Wow! Has it really been 3 months since I last posted??? Sorry to have been gone so long!
As has been the case lately, I've mostly been knitting. My big push this summer was knitting sweaters for myself. It's been really nice to work on some big projects that have interesting sections, but also have sections that don't require much attention. And, selfish as it might be, it's been really nice to make some stuff for myself! I shared my first sweater of the year in a previous post. My second sweater was the Jane Morris by Carol Sunday.
I chose this pattern because I could buy a knitCompanion project already set up for me. knitCompanion is the software that I use to store my pattern and keep track of my place. I figured that would help me to learn how to use the different features of knitCompanion and I'm very happy that I did it! And I love the final result! The weather is cooling off now so I should be able to wear it soon.
My first new sweater for this post is The Weekender by Andrea Mowry. I first saw this sweater pattern on the Grocery Girls podcast and decided to jump in when Jimmy Beans Wool had a knit-a-long for the pattern.
I knit this sweater using a cotton/cashmere blend yarn (Rowan Cotton Cashmere) that is really drapy and wonderful! I've been wearing it over a tank top in the cool evenings for the last month, and all day since the weather has cooled down a bit lately. It's been perfect!
My next sweater is the Foxtrot Cardigan by Marie Greene.
I made this sweater using some Cascade 220 100% wool yarn that I got on sale. I love how this one turned out, too! It's really soft and warm! I haven't blocked it yet. The patterning will flatten out and open up with blocking, so it'll look better then. The only thing I don't like about this pattern is that it is designed without buttons and the placket has a curved design that would look like you were bursting your buttons if you added them. So this will just be a cardigan that is always worn open. But I think it's still going to get a lot of wear! I got several other sweater quantities of yarn on sale this summer so I look forward to knitting some more sweaters after the Christmas present rush is over.
This summer Laura Nelkin had her annual kit-a-long, where you can win prizes for working on kits that have bought from her. This includes Lola's Choice and M/N Club kits that you have gotten but haven't finished yet. So, I pulled out some of my Laura Nelkin projects and made some progress on those. My first is Kairos, the July 2019 Lola's Choice project.
This is a really quick knit, but is really cute, too. I love the clasp, which was designed by Laura and her husband and made by a local leather artisan, so I ordered a couple more kits in other colors to make some time in the future.
I also made this Aquicowl from a kit that I had purchased from Craftsy/Bluprint on sale several years ago. I do love a good sale!
I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to keep this one or give it away.
Since I made the Aquicowl, I decided that I should also work on my Aquifer scarf, which was one of the projects from the 2017 M Club.
This is a cool knit, but I kept losing interest in this project for some reason, so it's hibernating until next year when I might get interested in it again.
I also made some more progress on my Hring Scarf, which was a Lola's Choice project from a year or two ago, before I started keeping track of which project arrived when.
This is a fairly difficult beaded lace project, made even more difficult by the nubby cotton yarn. I had a lot of trouble following the lace pattern last year when I started this scarf so put it away fairly early on. This year I'm experienced enough now that the pattern was going pretty well, but the yarn really is tough to knit with because cotton yarns like to stick to themselves making it more difficult to get a good tension and the big nubs in this yarn make that worse and make it very difficult to "read" your stitches and almost impossible to unknit stitches when you make a mistake. So I could only work on this a little while at a time, but I do want to finish this at some point because the knitted part of the scarf is so beautiful and drapy!
My final Laura Nelkin project is the Proto-Lola hat, which was the September 2019 Lola's Choice project. This one came after the end of the kit-a-long, but I had to make it when the project arrived.
I wanted to work on this project because I don't have a lot of stranded colorwork experience, but I'm planning on making a couple of them as Christmas presents so this would be good experience. This hat knit up quickly and I really like how it turned out. The yarn is interesting because the green is a "chainette" yarn that is thinner yarns that are braided together in some way. This is a really soft wool yarn. But the white yarn is a really "toothy" Icelandic wool yarn that is supposed to be really warm. Laura combined these yarns so that the soft yarn would feel comfortable on your ears, while the Icelandic wool yarn keeps your head toasty warm. I'm definitely keeping this one!
The last Laura Nelkin project I'm going to mention in this post is the last N Club kit for this year. I received my kit last week.
Laura sends out these projects without showing us what we're making until the big reveal, which was today. This project is the Afresh shawl, which I think is more like a long scarf. It's a really cool design that I think I'll make for myself, but I expect I'll want to make more for the nieces next year.
I've also done some work on my Jimmy Beans Wool club projects. The first one of those clubs is the year-long shawl club that you've seen before. The pattern is the Sunshower Shawl by Ambah O'Brien.
I'm finished through the August installment and should receive the September installment in the mail next week.
The second club is the Knit Club, which has a new project every 3 months received in monthly installments. The June-July-August project is the Prismatic Poncho by Rachel Roden (no link because it's not yet available on Ravelry). This poncho is made in two halves, which are then seamed together to make a poncho. I have the first half completed.
It's not blocked yet, but should flatten out with blocking. The second half will be the same, but with different colors, and the seam will be about halfway along the long side. This is not a style that I would choose for myself, but I do love the colors. The yarn is interesting. It's a thick cotton yarn with little polyester strings of color mixed into it so the colors kind of glow. You can kind of see it in this early progress photo:
The yarn is really soft and comfortable to knit with. I think this will be nice to have in the winter to wrap in while watching TV.
To finish up my knitting projects, I've also been working on Christmas knitting. I made a little more progress on the Paris Mittens by Andrea Arbour that I'm making for my sister.
I keep putting these aside because I'm not sure how I feel about them. I think the colors are beautiful and are looking good together, but my hand just barely fits inside the cuff and you can see the contrast yarn in the middle of the background areas where I was locking my floats, so I might end up pulling these apart and starting over again. This was the main reason that I wanted to make the Proto-Lola hat when it arrived to make sure that I was doing colorwork okay. That worked out, so I think for these mittens I might just need to go up a needle size to make them slightly bigger and move the float locks around so that they don't line up. I have some time to make that decision.
I also started a colorwork hat for my nephew -- the Stronger hat by Athena Forbes.
This hat has a round of trees and then a round of mountains, so I thought it would be a good reminder of his visits to Estes Park. I'm making the hat with holes in the ribbing for some Bluetooth headphone speakers that I also go him for Christmas. You can see the speakers in another hat below. Anyway, I'm not sure I'm liking how this hat is turning out so far. The pattern is designed so that you can put the colorwork on in several ways. She says that the pattern is for a bunch of sizes, from newborn to adult, but she has you use the same pattern and yarn and just change the needle size for the different hat sizes. Well, that is resulting in the fabric that the knitting creates for the adult hat is really thin and I'm not liking that. So, I'm planning on unraveling the hat and starting over again. In the new version, I'll use the same yarn but will go down a couple of needle sizes and add a repeat of the trees and mountains. I think that'll make a much nicer hat. This is pretty quick to knit up so I shouldn't be wasting too much time. I just have to recalculate where to put the ear holes for the headphones.
The other hat that I made for the headphones that I'm giving to my nephew is the Chunky Ribbed Stripes Hat by Kait Duncan.
This was my test knit for seeing if my calculations for the headphones holes was right. The headphones holes worked perfectly, but this hat also turned out a bit thin, as you can see when looking at the brim in the picture, so I wasn't thrilled with it. I figured that my nephew could use this hat on warmer days, but I wanted to make a nicer hat to go with the headphones, too. So that will be the Stronger hat above.
Last Christmas, I knit a bunch of dishcloths for my other sister. After using them, she said she loved them and would love to have some dish towels out of the same yarn. The yarn went on sale, so I bought a bunch and made a dish towel for her.
If I have time, I'll make a couple more for her and for others in the family (and myself) since I think these are wonderful. The yarn is Dishie by KnitPicks.
My final knitting project is the Odyssey Shawl by Joji Locatelli. I just started this on Friday because I needed a straight-forward Christmas knitting project as a relief from the colorwork problems I was having.
It's been really nice working on this shawl and I'm almost done with it now. Each color section has a garter stitch section and then a lace section with these big holes:
These holes will really look cool once they are opened up with blocking. I just have to finish the holes in the third section and then do the picot bind-off, which I think will also be really cool, and the knitting will be finished!
So you see, I wasn't lying about this being a summer of knitting!
I've also done a little bit of sewing this summer. I finally finished the backing for my niece's graduation quilt, so I'm ready to baste it and start the quilting. As a reminder, here is the front of the quilt:
(There's a purple line of hexagons that you can't see under the sun glare.) I designed this backing for it:
I think they'll go together well! Now if I can just make myself do the dreaded basting of a queen-sized quilt.....
Finally, I did sew a couple more gift bags for the gifts that I've finished:
Hopefully, I'll need to make some more gift bags soon! There's never enough time to make all of the Christmas gifts, especially when your family keeps growing!
I hope everyone had a wonderful summer! I'm now enjoying the very beginnings of the aspens turning yellow at my house!
Nancy
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