Wednesday, March 31, 2010

In which I get a little philosophical....

FO's are always a good way to start off a post....

Pattern: February Baby Sweater (ravelry)
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Fired Brick - 3 skeins
Needles: US 8

Notes: The above picture is misleading. The color is not that red, but I wish it was! It's has more of a maroon color to it, almost like a "christmas red". I put the sleeve stitches on holders so the whole thing is seamless, which was nice. I screwed up the buttonholes the first go around and, frankly, I'm not happy with how they turned out the second time around, but what can you do. As I found out later, if you want the "3 buttonhole look", do the buttonholes every 8 rows, not ridges, as stated by EZ. 8 ridges is 16 rows and that's too many.

First time use of the Knit Picks Swish yarn and it really is a good multi-purpose yarn. I wanted something that would be soft for the kiddo, while being easy to care for for the new mom.

All in all though, I'm happy with the sweater and am glad that I finally did one. This was done for a baby shower for a friend of ours. It was very well received and there are already plans in the works for her to wear this at Christmas.
The vest....it continues....


I'm just fixing to cast on the neck steek, which is very exciting. This project has kept me more interested than most of my projects have. I hate feeling that I have to push myself through a project. With this, not so much. I think everyone has their little knitting niche and I may have started to find mine.

I would like to be a well-rounded knitter. I want to be someone who enjoys knitting things for small children. I want to be someone who likes to knit up beautiful lace shawls. I want to be someone who has a drawer full of hand knitted socks. (Hence the insane amount of sock yarn I have.) However, that is just not me I think. I like the idea of being that person. I want to be this person, but I'm just not. Are we destined to be a certain kind of knitter? If we don't knit bits of everything are we somehow a lesser knitter? I don't think so...

I love that, with this vest, it has kept me intrigued an motivated the entire time. I think it has somehow tapped into my unique mindset of how I look at things and all the little weird things I enjoy....like how something is still awesome looking inside out....


One of the first things I did when I started was that I mapped out, row by row, all of the decreases, increases, and special instructions that went along with this project. I got a special, nerdy little joy out of that. I like how every row has that magical combination of being both being difficult and easy at the same time.

Have you found your niche? Is there one thing that you really like making more than all of the others? A you a lace knitter? Sock knitter? All-around knitter? Whatever you are, I'm okay with that.

As with most knitting, it also applies to life...but that's a diatribe for another day.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Finishing-itis

Yep, I have it. Remember that February Baby Sweater I was working on before the Ivy League Vest? Yea, so I got a baby shower invitation for the recipient. When you get a shower invitation for a person whose project is half-finished, kinda motivates you to finish it.

Well, I'm having a problem with that and it's the same problem I have with most of my projects. I get close to the end and don't want to finish. How much is left of this sweater? One sleeve. And then it's done. And I don't wanna. I have told myself that I can't knit anything else until that sweater is done. No reason not to finish it. Even tried putting on a movie. If I knit through the movie, I would probably be done. But it just kinda sat in my lap.

Hope this isn't the start of a funk....cause I wanna knit on the vest some more.