February Lady Pictures!!

I finally remembered to take pictures! I have one sleeve completed... and one sleeve 1/3 finished. I've already sewn in my ends.... for some reason I like to do that before I block, because I'm always afraid that the ends are going to catch on something.









Oh yeah, and I forgot that I'm a really realy loose knitter when I bought my size 3 Hiya Hiya 9" sock circulars that can't be returned... so my socks were HUGE when I tried them on last night. So I had to frog them. So I need to get either 0s or 1s. And a new pattern, because other tight knitters have had problems with these socks being huge and slouchy.

Sock Challenge

Now that the end of the February Lady Sweater is in sight (ONLY ONE SLEEVE LEFT! Still no pictures... I'm a slacker) I decided that it was time that I did something with my beautiful skein of Rio de la Plata multicolor sock yarn. At my final FLS class, I had to buy US 6 12" circs for my sleeves...since my Denises don't go that small, and I didn't think of that. While looking for my circs... I saw Hiya Hiyas 9" circs... and decided to splurge a bit. DPNs are fine, but I love circs. Plus my DPNs are 8" long and for socks, that's a bit large. Right now, I'm doing just a basic 3x1 rib sock. I thought tackling lace socks was not a good plan right off the bat. My first sock is 3" long right now. And the pooling is just fine... no weird pooling!

The colorway is fuschia, evergreen, and blue violet. Absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to wear my first pair of hopefully many socks. And I promised Gene my second pair of socks... we're going to go to my LYS and pick out some sock yarn for him, and a simple pattern off of ravelry. I'm just busting through my resolution to challenge myself this year!

February Lady Update

After frogging the yoke once... and panicking over putting my sleeves on waste yarn... I'm finally almost finished the body. At the moment, it *just* hits the top of my jeans, so I'm going to do probably another 2 repeats of the gull-lace pattern and then start my garter border. My favorite part of this project though is going to be binding off the body, because since I'm using my new Denises I can just change the ends of the needles to a larger size! Whenever I have to switch needle sizes, I always get panicked. But it's so easy with my interchangeables. I love them.

Linda (who is teaching the class, and owns the LYS I go to) suggested putting stitch markers every few multiples of 7 so when you mess up on the lace pattern, you know right away. I've been meticulously counting my stitches every time because I'm terrified of screwing up. The lace pattern is pretty easy...and it's very easy to read, but I'm always paranoid that I'm going to get confused and messed up. The one time I took it to my knitting night on Mondays (yay Presto!) I screwed it up pretty bad. well, not pretty bad... I was able to tink and fix it while still in the same row, but still. I've learned my lesson.

My goal with the sweater was to be finished the body by Saturday, and I really think that I'll be able to accomplish that. My plan is to do the rest of the gull lace pattern tonight, and possibly start the garter border. Maybe by Friday I can bind off! I still need to take pictures of my progress. I took pictures pre-frogging, and decided not to post them since I started over. Maybe tonight I will. Though my camera always messes up the color. I really need to remember to take photos outside without the flash, but it's been so WINDY lately that I'm afraid to.

February Lady Sweater

I've been taking a class at Stitches With Style on the February Lady Sweater... and this will be my first sweater. I took pictures a while ago, but then I frogged the sweater because I misunderstood directions and ended up with 9 extra stitches. I'm probably about 30% done... the yoke is finished (MAN THAT YOKE TOO FOREVER!) and I've been working on the body in the gull-lace pattern. It's really beautiful, and I LOVE the yarn that I picked! Brown Sheep superwash worsted weight in this bright blue called Bon Vivant Blue. I'll have to take pictures again to post.

I'm really glad that I picked this pattern up because it's a lot of fun, and I love the baby pattern that it's based on. Maybe one of these days I'll knit that for someone I know who's having a baby. But I'm also definitely happy that I am taking a class for this. The extra support is much needed and much appreciated. I've never picked up stitches IN MY LIFE so I'm terrified of the sleeves. Right now they're just hanging out on their waste yarn, waiting for me to finish the body and knit away. I think that once I'm finished and I have a sweater that *I* made that's just for me, I'll be really happy.

My little knit-group and I are also organizing a NYC Yarn Crawl for April, which I'm really excited about. I can't wait to review and see all of these yarn stores in Manhattan. I'm most excited about Purl Soho. Last Minute Knitted Gifts is one of my fave books, and I'm very excited to see the store that produced that book. We're actually hiring a limo service to take us up there. That way we won't have to deal with any taxis or subways... and it's actually less per person to rent a limo than to take a train! I think it'll be about the same price if we took a bus, because we'd have to deal with taxi or subway service all day.

So far so good on the new challenges

I've project overloaded again. My ISE7 scarf is completed, just unblocked. And I can't wet block it because it's merino DK and a lace pattern and I'm afraid that wet blocking would mess that up. I'm torn between steam blocking (which I'd have to take the scarf over to the future MIL's house for that because her steamer is much nicer than my iron with steam coming out of it) and using a spray bottle and stretching. I also had this board that would have been GREAT for blocking that the future MIL gave me when I was sewing in my tiny tiny tiny apartment and no space. I haven't sewn anything in so long... I want to bust my machine out and take it for a spin so it doesn't forget how to work. Anyway. I can't find the board. So I've been using my spare bed and just sticking rust-proof pins in that. Whatever. It works just fine. I guess I could use the futon also, since the bed is a pillow top and sometimes things don't lay flat.

My first sweater that was SUPPOSED to be the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts has turned instead into the February Lady Sweater. The yarn I picked is SO PRETTY!! It's Brown Sheep Superwash Worsted in Bon Vivant Blue, which is this bright royal blue. So far I'm on the ENDLESS yoke. I've completed the 3 buttonholes and am about to add the final increases for the sleeves before I start the gull lace pattern. I'm taking a class on the sweater at Stitches with Style in Newark DE, and at my first class I learned 3 new things! I learned how to cable cast-on, how to M1, and how to make a buttonhole. The buttonhole that this pattern uses is awesome. My only wish is that I learned the cable cast-on when I was casting-on so that I could have that nice edge. Linda (the store owner) taught me the cable CO when I needed to re-CO during the buttonholes. I did use the cable CO for Lea's Big Bad Baby Blanket from Stitch N' Bitch. I'm using a bare undyed superwash yarn for that from Knitpicks and it's SUPER soft. I'm so jealous of this unborn sexless baby. Lea is due in July, so I have plenty of time.

I don't know why I'm so addicted to making baby blankets. I guess because it's mostly mindless knitting and it gets such a big wow factor. There's no mistaking that a lot of time was put into it. I did adjust the pattern for the BBBB. Since I'm using a chunky weight instead of a fingering weight, I only CO 100 stitches and I'm using sz 11 instead of sz 9. I tried using 15s because it would go really fast, but the border looked too loose. I like a tighter seed stitch.

And I promise to try REALLY hard to add pictures. I'm really bad at that. I also haven't done the socks yet. I tried casting on with 2s and it was WAY tight, so I may move up to 3s. Also my dpns that I have are big. I wish I had 6" DPNS instead. It would make it a lot easier. I really want the harmony DPN set, but those are 'spensive.