Knitter in the Kitchen

To my great relief, I woke up last Saturday totally motivated to work on the Frieda Sweater. After feeling blah about this project for so long, I ran with the positive feeling.

I knit the first sleeve over the weekend, and I just finished the increases on the second sleeve. I hope to have it done by this weekend and then put the front and back of the sweater on the blocking board. Many thanks to Cyndi for her notes on the sleeve modifications – they really helped point me in the right direction. My bad sleeve experience with the Kepler Sweater must be haunting me, because I’m already worried that the sleeve won’t fit into the armhole. In all fairness, though, when I eyeball the sweater pieces, the situation looks a lot better with Frieda. So I’m trying to be optimistic.

The Frieda Sweater has got me thinking about whether I am a process- or product-oriented knitter. While the process of knitting brings me great pleasure and satisfaction, ultimately I am probably more product-oriented. I like to see that I accomplished something, so I don’t deal well with leaving projects unfinished and untouched for long periods. My tendency is either to finish a project or give it up. It’s hard for me to leave something hanging the way that I’ve left Frieda hanging (I started it on November 1). I’ve read blogs where knitters put aside sweaters for a year or two before finishing them – wow! That’s not quite what I’m striving for, but it’s pretty amazing. I think I need to work on: (1) maintaining knitting bigamy (as opposed to polygamy), and (2) patiently letting projects sit (without getting frustrated with myself) until I’m in the mood for them. The latter would definitely be helpful if I can’t achieve the former.

Thanks for the encouraging comments about my yarn diet. My last yarn purchase was on December 16th and so far I’ve been good. Of course, I’ve been tempted. Especially when Jillian started a knit-along for Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style. *sigh* Talk about wanting to buy a bag of Noro Silk Garden on the spot! But luckily, Steph and I have been chatting over email about what we haven’t bought and it’s been fun. And Purly has been keeping me in check too. I commented on how her lovely fair isle socks were tempting me, and she immediately emailed me saying, “You don’t like socks and you can’t buy the yarn. No Caitlyn, No!! Think of the wheel.” Do I have good knitting friends or what? =) I will be buying yarn for a Secret Pal, though, so if you see me shopping at the LYS, please don’t shoot me on the spot. I promise not to buy yarn for myself. Once I gave up chocolate (which is an essential food group, by the way) for three months just to prove to myself that I could do it. If I could refrain from chocolate, then the yarn diet should be possible!!

Pattern: Boogie by Amy King in Knitty.com
Yarn: Cascade 128 (just over 3 skeins)
Modifications: As I mentioned in a previous post, the pattern does not include any shaping for the v-neck. I added shaping by decreasing one stitch on each RS row. I don’t think it looks too horrible, but maybe just a tad funky. In retrospect it might have looked better if I followed the pattern as written. Here is a close-up of the neck:

Upon finishing the vest, I realized that it’s not quite my style, so it will be a gift for someone else. Hopefully she will like it!

Over the past week or so, I’ve been feeling restless about my knitting. I’m not particularly excited about the projects on my needles and would like to start something new. But at the same time, I’m hesitant to cast on for yet another project because I want to actually finish something. So in the end I decided to be “good” and work on my WIPs.

1. Artyarns ZigZag Modular Scarf #2 — finished! Yay!

2. Frieda Sweater — I finished knitting the front. I checked my gauge and it’s correct (4.5 stitches per inch), but I’m a bit concerned because it looks so tiny. Here is a shot showing the front of the sweater on top of the back. Both have been uncurled as much as possible.

Ummm…should I be concerned about the sizing? Or should I cross my fingers and hope that I can work a miracle through blocking?

3. Boogie Vest — This is what the front looks like so far:

When I first blogged about wanting to knit this vest, a couple of commenters pointed out that the pattern does not include any shaping for the v-neck. If knit according to the pattern instructions, the two sides of the “v” are knit separately (without decreases), creating a slit in the front. When you wear the vest, the slit automatically separates to create a pseudo v-neck. A few folks thought this was odd. So I decided to add v-neck shaping by decreasing one stitch on each RS row. This is a close-up of the neck:

I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Part of me thinks it looks odd too, and part of me thinks it looks okay. So I’m putting the project away for awhile so I can get some space from it and revisit it later with fresh eyes. Your thoughts, of course, would be greatly appreciated.

4. Earflap hat — Unfortunately I had to frog the Manos Earflap Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Why? Well, I was almost done with the crown decreases when I realized that the hat was way, way too big for me. So I frogged it. I re-started it one size down, and the yarn began to pool in a very bad way. I couldn’t take the pooling, so I frogged it a second time. I cast-on again for an in-between size, and the yarn was still pooling. Thus I frogged for a third time. At this point I’ve decided that the Earflap Hat just wasn’t meant to be right now. The good thing is that this experience seems to have dampened my crazy addiction to hat knitting!! LOL But just slightly, because last night I started this:

5. The above is the Basic Cable Hat from Stitch N Bitch Nation. I finished the hat today and gifted it to my brother-in-law before I remembered to take a photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination for the FO. The pattern called for 4 pattern repeats and I did 6, which was probably a bit much. If I knit this hat again for another guy, I would do 5 pattern repeats. Of course I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. If you read my blog regularly, you can confirm that this is indeed my favorite yarn!

So what’s next? Even though I’m happy with the progress I made on Frieda and Boogie, I’m still not inclined to work on them. I may start a project that I’ve had in mind for over a month now:

Yep, that’s the Traditional Hat kit for the Norwegian Knit-Along. Last month, Angela tempted me by writing about her Bea Ellis hat kit and the knit-along. I have been thinking about trying a fair isle project, so I caved in to the temptation. On the bottom right side of the photo, you can see that I also have the Philosopher’s Wool DVD to help me along. It was one of my Christmas presents from DH! =) I can’t wait to watch it and try the technique.

Hope you and yours enjoy a happy and healthy 2006!!

This week saw the beginning of three new quick projects.

First is the Artyarns ZigZag Modular Scarf. I knit a purple and blue version a couple of months ago for my sister, and liked it so much that I’m doing this one for me. I’m about one-third done.

Inspired by both Diana and Jared, I also started an earflap hat with Manos. Like Diana, I am using the pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I love this red.

Lastly, I finally started the Boogie Vest. Sorry for the horrible photo, but the rainy weather isn’t making it easy to take good pics. Sweater knitting sure goes fast when one is using #11 needles!

None of these are Christmas gifts, but I hope to get them finished this week! Hope you have a great day.

First, I would like to thank you for your kind and encouraging comments about my Kepler Sweater! Right now I think I will put it aside for awhile and re-visit it later when I’m less frustrated with the project.

In other sweater news…I am happy to report that the Frieda Sweater from Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk is going well! I finished the back last week and am currently working on the front.

I love watching the cable pattern develop! This is my first project that involves shaping while knitting a pattern (i.e. not stockinette), so initially I had difficulty understanding the instructions. Being a visual learner, I ended up making tables to map out the increases and decreases by row. That helped me immensely. I also had an “a-ha!” moment when I discovered that I misread the pattern. I thought it said that the 4th and 11th rows make up the cable pattern. I was really confused by this for a minute before I realized that it actually read “the 4th to 11th rows form the cable pattern.” Ah. One word makes a huge difference, doesn’t it? It’s not quite turtleneck-sweater-weather here yet (still had 70-degree weather this past week), but I hope to finish it in time for winter.