see mi knit

Mmm squishy

I finished this weeks and weeks ago but finally got around to "really" finishing (ie blocking and button) this past weekend.

The pattern is the Shalom Cardigan and it was super easy!  It's knit top down and completely seamless, yum.  And the yarn I used, RYC Cashsoft chunky, is deliciously squishy, double yum. 
Now, before I can actually wear it in public I must break out of my habit of fondling it.  ravelry link

Despite the meager offerings of my local haberdashery I found a lovely little button for it:

Sidetracked

So on our last episode of See Mi Knit I was hankering after a pair of fair isle mittens and after a sordid affair where many lessons were learned I was optimistic about finding a more suitable match for me.

But a casual conversation with Craig where we wondered aloud when his good friend's baby was due, continued with a quick phonecall, and ended with me frantically searching Ravelry for a baby hat that was cute, but not too cute (so no bunny ears), original but not "weird" (this meant no hats that resembled fruits) and fast (the baby was born two weeks ago).

Thus my mitten saga was briefly interrupted by the production of Devil bebe (ravelry link):

Luckily I had some Lion's Brand Wool Ease (Cranberry) left over from the recent Christmas hat frenzy (all mailed a couple of days ago!!)

So then I turned back to the mitten quest and after much hemming and hawing and looking through the stash because I just *knew* I had something save up for such an occasion I happily settled on a fair isle mitten project that checked all the boxes:

Luuurve them!

But then... it started getting cold.  Like really cold.  Not mitten cold, but like "Want to wrap yourself in good solid wool" cold.  Sweater cold:

That is the back and half front of Still by Kim Hargreaves (from her Thrown Together book which I also luuuurve).  I am totally inspired by Roko's version (ravelry link) with the sweet gathered sleeves, who was kind enough to provide modification details upon my request.  This sweater originally calls for Calmer which posed a number of problems for me.

Firstly I don't have any.  Additionally, I have learned through experience that I find it difficult to knit with yarn that is very stretchy. So I went stash diving and pulled up some Queensland Kathmandu in a lovely purple-y tweed.  A swatch (well two before I got gauge) and a wash proved that while providing a firm, confident hand while knitting it does become soft with a nice drape so I'm confident that the gathered sleeves scheme will work out and I'll be able to wear it next to my skin.

I'm under no illusions that I'll finish this before our trip to Scotland (Saturday) but this means I'll have whole baby hat, half a sweater and 1/8 of a pair of mittens by then.  I'm pretty sure that math doesn't quite add up to any sort of full garment so once again having the attention span of a gerbil has worked against me.

Learning curves

Now that Christmas knitting has been well tackled, I've turned my sights onto knits for me me me!

But I've sorta bit off more than I can chew.

Those are two failed starts (if doing 75% of it can be called a "start") for Grandma's mittens (scroll down).  Don't get me wrong.  I lurve them!  It says a lot that I was able to do this much on fingering weight on US 3s in about three days!

This was a huge step for me technically. This was the first time I'd done fair isle with more than one color and on dpn's.  Oh and also my first pair of mittens.  So yeah, my current failures are not for lack of ambition :P

But these needed to be cut loose.  Too many unhappy features:

Mistake one:  variegated yarn just do not work for the flower motif.  Considering that the spray of flowers was what first drew me to this project, this is unacceptable.

Mistake two: another one due to poor yarn choice. The cute little row of hearts is obscured because there isn't enough contrast between the gray and the red.

Final mistake that broke the camel's back:  noobie fair isle mistake of making the strand too tight resulted in an unsightly and difficult to correct ridge.  I totally attribute this mistake to my unfamiliarity with using dpn's for this type of project. 

Also, note that I kept doing this mistake for like 4 inches before I noticed.  This is how fast this project goes!  So I definitely intend to go back to it.  But maybe after some practice mittens. In two, highly contrasting, solid colors. 

But on dpn's because hey, I still gotta build my knitting skillz.