creme de menthe

FO Friday: Creme de Menthe

I’m running my biggest promotion ever to celebrate my 30th birthday tomorrow: 50% off any self-published pattern in my Ravelry store with the coupon code 50for30. The sale goes through the end of the day tomorrow (US Eastern Time).

Official business out of the way, here’s the FO Friday post for my Madelinetosh Twist DK vest!

We had a blast with the photoshoot. I wanted a fun vibe, since the vest is a little more kooky than some of my pieces. I think it turned out pretty well!

The specs:

Pattern: My own Creme de Menthe pattern, which will be in testing in the next few weeks and probably released in… late September? Early October?

Yarn: Madelinetosh Twist DK, two skeins of Bluestem Willow and one of Farmhouse White. I can’t say enough good things about this yarn. Squishy, springy, delightful to knit with. It’s only available through the Madelinetosh shop, and I confess I’ve been stalking it a bit for a sweater quantity in a deep green or blue.

Notes: Gosh I love this vest! I decided up front to do 2:1 stripes through the body, which made things very interesting when it went from knitting in the round to flat. But that was perfect–after all that stockinette, the interest of having to read the knitting and push the work from one side of the needle to the other added just the right amount of interest.

I’m writing the pattern with two different sections for that part: first, there will be a little summary for those who have some experience or feel comfortable checking it themselves. Second, there will be a table with row-by-row instructions for those who need a little more hand-holding. This is a new format for me, so I’m interested to see how my testers like it!

The planned stripe effect on the shoulders turned out great, if I do say so myself:

FO Friday: Return of the Gray Sweater

Whew, it’s hard to keep up with blogging when most of your projects are secret! But the last one of those was packaged and sent last week, so hopefully it should be a little more action-packed around here.

First up, I finished the Creme de Menthe vest. No modeled pictures because it’s still blocking, but I’m really happy with the way this one turned out. The alternating stripe concept that was the basis for the whole idea turned out great!

Stay tuned for more pictures on that one.

Also, I’ve resurrected the cozy gray sweater! Remember this one?

Last time I mentioned it, this one was on hold due to some disappointing pooling. I pulled it out a few weeks ago to get myself psyched up for the ripping and re-knitting… but to be honest, it didn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered.

Cozy Gray back

I think part of the reason I was so down on it was some pictures taken with crappy indoor lighting. That highlighted the striping effect of the second skein and made the sweater look awful. So we took some better shots–and I love it! I’m working on getting the pattern finalized and getting it into the hands of test-knitters. I’ll probably aim for an October release with this one.

Oh, but it needs a name! I’m calling it “Cozy Gray” in my head, but that isn’t going to fly for the pattern release. You guys were so helpful with my hat pattern a few months ago–any thoughts on this one?

WIP Wednesday: Two Steps Back

Just a quick little WIP Wednesday post today, mainly because my Creme de Menthe vest looked like this a few days ago:

Sigh. I had a feeling while I was working on the vest last week that it was coming out too big, but I pushed the feeling aside and soldiered on, not wanting to contemplate ripping out and starting over (we all do this, right? Tell me it’s not just me). But when I had about 8-9 inches of fabric, I finally measured, and sure enough–it was almost 2″ too wide. My gauge changed from 5.5 sts/inch in the swatch to 5.25 sts/inch in the vest. Not a big deal if it’s a small piece, but it makes a lot of different over a whole garment.

But oh well. I’ve started again with fewer stitches and have about 3″ done. And I’m still madly in love with the yarn, so it could be a lot worse. :-)