FOs | Page 5

FO Friday: Baby Sophisticate

Gosh you guys, I was overwhelmed by the lovely comments on my last two sweaters. Way to give a gal a big head! I started designing because I had trouble finding simple designs that suited my figure, and it’s so gratifying to hear that other people appreciate them too.

So of course, today’s FO Friday post is someone else’s design, haha.

Remember how I said I was addicted to baby knits?

Ahem. They’re just so fast! And after finishing (mostly) a BIG secret design project that’s been giving me fits, I needed something quick.

(I don’t think the intended recipient of this little sweater reads my blog. But Laura, if you’re reading this, act surprised, okay?)

The specs:

Pattern: Baby Sophisticate (Ravelry link) by Linden Down. I modified the pattern quite a bit. One thing I love about designing is that it has given me the confidence to make extensive mods to existing patterns with confidence. I have my favorite techniques that I know work well, and I sub them in frequently when I’m not a fan of the technique given in the pattern.

That said, sometimes I like trying a new technique too! This is a top-down pattern, and it uses the backwards-loop cast on for the raglan increases (instead of the more usual kfb or M1 increases). I’d never considered doing them this way, and to be honest, they were a little fiddly to work, but I like the clean lines they made.

Yarn: Berroco Vintage in Indigo. I’ve used this yarn for a few baby knits now–it’s probably my favorite acrylic/wool blend. Soft, great depth of color, non-squeaky, and washes really well. I used one full skein and maybe a fifth of another.

Which brings me to my main modification: a very different gauge. The pattern specifies 15 sts over 4 inches with size US #8 needles, which I knew right off the bat I wasn’t going to get from anything thinner than a chunky yarn (and it would be pretty bulletproof on size 8s, at that). Most of the people who’ve posted FOs on Ravelry used worsted or Aran weight yarn and did modifications for gauge, too. Mine ended up being 4.5 sts/in on size 8s, which gave me a nice fabric.

Notes: I detailed all my modifications on my Rav project page, so I won’t repeat them here. One thing I wanted to mention, though, is a confession: I usually hate doing short rows. It’s not so much the wrapping and turning, but the picking up the wraps and making it look decent that gives me problems. This pattern has you pick up the wraps, so I was resigned to gritting my teeth and getting through it.

BUT, I learned on this project that you don’t have to pick up the wraps in garter stitch–they’re pretty much invisible anyway!

Can you find the wraps?

This immediately fills my mind with garter stitch-short row ideas.

And the pièce de résistance: robot buttons! I found out the parents-to-be are going with a robot theme for their little boy’s bedroom, so I found these from an Etsy seller. I think they’re perfect!

FO Friday & New Pattern Release: Descanso

Thank you for all the nice comments on my Full Circle Cardigan! It made it to #6 on Ravelry’s Hot Right Now list the day after I released it, which made me extremely happy. I can’t wait to start seeing other people’s versions!

And today, I have another FO/pattern release for you. Lest you think I’m some sort of insane knitting machine, I should tell you this sweater was actually finished last summer. It just happened to come out a few weeks ago, hence the FO post.

This is Descanso, a design I did for Dream in Color Yarn (all photos © Dream In Color Yarn):

The specs:

Pattern: my own Descanso pattern. Available for purchase through Dream in Color Designs (Ravelry link).

Yarn: Dream in Color Everlasting DK in Tang.

I have to admit to a bit of skepticism when I saw the color yarn they’d sent me for the sample. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful–Dream in Color Yarns are always stunning–but this particular bright pinky-red isn’t one I could ever wear. When I saw the pictures, though, I was blown away. Doesn’t the model look amazing in that color? It’s like it was made for her!

I’m a teensy bit jealous.

Notes: I’m going to have to knit myself one of these to keep, because I love the way this sweater turned out. I was going for an easy, slouchy look (while still keeping figure-flattering waist shaping and a flattering neckline). It’s a little hard to tell in the pictures, but there’s a slip-stitch rib around the hem and cuffs of the sweater–enough to keep the edge relatively flat, but still let it roll a little for a more casual look.

The sweater is knit from the bottom-up in the round to the neck split/yoke joining, and then back and forth in rows (my favorite construction!). The little cable detail at the neck turned out really well. I love the way it adds interest without bulk:

I named the pattern after one of my favorite botanical gardens. Descanso Gardens is only a few miles from where we used to live, and I’ve done photo shoots for several sweater patterns there. I thought it would be nice to remember the name by giving it to a comfy sweater pattern.

I hope you like this sweater as much as I do!

2012 Knitting Year In Review

I thought it might be fun to look back at my knitting progress this year, so I went through my Ravelry project pages and tallied it all up. And holy wow–I finished 27 projects this year. Nine of those were full-sized sweater designs.

That’s a lot of knitting, yo.

Anyway, I though it would be fun to show you a quick snapshot of the projects I finished this year:

Here are the self-designed sweaters (minus two that are secret designs for yarn companies–I can’t blog about those until they’re published next year):

Hats, all but one of which are my own design:
Other accessories (lace shawl design for a forthcoming book not shown):

And finally, small sweaters (two for my niece, one for the Christmas tree):

Think I can beat my own record in 2013?

FO Friday: Options Slippers

I hope everyone out there in blogland is having a great holiday season! I took advantage of the free time during the 24th and 25th to whip up a set of slippers for me:

I have needed slippers for a while (I have a pair of felted ones from years ago, but they have holes in them!). These are perfect–easy to make, warm and cushy, and green (my fave!).

The specs:

Pattern: Options Slippers for Women by Kris Basta (Ravelry Link)

Yarn: doubled Araucania Toconao, left over from a large sweater design I have yet to blog here, but will soon (it’s in testing and should be released pretty soon!). The yarn is squooshy on its own, but holding it double on size 8 needles makes an incredibly thick fabric I want to squish all the time. I used about a skein and a half for both slippers.

Notes: The pattern is pretty interesting–there are lots of options (duh, see the pattern name). You can go with a bulky yarn or a worsted held double, several different types of soles, and use one of several methods to attach the soles to the uppers. I went with the knitted sole, but broke out the crochet hook to “sew” them together.

I’m pretty proud of my crochet job, actually. I am not a crocheter by any stretch of the imagination, and I sort of winged it (wung it? Surely not) on the exact technique… but the join turned out fine and, dare I say it, even pretty!

And I finished these just in time! This is what the backyard looked like on December 26th:

I don’t know if you can tell, but it’s snowing in this picture. Hard. We got about 7 inches of snow in four or five hours… nothing insane, but definitely conditions that make me appreciate having warm, squishy slippers.

FO Friday: Latte Baby Coat

Two FO Fridays in a row! Baby sweaters are addictive, yo.

Again, apologies for the non-modeled, craptastic blocking shot. My niece lives about 1500 miles away, so getting her to model the FO wasn’t really feasible.

The specs:

Pattern: Latte Baby Coat by Lisa Chemery (Ravelry link). I made the largest size (3T-4T). The pattern was well-written. It included tons of options, which makes for a slightly more cluttered pattern, but I always appreciate having choices.

Yarn: Cascade Eco+, 1 skein in Purple Jewel Heather. The pattern calls for 1.5 skeins for the hooded version in the largest size, but mine took only one, and I had a good sized ball left over. I did rip out my swatch, though–if I had kept a decent-sized swatch, I might have been closer to the end of the skein.

This yarn has been marinating in my stash for more than a year, and it was good to finally use some of it up. I usually avoid baby/toddler knits with non-superwash yarns, but since this is more of a coat anyway and likely won’t fit her next year, I’m not going to be terribly upset if it gets ruined. Plus it was really quick on #10 needles!

Notes: It turned out really cute! I was worried about rippling on the edge, so I bound off very tightly the first time… and then had to rip it out and re-do it when I realized her face wouldn’t fit into the tiny head opening. Doh. But I think I got the tension right the second time.

The balloon is something I’ve recently started using to block hoods. It works like a charm! No more flattened or weird-looking hoods.

When it’s dry, I’ll sew on buttons. I’ve got these neat Celtic knot ones in my button stash that should be perfect.

And it’s good that I’m done with baby knits… because a huge box of yarn just arrived for two commissioned designs that will be due in the new year. Unfortunately, they need to be kept secret, but I can tell you I’m about a fourth of the way through a gorgeous cabled pullover in one of my favorite colors. More on that later….

FO Friday: Sweet Peasy

Remember my baby sweater dilemma?

I decided to go with with Sweet Peasy for my niece’s Christmas present, because it had just the right blend of pretty detail and mindless stockinette. I’ve gotten rather, ahem, addicted to the show Castle lately (Nathan Fillion, witty humor, romance, and mystery–be still my heart!). I wanted a sweater I could make whilst being riveted to the TV.

(Apologies for the non-modeled picture… I don’t have a small person around to put it on, and modeled shots on dolls or stuffed animals freak me out a little, to be totally honest.)

The specs:

Pattern: Sweet Peasy by Heidi Kirrmaier (Ravelry link)

Yarn: Malabrigo Arroyo in Plomo, about 1.5 skeins. The yarn was really lovely to work with, as per usual with Malabrigo. I’m not a hundred percent happy with the way it striped up in the FO, to be honest… but it’s not too bad. I’m just a perfectionist. :-)

Notes: I raided my vintage button stash and came up with these textured dark green ones, which I think look neat with the grayish-purple.

I thought the pattern was fairly good. I’m something of a discerning customer, haha. The pattern tells you to knit the sleeves first and then pick up body stitches from the underarm. I did it in reverse (body first). I also picked up a few extra sts when joining the sleeves and decreased them on the first round, which closes gaps at the sides of the underarms nicely.

I also added a couple of rows to the garter stitch trim on the bands, since I noticed many of the FOs on Ravelry were curling. It seems to have addressed the problem nicely!

Of course, as soon as I finished this, I spotted another little kids’ pattern that I MUST MAKE… so the nieceling may be getting more than one sweater for Christmas. We shall see.

Three new patterns!

Guess what guess what guess what? I just found out not one, not two, but three of my new patterns are now available for purchase!

These are designs I did for Universal Yarn back in March (remember when I had all that knitting I couldn’t show you right around that time?). Well, the pattern collection, Universal Yarn PC550 Deluxe Worsted Vol. 4, is out!

With no further ado, here are the patterns (all pictures by Shane Baskin/Black Box Studios):

Clifden Cardigan

I’m very fond of the cables on this sweater (they’re on the back too, although I don’t have a picture to show you, unfortunately). Increases between lines of rib on the sides give it a swingy A-line shape. Let’s just say it’s lucky this sample was knit in a size too small for me… I would have had a really hard time giving it up otherwise.

I named the sweater after this little town we stayed in when we visited the west coast of Ireland a few years ago. It was August, and although it was warmish, it was damp and drizzly most of the time. A wool cardigan like this would have been perfect.

Zingy Beanie

This hat uses a lot of twisted stitches to make those cool lines of rib between the diamond patterns. I was inspired by pictures of some old Aran sweaters that currently reside in museums. When the hat was right off the needles, the fabric was doing this really cool bias thing (due to the twisted stitches). I decided to block it out straight, but I think I’m going to make another one of these and let it do its thing. It was a different look, but still neat.

Saunter Mitts

I think these little mitts knit up in about four episodes of Doctor Who. Totally fun, and just enough pattern to be interesting without frustrating.

I’m so glad to finally be able to share these patterns/FOs with y’all! I had a lot of fun knitting them, and I’d love to hear what you think. :-)

FO Friday: Weeny Sweater

I have an FO I can show you for Friday! Second week in a row!

Although that photo doesn’t show scale very well, it’s little, trust me.

The specs:

Pattern: Tiny Holiday Sweater Ornament, free from the KnitPicks website. I didn’t use my own pattern! Gasp!

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sport in Moorland, leftovers from my Put Together sample.

Notes: I didn’t enjoy this knit, unfortunately. Part of it is my fault–I didn’t have enough fingering weight yarn around, so I decided to knit it with sport weight on size 2’s. This meant the stitches were very tight and it was hard to work the front and back cables without a cable needle (my preferred method).

The pattern itself was too fiddly for my taste. Also, I would estimate it took me about 6-8 hrs of knitting. That’s as long as I would spend on a worsted-weight hat or mitten: too long for an ornament, in my opinion. I’m planning to make a few more little sweaters for gifts, but I’m going to find a nice DK or worsted pattern for the rest.

At least it came out cute! It’s hard to make anything out of Madelintosh that doesn’t look fabulous, really. Look at the depth of color:

And in other news, I’m planning to knit yet another pattern of someone else’s, this time for my adorable 2.5 year old niece! I have a few skeins of Malabrigo Arroyo in a lovely grayish-purple that have been sitting around waiting to become something, so I swatched it up yesterday:

Isn’t that gorgeous?

Glamour shot:

I’m drooling over little girl patterns on Ravelry, trying to pick out the perfect one. It’s such a novelty to be able to pick and choose without having to write my own, haha!

My current favorites are (Rav links):

Sweet Peasy: This is really cute and looks quick and simple. My gauge is a little smaller than required, so I’d have to go up to the next size and hope for the best, though.

Saffron: RIDICULOUSLY cute. I’m a little worried it’s too girly for my niece’s stylish mama, though… and I know from experience that ruffles are painful.

Sweet Poppy: Love this one… but I’m a little worried I’d run out of yarn. Also, the sweater has to be mailed all the way across the country, and I’m thinking the drapey fronts probably wouldn’t fare so well. It might need re-blocking at the other end!

Do you have a go-to toddler sweater knit in sport or DK weight yarn?

FO Friday: Texture Times Two Hat

I finished the texture hat to match the purple texture scarf!

It came out great! The hat is fully reversible and looks just as cool on both sides as the scarf.

The specs:

Pattern: My own, coming soon (with matching scarf).

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Purple Mystery, 1 skein. What can you say that hasn’t been said about Malabrigo? It’s like knitting with clouds.

Notes: Even after a whole scarf and a hat, I still really like this texture pattern. The two-in-one effect is awesome. I finally figured out a good name for the set, too: Texture Times Two!

We had fun with the photoshoot on what turned out to be one of the last days with leaves still on the trees:

I still haven’t quite readjusted to actual seasons after my years in LA. The poor trees look so sad now!

FO Friday: New Scarf Design!

I have a new design to show off for FO Friday:

The coolest thing about this pattern is the reverse side, which looks really cool and just as textural but totally different:

Proof that it’s the same scarf and I didn’t just knit two scarves with the same yarn but totally different patterns to mess you up (cause, you know, that sounds like a really good use of my time):

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Purple Mystery, 2 skeins (part of my birthday present from my lovely mother!)

Pattern: My own. I’m calling it by the amazingly unimaginative name of Texture Scarf while I think of something better. Any suggestions?

Notes: This cable pattern is kind of awesome, as long as you can cable without a cable needle (pretty easy with Malabrigo, since it’s definitely not what I’d call slippery). It was interesting enough to keep my attention, but easy enough to memorize pretty quickly and work while watching episodes of The Office (on season 7–please Netflix, hurry up and get season 8!).

I’m planning a matching hat, so I think I’ll wait to write up/release the pattern until I can do them as a set. Here’s hoping the LYS has another skein of Purple Mystery in stock…