Sand Dollar Sweater

My stitch and bitch friends and I all fell in love with Knitting Nature, by Norah Gaughan. It's a beautiful book of patterns inspired by patterns that occur naturally in nature. Get it? N-A-T-U-R-E.

The patterns are all pretty advanced in either deign or construction, so they're fun to knit. I've just knitted one project from the book, the Sand Dollar Pullover.

Photo from the book, in pink, my finished sweater, in green.


You might notice that I'm not wearing this, and it's because it looks TERRIBLE ON ME. I mean it. It's too short and the neck droops in very odd places. So, this one belongs to my sister now.

I think I'm going to make this one next:

White sweater on the body

Here's my mom in the white sweater. It fits her perfectly.

Happy upcoming 65th birthday, Mom! I love you.

What Tarot Card are You?

I am The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Cabled Vest

After the Patti jacket fiasco, I needed to start a new project. I've been wanting a vest so I decided on this one:


I'm knitting it in Rowan Calmer, a super soft cotton blend yarn, on size 7 needles. The color is called Tinkerbell. Here's a color swatch:


It's sort of a cable rat's nest, but it's a fun and interesting pattern. And no sleeves, so it'll be fast. The pattern calls for both the front and back to be cabled, but no thanks, I'll just do the front. Or maybe one cable up the back or two up the sides of the back. Front and back center cable panels seems too bulky to me.

Plus I'm lazy like that.

Henry's beary cute!

I knitted this bear romper for Henry before or shortly after he was born. I knitted the smallest size for him, out of the yarn and needle size that was recommended. It turned out huge! He's 19 months old, and it's still a little big on him. It's a fall/winter "outfit," so hopefully it'll fit him at the right time.

He's so cute!

This sweater is killing me

So I got this great Rowan book called "Studio." It's just a few cool patterns, no photo on the cover. An interesting approach for a knitting book. I guess the Rowan brand is strong enough to carry it, though, because I shelled out $16 bucks for it and so did my friend Lisa. Seriously, there are six patterns in the whole book.

I decided to do the Patti pattern, a really cute pleated, swingy jacket. I saw the knitted sample at Hilltop Yarn and I HAD TO HAVE IT. I bought some cheapish yarn at the Tricoter sale, and off I went. The first step is to cast on 229 stitches for the back. Oy. That's a lot when you're casting on to size 3 needles. So I cast on, counted, counted again, and began. Six rows of garter stitch, switch to size 5s, begin this ingenious slip stitch pattern that forms the pleats, and so on. About half-way through the back (and about four months of stopping and starting on this project) I thought it was looking kind of wide. Oh well, I thought, I'll cast off a bunch when the pleats are done and I'll be fine.

Not so.

I took the thing in to Tricoter and it turned out I had sixty extra stitches. That's about 7.5 inches too wide, which is a lot. The pleats were supposed to start under my shoulder blades but they started almost under my arms.

Alas.

I ripped out the whole back and started a front. I want to do the sweater, so I'll keep plugging along. I'm thinking you'll see it finished in winter 2008.

White Sweater

I knitted this sweater in about three weeks, it was a fun knit with little cables all over the place. The yarn is Takhi Trio, a yarn that changes textures and fibers. It goes from a cotton to a matte nylon to a shiny nylon. I used US 9 needles. The pattern is from a Tricoter book. I have another sweater knit from this yarn, in greens, that's not a cardigan. I shouldn't have knit a cardigan out of the yarn because it's really, really slippery and the buttons didn't stay buttoned. I sewed the front together so it became a pullover.

This one lives with my mom, too, because it looked so perfect on her.

Brown Sweater

I knitted this sweater out of Rowan Wool Cotton, a favorite of mine, on size US 6 needles. The pattern is "Lift and Separate" from Big Girl Knits. This is a great book with larger sized patterns that are trendy and cute. The photo from the book shows the sweater detail better than my photo.

I gave the sweater to my mom for awhile. It'll fit me this winter so I'm going to take it back.

This isn't the greatest photo, but my mom's bedspread sure is cool!