The Sweater in All Its Glory

Back In December, I completed knitting up this sweater. But I thought to myself that it needed something a bit “extra”. In my mind I pictured a beautiful bit of embroidery involving a cloud and swallow motif. And I tried to make it work, honestly, I did. I used DMC floss–too thin to stand out; I used silk yarn–couldn’t get the fine detail I was looking for; I tried needle felting–promising, but I’m too inexperienced to carry out my vision.

In the end, it needed none of that. It is a beautiful sweater, knit for my little baby girl, from a buttery soft yarn dyed and spun by an amazingly talented friend. She loves it, I love it, and sometimes simple is best. We wear this jacket almost daily and I have yet to tire of the joy it brings me to see her reaching milestones in this bit of mama made.

Isn’t that yarn something else?

Really, I just love the colors and how much visual texture they add. No wonder the embroidery didn’t work; the yarn is art enough.

Those buttons! I walked into my new LYS and they were the first thing I saw. I didn’t need to look any further.

Maybe we can even eek out another year of this. I think I have enough scrap yarn to lengthen the sleeves by a bit next year.

The sweater pattern itself was lovely to knit up, and Lisa was very responsive to a question I had, a rather boneheaded problem involving counting, so embarrassing once she helped me figure it out. It really knit up super fast, and it is a beautiful little knit. I think is absolutely perfect to show off hand spun.

Oh! It is such a meaningful knit to me! I hope you enjoy it!

Once Upon a Time…

… a young woman,

err,

a young-ish woman, began a blog, having visions of vast amounts of spare time and devoted readers. Then one day as she sat typing up her latest entry, she realized it had been a while since she had seen her children. Or her husband. In fact, it had been quite some time before she had seen the light of day, or taken a shower, or even changed her clothes. Her teeth were a bit fuzzy, and she couldn’t quite remember the last time she had a meal worthy of mention.

So she took some time off.

Ok, fer real, like, really really real… I never considered that being the mother of two toddlers, or the owner of a house, or the wife of a travellin’ man, or the instructor of a class, or the provider of meals, or the seeker of other adult company could impede so thoroughly on my hobby life. Sheesh! Who wants to shop for spinach and yogurt when there’s a stash that needs a little busting?

I do have news to report: I have started a new baby sweater! It’s a little lacy… which is really my first official go at lace, and I have to get it done by next Saturday, when it will be gifted at a baby shower. I’ve already completed the back piece and I’m going to cast of the two sweater fronts tonight….right after this post goes up. I swear!! I’ve been reading a few posts about knitting two socks at once, and I’ve decided to try it with my sweater fronts. All the posts I’ve been reading talk about knitting two with the magic loop though… I’m not going to do that. I can’t get into magic loop… it leaves me twitching for some reason. I’m fine with dpns or using two long-ish circs. I think it’s like peanuts and peanutbutter… you don’t find many people who like both. Anyway, it’s the matinee coat by debbie bliss… turns out, she’s written up two patterns named the matinee coat, the one I’ve chosen does not have a seed stitch upper jacket.

I’ve using some debbie bliss cathay that I had lying around; it was not my first choice. I found a new little yarn store close to my parents’ home… ok, it’s new to me and in it was some gorgeous homespun shantung from a local spinner that I absolutely fell in love with… so I brought some home with me.

unfortunately, the gauge was terribly off for every sweater I had in mind for this particular shower. In the end, I decided to stick with my original sweater choice–I wasn’t sure the yarn would be great with the lace, but I wanted to try–and find a new yarn. And it took a huge amount of effort on my part, but I went to my stash to find something suitable instead of visiting the LYS. It took the better part of a day to figure out what to use, and it left a huge portion of my floor in disarray.

I got it back under control after the kids wen to bed, but I picked out three other yarns that will be used for a few quick projects before I’m allowing myself to go back to the store.

ha! that was a good one… almost believed myself for a second.

My husband doesn’t read this, does he??