FO Friday: Long Overdue ...

This project was technically finished at the end of February, lol, but I wanted to wait until I had decent pictures of it before I posted it here. My husband and I were finally together with a camera and a freshly mowed back yard last weekend, so I ambushed him and forced him to take my picture. I'm so demanding, I know :)

This is my very own Boobholder/Minisweater which is a free pattern from Stefanie Japel. I loved the design of it straight off - bolero style sweater with puffy sleeves?! Count me in :) Essentially this sweater just provides me with sleeves, which is exactly what I need from a sweater - I live in Florida so warmth is not a requirement. The sad part about this project is that I started it in August of 2012. Holy cow, ya'll! In my defense, I had no idea what I was doing back then. I just jumped right into making a sweater, but really the pattern is not great for a beginner and I know that now. The pattern is only written in one size and it took me forever to track down that it is for a 34" bust. The pattern doesn't ever say the size it's designed for (I know, right?). I had to dredge through all the Ravelry projects and read their notes to find that out. Me having a 43" bust, I had to make it A LOT bigger. The raglan sleeve line in the pattern says to increase 17 times and I ended up doing 30 increases. I would just wor a few rows, then try it on to see if the sleeve ends met under my arms, then work a few more rows. It was very tedious, all that on and off the needles, but it paid off.

I used Premier Yarns Everyday Soft Worsted Yarn in Aubergine. Being such a new knitter when I started this and not having any yarn requirements listed for larger sizes, I bought 4 skeins of this stuff, lol, I was very paranoid that I would run out and never be able to buy it again (yeah, turns out this yarn is easy to get and pretty consistent in color - I had no idea back when I bought it). The pattern for the 34" bust said it would take 400 yards of Aran weight. I ended up using 485 yards, which was only 2.35 skeins, so I have plenty of this left. I'm sure it will become animal parts or something, lol. 

Now for the true confession - my sweater ended up a little too big! See how it's ripply at the neckline? I must have increased too much which basically made it too wide in the shoulder. I don't worry about it too much though because my hair always covers this up. Also because of too many increases, the sleeves don't really puff up like the pattern shows they should. I think if the sleeve cuff hugged my arms a bit more then they would puff up more. Also, this made for severe overlapping at the closure. The pattern only calls for one button, but when I tried it on I saw it was definitely going to need two. So I ripped back and did the bottom over again to include two buttonholes. If I hadn't done this, it would have been noticably huge or the little tail created by the single button would have slid out all the time, so it was worth it. Live and learn :) 

 The back fits nicely. See the little gathers at the top of the sleeves? I wish they would puff out better. Oh well.

Ok another confession - being the knew knitter that I was, I wasn't so great at remembering to always garter stitch the first and last 5 stitches of each row, so I ended up having 2 places that I basically had to fake it later. One was way up by the top and I was just not going to rip all that out back then. Another spot was at the curve of the v-neck. I have no excuses for that spot since that was part that I did fairly recently, lol, brain fart I guess. I'm sure you can see the spot now that I've mentioned it, but most everyone in person has no idea there is anything wrong there so I guess my fake-purl-bump-embroidering was a success. 

I was also excited to scrounge through my vintage button collection and found these beauties. These are vintage buttons from my friend Tara and they match perfectly. The best part is that I only had these two of them! So they were obviously just destined to hold this bad boy onto my boobs - case closed. I think they are super cute with their little carved design - so much more fun than just plain colored buttons like my last sweater :)

And since we were out taking nice pictures, I finally got good ones of My First Sweater :) So I figured I'd post them here just cause, lol.

And of course Gordo joined us for our little shoot, so I have to include a cute shot of him :)

Look at that sweet face!

That's it for me :) Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others have completed lately.

WIP Wednesday: Attacking the UFOs

This week has been pretty productive on the knitting front. I found myself with no project to work on last Thursday and I knew I might need something to work on Friday night (I drove some of the young singles from my church to a dance in Orlando). I didn't want to drag all my animal making stuff with me, and I knew I wouldn't get far enough into a new project to be able to just work on it with no problems. So I turned to my UFO (unfinished objects) pile. I started this "boob-holder" sweater in August of 2012! It's a free pattern by Stefanie Japel. At the time I had no idea what I was doing and I quickly reached a problem I couldn't diagnose, so I set it aside. I picked it up again last September and got pretty far only to mess it up big time when I had to pull back. I knew I could fix it, but it was one of those problems you have to just sit and mess with for an uninterrupted hour or so and I just didn't ever feel like it, lol. But I needed a large project! So last Thursday I spent about an hour and a half getting it back to workable condition. 

When I fixed this last week, I was at the point where you section off the arm holes and just work on the body and since then I technically managed to finish the knitting :) It's funny to work on something that I distinctly remember I just could wrap my head around at the time only to have absolutely no problem now - to the point that I'm amazed at how quickly this went. And I've already pulled back to change a few other things!

I tried it on a few nights ago when I finished the knitting and discovered ... the waist is way too big. The pattern is written to have no overlap going on under the boobs, just a button to fasten it in the center. As you can see - I'm overlapping it quite a bit there. It's also a touch longer than I want. So, I've decided to pull the whole waist out, lol. I won't go all the way back to where I was last week, but I'm going to pull out about 10 rows. There will still be a good deal of overlapping I will have to do, but I'm going to add an additional button hole to make it more secure when I fasten it. I'm really happy with this project and I completely LOVE these sleeves. Puffy sleeves for the win! I have the sleeves all finished and seamed on the bottom, so literally once I finish the waist it will be done and wearable :) Now that I know more about knitting, I know what a quick and easy project this really is and it makes me want to make another. If only it wasn't in such heavy yarn! Anyone know of a similar pattern in a sock weight? I'm sure I could buckle down and do the math to make it in sock weight, but seriously look how long it took me just to fix a tiny snag, lol, and I hat math so you can imagine how long it would be before I actually do that. One of these days ...

I also realize you can see my absentmindedness in the photo above - I forgot to keep with the garter stitch edge in a few spots. I didn't realize until I was way past that point at the time, and at this point it just isn't in my best interest to pull back that far - one of them is up by my neck! So I will be faking some purl bumps with some extra yarn once I finish the rest.

Last night I just didn't feel like pulling all that knitting out (I know, I'm temperamental, lol) so I grabbed another long time UFO - my Happypotamas! I made a couple of squares and have renewed my love of this pattern's cuteness. Hopefully I become addicted to it soon and can knock out the Lollo Bear pattern too that's been languishing untouched in my collection. I even have all the yarn to make it! You can't rush, I guess.

I'm kind of torn on my feelings about working on so many UFOs. On one hand I'm thrilled - it's a great feeling to finally finish something that's sat so long. On the other hand, my pile of projects I'm in the middle of is dwindling (I only have 3 others in there!) so I won't have anything to just pick up and work on soon. 1st world problems, amiright? So that's what I've been working on this week. Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see what others have going on :)

FO Friday: Ravellenics Edition

Well it's that day of the week again and I have not just one but TWO finished items :) And this week both of my items qualify for the Ravellenic Games on Ravelry - I've never participated before, so I'm very excited to have a few items finished for it. First up is my much blogged about Blue Angel Shawl:

I finished this up on February 15th at 10:30 pm and it is my entry for the WIP Dancing event. This was made with the Blue Angel Shawl Pattern by Stefanie Japel that I bought as a kit through Craftsy. I've mentioned my many woes with this shawl already in other wip posts, but I really do like the finished product. I had a lot of yarn left when I finished where the pattern indicated, so I added 2 additional repeats of the lace border and I am super happy with this decision. I think I like it better with the wider lace border :)

My finished shawl measures 43.5" wide and 21" tall. My only complaint now that it's all finished is the bind off. The pattern says to just bind off like normal and then add a picot edge (which it tells how to do). I took this to mean just a regular bind of (k2, pass 1st st over 2nd st). I even went up 3 needle sizes (when the pattern only said to go up 2 sizes) and I made sure to bind off loosely, but it still is WAY too tight. I couldn't even stretch the edge out wide enough to be straight when blocking. I honestly had to pull the edge so hard while blocking that it felt like the yarn might break, and it still isn't perfect at the corners. Also because it's so tight the little picots curve forward even while you wear it. So, I have to strategically wrap this to look nice. Oh well, lesson learned for my next shawl I guess - ALWAYS use a "super stretchy bind off".

I really do love the lace though :) It was a bear, but I am happy with it now. Also this was made using Cascade Heritage Sock yarn and I am definitely a fan - I can't wait to use this yarn again!

And my second Ravellenics item is for the Toy Tobogganing event: Meet Husky Dave the Dragon!

Dave here earned his name as a collaboration between my husband and me. We were thinking of D names to go with Dragon and settled on Dave. Then I mentioned how he ended up with a bigger-than-called-for bottom since I somehow increased way too much (I still don't understand how I did that). So my husband suggested Husky Dave and the name stuck, lol. I made Dave using the Dragon pattern from FreshStitches. I actually won this pattern in the November 2012 Photo Contest with my Shirley the Alpaca and I had never used it until now. A crime! I decided using this long stashed pattern would be a good goal for the Ravellenics and I'm so glad I did.

The coolest part of this pattern is that it's designed like a "choose your own adventure" book. The pattern includes all kinds of different features you can choose for your dragon - you just make up the ones you want and it tells you how to put them all together. Pretty cool huh? Essentially I could keep using this pattern 20 times and never end up with the same result. This time I chose to give him small horns, wings, beady eyes and an arrow tail. You can also give him scales, cheek flaps, buggy eyes or a wider tail.

I love the cute little nostrils, lol. I also love this fun color combo. The blue is Everyday Soft Worsted in Azure (a new fav), the pink is Red Heart With Love in Hot Pink, and the green is Red Heart Super Saver in Spring Green. All of these yarns were in my stash - I love that about amigurumi. You can just choose colors from yarn you already have and they still always come out cute :)

So there are my Ravellenics projects :) I would like to think I could finish another item by Sunday when the Olympic ends (which is the deadline for Ravellenics projects), but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I did finally pull my Purple Boob Holder out and figure out my mistakes last night. Now I'm knitting the body and it's coming out well, though I doubt I can finish it in a few days. We'll see.

That's all around here this week. Head over to Tami's Amis' Blog to see the beautiful things others have finished this week :)

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!

FO Friday: 2 Projects - 1 Year In The Making!

I actually have 2 finished items to share today! These are both very exciting items because they have been in the making for at least a year each, lol. I know that sounds crazy long, but both of these were for me and I would just set them aside when I needed to make a gift or something else more pressing, so they have been worked on little by little in between other projects.

Without further ado, here is my finished Cambridge Scarf! I started this on July 20, 2012 (don't you just love Ravelry for remembering things like that?) and it is the second project from the Knit Lab class on Craftsy. This is technically my 5th ever knitting project.

I remember it being very difficult to wrap my head around seed stitch as an English knitter. I kept creating a zillion yarn overs, lol. It wasn't until I looked up a youtube video for English Knitters that I corrected the mistake and got this project going. It's a really simple scarf and it is really just altering between regular seed stitch, 2 by 2 seed stitch and 4 by 4 seed stitch. It creates this wonderful basket weave texture throughout and I absolutely love it!

Sorry for the goofy squinting face, lol - it was bright out. Every time I worked on this scarf, people remarked on how much they liked it. It's nice that such a simple project looks so impressive.

I knit this using Caron Simply Soft in Gray Heather. At the time I just grabbed this yarn because I had half a skein or so on hand from before my knitting days. I ended up buying another skein (thankfully this yarn has no dye lots). The whole thing took about 1.3 skeins total, but this sucker is 90" long! I just kept knitting until I liked the length of it when I tied it my favorite way (like in the photo). The 1x1 seed stitch is only on the ends and the main section alternates between 2x2 and 4x4.

I absolutely love this scarf! It's super long and a nice neutral color so I know I will get lots of wear out of it. Also, I finished it just in time for the little bit of cold we get here in Florida, so I will actually get to wear it!

The second item I finished is the Hope Shawlette by Stefanie Japel. I bought this yarn and pattern as a kit through Craftsy in October 2012. They had a special promotion that donated a nice chunk of the proceeds to Breast Cancer Research, so I decided I might as well try out my first "expensive yarn" and help a good cause at the same time.

This is my first experience with a shawl as well as with a large scale lace pattern. The bulk of the shawl was very easy, but the lace section was a whole different animal. I would get to the lace section, start knitting it according to the pattern, then realize there was a mistake somewhere because it wasn't lining up right. At the time, I hadn't knitted long enough to know any better, so after pulling back several times, I would just set it aside for months at a time. I looked into the pattern notes of others on Ravelry and it turned out everyone was having this same problem - there were errors in the lace chart that were never fixed. So I waited and one day I noticed another Ravelry user (shirleykaiser) posted a corrected lace chart. I am seriously forever indebted to this kind person! Apparently she is friends with a knitting type editor for Leisure Arts and that friend was able to fix the problems and she was kind enough to post the changes in her project on the site. So, if you do get this pattern, you can go here, click projects and look for shirleykaiser's project and find the real directions there.

I'm thrilled that this is finally finished! I started it November 12, 2012 and I finished it November 10, 2013 - just 2 days shy of a full year, lol. In spite of the problems I had with the pattern originally, I really do like the design an dI may even make another one day. This is made using Lorna's Laces Sole Mate in the Flamingo Stripe colorway. This is the most expensive yarn I have even bought (even now), and I will say it was nice to work with. It has a lovely drape and it's so soft and silky.

The lace section is designed to look like hearts. It's a little hard to see in the photos because of the white background, but they are there :) This was also my first ever experience with wet blocking. I soaked it in warm water with Eucalan for 30 minutes, wrapped it in a towel and stepped on it to remove excess water, then pinned it to the carpet in the only room in my house that I can keep the dog and cat out of, lol.

This is how the shawl looks pre-blocking. It measures about 21" wide and 18" tall. Thank heavens I have a zillion quilting pins! 

I laid a ruler out and pulled the edges until it measured 46" wide and 21" tall. I pinned the corners first to make it straight and then stretched out the lace little by little and pinned wherever looked wavy. I easily used over 100 pins and I pinned it right to the carpet. I left it all night and all day and it was dry the following night, so I removed the pins and it looks great :)

Anyway, I don't have any photos of me wearing it yet, but I just couldn't wait any longer to share :) I'm so excited to have it finished and be able to wear it this winter. I've never worn a shawl before, so we will see what my preferred method is. After all the gifts I've devoted most of my time to the last year, it's nice to have something I can enjoy for myself.

So that's my excitement for my projects this week :) To see what others have made, check out Tami's Amis' Blog!

WIP Wednesday

I've been working on a very old project in my down time from all my home projects. I actually started this last August (don't judge, lol) and I got it to the point that the pattern said to put it on scrap yarn and try it on. I will confess, this terrified me at the time. I was so worried that I would drop all my stitches and screw it up somehow. So, it has sat in a bag since probably about this same time last year. I started getting the itch to make a sweater with my new yarn, but I decided I should be responsible and finish my first sweater before I start another :) So I've been diligently working on this for the past week.

 This is the Minisweater/Boobholder pattern by Stefanie Japel. This is a free pattern and it's seriously cute :) It's a short, bolero type sweater that secures below the boobs with a single button. It has slightly puffed sleeves and a short collar. All in all, it's short and has short sleeves - basically it would just give me cute sleeves for my sleeveless shirts so it's perfect for the Florida weather :)

I love the slightly puffed sleeve too :) The yarn is Everyday Soft Worsted in Aubergine (the top photo is closer to the real color). I have had to really alter the pattern for me - well, nothing difficult, I've just had to make it much bigger. I increased the recommended 17 times for the sleeve and tried it on - it's like this thing was designed for children because I needed seriously another 5 inches or so for it to fit me. I have done 30 increase rounds now and it technically fits, but I started realizing that my sleeve puff may require it to be a bit more loose, so I'm going to increase another few rounds just to be sure.

So, that what I have going this week. To see what others are up to, head over to Tami's Amis' Blog :)