Catamaran, Hue Shift Afghan, and the Cardigan

I finished the cardigan!  I don't have a picture of it yet, but it's done.  I'm going to try and get a picture of it with my dress for the wedding, but we'll see how that works out.  I figure it would be a good way to show it off.  I'll probably even get all dolled up to do it, if I can ever find what I did with my makeup.  I guess I'm not that feminine after all, even if my taste in knits tends that way.

Just after I finished the sweater I started a new shawl, the Catamaran Shawl from Knit Picks.  Let me first say that this is the strangest yarn I've ever knit with.  The name "Lindy Chain" is totally appropriate.  It seems like it's one thin thread that's looped in on itself to form one long chain.  It was a little disconcerting when I started the project because the texture was so weird.  I was beginning to think I would hate this project, but I think I start out all my projects with this attitude of "This isn't what I expected."

All knit up it looks like any other yarn.  On the knit side it even feels like any other yarn.  The purl side has a strange texture, but I'm finding as I work with it I don't dislike it.  I can't say I love it and this is my new favorite yarn ever (that goes to the yarn for the sweater), but I think I'm going to be pretty happy with it in the long run.  It's not a gooshy yarn, so it doesn't attract every piece of dog hair in the house either,which is nice.  It's nice to have one garment in the house that's not going to need to be hit with a lint brush every time I want to leave the house, especially for something nice and summery like this.

I wasn't totally sure about the contrast of colors either.  When I picked the kit I got, the white and green just called to me.  The original gray tones were nice, but I kind of felt like gray would just be lost on me.  I wanted something with a bit more fun.  That's why I chose the white and green.  I just had second thoughts for a moment when I saw the two in my hands and realized just how dark the green really was.

Thankfully, seeing the two colors worked together I felt a lot more comfortable with what I was knitting up.  The green and white go really well together.  I just wish I had a picture with the two in the sunlight because it's a really flattering combination.  It actually makes me think of Ireland, though I'm not sure why.  It didn't take much to restore my confidence in these colors.  They look absolutely fantastic together.

And the more I knit with this yarn, the more I realize I was exactly right when I decided to get this shawl.  It's going to be a wonderful piece for when the weather starts to change, or even with the weather we've had lately, where I want a little bit of something, but I don't want to put on a full sweater or anything.  The colors will be nice in the spring and throughout the summer, which means I'll get a lot of wear out of this.  I've already got a sunflower shawl for late summer and the fall/winter shawl from Knit Picks all those years ago for fall.  This will be great for the seasons where I've got nothing for the weather.

As for the project list, I'm slowly making way on the Hue Shift Afghan again too!  I have to admit, I like Section 2 much more than I like Section 1.  That means I'll have two sections that I like this much.  I think I'll like Section 3 even more.  I guess I just have a thing for cool colors, which is what Section 3 will be, but the blend I've got going on now is actually pretty cool.  I'm not liking all of the colors blended together, but it's coming along pretty well.  I don't have a more recent photo, but I've started the third row on this section, which lightens up the whole piece.  There's going to be a pale green and yellow after this, and then the section will be finished.  It's working up pretty quickly.

I have to say, I've started to work into a rhythm with this blanket.  Every time I knit a square I weave in the ends right away.  I hate weaving in the ends at the points of the squares, so this saves me from having to do a bunch of them all at once.  It also leaves my work nice and neat, which definitely helps.  I like being able to pull my work out and not have a bunch of strands hanging off of it.  It's also nicer to show off to people when it looks so much more complete.  Best of all, I get the hassle of weaving in the ends done right away, so I don't have it sitting over me for later.

I've really been on a binge knitting spree lately.  I've had a lot of time to sit and work on projects, and the extra money available to pick up a few project kits.  I'm hoping I can keep up the routine, though I have to admit, it was kind skip a pay period for ordering because I still had too much work to do on the projects I was working on.  The sweater and the shawl, even considering the cost of needles, were both pretty inexpensive projects, which is nice.  It means my money goes that much further.

Knitting is an expensive hobby.  I've got to eventually pick up a ball winder and swift, though I have to say, there is something meditative about hand balling yarn.  It's time consuming, but it isn't as much of a hassle as I would have imagined.  I kind of like it.  I guess that means the joy of knitting consumes that many more hours.  Then I need to get blocking pads and pins at some point.  Of course, there's the cost of yarn and patterns, though there are a number of patterns available for free.  The best ones are still paid patterns, or in books, at least where the larger projects are concerned.  If I want to get into sweater knitting, I'm going to have to face purchasing patterns.  It's just something I'm going to have to do.

At least the projects I'm getting are lasting for some time.  I can't imagine how people who crank out knit goods like they're nothing manage to have the money for it all!  I'm sure it's a decent chunk of their budget, plus they look for good deals.  I guess I'll learn to be more thrifty with my knitting as time goes on.  For now, I'm happy with knitting the projects I'm working on and getting the most out of them.  A little knitting seems to go a long way in my life!

My First Real Cardigan

Just recently I got the idea to start knitting sweaters, like real sweaters.  We're talking adult sizes here.  I decided to start simple with the Where the Wind Blows Cardigan Kit from Knit Picks.  It's a one piece construction top down sweater.  It's short sleeved, so there's no need to worry about sleeves or anything like that.  This struck me as an easy choice because it's such a simplistic design, yet gets my head thinking about the reality of knitting something wearable.  I had a feeling once I actually put it on for the first time, I'd be excited to make more.

Starting out, I fell in love with the yarn before anything else.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures that really do it justice, but the color is beautiful.  The yarn is super soft, which makes it even nicer to knit.  I just love the way this feels in my hands, which is one of my favorite parts of this sweater already.

Early on I ran into some problems, though.  First I cast on the wrong number of stitches, so I had to go back to the beginning.  Thankfully I'd barely gotten into it so I didn't have too much to pull back, but it was still not a shabby number of stitches to pull back.  It took me some time to work up to where I was again, which wasn't too bad, but it was still time lost.

Then there was the stitch count for the second increase row in pattern.  I just couldn't get it to work out right.  It turns out I was reading the pattern wrong, but by the point I figured that out I just decided to improvise and move on.  Right now it really bothers me that there's an increase in the wrong place and it's missing one in the right place, but I'll forget in time, I'm sure.  It looks fine and it's so completely subtle that I can't even find it now when I'm looking for it, so I'll just let it be and move on with the rest of it.

Knitting down into the body has been the most satisfying part.  There are some decreases followed by some increases to make shaping for the waist, I guess.  It seems really high to me, but what do I know?  I'm not exactly a talented sweater knitter, so maybe there's some wisdom in this.  It's coming together rather quickly, and I don't think I'll want to rip back and fix it if it does seem to sit kind of funny.  I doubt it will.  I'm probably just thinking to much on the whole thing and it'll be fine.

I'd planned to have this done in time to wear to a wedding in August.  With how quickly I've been working it up, I have no doubt I'll make that deadline.  I'll probably have it finished by the end of the week, if I'm perfectly honest.  I might have had it nearly done if I hadn't had to work over the weekend, even if I did just go in for one day.  It's amazing how much work can get done in even one day on this.  I think I'm just not used to working with thicker yarns.  I've done a lot of socks, which go together much more slowly, even though they're smaller.  It's kind of nice to have a piece that's coming together so quickly.

I've still been working away at the Hue Shift Afghan, one square a day on average.  I didn't do any Saturday and only finished half of one yesterday, but that's something, right?  I'm slowly working my way through it.  At this rate it should be done by winter, which would be nice.

And next on the list?  I have another shawl to knit.  I've also got to get myself some stuff for blocking, so that's on my list of things to do.  Then when I'm looking for something else to knit, I'm considering another sweater, something more ambitious than this one.

The Hue Shift Afghan

I have to admit, I bought the Hue Shift Afghan kit because I was in love with the picture on the website.  I've been a little obsessed with rainbow colored things, so it probably isn't surprising that this kit would appeal to me.  The only down side?  I didn't look on the kit information, but it's knit out of acrylic yarn, which is a bit of a bummer, but for the price, it makes sense.

This was a new knitting technique for me.  I've never done mitered squares before, so I was excited to give this a try.  It really is a simple process, when you get right down to it.  It's just rows of garter stitch with a central decrease in the middle, which makes for a simple enough pattern to memorize.  After the first square I no longer needed to refer to the pattern, not really, at least not to give me instructions on how to knit it.  I was pretty pleased with myself for the first square I finished.  It looked really good, which was exactly what I was hoping for.

Though, I have to admit, I was a little surprised at how bright the yarn was for this kit.  When I looked at the pattern it looked like pretty bold colors, nothing bright and garish.  I'd expected a little more subtlety, I guess.  As you can see from the picture, the purple is pretty intense.  It looks pretty shockingly bright, which caught me off guard at first.  I had to admit, I was thinking I might not love this pattern after all.  It's made with acrylic, which I'm not a fan of, and it's incredibly bright colors.  Shortly after I ordered the pattern I decided to make this for my daughter, so I'm kind of glad I had that in mind.  Acrylic yarn doesn't bother her.  Actually, it's best for her because it's easy to clean, which means she can be curled up in a blanket with some soup and not have to worry about spilling.  Better still, the bright colors are totally her style.

When the striping started, I thought the contrast was a bit intense.  The first row being purple against a really bright pink, it seemed like it was a little much at first, but by the time I was halfway through the square I was really kind of digging it.  It's a pretty cool color combination.  I almost wish the whole blanket was made of squares those colors, and maybe mixing in the red that comes later.  With the red it had a cool Valentine's look.  I thought it looked pretty awesome, honestly.

Though, truth be told, I was a little worried about how some of the other colors would come together.  The way the pattern works blends orange with pink and purple.  I thought those might be a bit much of a contrast, that an the gold.  Eventually those colors come in contact with blues and green as well.  Those colors all will cross and mix as a part of the pattern, though I'm not nearly that far yet.  I'm starting on the first block of the four that will eventually be sewn together, then surrounded by a border.  It's a surprisingly huge blanket, meaning I'm going to be working on this one for a long time to come.

Yet when the colors in the first square have started to blend together, I have to admit, I haven't hated it.  Section 1 is coming right along and I'm making good progress.  At this point I have the first 10 squares done of the 25 in each section.  The whole blanket totals to 100 squares and a border, which means I'll have a lot to work on for some time to come.

So far there haven't been a whole lot of snags in the process.  I did have to pretty much frog an entire square because somewhere the central decrease became off centered.  I couldn't find where it was by tinking it back, so I finally decided to just frog the square and start from pretty much the beginning.  I left the picked up stitches and the first two rows of color, but everything else was ripped back.  That was the red and pink square.  As I'm sure you can see, I've progressed a good deal since then.  I've managed to get on a couple more squares at that point, and to weave in the ends, which is the part I've hated most about this project.  There are so many ends to weave in!

That's one thing I've learned in all of this, weave in the ends as you go and it won't be so bad at the end.  I've been making sure the row gets done, then the ends get woven before I start the new row.  This not only makes it easier to pick up the stitches, but it means there's less work to be done at the end of the blanket.  Plus, I think it makes the whole thing look neater as a whole.  It would be a mess if there were a whole bunch of colored strands just dangling from the back.  Now I can hand it to someone and it looks like a somewhat finished piece of work.

All told, for a first larger than baby sized blanket project, I'm pretty happy with the way this one is turning out.  It's obviously going to take quite some time to finish.  I've barely made a dent in it and I've been working at it pretty steadily for the past couple of days.  I think when I have other projects to mix in with it, I'll make a requirement to knit at least one square every day, just to keep me motivated.  I think if I can keep moving on this project, it'll slowly get done, even if it takes me months.  At least I know I won't be without something to knit for some time now!

The Beachcomber Shawl

I haven't been doing much knitting, to be honest.  I finished the Chilly Podsters and kind of lost interest in doing anything else.  My Nutkins are still not finished.  I started some Carousel socks, but lost interest in that.  Something about the new job had me not knitting very much.

That is, until I decided to check out what Knit Picks had to offer.  I have no idea why, but I started combing through their pattern kits.  I was hoping to find a shawl, as I've knit up a couple of the shawl kits they've put out before, but I was really up for just about anything.

When I first saw the Beachcomber Shawl, I was in love.  I was a little saddened by the fact that they didn't have any kits in the original color scheme, so I picked the only one they had available.  I wasn't thrilled with the colors, but I figured I could always give it away if I didn't like it.  But I wanted to take a chance on it.  The colors might not actually be that bad.  I don't tend to go for yellow, but I do a like my gray tones.

The start of the shawl went well.  It's an easy enough, basic garter stitch with some increases thrown in on one side, decreasing on the other.  It worked up fairly quick in the beginning, the short rows and simple color changes making it pretty easy to work through.  I have to be honest, when it was just gray I wasn't loving it so much.  I thought I would give it a chance, but I wasn't expecting much.  My daughter loved the way it was working up, so maybe I would give it to her.  That wouldn't be a half bad idea.  It was a little disheartening that I didn't like the way it was knitting up, but I figured I enjoyed knitting it, so I may as well stick it out to finish it.

When the yellow first came in I was even less thrilled with the look.  It was such a shocking departure from the subtle gray tones.  I really didn't like it.  I had built up in my mind that no one could possibly like these colors together.  They just didn't flow well.  I was starting to think this shawl would end up sitting around somewhere, unused and ignored.

Much to my surprise, my daughter came in and said how much she loved it.  She thought it looked cool and the colors looked really good together.  Then Chesh came in and said he thought it looked awesome.  I felt a lot better knowing this project would be loved and used by someone, even if it wasn't used by me.  I was knitting with a purpose again, and made good progress too, until I had to go to work and put it down for the better part of two days.  Even so, with new determination, I worked my way through this shawl like it was the best thing I'd ever knit.  I was excited to see the finished project and I was looking forward to having it go to a good home.  I knew people were excited to see it done, which made it that much easier to knit.  It flew off my needles (all considering) and was done in no time.  The lace sections were simple and pretty, which made it that much nicer to knit.  The only thing that was kind of a pain was the cast off, which was more time consuming than anything.

That's when something happened.  As I was working through the cast off I started to reconsider my thoughts on this shawl.  After I was finished my opinion became that much more firm.  I was not going to give this shawl away, not unless my daughter asked really, really nicely.  I mean, I've got a few shawls, so it's not like I would be lacking any to give this one away, but I did like it enough that, without being begged, I'm not going to part with it.

I still have my thoughts on this shawl.  Perhaps I would have liked the original colors better.  They may have even been more wearable in my mind, but this shawl suited me.  The yellow is bright and cheery, and the gray makes it something I can wear with just about anything I own.  It's not nearly as summery as the original colors, but I think summery isn't really a look I tend to do.  I tend to stick with my very neutral tones, and this yellow would really break up my wardrobe, which tends to have a lot of black, perhaps too much if you ask some.  I really love the way it turned out and I can't wait to get some good wear out of it, something that will undoubtedly happen when they days get a little less brutally hot and muggy.  It's perfect and light and I'm going to love wearing it!