I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

KOIA (who, BTW, hasn’t blogged since the summer of 2009), added a post to my Facebook wall last week asking why I haven’t updated the blog in a while.  Well, I have a nice bullet list, complete with photos, to explain why.

• I was in Denver for a week for work.

See, I have the shopping bags to prove it.

•  I turned around and went to California for 5 crazy days of Disneyland and cheer competition.

•  While I was in California, I made the 54-mile, 5-hour round trip to LA from Anaheim to visit my son who attends college in LA. As an added bonus, I got a free golf lesson.

•  I made three shop samples for the LYS where I teach classes.

•  I wrote up the pattern for the sock-weight version of Fog Lifter and knit another sample.  So the Bambino sample joins her ShibuiKnits sister.  Watch for the pattern next week.

•  I’ve been diligently (not) working on writing up the pattern for another scarf that I first knit last summer!  Yikes.  It made a brief appearance at Sock Summit and hasn’t been heard from since.  I think it’s time to revive it. What do you think?

•  And I’m working on a super secret project that I can only show you a peek of.

If I tell you more, I’ll have to kill you.

It’s Friday and I still haven’t found time to cobble together a blog post for this week.  But since 3 other bloggers have essentially done all the work for me, I’ll just piggyback on their posts.

Saturday, Margene, Eliza, Cheryl and I sewed up some adorable project bags.  I stumbled on the pattern several weeks ago and got it into my head that I simply had to make one.  I was able to complete three, notwithstanding the fact that I have: (1) a barely functioning sewing machine and (2) the sewing skills of a toddler.

The task was considerably easier on Saturday since I was able to use Cheryl’s fully functioning sewing machine and Margene’s razor sharp rotary cutter.  Cheryl blogged about our lovely day here.

Sunday was Margene’s 60th birthday.  For several months I’ve been planning, designing, and knitting a secret shawl to celebrate her day.  Back in December, I showed her a shawl prototype I had knit and she loved it.  Trouble was, I had lost both the handwritten charts and my notes.  But after she’d hounded me several times, I decided to recreate the pattern and knit a shawl from it for her birthday.  Kim kindly supplied me with the perfect (and I mean perfect) yarn.

Here’s the result:

I think Margene liked it.  She has some action photos of the shawl on her blog.

The pattern is currently available from Kim as a kit.  I’m  re-re-working it for sock weight yarn and it should be available as a stand-alone pattern in a few weeks.  Should be good for all those lovely skeins of sock yarn that are too precious to use for socks.  At least that’s the plan.

The sweater, c’est finis.
Despite all the votes for the metal buttons, I defiantly chose the plastic ones.  I think they weren’t represented well in the photograph.  Plus, after I sewed on two of the metal buttons, I realized they were too heavy for the yarn and would have cause the button band to sag and stretch.  So, plastic it is.

And here is the finished sweater, modeled by the ever lovely daughter:

Pattern: Golden Vintage Cardigan
Yarn: Moda Dea Bamboo Wool (a surprisingly lovely yarn that was available through some craft stores)
Needle: 4.5mm, Holz & Stein ebony circular
Mods: I used completely different shaping for the sleeve cap. I also cast on for the medium and then decreased down to the small numbers instead of working waist shaping. The sleeves are longer so I cast on fewer stitches and worked some increases. All the mods are set out on the Ravelry project page.
Verdict:  Very wearable. I like it!