Monday, November 05, 2007

My First Knitted Sweater

This is the Sonnet sweater from knitty.com. For the garter stitch part, I used two yarns, and slipped stitches on alternate colors to create the mosaic look. The blue is a wool/acrylic blend I got from my friend Earin, and the multi is recycled sari silk yarn I got from ebay.

I made the extra large size. I did have gauge. And it looked like it was fitting. That is, until I put the sleeves on. The neckline is so wide in this sweater, that the weight of the sleeves pull it even wider, and it slips off the shoulders. (Notice how I have had to roll up the sleeves!)

This picture shows the sweater AFTER I washed AND dried it. It did shrink up quite a bit in the length, but that neckline is still just too wide for this sweater to be very wearable. I'm thinking of closing up the neckline a bit with a crochet border.

The other problem with this sweater is how WARM it is. Whew! I am sure I'll knit this pattern again, I love the way it goes together. But next time a lighter weight yarn and a smaller size.

I saw this pattern for a felted skull and I just had to make it for my friend Cher. She has a thing for skulls. Can't you see this fellow dangling from the rear view mirror, with a friend?

The Mermaid Scarf

I made one of these scarves from leftover sock yarn. That one is all blues and greys. I was going to give it to my hairdresser, but she's allergic to wool. So I said I'd make her one. I asked her what color she wanted, and she said, anything with black in it. The hair salon is right next door to Filati's but they were closed. So I went down to Beverly's and I found this very soft acrylic yarn from Lion Brand, called Micro Spun. It splits like the devil, but if you are careful with it, it makes up beautifully. I'm not quite finished with the scarf, but I'm loving the look of it.


Here's a closeup. The crochet hook is a size E, and this yarn calls for an H, but it's working fine.


That's all I have time for. More projects very soon!

Sunday, November 04, 2007

The Wooly Hat

At Shay Black's Irish Session at the Starry Plough, he passes around a wooly hat to collect contributions for the musicians. I thought , we need a wooly hat to pass around at our house concerts! So, I decided to knit one.

I sort of went by the pattern for a knitted bowl, in One Skein, but I added stitches and made it bigger. I also used two colors of wool together (this is odds and ends of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes I had left over from other projects).

Here is the hat before it came off the needles:

You can see how big it is.


This is what happened after it was felted. A little small for my head, but I wasn't intending to wear it!

Perfect for the purpose. I love the way the colors heathered after it was felted.


It's almost time for evening meditation. I'll blog more tomorrow. Lots more to show! I'm finally out of the production tunnel!