FO FRIDAY: At last, a completed knitting project!

Way back in October 2021, I cast on a Veera Välimäki pattern that I absolutely loved. It took 18 months, but I finally finished it in mid-April 2023.

Pattern: Little Bird by Veera Välimäki, from Interpretations Vol 4.

Yarn: Findley Dappled by Juniper Moon Farm, discontinued colorway “Rost Turkey,” 1437 yards

Needles: Hiya Hiya steel circular interchangeables; US 1 for the ribbing, US 2 for the body

Size: Medium

Satisfaction with end product: Sooooo happy! It fits perfectly. The laceweight yarn is light and feels fabulous against my skin; and has just the right amount of warm due to the wool and cool due to the silk.

A number of things occurred to keep this project on the needles for so long. For one, knitting with laceweight yarn means it takes forever to feel like you’re making progress.

Also, I made the mistake of not trusting the pattern when I got to the shoulder shaping. I thought I had screwed up the front, frogged everything, and started over.

Once I understood the short row instructions for the back shoulder were correct AND that I hadn’t screwed up the front shoulders, I realized this way of shaping shoulders is pure genius. Anyway, from this point forward, I will adapt every pattern I can to use this method. NOTE TO SELF (and others): Veera’s pattern writing skills are excellent. TRUST THE PATTERN.

Then, I retired from the day job at the end of 2021 and pretty much took a months-long leave of absence from everything, including knitting, while I decompressed from 26 years of service to the people of the United States. Spouse and I took a trip to Vegas for our 20th anniversary last April, and then a trip to Arkansas with my parents to visit family. After that, my father’s health declined precipitously and I spent a lot of time on the road between Georgia and Alabama. Daddy passed away in September 2022. I stayed with my mother for a while, and took her to Missouri to see her brother after Thanksgiving. Once the holidays were over, I finally buckled down and started working on this pullover in earnest. In between all of that, I did two plays, had Covid three times (ugh), shot three short films, four industrial training videos, and a couple of commercials.

Yep. It’s been a journey.

My current project is a fingering weight shawl. Fingering weight feels huge in my hands after so long handling the laceweight. And it’s going so much faster! It’s a big shawl, so I don’t expect to finish it especially soon, but maybe by June. We’ll see. I hope to start blogging a little more frequently, so look for a WIP Wednesday post next week.

Freshly Finished: Out of My Head Shawlette

Once upon a time I was not a shawl person. That changed. Behold the latest finished shoulder warmer:

Pattern:  Out of My Head Shawlette by Mona Mono

Yarn:  Cherry Tree Hill Broad Band Supersock Silk in African Grey, 354 yds; Cascade Heritage Sock in Real Black, 132 yds

Needles:  Addi Turbo Lace, US Size 6

Satisfaction with end product:  LOVE!  It’s colorful and lightweight and so versatile.

I’d been holding onto that Cherry Tree Hill yarn for a while, waiting for just the right inspiration.  The Out of My Head pattern was exactly suited to my internal vision for this yarn.  Because I wanted to use every single yard, I kept knitting in stockinette with the established increases long after the pattern called for beginning the lace.  Once I reached the last color change, then I started the lace edging.  The Cherry Tree ran out about halfway through the lace; I was expecting that and pulled out some leftover Heritage Sock to finish up the edging and bind off.  I think it worked out just fabulously.  The extra knitting  made the finished shawl an extremely long crescent shape, one that can be wrapped around me completely and tied in the back for an effortlessly wearable colorful accessory that also keeps my shoulders warm in an overly air-conditioned office.

You can find my Ravelry project page here, with lots of other pictures.

FO Friday: Oh, look, a new cowl!

Lots of book reading going on here lately.  And some knitting, too.  I finished this cowl at the end of September.  A three-month delay in blogging any finished project seems normal these days…

Pattern: Um, mine. Right now I’m calling it Lacy Moebius Cowl.  The name will probably change.  It’s yet to be written down in any sort of publishable form, but that may be coming soon. I hope to get a lot of “housekeeping” stuff done while I’m off work after surgery.

Yarn:  The luscious Cashmere Aran by Lotus, in Ecru and Dark Teal.  100% cashmere, 100% indulgence.  1 skein each, 200 yards total.

Needles:  Size 9 Addi Turbos.  I didn’t need to use circular needles because this is knitted flat across the short way, but I’ve gotten to where I hate using straights.

Satisfaction with end product:  It’s soft and warm and beautiful, and will keep my neck and ears toasty warm on those occasions the Atlanta winter day dips below 45F.  I’m having some second thoughts about the moebius twist that exposes the back side of the lace pattern.  It’s interesting visually, and makes for a nice texture contrast, but I worry that it may be too much because of the yarn color contrast.

Here are a few more pictures.  Let me know what you think.  (Click the pic to make it bigger.)

December 2016

 

 

FO Friday: Kayson’s Blankie

By the time this post appears online, my family will have increased by one.  My niece expects to deliver her second son sometime between September 7 and September 14.  All new babies in my family get a special blanket made just for them, and Kayson is no exception.

Pattern:  My design, and it doesn’t have a name yet.

Yarn:  Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Caramel, a discontinued colorway; 1.1 skeins for a total of 767 yards.

Needle:  US 9; I used Addi Turbos Circular.

Size:  34″ x 24″, after a machine wash and dry.

Satisfaction with end product:  It’s soft and absorbent and can be thrown in the washer and dryer.  That’s the perfect baby blanket as far as I’m concerned.  I hope my niece likes it.

The pattern came about because I couldn’t find a blanket that I liked among all the blanket patterns that I already have.  Let me rephrase:  I couldn’t find a blanket pattern that I liked that suited this particular yarn, and I was determined to use this yarn because of its easy care.  And so I fiddled around for a while with stitch patterns and finally settled on a classic basketweave, but with a twist: the small basketweave sections that bookend the center portion of the blanket.

This time as I made the blanket, I remembered to make pattern notes.  I’ll get the pattern written up and made available eventually.  I have to figure out how to upload PDFs to Ravelry someday, don’t I?

Here are a couple more pictures of the blanket, for good measure.  Click the pic to see it larger.  And you can click that large picture up top to go to the Ravelry project page.

Do you have a finished project to show off? Please share it with us by linking up here. You’ll be glad you did!

FO Friday: The Wildflower Cardigan

Hurray, it’s done! After all this time, it’s done!

Well, to be totally truthful, it was finished at the end of June.  But it wasn’t until  two weekends ago that spouse and I managed to coordinate our schedules for a photoshoot (my head is cut off in the photos because I hadn’t yet taken a shower that day and my hair was a mess;  spouse said “Either we take these pictures now or they don’t get done,” so we took the pictures); and then it wasn’t until this past weekend that I found the time to write this blog entry and schedule it for publication.

Pattern:  Wildflower Cardigan by Alana Dakos; available as a download or in the book, Coastal Knits.

Yarn:  Silky Wool by Elsebeth Lavold, colorway Acorn; roughly 8 1/2 skeins, totaling 1575 yards

Size: 43″ (bust measurement)

Needles: US 1, 2, and 3 — I used Hiya Hiya Sharps circulars.

Mods:  None, except adding a few more rows to make the button band wider and adding one more button.

Satisfaction with end product:  I love it.  It fits just right; it has the three-quarter sleeves that I love; it can be dressed up or dressed down.  Now I’m just waiting for the weather to turn so I can wear it.

You can click on the big pic up there to go to my Ravelry project page.  Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.  Click each of the pictures to view it larger.

To knit this, you must be prepared to face endless endless endless stockinette. A lot of Alana Dakos’s designs are like that. Her cardigans tend to be very simple in structure, with one or two special design features (like the tiny pocket and the scalloped detail at the hem and sleeve edges on this one) that stand out against the acres of stockinette. The good thing is this makes her cardigans perfect for television knitting.

This post is part of the Knit Your Library Challenge. Click the badge to see what other folks participating in this challenge have done.

Because I’m scheduling this entry ahead of time, I’m not linking with any other Finished Friday blogs. Feel free to link with this one, if you so desire!

FO Friday: Move along, nothing to see here

No finished projects for me this week, not even a book.

No, I take that back.  I finished Sisterland several days ago but have yet to write the review.  Between work and rehearsal, we’re lucky if dinner is something other than fast food.

Busy weekend ahead.  Spouse and I have theatre tickets for tonight and tickets to the premiere of a friend’s film tomorrow.  Then I have a coffee date with a girlfriend Sunday morning and rehearsal Sunday afternoon.  Somewhere in there I hope the laundry will get done and the rest of the Christmas decorations put away (don’t even ask).

Plod plod plod on the Wildflower Cardigan.  Still fighting cast-on-itis for a quickie project.  If you were a crafting whiz this week and managed to finish something, or just want to commiserate about not finishing, do link up here!