FO: Tappan Zee Deux

In the interests of keeping this at least a little bit of a surprise, I've tried to do some close up shots to give a sense of the finished item, but no big reveal. Maybe Mom will send me a modeled shot once it arrives.

A second Tappan Zee, made from handspun merino/silk, with US 5/3.75 mm needles, 26 Nov - 7 Dec, no mods to the pattern. The orange is a bit more, ehem, robust then I was aiming for, but I think it will be ok.

I even used some of the labels Mom gave me a while ago.

I hope she likes it!

Things I've been meaning to blog about but haven't

You know how you'll be going along, happily finished objects and writing up little synopses with pretty pictures, and everything will be fine and dandy until...

...you realize that there are five finished objects that haven't been blogged in final form, nor even mentioned since you cast them on. Oooops!

For the very first time ever Once again, I find myself in said situation. Here is the quick and dirty rundown.

Neglected FO Number the first: my gorgeous, lovely Cadence pullover.

Sorry for craptastic nighttime photo, but it's almost December and it's the UK. It's dark at 4:30 pm.

I knit this up in nine days out of Artful Yarns Serenade (a cotton/angora blend). I was a bit dubious about the shaping of this sweater - to be more precise, the lack of shaping. As someone who bears a striking resemblance to either a pear or a warped board (slightly curvy) depending on the angle, I wasn't sure that a silhouette that tapered toward the bottom hem was going to be anything even remotely resembling good. Imagine my surprise when I found that with a bit of negative ease, it actually works quite well.

My only complaint about this project has nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with the yarn. The yarn is soft and lovely, and seems to have a bit of resilience not normally found in cotton yarns, which is a very good thing. However, this particular yarn is extremely friendly, and prone to leaving bits of itself everywhere. And I mean everywhere - I need to lint brush myself a couple of times a day when I've got this thing on. Never again with the angora!

Not-quite-so-negelcted FO Number the second: Devil's scarf.

Yarns were recycled from some ancient Goodwill treasures, and I vaguely followed the pattern for Marty. I ended up knitting a big tube for this, because I didn't want it to curl and I wanted to knit her name on the back to hopefully prevent it's being lost within the first two weeks of use. It's nice and thick and warm and soft, and she's been quite pleased with it - blue to match her school uniform, but a softer, paler blue which she seems to like.

I've also got an Aran Necklace camisole to talk about, but that one requires some surgery to become wearable-without-being-arrested, so I'll save that process for another post. Ta ta!

I've been cheating

I made The List with all the best intentions. I was going to prioritize the projects for the fall, write them down in (virtual) pen, make myself accountable to all five people who read this blog (not counting my mother) and Get. Things. Done.

Well. That was before this. I made the mistake of going over to take a look.

And I found three (!) sweaters that I liked. Three sweaters that I even have the yarn for. Three. And I realized that knitting up some of the sweater lots in my stash would clear out some space. Which is always a good thing, right?

That giant thud you just heard was The List getting tossed to the bottom of the rubbish bin and buried under the moldy leftovers I cleaned out of the refridgerator. Temporary insanity is my excuse. Insanity and an overwhelming desire to knit with cotton/angora yarn. In the autumn (part of the insanity thing - it doesn't get that cold in London in the winter, but it's definitely colder then cotton/angora). That's the only explanation to explain why this

is now taking over all of my evening knitting time. I was hoping to maintain my speed and get it done in a week (2 girl sweaters = 1 porpoise sweater, right?), but sadly, I'm now into the stockinette body, and even though it's on US 10/6.0 mm needles, it's taking quite a while. Maybe two weeks, and then I can get back to The List.

I promise.

FF: One week, two sweaters

Sweater #1:

Sweater #2:

Not surprisingly, Devil was uninterested in modeling her sweater, although I have managed to get her into it voluntarily. But Boo was happy to put her's on for our grey and drizzly Sunday visit to HMS Belfast.

Both sweaters: top down raglans a la Barbara Walker.
Needles: US 10/6.0 mm for bodies, US 8/5.0 mm for ribbing on the Technicolor Dreamsweater
Yarn: handspun from girl-dyed top (colorways Mermaid and Clown Barf). I used all of the Mermaid yarn and 95% of the Clown Barf.

These were great fun to knit, and have only increased my conviction that I will be much happier when I do most of my knitting from handspun rather then commercial yarn. It's so satisfying. I am also pleased that Boo's dye job ended up as a very bright, but perfectly 3-year-old-appropriate sweater. She loves it, and it makes it really easy to keep track of her in a crowd!

I've got to go back and fix the collar I think - add ribbing all the way around instead of doing a little Peter Pan deal - but then it will be time to move on to the next project. Spinning seems to be falling by the wayside these days, in favor of actually using up some of the stash. I think the next sweater should be the IM Aran, but a new Knitty (and a new Norah Gaughan pattern) is very tempting!

Why kids' sweaters rock

You can more or less finish them in three days:

Devil's mermaid sweater, yarn spun from top that she dyed herself. Top down raglan with yarnover increases. I found a scallop-y sort of lace pattern for the hem, and repeated it on the sleeves.

Thankfully she decided she wanted short sleeves, because I didn't have a lot of yardage (~320 yds). I still need to decide what to do about buttons/button bands - it might come down to applied i-cord with a few gaps for the buttons to fit through. We'll see - it's now soaking so I can block it out and figure out how many buttons I'll need. But one more thing can be checked off the list - hooray!