FO: Blue Agathis

Last Christmas, I wanted to make my boyfriend a hat. I knew his favorite color was "Carolina Blue", and I didn't really have that color in my stash at the time. I had this "soft blue" and I was very unsure if it was too baby colored, but I showed him and he said he liked it (*I still think he was just being nice, and it's too light, honestly). But since I had showed him the yarn, I also offered to let him pick his pattern. He found several cabled hats he liked, so I had a selection of 3 different patterns to surprise him with the final product. It worked out great.

This is the Agathis pattern by Agata Smektala, which is a free download. I liked the texture and how the cables swap in each column, so this is what I went with. The yarn is I Love This Yarn in Soft Blue that I had leftover from the Chill Pill-ow. I really like this yarn for hats because it's so soft and durable, but it also can be thrown in the wash so I don't have to worry that the recipient will felt their hat.

It turned out great - a nice comfy size. The boyfriend said he loved it. Hopefully he actually did lol. Always the fun parts of gift making, amiright? I really did enjoy making this hat - it was a quick and satisfying pattern to knit up. Hats as gifts are just the best.

 

FO: Kerfuffle Ishnana Cardigan

I'm so excited to show off this sweater! Please excuse the photos - this color is really difficult to photograph - also please excuse my mountain of sandbags behind me in the pictures, lol. Ah, Florida post hurricanes, right? Anyway, let's get on with the fun part: the sweater!

It all started with the yarn. I have a tendency to go down the rabbit hole of Ravelry yarn selling on occasion (if you never have looked, I absolutely recommend it!), and this yarn was a great find when browsing the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock listings. I loved the color of the yarn and I loved the price - $35 for 3.27 skeins. If you're at all familiar with this yarn, you'll know that's a steal of a deal. I just looked it up on yarn.com and it goes fro $27 per skein. So half price for a color I loved sounded pretty swell. I bought the yarn in January of 2016 and it came from a knitter who had recently discovered she was allergic to wool (let's all have a moment of silence for this poor soul). So her loss was my gain, and I grabbed a sweater's worth of lovely yarn for half price :) Around the same time that I found this yarn, I also discovered the Ishnana pattern by Ysolda Teague. I loved the cables and design, and if I went for a more fitted look than the pattern example I knew I could swing it with this yarn. Done and done! 

The pièce de résistance of this pattern is undoubtedly the back. Just look at that cable pattern! I remember when I began this pattern (it is knitted from the bottom up) I had a hard time adjusting to the cable chart since it's a longer chart then I have worked with before, but I quickly adapted to it and I really missed knitting the cables once they were finished. Oddly enough I knitted a nice chunk while my husband watched Game of Thrones in the background, and this cable design feels very in line with that show to me. Very regal, I guess.

But the party doesn't end with the back! Take a look at the sleeve! This is the fanciest sleeve I've ever knitted, and I just love them. The pattern includes 2 different options for the fronts and the sleeves, both using the same cable pattern on the back. I loved the back so much and I wanted to continue the cable design all over, so I chose the cables in each place. The other design is lovely too, so I may end up making that one day as well.

Even the cables on the front have a little something extra to them. I did not even notice this until I really got into knitting this, but the cables undulate and wave across the front of the sweater! How cool is that? I kept trying to explain this to others while I was knitting, but it was very difficult to show until the button bands were attached. Since I knew I was cutting it close with my yarn, I switched up the construction and knit the body followed by the button and neck bands only then moving on to the sleeves. It turns out I could've been a little more free with my yarn usage, and I do wish this was just a little bit longer, but being a bottom up cardigan it was very difficult to tell if I was going to have enough yarn, so I skimped. This is a very nit picky thing though as I love this sweater. I really do need to get better at accurately anticipating the measurements I need with the length though as this has happened before. This is why I prefer top-down sweaters, lol. Anyway, moving on...

I tried to get a photo that showed the subtle color variation in this yarn, but it looks so much nicer in person. The other reason I love this yarn is the color name: it's called Kerfuffle! How great is that?! This is a hand dyed yarn, so while the overall color is a gray-ish purple, there are little bits that are more charcoal or more purple or lighter purple, etc. I totally LOVE the colors. I feel like this is the perfect amount of color variation. Because of these subtle colors I know I can wear this sweater with a lot of other colors - I can help it look more gray, more purple, more blue, etc.

As this is a very fitted sweater, I knew I needed to back the button bands. I used some silver colored rayon petersham ribbon since it was the best color I had on hand to coordinate. I like the result. I machine stitched the button holes and then sewed the ribbons to the sweater button band by hand. I also lucked out with the buttons. Earlier this year I bought a gladware bin full of buttons for $5 at The Sewing Studio, and these iridescent purple ones were included. I tried several button styles from my stash (even some that were metal with celtic knots to accent the cables), but I liked how these were the right color and somewhat clear so they blend in well and let the knitting be the star.

And as with all my sweaters, this is realistically how it will be seen out in real life. I like this just as much open or closed, which is always nice. I started this sweater in May and finished it on October 1st, so this is the fastest I've ever finished a fingering weight cardigan. Grant you I did set this aside several times, and I even made an entire sweater for the Outfit Along in between working on this, so I could definitely get it done faster if I really worked on it diligently. Much better than my last one though that took me a year, lol. I'm thrilled with my new sweater, and I'm excited to soon have weather cool enough to wear it! I love this pattern and definitely recommend it (and it's a real bargain considering you get so many options) and I love this yarn. Now I love the sweater :) Yay knitting!

Summary:
Yarn: 2.87 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Kerfuffle colorway - $35.00
Pattern: Ishnana by Ysolda Teague
Notions: 1" wide Petersham Ribbon in Gray - $3.00, 8 purple-gray buttons - $0.10, purple thread - $0.25
Time: 4.5 months
Total Cost: $ 38.35

FO: Cabled Beanie with Fur

The next hat in line that I sent to my sister actually turned out to be the overall favorite. 

This is the Basic Cabled Cap pattern by Judy Gibson, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. I liked that it's simple and only the same cable stitch over and over again, lol. Nice and easy. This one started out with a photo from my sister from a movie or tv show - after showing her all the photos of hat patterns I could make, I think it really got her into noticing knit wear. She sent the photo and I turned to Ravelry to find a pattern, and she liked the look of this one. Yay for a simple hat! 

The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash in the Turtle colorway. Something Marisa really liked about the inspiration hat photo was the big furry pom pom on top. Rather than pay who knows what at a craft store for a cheap one, I turned to ebay and searched their Chinese sellers. We settled on this one that sells as a faux fur brown fox pom pom. The only down side of buying things this way is the time it takes to arrive, so 3 weeks later when it showed up at my door I was a little surprised by what we got. This is real rabbit fur. This turned into one of those weird situations - neither my sister nor I would've deliberately bought a real fur pom pom, but now that  that's what it turned out to be, what can you really do? So while we both love bunnies, I used the pom pom and I have to say it looks really cute on this hat. This bunny lost its life already, and then came from China for only $4 so there really wasn't much I could do about it. Don't hate me, lol.

I love the simple cable in this hat. It's just one cable stitch every 4 rows so it was very easy to memorize. This simplicity came in really handy when I had the flu. After finishing Bronntanas, I just picked up the next yarn and set to work, so my fuzzy brain was grateful for the mindlessness of this project.

Being a real fur pom pom, you don't really want to worry about washing it. I doubt the hat will need washing all that often, but in case it does we are in luck since the pom pom comes already sewn onto a snap button. You just sew the receiving end to your hat and you're done :) So if she gets it all dirty she can just pop off the pom pom and throw it in the washer. Yay for simplicity all around!

And here is Marisa posing with one of her cats :)

And here is the hat on her tubing trip.

All in all I love how this hat turned out. It was easy to make and super comfy to wear. I definitely recommend this pattern if you're needing a quick and easy project :)

WIP Wednesday

So, I'm still in full gift-making mode here. Most of my time has gone into this little number:

I'm making a broomstick lace scarf for my mother-in-law. She's a beachy lady, so I knew she would like the color. This is Lion Brand Microspun in Turquoise, and yes I apparently am a bit of a masochist. This yarn splits like the dickens, folks. Seriously. I'm getting better with it, but I would absolutely not recommend this to a newer crocheter - you'd get all tied up in knots very quickly. I've had this yarn in my stash for a long time for that very reason, but I really love the drape of it so I finally bit the bullet and used it for this. I'm really glad I did too, I'm loving the way this is coming out. I think it will be a nice light scarf, perfect for wearing in Florida.

I'm also cringing over my red hat still. I spent all spare time on my day off last week knitting it, and I really kicked butt on it and it now measures 8" tall. From mid-needle it looks great:

And I love how the cables look when they are stretched out (my first cables!):

The problem is ... this thing has the worst ladders I have ever personally experienced.

That is one picture of each needle joint. Isn't it horrible?! I shouldn't have kept going when I first noticed them after crossing my cables, but being me I just kept on knitting thinking I could correct it or maybe block it out. Now, I've just given up hope and resolved to frog it and start over - YET AGAIN! I've tried everything - yanking the first and last stitches really tight on each needle, moving the stitches from needle to needle so it's less noticeable (this just caused a diagonal line of ladders - nice), inserting the dpn above the needle, below the needle, etc. I finally asked a fellow knitter at church (one with many more years of experience than me) if she knew of anything else I could do. The only things I hadn't tried yet are 1) using 4 dpns instead of 3 or 2) just using a circular needle and doing the magic ring. Which is what the pattern is written for anyway (grrr). At the time I started it, I thought, "I don't have a size 8 circular, but no big deal since I have pretty much every size of dpns and I'm comfortable with them. I'll just use those." Oh, poor, naive little me. I had never made anything with mostly purls on dpns before and now I am a cautionary tale. I know there are some out there who would just finish it like this and not worry about it, but I know that those ladders would drive me crazy as long as this hat existed and I would never wear it. So, I will be investing in a circular needle for this and trying again.

This hat is lucky I really like it and that I am determined to conquer it - otherwise it would be thrown back into my stash never to see the light of day again, lol.

Any advice for a desperate knitter? Or are purl stitches at dpn joints just a no-go across the board?

So that's what I've been consumed with lately. To see what others are up to, head over to Tami's Amis' Blog and check it out :)

WIP Wednesday

I've been working on a few more gifts this week, but decided to make something for myself as well in the mix :) I've had this hat planned for ages and just never cast on, so now it is in the works!

This is the Rosie Hat pattern from the Knit Lab: Hats Four Ways Class on Craftsy and I'm making it in Cascade 220 Superwash in Ruby. I watched the actual lesson about this hat a few weeks ago, but I didn't start it until this past Sunday. I got 2.5" in before I realized that I never went up a needle size! The printed version of the pattern I have is old and I guess it's been updated since I printed it because my pattern didn't say when to change to the size 8 needle (it's after the ribbing), but the class did. So, I took a photo of it before ripping it all out yesterday. Sniff. Oh well, at least I noticed before I finished it and it was too small.

Now I only have about 6 rows done, lol, so it looks sad. I haven't had much knitting time in the last few days. Hopefully I can get cracking on it and have it done before the next cold snap here. This is my first ever cable project and I'm really surprised at how easy they are :)

That's it for me this week. To see what others have in the works, check out Tami's Amis' Blog!