A finished sweater

Finished on Saturday night, and all ends sewn in Sunday morning.  Washed and just about dried.  Took me 2 weeks and 3 days, probably the fastest I've made myself a sweater.

37" circumference with sport wt yarn, about 7.25 skeins.  Size 5 needles.  Pattern from some Japanese pattern book I own plus my usual favorite fake cable.

Happy Chanukah!

Here's this year's menorah. 

Tiny progress

That's it.  My progress from yesterday.  Actually I knitted a bit more on both the sweater and the shawl, but there's not much point in photographing them since you can't tell how much I've done.

A few projects I'm working on

Some knitting:

Top photo is of a sweater for me.  Two lacy panels mirroring each other and separated by my favorite fake cable.  That cable ends up in almost everything I knit.  Mindlessly easy and pretty to make.

The scrunched up mess in the second photo will be a lace shawl, a mystery knit-a-long by Anna Victoria.  I love her work.  Always interesting stitches, no pattern work on the wrong side, and so very very lovely.  Yes, lace looks like an old rag when it's in process; just wait until it's blocked!

EPP:

Still working on Whirligig.  I'm almost done with the 5th row, with 10 or 11 more to go plus the edging pieces.  The bottom piece shows a motif about to be sewn together with its mates.

Also in progress are 2 shawls, an expoding block quilt, and yet another string quilt.  It never ends, ever.

A yoke sweater for DD#2

Knit Picks Palette with about 6-7 balls of the green yarn and other assorted autumnal colors.  36" circumference.  I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's three and one pattern, which is one of my favorite yoke patterns.

I frogged the turquoise shawl

I love the yarn.  I love the pattern.  I don't like them together.  So I frogged it.  Frog is a knitting term meaning "rippit, rippit, rippit".

Bye bye shawl.  Now to find something that I like better.  I will make the pattern but in lace yarn and smaller.  I tried it on and it was enormous on me.

Poor lonely neglected EPP

The dear little thing is languishing because I'm into shawl obsession.  So no pics.  Sorry.

On the other hand, I have a finished shawl, which I just love to pieces.

To the Heart of the Mountain, a mystery KAL (knit-a-long)

Yarn:  Findley Dappled in Watermelon Soul ( a slightly heavier lace weight yarn, very easy to knit)

And another one on the needles, Illumine

She quilts; she knits

And in between I bake bread and an occasional cake.  Cleaning?  Hah!  Cooking?  Only enough to survive.  Gimme yarn.  Gimme fabric.

Yarn is merino twin by Wollelfe, an amazing Austrian dyer.  She's on vacation at the moment, which is very good for my pocketbook.  875 yards of soft merino, fingering weight.

The pattern is Illumine, and you can find it on Ravelry, of course.  However did we knitters manage before Ravelry?  I'm number 1702, and the current number of members is 7,178,950!!!!! 

Also working on two mystery KALs (knit-alongs), so no pics until I'm finished.  But I can tell you that they are fun to do.

EPP continues slowly but surely.  2 more blocks and one more added to the quilt.

And 3 hibiscus flowers are blooming.

Whirling along

Whirligig is slowly growing.  This is not quick work, but then I like the slow pace.  I can do it anywhere and I'm enjoying sewing on my deck.

And a few more connected.

And a photo of my latest hibiscus flower.  Such a pretty plant, and so far, I haven't managed to kill it.

EPP is back

 Finally.  I pretty much stopped doing English paper piecing in March, when Sock Madness began.  And then the shawl obsession started (and hasn't stopped), and my poor Whirligig quilt was set aside.  But now I have time.  Working on 2 mystery KALs (knit-alongs) and have finished my clues, so just waiting for the next ones to come out.  I don't want to start another knitting project, and then I remembered my EPP quilt.  I forgot how much fun it is to do these little blocks.

I'm on my fourth row and have enough blocks for almost 3 more rows.  It's a very nice change from knitting lace.

Shawls all over the place

Shawls!  Lace shawls!  I'm obsessed with them at the moment.  I just can't get enough knitting time with them.  Here are 3 new ones (click on them to see the details):

Each to Each.  This is the final shawl, all finished and worn once (way back when the temps wouldn't get out of the 50's)  I posted about this last time.  I love the beads, but they do make the thing considerably heavier. 

Waiting for Rain.  I used KnitPicks Stroll, which I find too mooshy for good stitch definition on socks, but it's so cuddly that it makes a great shawl.

Loftus.  Like wearing a feather.  It helps that I knitted on size 7 needles with lace weight yarn.  I do love this.

I also have 2 mystery shawls on the needles, and plans for at least 4 more.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these things, but it's such fun to make them.

I'm still here

Just didn't have much to blog about.  But I finished a gorgeous beaded shawl and it's now blocking.

You can only see a bit of this because it's really large for a crescent shawl.  104" X 17".  I'll get the tall Hubz with the large wingspan to hold this when it dries.  The pattern is Each to Each Shawl and I bought a kit (which I never, ever do) from Earthfaire.  I used the Lucas colorway.  The yarn is Freia Ombré Fingering weight, and it's 70 merino/30 silk.  Just wonderful to knit with.  So why the kit?  I figured that it was just easier to try out a new yarn for me, plus get matching beads.  Her service is great and I'll buy from her again. 

I find myself uninterested with socks at the moment.  There's always a pair on the needles for mindless, TV knitting, but that's it, at least for now.  What's obsessing me are shawls and scarves.  Lace, lace and more lace, with an interesting new technique for me:  mosaic knitting with lace.  I bought Mosaic and Lace Knits and fell in love with the ideas.  I've done a lot of mosaic and other slip stitch knitting, but never with this complexity.  This is fun and challenging with both knits and purls on the right and wrong sides and the fun of lace, too.  Good stuff.

Yarn is KnitPicks Palette; needle is a size 2, since I'm a loose knitter.  Colors are cream and Bluebell.

Quilting?  I don't remember what that is.  All I want to do is knit.  My poor quilts in progress.  But I'll get back to them and then will not want to knit.  So it goes.

Exploding Blocks and Eve's Temptation

Eve's Temptation finished.  I used KnitPicks Chroma Twist fingering in Red Velvet.  I was fascinated by the color progression.  The first sock is the top one, in the very dark vermillion.  It progressed naturally to the lighter sock.  The yarn is very pleasant to work with.  I like the stitch definition in this yarn; I don't like Stroll yarn because it's too mooshy and my stitches flatten out, but a lot of folks love it.  Not me.

Here are the latest blocks in my Exploding Block quilt.  These things are addictive.

And a close-up of the middle blocks.  Yes, the corners are cut off, but that's the charm of it for me.

Sock and quilt

Here's where I am with the Eve's Temptation socks I started Wed night.  Zooming along is so pleasant.

Progress on my exploding block quilt. 

These are just laid out any which way.  I have too few to make any placement decisions.

Re-engineered

I like the majority of the socks on Sock Madness, but I have a small narrow foot, and the socks rarely fit me.  I can usually give them to the Hubz (if they are massive) or to a daughter.  But I want them for me, too.  So my solution is to re-engineer the patterns so that they are my size.  That's usually pretty simple to do.  (I've been knitting socks for decades). 

I fell in love with the slip-stitch pattern on this pair, and changed the contrasting yarn to something that had been hanging around forever.  This photo is of the original pattern, and the socks are donated to DD#1.

Here's my re-engineered sock, and it fits beautifully.  I do love this pattern and can see it in my arsenal of go-to socks.

It looks blurry, doesn't it?  But that's how the pattern appears.  Here's a close-up.

I finished the pair last night and immediately cast on another pair.  I'm using an old pattern of mine that's still someplace on Ravelry. 

Here's a very blurry photo of it.  Not much to see, and the color is off, but there it is.  It'll be very pretty when finished.

Lots of new goodies

I'm back from a long hiatus in which we had a lovely visit from the MN folks, followed by Passover, and now back from all that excitement.

String quilt:

I'm assembling the latest string quilt, this one done in autumnal colors.

I love, love, love making string quilts.  Mindless fun with all that color assemblage. 

Whirligig quilt:

It's slowly coming along.  I did assemble a couple of blocks with all the company, but it was much more fun chatting and doing field trips with them.

And then, because I need a new project like a hole in the head, I have forced myself to make another exploding block quilt.  I made one of these as an I Spy quilt for little Benjamin (who is now 4 and not so little and never stops talking).  I'm using 2 different layer cakes plus some odd and end charm squares, and I'm using Civil War-ish colors, not my usual at all.  I generally eschew reproduction prints; I like bright and lively, but last year I fell in love with some fabric lines and bought a few layer cakes (all on sale, of course).  I'm thinking this might be a perfect winter quilt.  At any rate, I'm enjoying stepping out of my usual fabric choices.

Here's Benjamin's quilt, made in 2014.

I'm out of the competition with Sock Madness:  company and Passover did me in, but it doesn't bother me.  I have so many projects in my head, and anyhow, I get all the patterns from SM, so I can make at my leisure and can fit the socks to my foot.  All good.