FO: Peterborough

This is Peterborough by Norah Gaughan. I love this sweater. It will be perfect for the cooler fall days. The front and back patterned band feels like I'm wearing a cozy long draped scarf around my neck. The yarn is Filtes King Extra Stampato, a very soft merino wool. I think the yarn has long been discontinued. My sleeves are short because I didn't have enough yarn. I knew from the start that I would be short on yarn so I made the sweater a few inches shorter than the pattern's length, figuring that I would have enough yarn to make 3/4 length sleeves. I underestimated how much yarn the front lacy cables required and still ended up short on yarn. Hence, my sleeves are just above the elbow. After the body of the sweater was finished, I had one ball of yarn left for each sleeve. I did a provisional cast-on for each sleeve, knitting about one inch before doing the cap, and then picked up the stitches and knit until I ran out of yarn.

I made the front panel cables mirror images of each other. I did not see that stated in the pattern instructions, but I think it looks better than way, especially since I am fastening the sweater at one central point. The symmetry also looks better in the back where bands join together. I omitted the waist ribbing. I think I prefer the look of one sleek sheet of stockinette. On the front bands, I slipped the first stitch. For the bottom ribbing, I just used the same needle size and cast on the same number of stitches as the body instead of doing a finer gauge with narrower ribbing. I was too lazy to do the latter.

These are just so cute

These are just so cute. I bought one from CB2 a couple of years ago, and I love it. Now Cost Plus World Market is selling them. I should get another one.

FO from a few years back

I knit a sweater for Henry, the son of a former co-worker, a few years ago when he turned one. I don't have much experience with baby sweater sizes, and it was a bit big for a one year old. Maybe "a bit big" is an understatement. Henry wore his sweater to his first day of pre-school! He's definitely stylin'.

I don't even remember what I used for the base pattern. I think it was a free ravelry download for a plain toddler's vest and I embellished it with a simple cable down the front.

Winner!

Congrats to Kitten With a Whiplash, who won my giveaway of the Vogue Knitting Fall 2011 magazine!

Free Vogue Knitting Fall 2011 magazine giveaway

I've got an extra copy of Vogue Knitting Fall 2010 because I bought one at my LYS thinking that my subscription had run out, but lo and behold, I got the subscription copy a week later. I bought it because I skimmed through it at the shop and I liked quite a few of the patterns. My favorites are in the cables group and the easy fitting group. At any rate, I'm giving away my extra copy. Just leave a comment before midnight PST Sunday Sept. 11, and I'll randomly pick a winner. If you don't think I know who you are, please leave some trace of how I can find you.

Happy crafting, and happy September!

WIPs

My current projects are for wearing in the fall and winter. The first one here is Leaving. I started this ages ago, but progress stopped when the weather got warmer. This is a wool long sleeved pullover that needs to be worn with a layering piece underneath, so I probably won't be able to wear it until the depths of winter. The yarn is Valley Yarns Northfield, and I really like its springiness.

Next up is Peterborough, by Norah Gaughan. I've been knitting a lot of her patterns recently. The patterns I've chosen are all basically stockinette garments, but with interesting details, usually in the collar. The yarn is Filtes King Extra Stampato. It's also a wool garment, but it's an open cardigan so it won't be too warm. Also, I don't have enough yarn, so I'm going for elbow or 2/3 length sleeves, and my sweater is about 4" shorter than the pattern's length. I eliminated the waist ribbing.

FO: Cable collartop

At last! I've finished the cable collar top from Vogue knitting Spring/Summer 2011.
The body of the sweater knitted up quickly, but for some reason the collar pieces took a long time, partly because I kept making silly stoopid mistakes.
The yarn is Valley Yarns Southwick, a cotton/bamboo yarn. I really like its soft drape. It was a bit too splitty, but maybe that's the norm for cotton yarns.
The collar is what caught my eye when I first saw the sweater in the magazine. The body is just a normal fitted pullover. I would have liked the collar just as much without the cable because I really like the way the two pieces fold over.

I made my sleeves a longer short sleeve length. For the front collar pieces, I continued increases on the body side until the end of the collar because I figured it would help it fold over a little deeper. I overlapped the back piece over the front lapels by at least an inch instead of having it meet the lapel edges. I did not attach the front pieces to the back piece. Instead, I used increasing needle sizes to make it flare out a bit in the back.



My sleeve openings came out a little too large, and they also widened after a day's wear so that they developed a flared look, which I dislike. I took a crochet hook and added a row of slip stitches to the opening to bring it in and prevent stretching with wear. (The photos don't show the narrower opening)