Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

I’ve started on my next sweater, one that I’ve been thinking about for months. For two of those months, the color of yarn I wanted for the sweater body was back-ordered, which gave me time to work on Big Blankie 3.0 (all done except for more border rows, but completely usable now) and some other things. The yarn I’m using is Fresco by Classic Elite, a super-soft blend of wool, alpaca, and some angora. Due to the extreme softness, I expect that it won’t be the most hard-wearing sweater ever, but the yarn and the fabric it produces are so lovely that I’m willing to put up with the disadvantages of extra-cozy yarn.

I started on the sweater itself yesterday, and it’s not looking too exciting yet – but here’s a picture of the swatch I made.

Yes, it’s narrower at the top than the bottom – this is intentional, because the owls go around the yoke, and my neck is narrower than my shoulders. The background color is slightly greener than it appears in the picture (at least on my monitor, but I don’t trust its colors to be true enough to go to the hassle of color correction).

I’m using Kate Davies’ lovely Paper Dolls pattern for the sweater itself, exchanging the dolls for the owls from spillyjane’s Owlsocks. I didn’t come up with this pattern combination myself – props go to some brilliant folks on Ravelry. I’m also planning to make the sleeves full-length (assuming I don’t run out of yarn).

I’ve finally gotten around to sewing the buttons on the sweater I’ve made for the baby my friends L and A are having. Today’s the first day he’d be considered to be born on time, so it’s appropriate to finish the sweater, but don’t start thinking “come out, baby” thoughts yet – he’s not allowed to be born until after L and A move to their new house in a week.

The pattern is the famous (at least in knitting circles) Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann – it’s knit in one blobbish piece that magically folds into a cardigan – the only seams are at the shoulders. The yarn is soft superwash merino wool that I bought this summer during my annual yarn store pilgrimmage at All Together Week. The buttons may look familiar to those who’ve seen the sweater I was working on this summer – same style, just a slightly smaller size. Yes, I am in love with those buttons – but in my defense, I did spend a long time selecting them at the fabric store – almost went with some other ones, but they claimed not to be washable. (Hmmm… looks like I haven’t posted about my sweater yet – more NaBloPoMo fodder!).

And, Big Blankie update – all the pieces are done, and I’m working on the assembly process. I’ve got a bunch of sub-blankies sewn together, and all the pieces and subunits have been blocked. I started by washing a bunch of individual pieces and then sewing them together, but then switched to sewing the pieces into subunits before blocking – easier to pin out for blocking, and less likely that I’d get the pieces in the wrong places during assembly. Being done with the blocking means that my large scale blocking surface has been returned to its official purpose: guest room bed, and, when there are no guests present, where I sit while watching TV shows online.

I’ve learned my lesson about travel knitting – it’s important to take projects which don’t turn into half-finished, too-big-for-travel-knitting projects, or you’ll end up with a bunch of partially-finished scarves as reminders of trips past. It’s also good to bring projects which don’t require too much concentration. Counting to 8 is not difficult. Counting to 8 on inadequate sleep is much harder than you’d think.

Anyway, here’s a scarf I started a couple business trips ago (click to biggify):

It uses 2 colorways of sock yarn, which is why it’s kinda stripey.

And, apologies to dear Aunt Barb (who doesn’t understand why one would want to make socks when they’re so readily available in stores worldwide), but I think the perfect travel knitting for me is socks. Minimal counting required (I can generally handle counting to 2 even when I haven’t slept enough for days), they don’t get too big to fit in a quart-sized bag, and I like to wear handknit socks on business trips, so they’re very practical. I just need to purchase an additional set of sock needles to avoid any mid-journey disaster that would ensue if I dropped a needle on the plane and was unable to recover it.