Snow

Snow white winter is a rarity in the city, and today I spent quite a lot of time gazing in awe and quiet satisfaction at the snow covered street, trees and cars outside my window. It snowed the whole night and day yesterday and today and the city was absolutely transformed into a snowy fairytale scenery, if only for a few days.













And on the knitting front, this simple stockinette raglan sweater will be the end of me. I changed the second ball of yarn and knit the two sleeves - so far, so good. But the yoke bothered me. First I unraveled and redid only the upper third, but it bulged around the armpits. Then I unraveled and redid again the entire yoke (that hurt :)), but this time it is too narrow at the shoulders. I'm definitely unraveling the upper half tomorrow, but to ease the pain, I cast on a sock today.

Ripple Effect Tunic

Pre-blog FO


I knit this tunic last winter and still consider it one of my best knits for my daughter. She wears it this year too (not as many times as the tunic actually deserves, IMO :) ), but as she grew more than 10 cm in height since last winter, the tunic is now shorter.
It is knit in the round up to the armholes, no waist shaping. I learned some new techniques with this tunic last year, which I now employ on a regular basis - tubular cast on, tubular cast off, double based neckpiece (cowl in this case).
As we hadn't taken any decent pictures of it, it was high time to do so before she outgrew it completely.
So today we decided to take advantage of the beautiful snow for a photo shoot.
It was a rather short session though, as just when she began posing, a gust of cold wind blew tons of snow upon us from the trees around and we hurried back home.

Pattern: Ripple Effect Tunic
Yarn: Alize cashmira 100% wool
Needle: 4 mm

Sweaters Undone

I used to think of myself as a one thing at a time person, but that's what Ravelry, and other knitters' blogs, and knitters discussion boards make to you - I'm a multy-WIP knitter now.

So, today I took stock of my sweaters in progress:

1. A crochet cardi, the fruit of my short summer flirtation with the hook. I should finish this for summer 2012 or unravel and put the yarn into better use.


2. My husband's sweater. It's too fitting and he doesn't like it like that. Two paths ahead - finish it and give it to somebody else (it might fit my father?) or unravel and start over, preferably another pattern (Norah Gaughan's Devon?):


3. A spontaneously cast on stockinette raglan in the Hourglass sweater style and self-striping yarn. I love the yarn and the look so far, but the light beige color in the second skein is much darker (though the color batch is the same) and this bugs me. I plan to go check the yarn store for a matching skein tomorrow:


4. Meanwhile yesterday I cast on this - the back of my Central Park Hoodie. The color and the yarn are yummy, but I might have to buy more yarn, 400 g now seem to be not enough:



So, I believe a small pledge is in order - I will not buy more yarn (other than needed for the above sweaters) and start new big projects (well, I leave the door open for socks, hats and gloves, otherwise I might not keep my pledge :), I'm such a cheater (blushing)), until I clear out one way or the other these WIPs!

For other knitters' work in progress check Tami's Amis WIP Wednesday

Skull & Bones

Pattern: Skull Hat
Yarn: Alize Superlana Classic black and white
Needle: 3 mm
Time to knit: 2 days

Though I've been knitting for years now, I had always avoided fair isle. I've done some colorwork knitting, sure, striping and supercomplicated intarsia with 17 or more balls running simultaneously (teenage madness!), but no fair isle so far. Well, the time has come to grow up and enter the world of mature knitters.
It's a good thing that for my first fair isle project I chose a hat with only 13 rows of actual stranded knitting - I found it messy and slow. The final result is interesting and hubby and son are fighting whose the hat is actually :). I suppose the big boy will get the hat and the small boy - the wrist warmer, into which I turned the sample of the pattern I knit initially.
This is also my first double hat - first I knit the internal simple hat (with provisional cast on) bottom-up, and then the stranded twin, again bottom-up. I could have opted for a continuous process top-bottom-top, but I don't like knitting hats top to bottom.

Celtic Knots

Pattern: Celtic Knots
Yarn: Alize Lanagold Classic 320 g
Needle: 4 mm
Time to knit: over three weeks in between three hats and a pair of mittens

Celtic Knots is a Japanese pattern, but as 1) I don't speak Japanese and 2) I rarely follow strictly a pattern, I took the general idea and the pattern of the knot and then calculated everything to fit me according to my gauge. The sweater was ready and sewn around Christmas, but I didn't like the sleeves, which were first knit 3/4 long, as in the original pattern. I unraveled more than two-thirds of the sleeves and redid them as a bit extra long, IMO this length is more consistent with the rest of the pattern. I also decided not to sew the neck-piece folded in half, but to leave it roll inward.









For more finished objects this week please visit Tami's Amis FO Friday 68 and Linda's Creative Friday

Twilight Mittens

Pattern: Bella's Mittens
Yarn: Alize Lanagold Classic 60 g
Needle: DPNS 4 mm
Time to knit: 2 days


When my daughter told me that she would prefer if I'd knit her mittens instead of gloves I was quite taken aback, as I've never liked mittens. Her argument was that gloves with their separated fingers made her small hands freeze, while mittens would allow her to keep her fingers clenched together in the freeze cold winter mornings on her way to school.
And then I saw these Bella Mittens on Ravelry and I instantly knew that I had found the ultimate mittens for Gaby. Not only is she a huge fan of the Twilight books and films, but the mittens are the first and only (so far) mittens that I actually like a lot.
And they also turned out to be THE BEST written mittens ever! The description is flawless and clear. The horseshoe cable pattern produces a perfect elegant form and a beautiful round finish at the fingertips. I had almost a full skein left from my red sweater, so I made them full arms length to keep her warm.

No matter how hard I tried (and I did) I couldn't get the right color of the mittens on these pictures - it's a beautiful deep blood red and not this tomato red that you see (so you'll have to use your imagination a bit :)





Linked to Tami's Amis WIP 74