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When I got out the ornaments to decorate for Christmas, I found another armadillo that I own.
Isn’t he cute?
As soon as I set this sweater aside, I was ready to make yet another. I had a modular vest pattern from Creative Knitting’s September 2008 issue which called for hand-dyed yarn. (Notice how it’s always the pattern on the cover that gets me to buy the book?)
Again, I didn’t have to go shopping. The deformed sweater I made years ago was made with a beautiful blue and purple hand-dyed yarn I had been given. I decided to salvage the yarn by taking the sweater apart. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about what I needed to do very carefully. I grabbed a pair of scissors and started by cutting off the collar and cutting the sleeves off the body. Before I got any further, I realized my mistake. In order to unravel large lengths of yarn, I needed to carefully take the sweater apart by cutting through the seams. I was able to salvage all the sleeve yarn and most of the front and back, but I have a couple pieces that I will probably just felt in the washer rather than make myself crazy pulling them apart. I am almost finished with the vest, and I still have a little yarn to work with, so I think I’m going to pull this one off as well.
Tomorrow: Sweater 4? or is Kit Ready to Hang up her Needles?
Energized by my knitting success, I immediately launched into a new project, also from Yarnplay. It’s an asymmetrical cardigan called Edie (pp. 87-93).
I already had a bunch of Galway yarn (Plymouth Yarn Co.) I’d bought years ago (planning on making a cable sweater that never happened), so all I had to do was find the right size needles and get to work. This sweater proved a challenge because it required buttons. I was thinking triangular, to emphasize the asymmetry. A lengthy visit to Lambspun taught me what I didn’t want, but I couldn’t find anything that worked. I tried some of everything to no avail. I wound up buying the buttons at JoAnn’s. Thanks to the research I’d done at Lambspun, I found square buttons that worked in about three minutes. This sweater has come out on the small side, but is extra warm thanks to the combo of wool and tight knitting.
Tomorrow: Sweater 3: Will the Knitting Ever End?
The equation is simple. Cold weather = time to knit. And believe you me, my knitting needles have been clicking away.
Usually, when the bug bites, I pull out fun yarns and make socks. Over the years, I’ve also made hats and mittens. In my entire knitting career (which is almost twenty years now), I have made a total of two sweaters. One was too small for me. The other wound up with double wide sleeves and a short body. My odd results have kept me from sweaters for a long time, but I finally decided to try again. I was inspired by a specific sweater. I had tried on one a friend made and loved it, so it was time to take the plunge again.
I got the pattern from the book Yarnplay: Colorful Techniques and Projects for the Creative Knitter by Lisa Shobhana Mason.
The sweater, which is also on the cover, is Poppy (pp. 99-101) and it uses several yarns including a multi-color to make striped sleeves. The cool thing is that the body has vertical instead of horizontal knitting. I opted to put together a bunch of different colors of Manos del Uruguay wool yarn to get the stripes since I couldn’t find a multi that I liked. I wound up with a sweater that actually fits me, almost as big a deal as finishing a sweater in the first place.
Tomorrow: Sweater 2:The Knitting Continues
