I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

Since last Friday, I . . . . . . .

. . . Went to the neighborhood Fourth of July parade:

. . . Spent the morning of July 4th knitting in my backyard with Margene and Laurie:

. . . Took a walk on Monday evening and spotted lots of candy from the parade that the kids missed:

. . . Finished a sweater that’s been languishing in my WIP pile for more than a year (modeled by DD; details on Ravelry)

. . . and finished the Northern Lights Shawl:

What about you??

Until I got a comment from Susanne today, I had no idea it had been more than a month since my last blog post. Yikes. How did that happen? I guess it’s easy to fall out of the habit of blogging.

I’ve decided to keep myself on the posting track by instituting a Friday theme for the blog . . . Five on Friday.  Every Friday I’ll post five things I’ve done since the Friday before.  Is anyone interested in joining me?

Of course, today isn’t Friday, but here are five things I’ve done since last time I posted.

1. I went to Boston to visit my parents and squeezed in a one-day detour to Springfield.

2. I finished NaKniSweMoDo sweater #8 (link to Ravelry project page):

3. I finished NaKniSweMoDo sweater #9 (link to Ravelry project page):

4. I released a new shawl pattern called Beach Glass. You can purchase it by clicking through to my Ravelry storefront and I’ll be adding it to the sidebar early next week.

5. I took a leisurely train ride to Ogden to visit one of my favorite yarn shops, the Needlepoint Joint.

What about you? Have you done something fun in the last month???

Several projects have conspired to curtail my 2009 sweater knitting, but I managed to complete NaKniSweMoDo #7 last week.

Pattern: Climbing Vines Pullover (Interweave Knits, winter 2008)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed (7 skeins)
Ravelry Project Page (with links to pattern and yarn): Ravelry

This was a fast project and it only took 7 skeins of yarn even though I made longer sleeves. I’m not a big fan of Debbie Bliss yarns, but this Luxury Tweed is the best I’ve used from the line. It’s nice to knit with and the finished fabric is soft. I like the way the tweediness of the yarn softens the look of the leaf motif.

If you make this sweater, keep in mind that row gauge is more important than stitch gauge because you must complete a full repeat of the leaf chart or the last leaf won’t follow the line of the neck. This means the sweater will be about 15 inches from the cast-on edge to the beginning of the armhole shaping for all sizes. I chose a needle size that gave me the correct row gauge, which meant my stitch gauge was off. I knew the sweater would hit me below the hip (my widest part) so I cast on for the Small size and didn’t work any increases after the waist shaping. That gave me the numbers for the X-Small size. Oh, and it’s easier to work the front before the back so you can work out the armhole numbers for the leaf motif.

I made a few other minor adjustments, like lowering the back of the neck and lengthening the sleeves. I also used a very small needle to work the last 3 rows of the ribbing at the neckline and I bound off with the same small needle.

Even with my adjustments, it’s still just a little big and long on me. But it fits Cheryl nicely, don’t you think:

My sweater count rose to 7 at nearly the same time as the inhabitants of my house returned to 4. Yup, the son is back from his first year of college. Yikes, that was fast. And look, he was kind enough to bring home lots of shoes so I can spend my day constantly picking them up.

*sigh*