to say I'm destashing, but once again, I have to go through the trouble of documenting every piece, pricing it, and then selling and shipping it. I've thought of taking it to a knit night or open work day at the LYS, but I'm not sure if this would violate some sort of etiquette. The idea of blitzing it out garage sale style is tempting. I'm tempted to throw it into a paper bag and say $20 gets it.

So I'm going to post pictures here and see if there's any interest first. If not, I could get off my lazy bum and get everything measured and priced.



It's a lot of batiks, novelty fabrics and Laurel Burch. Ranging from 1/4 yd-1 yd+ pieces.

WIP Wednesday.

Thought I'd do one of these while there are 34 minutes of Wednesday left. :) No real
text about them, just pretty pictures for today.

Three works in progress that will hopefully be FOs in the near future.

Finally, a couple of FO pictures...

I have another project I finished, but I need to finish sewing up seams and the like. While waiting on the fourth Sundara update o' doom, I thought it would be a good time to update this blog. :)

Pattern: Rusted Root
Needles: US size 7

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece-Cherry Moon

Mods have been listed in previous posts about this sweater, but to give the Cambell's version I a) knit flat and cast on only 1 stitch per front panel until I got to a depth of 5.5" down, b) backwards loop cast-on the missing front panel stitches and went in the round from there, c) added an extra 2" to the front panel by casting on stitches when I took the arms off of the needles, and d) added a 3.5" deep horizontal bust dart.

I am so happy with how this fits and I have enough Cotton Fleece to do a second of these in a beautiful bright blue. I'm not sure if I'll do it exactly like this one, or if I'll modify further.

Pattern: Queen Anne's Lace

Hook: 5.5mm (I)

Yarn: Madeline Tosh Sock-Magenta

Well what do you know? I crocheted and I liked it. I held the sock yarn double to give me more of a worsted weight gauge like the pattern called for. Lovely yarn. Lovely pattern. I am now making myself a headband with the leftovers. FUN. I shall crochet again in the future.

And now for a taste of my current project...Tosh Worsted in Cherry. YUM. Delish and plumps beautifully for cables. Varigation does not hide them in the least.

OMG she's crocheting?!

That's right. My Cherry Root is finished and I need to take some pictures of it still, but I didn't feel like starting my Cherry Cardigan right away, so I decided to teach myself to crochet. I had been eyeing the Queen Anne's Lace pattern on Ravelry for awhile and it struck me that my MadTosh sock in Magenta would be quite lovely in it if I doublestranded the yarn. ( I had to post the Ravelry link since the blog post with the pattern took the pictures down, weird.) This project is one of many firsts for me: first real crochet project, first random skein of sockyarn being used for the year, and first time breaking into one of my "luxury indie dyer" skeins of yarn.

So far, it's going great and I may be developing a fondness for crochet. I avoided it for a long time due to being scarred by a well-intentioned grandmother who showered us in scratchy crocheted Red Heart blankets and sweaters. Hot, sweaty, bulky, itchy sweaters. Upon thinking about it, this is probably where my dislike for acrylic and my resistence to learn to crochet really came from. Now I see all sorts of possibility. Amigarumi. Blankets from nice fibers. The sky is the limit. (As we speak, I'm beginning to collect sport weight MCN blends to make my own blankie just for me a la MamaBlue. Seriously, can you imagine how nice and smooshy that blanket is?!)

And it's still not done...

Man, for some reason, this Cherry Root is taking forever. I'm about 3" below the bust dart now and have about 6" more of the body to go before it can be called an FO. I'm starting to feel like it may never end and I'm amazed how much yarn the bust dart ate up. My Green Gable took just under 3.5 skeins of the Cotton Fleece, I'm guessing I won't get away with using fewer then 4 full ones this time.

It probably doesn't help that I've been on Ravelry alot and not working as much on the sweater as I could be. I'm allowing myself to get distracted. My Yarn Snobs group is doing a knit-from-your-stash contest for February and I've been wondering what I'll work on at that time. (Should probably get my current project done first.) Since it's for the Snobs group, I was thinking it was time to break out some of my nicer yarns that I've been too afraid to use until this point. So will it be a lovely Tempest in Sundara Raspberry and MadTosh Twig sock yarns? My new CPH in MadTosh worsted? Maybe I'll finally get around to my Cherry cardigan in Rowan Cashsoft DK. Oh decisions, decisions! I have a couple of days to figure it out, I just wish I were more sure of what I wanted to work on next.