So, remember my little contest? I’m not sure whether it was too hard or too easy since although not that many people actually attempted it, I had four people who got every yarn right. Some people included colourways and some didn’t, so I ignored that completely when I tallied the totals. Here’s a reminder of what the swatches looked like:
And here are the yarns, from top to bottom:
- Rowan Yorkshire Tweed held double, swatched for Ropes and Picots
- Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8 ply held double, swatched for Heroine
- Beaverslide Fishermans Weight, swatched for Vivian
- Dream in Color Classy, swatched for Favorite Cardigan and Amelia
- Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, swatched for Cherry
- Rowan Wool Cotton, swatched for #12 Skirt
- Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, swatched for Anais
- Berroco Ultra Alpaca, swatched for Ursa
Out of the four people who got the the yarns all right, I drew a name randomly, and Theresa ended up being the winner. Congratulations!
Anyway, that sounds like a lot of knitting, doesn’t it? Of course, I’m fickle, and every other time I’ve posted about my grand sweater plans, I’ve ended up changing my mind. In fact, I’ve changed my mind about two of those projects already.
But I’ve also gotten started on some sweaters. I tend to “save” up big projects like sweater projects, thinking that I want to save some special yarn until I’ve knit up some of the less special stash, or save a pattern until I’ve finally lost that weight. Honestly, that’s pretty silly since it often means that I fall out of love with patterns before I get to them. To counteract this, I’ve just decided to start casting on for the projects I want to knit, without worrying about “saving” them for some special occasion. The result:
Yep, that’s a lot of sweater knitting. I’ve almost finished two of the sweaters mentioned above. The final pieces for Ropes and Picots are blocking, and I’ll blog about that sweater soon. Cherry is also blocking. It’s already been seamed, but turned out a bit smaller than I had planned, so I’m attempting to add some width before sewing on the buttons. The middle sweater, of course, is my forgotten NaKniSweMo cardigan. It’s missing a sleeve and a whole lot of finishing, but I’ve gotten a head start with the seaming and my sleeve cap calculations seem to be working out.
For now, I’m knitting on a simple scarf to free up the needles I need to cast on for my next sweater, Ursa. Hopefully I’ll have some FO sweaters to show off in the coming weeks!
I said yesterday that I’ve been trying to re-assess my sweater stash and queue. I even joined NaKniSweMoDo (a knitalong to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months!) to really get it into shape. And taking a closer look at my sweater stash means swatching. Lots and lots of swatching.
Obviously, I like to work from a pretty limited colour palette!
After I took this picture, I thought about discussing each of these swatches in detail and talking about what I was planning for each of them. That seemed like a pretty big job, however, and I though it’d be fun to do another contest. Your task is to try to figure out which yarns I swatched and what I have planned for each of them. Eight yarns for eight projects. Here’s a few hints to help you: {More}
So, the final results are in, and I can’t say I was entirely successful. I managed to forget about my impending uni deadlines and wasn’t able to get as much knitting time as I wanted over the weekend. Final tally: 3 finished socks. The other three projects are almost finished, and if I had set myself a slightly smaller goal, they’d probably be done too. But it was supposed to be a challenge, right?
Anyway, I’m pushing myself to finish them off in the next couple of days, but what I’m really thinking about is my next sweater project. The weekend will be spent like this, in between uni assignments of course.
If you’re curious, that’s the Berroco pattern Ursa and I’ll be using some stash yarn, Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted in Cranberry. I can’t wait. But first I’ve got two socks of finish and a bit of seaming to do. Hopefully I’ll have some FO shots to show for it later this week.
So, I disappeared there for a while. The last couple of weeks have been very busy, but the semester’s finally over, and I’m done with undergrad. I’ve done some knitting, but mostly I’ve been accumulating future projects, projects that I can finally make a start on. I have FOs from as far back as April to post, but first I thought I’d share some of the things that are next on my plate. The theme here seems to be buttons!
First off, there’s the sewing. I bought a sewing machine last year, but I honestly haven’t used it that much. A while back I decided to get it out again and figure out why it wasn’t listening to me (turns out I was using the wrong needle) and I sewed up a quick top as a test and now I’ve got a pile of fabric waiting to be sewn up.
Here’s one of the first. Gorgeous golden yellow fabric from Superbuzzy and vintage buttons from Vintage Necessities. {More}
The first socks for this phase of Project Spectrum are complete.
Stockinette Socks knit with Noro Kureyon Sock in colour 164 {More}
These socks were quick and easy, knit mostly during while reading stuff for uni. They fit nicely into the current phase of Project Spectrum. Not only is are the colours right, but the yarn is nice and rustic – perfect for Earth. {More}
