A sweater and a shawl

While trying to get my thoughts (and life) back on track, I've been knitting like crazy. Tons of things on the needles. A few things that are finished but aren't photographed yet (and it's raining again, so no more pictures today). But I did use the sun this morning to get pictures of 2 projects!

First of, it's my 5th sweater for the IntSweMoDo2010 challenge. As I mentionned before I will never make it to 12 before the end of the yarn (unless I can skip work till the end of the year), but I'm happy with every sweater I get done!

Pattern : Alexandra Hoodie by Romi Hill (from the Fall 2010 issue of KnitScene)

Yarn : Textiles de la Marque Soie tweedée

Needle size : 4,5mm

Started/Finished : August 13 2010 till October 14 2010

Love how this turned out, love how it looks! Hated knitting the hood, I don't think I'll ever like knitting a hood. Takes forever! I also thought I messed up the seems but turns out a good blocking took care of most issues. It's small, but I don't think I would want it any bigger. I look forward to wearing it this Winter. It's only Autumn and I have been to cold a couple of days already!

The yarn is beautifull! Oh, I forgot the changes I made to this pattern. I didn't do the seed stitch on the shoulders and I only did the brim of the hood in seed stitch. I just didn't want to much of it on the hoodie, and I like it a lot this way!

Let's hope I can show more sweaters soon!

2 years ago I knitted my sister S a scarf and according to my mom she wore the thing till it fell apart. So this year she asked for a new scarf, and according to fashion I decided to knit her a kerchief/shawl rather then a scarf. It was a gamble as I hadn't discussed this with her, but she loved it!

Pattern : Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn (pdf here)

Yarn : Textiles de la Margue Aspen (mohair/wool blend) in blue

Needles : 5mm

Started/Finished : October 14 tot October 19 2010

This was a quick and nice knit. I love this wool and am already knitting a scarf out of it for me (and I have enough for a sweater). I didn't make any changes to the pattern! Now I know I need to knit a complete one for myself! :D (Previous one I ran out of yarn quite soon, see ...)

Of course now she requested a Calorimetry to go with it. The amounts of requests for handknits has been amazing, I cannot keep up with it. And I've decided I want to knit for myself!

There is no progress on the Christmas socks for my family, not one pair has been knit and I still don't feel like knitting them. But I need to get started, only 2 months left ... .

I'm dealing with a huge headache today, and the boyfriend is out again for most of the day. I'll try some spinning, maybe some knitting.

Striped cardigan

Some of you might have noticed the growing list of WIPs at the side-bar. I'm way to shattered again, starting a ton of projects at the same time and not really finishing things. That's just so me, and probably the start of Autumn ...

But I was able to move something to the FO-list, and it has buttons and all!

My striped cardigan! Based on the idea of someone else (link on the project page of the cardigan over at Ravelry) so I can't claim it as my own. I did use my own basic pattern, based on various patterns and calculations out there.

The yarn is as always from my favourite yarn store. The beige is 100% alpaca, the brown is a Cashmere blend. It turned out really nice. And I love the buttons!

They are from a stock sale, I think they are quite old. They fit perfectly! Of course a few more buttons might have avoided the pulling of the button band, but I think it's ok. I do think I'll get quite a bit of wear out of this cardigan. I actually like simple shaped stuff the best!

This is the 4th sweater for the IntSweMoDo2010 challange. I won't make it to 12, but I think I knitted more sweaters already then I did in all the years past. So every one I can still get done is one extra to keep me warm this Winter!

If I have the time tonight to sew the pieces I will have another finished cardigan to show here soon!

Patterns!

Remember the 4oz Challenge on Ravelry I was talking about? I was hoping to spin, knit and write 3 patterns. My fist patterns, and also my own personal challenge for the month, writing a pattern.

The spinning and knitting went quite fast, it was easy and fun. But then the writing of the pattern. It was making me so nervous and I kept putting it off. On Wednesday night I started realizing I probably wouldn't make it. I wanted nice looking patterns that were well written, but I knew it was a huge thing to do. And I only had till September 30 to actually send in the patterns. So I was about to give up.

But last night, after a ton of setbacks, at 2am (over here it was already October, but luckily the US is so far behind and for the challenge it was still officially September!), I finished the second pattern and got them all published on Ravelry!

So here you go :

Autumn in Summer Shawl
Lace pattern in Handspun yarn. The shawl is easily adaptable to make bigger. Knit out of 100% BFL, Spunky Eclectic fiber in colourway Hidden.

Ravelry Link

Criss-Cross Around
Easy circular lacy shawl, also easily adabtable and designed so show off handspun! The lacy-ness is actually not created by the pattern (it has a simple cable), but by the big needles.

Ravelry link

As you can see both patterns are only available as PDFs through Ravelry. At the moment that is the only way I am going to offer them. If you are not on Ravelry and you do not whish to join (it's free, so just try it!) then you can always email me and I'll send you a copy. They are both free. I will of course link to them in the side-bar!


I did not finish the third pattern, which was actually the only pattern that needed a specific yarn. The 2 patterns above are flexible, which I like for patterns for handspun as it's not always easy for spinners to spin that perfect yarn they need! Well, at least not for all spinners and I don't consider myself much more then a beginner yet!

I do have a few more ideas in my head, but first it's Socktober! I'm going to use this month to get a quick start on my Christmas knitting, which won't be easy as my sock-knitting mojo is completely gone. It's not my official challenge of the month, but it will be a challenge to actually knit socks!