Latest Sweater Update #1

Here's the first picture of my latest sweater. 

As you can see, I'm done the back of it. I'm also almost done the left front side. It's knitting up pretty quickly. That's probably because other than the ribbing and the little bit of pattern on the bottom portion of the sweater it's a straight stockinette. 

But I think I'm really going to like it. I like that it's got a little bit of detailing on it, but not much. I think I'll like the collar on it too once that's done.

I also think that I bought too much yarn for it. I have 5 balls and I think it will only take me 2.5 to do the back and two front pieces. Maybe another 1 - 1.5 balls to do the sleeves, but maybe I'm under estimating. We'll see. 

I think that if I keep up at this pace I'd finish soon, but with a house guest coming soon, I probably won't work on it much over the next two weeks. 

Here's a picture of the detailing!

Random Gifts

So it turns out that I'm known by my armwarmers.Look at what my office manager Anna bought for me! Aren't they the best?

Similar to the sweater and scarf I have at work, I also have armwarmers there. On really cold days in the office, if I wear the sweater and the scarf. (I find that you lose a lot of heat through a bare neck. I'm more likely to wear a scarf than a neck at home during the winter.) On semi cold days, I wear the sweater. On only sort of chilly days, I wear the armwarmers. I love arm warmers. They might not be haught cuture, but whatever. They are knitted and they are cool. 

It was a great surprise when Anna brought me these. They aren't knitted, but they are still cool! And I'm totally going to wear them. If only I could read the Japanese. 

I've also started on that new project. The off white cardigan. I think it's going pretty well. It's pretty easy so far. There's some detailing with knitting/purling on the wrong side, but for the most part it's just stockinette stitch. I'm half done the back, and I'll post a picture once I'm done that part. 

That's alota yarn

A big package arrived for me at work today, and it was my yarn! Exciting. Yay for the internet! I was a little surprised by how thin the yarn is, but I think it's going to work out. I had to do two swatches of it to get the tension right for the sweater, but luckily it means that I don't have to buy new knitting needles. Lucky! 

& I actually really like the colour. It's hard to tell the colour exactly in this picture. It's a lighter. I like the tweed element to it. I think it will add a nice hint of something to the otherwise boring sweater once it's done. 

I guess we'll see. 

I'm not so sure about the three random balls of yarn that I got. 

They are a lot smaller than I thought they were going to be (I guess I should have expected that for how much I paid for them), so I don't know if there's going to be enough yarn in them to make anything. Even if it's just a little baby blanket. It might be the smallest baby blanket in the world. But the yarn is very soft, so it would be small but soft.

Sucker for a Sale

I’m a sucker for a sale. Don’t get me wrong – I hate shopping. I always have. I’m not one to rush out for Black Friday or Boxing Day sales. That sounds like a horror story to me. But put me in a store and if I see something on sale, sometimes I just can’t refuse. Like I can’t refuse buying cute Christmas cards in January when they are marked down to $1, and are normally like $20. I don’t care about storing them for 11 months if I have to pay 5% of the original price.
Now, the same is very true for yarn.

So I finally decided on a cardigan pattern that I’m going to make. It’s boring, but that’s what I wanted. Actually this one has more going on than the one I have at work right now. I’m going to make it in a similar sort of colour as in the picture. I think the hardest part is going to be putting in the zipper. Hmm. But challenges are good right?
So since I’m not in love with my LYS (it seems they only carry really expensive yarn) I ordered it online. I went by the picture and reviews of the yarn online, so I hope it’s nice once I get it. Now I just have to wait for the ordered yarn to come.
Until then, I’m making more mother bear bears. They are just so easy and fast. & did I mention easy?
But back to the sale… Even with stacks of yarn at home clogging up my already small room, I just couldn’t stop myself from looking at what was on sale at knitting zone, and then I bought 3 mismatching balls of yarn for a baby afghan. I don’t even know anyone who is pregnant anymore! Which begs the question: When and why would I make another afghan? But it was too good a deal to pass up. The yarn is in such cute baby colours (one white, one mixed baby blue and one mixed baby pink) and it said that the yarn was soft, and they were on sale for $3 each. How could I say no? When this is going to turn into a baby blanket? I have no idea. I guess at least, when the next baby comes along at least I’ll be ready. Well, when I find a pattern I’ll be ready.

Thumbs up and Thumbs down.

Well, I have a victory. Mom just called and said she really likes the sweater. Phew. Well, she did say something along the lines of: “I really like the sweater. It looks good. But I’m not wearing a white blouse right now and I’m wearing khakis, so it doesn’t go. But next time I wear my jean skirt I will wear it. Thanks so much.”
Well Mom you are very welcome. So thumbs up from my mom.

What’s the thumbs down then? It’s from me. I tried out my new knit bag, and I pretty much hate it. The strap stretches WAY too much because of the k1, p1 seed stitch pattern. The bag too is just the absolute wrong. My fault that. I should have changed the number of stitches to make it a different width. Oh well. I have one thing I’m going to try to do to fix the bad, because I think it’s salvageable, but if that doesn’t work then I’m going to frog the whole thing because the yarn is just too expensive to sit somewhere unfinished.

As a side note, I found out another one of my friends is recently engaged. Congrats A. I don’t think that I’ll be invited to this wedding but I think I might send a cross stitch to them too. They live on the east coast, so for this one I was thinking about doing a lighthouse themed one. Is that too cheesy? I’ll have to go to the craft store to get some ideas.
And if I wasn’t so set on knitting something else, maybe I’d actually get started on something.

new purse

I've been working on this purse for a while now. Like I think I mentioned before, I started the project while I was reading. The purse design requires only knit and purl. There's no colour changing, no increasing or decreasing, so it wasn't too difficult to do without looking at the hands. I just had to prop open the book, and I was off to the races. Until I hit the end of the page and have to stop to turn. Slightly annoying, but well worth it. (I did it while reading Blackbringer in which there is a guy who knits! Ironic? Fitting? Both?) 

It took me longer to make this than I thought it would, and not because of the reading. I actually had to frog about 8" of the strap. And it's not because I did anything wrong in the pattern, but because I ran out of yarn. Being the cheap knitter that I am, I tried to get away with making a few changes so that I could use 3 ball of yarn instead of 4. In the end it worked out, but I had to modify the strap so that it wasn't as wide or as long as was called for in the pattern. I also changed the pattern to make one long strap that went all the way around the bag, rather than 4 smaller straps to be sewn together at the end. I think it worked fine even if the corners of the bag aren't as defined. I think if I were to make it again the one thing I would change is how big it is. It's really wide. I wanted it to be able to hold and 8"x11" piece of paper, and it does, but now I think that's unnecessary. 

But one perfect thing about the purse is I now have a place for my new button. Or, my only button. One of my friends gave it to me recently so that I can proudly tell the world that I'm a 'geek.' (which I am) and I think that this purse strap is the perfect place to show it off! Go purse.

Now, I really need to find my next project. Should it be the cross stitch or a cardigan? I'm still waiting for books from the library (which will reopen soon! I can't wait! I've so missed the MVPL while it's been remodeled for the past month.) so maybe I can't start the cardigan just yet, seeing as I don't have a pattern, but might have one soon if any of the books are good. But if I'm going to do the cross stitch I need to go get materials at Michael's. Perhaps that will happen later today.