Carpooling

Recently, my husband got a new job which is right around the corner from mine and with the same hours!  It only made financial and eco-friendly sense to carpool.  Of course, an added benefit of carpooling is more knitting time!!  I started the Motte Shawl on April 15th before I went to bed one night.

Since then, I've only been working on it while we carpool to and from work.

It's only been about a half a month since I started and I'm already this far.

 I feel like I've created a 25th hour in each day!!

Something Resembling a Sweater

I finally have something that actually resembles a sweater!!  Remember this post about the Seamless Raglan Sweater?  Check it out, it's now more than just a bunch of tubes claiming to be a sweater!

You may be able to see in the first picture that I'm going to put a half zip on the sweater.  After I joined the sleeves to the body, instead of knitting in the round, I turned the knitting when I was at the half way point in the front.  I've also switched from the raglan construction to a yoke construction.  After my husband tried the sweater on, I showed him pictures of raglan and yoke sweaters again.  We also looked at the sweaters that he wears often and decided to go with the yoke.   I'm stoked....yoke construction seems waaaaay easier!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Back in July, you may remember me blogging about knitting a sweater for my husband.  I ended up deciding on knitting him a raglan sweater.  I'm using Elizabeth Zimmerman's Seamless Raglan Sweater for a pattern since I can customize it the way my husband wants it.  I started knitting the sweater back in July(?), maybe August (?), with the hopes of finishing it for this winter so he can wear it.  HA!  Fat chance!  I should have known myself.  Here is my progress so far:

(Sorry about the pic, for some reason I can't get it to upload the flipped version)

Check out my gorgeous sleeve increases!

My new goal with this sweater is to finish it by next fall.  That's totally doable... My new goal gives me wiggle room for another WIP!  Yay!  What should I start?  Socks?  A spring sweater for myself?  Maybe a baby sweater?  Choices, choices, choices...

Fiber Fiesta Weekend

Instead of enjoying the unseasonably warm weather this weekend like I should have been, I was hunkered down in my basement playing with fiber.

Handpainted fiber drying:

I've also been working on a few sweaters.  The first is for my friends 3 month old baby girl. Of course my dog, Sidney, had to get in the picture.

I used the Little Coffee Bean Cardigan pattern.  Instead of changing colors every 2 rows, like the pattern calls for, I made my stripes 4 rows each. 

The second sweater is for my husband...his first hand knit sweater:

 It looks like a huge oversized hat! 

I'm using the raglan sweater pattern from the book Knitting without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  I obviously have only knit the body and haven't gotten to any of the hard parts, so we will see if it really is indeed knitting without tears!

~Mary

For Travel

Since I ended up absolutely LOVING my first shawl (shawlette), Sunshine Shawl for Sad People, I started another one!  Yay!  This one is called For Travel.  The pattern is by the lovely Caitlin Ffrench.  If you've never heard of her, you HAVE to check out her stuff...It's totally awesome!

So, I feel like I'm doing something wrong with the pattern.  My shawl is triangular...

The one on the pattern page looks more rectangular...

What the heck!!  I've re-read the pattern a gazillion times, and I'm doing it right.  Ugh, I don't know....I'm just going to keep knitting.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I could be doing wrong? 

First Sweater Evaaa!

Actually, not really.  I have a terrible habit of starting sweaters, knitting half way through, then deciding I don't like it and ripping it.  This particular sweater I have actually cast on three different times and ripped it.  I finally decided to just suck it up and stick with it.  Here's my progress...

I'm knitting the featherweight cardigan with Knit Picks Gloss Lace.