picture flood! (now that i can finally upload the pictures AND update, i'm making the most of it!)

I got my Favorite Color Swap package in the mail today, and I love it. It's so wonderful. My secret pal picked out the best stuff for me. :) I gave tons of information on my questionnaire because that's just how I am, and she did really well with picking out special stuff from what I said. She sent me candy (Reese's Pieces, Starburst and Milky Way...my 3 favorites...now to hide it from Luke, hehe), bath/body stuff (pear & white tea moisturizer and strawberry and green apple pie scented bath crystals), a green apple scented hand-poured candle, a magnetic notepad, 3 really cute post-it pads, really pretty stitch markers she made herself (which I can't wait to use, because...well...they're like jewelry for my knitting! and they're PRETTY!) and 2 skeins (218 yds) of the most gorgeous dusty rose elann baby cashmere yarn. It's so soft. And the color is perfect. I already have a project in mind for it. I think I'm going to use it to add color to the Estonian Garden lace stole I plan to make for myself to wear at my wedding. :) The color is exactly what I have in mind for the bridesmaids' dresses (and convinced Luke to go along with last night), and I was trying last night/this morning to figure out how I could incorporate some of that pink into my stole without having to buy a separate colorway of whatever yarn I decide to use. I swear, my secret pal must secretly know me or be psychic or something. I love everything she sent me. And it was all wrapped up with pretty pink, green and bright-striped tissue paper tied with purple ribbon. (My favorite colors for the swap were pink, purple and green.)

Okay, now pictures.

The tissue paper wrapping on all the goodies. (I was too excited to get a picture before I ripped the things open, so this'll have to do, hehe.):


All the package contents together:


The bath/body stuff (which I can't wait to try out):


The candle (which smells so good it's making me hungry):


The candy...mmm:


Cute notepads:


Handmade stitch markers:


Gorgeous yarn:


I'm so happy with this stuff and I'm glad I did the swap. If you're reading, Rhoda, thank you SO much! I love it, all of it!

I also have pictures of the package I sent off to my own secret pal. See?

This is how the box looked just before I taped it up. On top there's a mix cd (of music she likes of course) and a card. I didn't individually wrap everything because I didn't have any pretty tissue paper and the stuff was oddly-shaped and stuck in wherever I could fit it. Hehe.


Next layer: an assortment of various fabrics. Some scraps, some remnants, some large pieces; some from my stash, some purchased specifically with this in mind. She likes sewing and patchwork, and I tried to pick out an assortment of pretty prints and textures. There's some floral, some corduroy, some denim, some jersey-knit, some satin, some shimmery...like I said, it's an assortment.


Under that, there is more fabric tucked into the empty spaces, plus a bunch of smaller stuff. In the upper corner is a bar of Dove pink soap. (Her favorite color, obviously, is pink...and she also likes red and green.) tied together with a handknitted face cloth with an "M" imprinted on it. (Her name is Michelle.) Below that is Bath and Body Works stuff...which happens to be exactly like what I have, but it smells good and it was pink and it was cheap. (Going-out-of-business sale.) :) Tucked into the edge is a group of old magazines and leaflets that I didn't plan on using. In the center, on top of some of the rolled-up fabric, are 2 packages of pink and green beads. On the right is a knitted 100% alpaca eyemask filled with rice (so it can be chilled) and lavender (for its relaxing properties and because it's one of her favorite scents). And underneath that is a homemade Sculpey magnet depicting Kentucky (complete with white mark to show where I am) to add to her collection of magnets.


And finally, on the bottom, yarn. 3 skeins of Simply Soft in pink, green and cream, 2 balls of 100% wool from my stash, and 2 balls of Peaches & Creme, which she said she likes using.



And that's her package. :) I hope she likes it as well as I like mine.

And I ALSO have progress photos of Rogue, some of Mom's Perfect Sweater and a couple of swatches for the Estonian Garden stole. I swatched the 3 lace patterns with some spare Simply Soft last night, to get an idea of the difficulty level and how long it would take. It was relatively easy, I'm happy to report. Very happy, since I plan to make 1 modified Estonian Garden stole and 3 Lily of the Valley stoles (using the modified Lily of the Valley lace pattern from Estonian Garden) before my wedding.

I'll post the Perfect Sweater pictures later (they're on the other camera card) but here are the two swatch photos...




and a bunch of Rogue-in-progress photos:

~and more pictures...later, when I have more time~

Now...to knit some more, so I have more to post. Hehe.

-Pixie

It's called progress, people!

woohoo, i actually get to make a post! and it's a much-needed one, too. i have made--dare i say it?--progress.

in fact, mom's perfect sweater is finished. i think. i have a feeling it could use a couple inches of length, but i can't say for sure until mom tries it on. if i'm right, i'll just undo (or, more likely, cut off) the hem, pick the sts back up and knit a couple inches of ribbing.

i'm not entirely satisfied with the finished product. luke says it looks fine, but he's biased. and he's a guy who knows and cares absolutely nothing about women's clothing. i will say that i like it much better after washing. i soaked it in the sink with detergent, rinsed it clean, and then let it soak for a while longer with fabric softener and rinsed lightly again. then i squeezed out the extra water, put it in the dryer for one cycle so it was just barely damp, and hung it up to dry the rest of the way. before doing all that, the stitches were uneven, there was a visible crease right across the center of the bust, it was very holey, the neck didn't lay flat and the hem kept flipping up. after washing, most of those problems have been solved. the stitches are even and theevening-out of the stitches eliminated the bust crease. the neck lays much more evenly and flatly now (at least as much as a ribbed turtleneck can) and the hem stays put...mostly. it still pokes out a bit more than i'd like, but it's probably not noticeable to anyone but me. the yarn also fluffed a bit and the sweater's a little less see-through, but still more open than i had hoped. she'll have to wear a camisole or something underneath.

as for what i don't like, aside from the openness, the increases and decreases along the side are very visible. that's not really a problem because i doubt anyone will see or care, especially since they're along the sides and the inside of the sleeves, but still. i notice. also, i wish the neck was knit more tightly. i wanted to knit it on size 5 needles, but i couldn't find them, so i knit the neck on the same bamboo 7s as the body and just tried to pull tightly. unfortunately, it is entirely impossible for me to knit tightly on bamboo needles. as a result, since it's ribbing, it looks more loosely knit than the rest of the sweater. and the ribs look huge. that would be cool if the sweater was bulky and oversized, but it's not. at least it's not supposed to be, and i don't think it will be. so the neck looks a little out-of-place to me. but the good news is the picked-up sts around the neckline are spaced evenly and make the neckline a smooth curve.

now i just have to give it to mom and have her try it on. there's still a possibility it may not fit. the neckline is not as stretchy as i had hoped it would be. it fits over my head just fine and i can't imagine her having much more trouble than i, since there's only about an inch of difference in our head sizes, but it doesn't have a lot of give. more importantly, it's large on me...but not too large. honestly, it fits me about the same way most of her sweaters fit me, but 2" shorter. but...most of her sweaters are ribbed or cabled. this one is not. it may stretch out more across the bust than the ribbed sweaters, or at least look more stretched out. and since it's already a little bit loosely-knit, stretched-out is not a good look for it. but hey, i guess i'll see when she tries it on. if it doesn't fit her i'll just shorten the sleeves and keep it for myself.

i'm going to try to convince luke to model it for me tonight. hehe. that's gonna take some convincing. but that way i can see it on another person, which is entirely different from seeing it on myself in a mirror while standing on a stool. besides, his chest is about the same size around as mom's bust, it's just...his is that size all down the length of his chest, not only in one section. that shouldn't be a problem since i ended up cutting out the short rows anyway.

i'll try to get pictures. not of luke modelling. he'd kill me. but of the sweater hanging up and then, later, on mom. assuming it fits her and she likes it.

whew. okay that was long. in other news...now that the perfect sweater is finished, i have taken rogue off hiatus. i don't think i'll get to finish it before it goes back on hiatus though. the perfect sweater took longer than i had expected. i still have to finish mom's serrano so she can wear it this spring, so i need to get back to work on it pretty soon.

but i can't hold off on rogue any longer. i still love it. it's re-active as of last night. i have worked the first 8 rows of the hood. maybe i'll complete the hood and then put it back on hiatus, finish serrano and then do the sleeves. it'll mean no rogue for me at all this winter. but that's okay. this is me. i'll wear it in the summer. i probably wouldn't finish in time to wear it in winter anyway. i'm slow at sleeves.

i'll update the project progress bars on the right as soon as i have access to a computer that doesn't suck like this one does. i'm lucky to even be updating.

i'm finished for now, i promise! back to knitting...

-pixie

not-so-perfect sweater

i've finished the body of the perfect sweater. which isn't really a perfect sweater, for multiple reasons. 1, because i've made a lot of mods to the pattern. surprise, surprise. the most major modification is that the pattern says to knit flat in two pieces and seam together at the end...yeah, right. i hate seaming. so i'm knitting it all in the round. as much as possible, anyway.

i also added a few short rows to the bust section because, well, mom has bigger boobs than i do. not really big, but big enough that i thought some short rows may help keep the sweater from riding up, since even my boobs make sweaters ride up in the front and i'm pretty small.

well i was wrong. yeah, short rows might've helped with that...but the execution of these is not good. we have a sort of...prism shape sticking out of the chest of the sweater. not exactly a good look. it's just a bit pointy. good for madonna maybe, but not so much for mom. and of course i couldn't tell this until i was several inches past the short rows, almost finished with the front, so i wasn't about to frog. instead i'm gonna finish the sweater, then put lifelines in just above and just below the short row section, snip one row, unravel to the lifelines, and graft it back together. i may try a different set of short rows, but probably not. i think it'll be okay without them.

so the body is finished (except for that correction i have to make) and i just have the sleeves left. i'm about 6 inches into the first one...so about 1/3 of the way finished with it. it's going much more quickly than sleeves normally do for me. i'm using new bamboo dpns and i give them credit for the speed. normally i prefer aluminum dpns, especially with acrylic yarn, because bamboo is just too slow...but not these. these aren't clover brand like most of my bamboo needles. they're crystal palace and they are NICE. i love them. expensive too, but i'll probably end up buying more anyway. i think i even prefer them to aluminum. i highly recommend them.

i also found another very inspirational blog the other day, http://www.streetsandyos.com. i want to try to recreate her hourglass sweater v2.0, which is her recreation of the last minute knitted gifts hourglass sweater. the fit is just perfect and i love the way it looks...casual, but since it's a sweater, it can also be dressy. and it's a style that looks good on me. i also like her variation of glampyre's minisweater and i'm going to recreate that, without the silk strand. i already have brown wool just waiting to be used, so why not? i really like her style, it's a lot like mine...and, like me, she tends to modify patterns to suit her own style.

completely off-topic, but i adore bitty, luke's cat. she's sitting in my lap right now and she's just so sweet. i love her.

i want a kitten!

-Pixie

Rogue update. And new project!

Rogue is officially on hiatus.

It took several days longer than I'd expected, due to me being unable to knit much and severe cold slowing my fingers down considerably, but I finished the body Sunday evening at Luke's house while he burned movies. I tacked the shoulders together and tried it on, and I'm very happy to report that it fits perfectly so far. I still have to do the hood and the sleeves.

But that all will have to wait. That project is on hiatus while I make another sweater for Mom. She's been looking for a white sweater to wear with the brown skirt she made herself, and she can't find anything. Enter me. She doesn't know it, but I'm knitting her a white turtleneck sweater to fit the bill. I hope it fits her. Since it's a surprise, I can't exactly try it on her. I do know her measurements, so that helps a lot, but I'd still rather have a model just to be sure. I can't use myself because I'm several inches smaller, and she generally likes her sweaters to fit a little more loosely than I do, so it would be huge on me. Oh well. I'll just have to compare (on the sly) to other sweaters I know fit her. Which should be easy, since I have one sweater she bought for herself. It fits her but I wore it more (it's a hoodie, so I wanted it to be big on me) so I ended up with it. Hehe.


So, official project status (which, by the way, can also be seen on our sidebar, along with links to patterns wherever applicable)...

Rogue: on hiatus as of the evening of Sunday, January 28 (around 6 p.m.); will be active again once Perfect Sweater is complete

Mom's "Perfect Sweater": about 15% complete

And...

Perfect Sweater Project Details:

Pattern: Perfect Sweater (link on sidebar...normally I'd link here too, but the computer's misbehaving)
Needles/Gauge: 4.5 stitches per inch, 5.5 rows per inch on size 7 Clover bamboo circular needles
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in white (I love this yarn. Very soft, and machine washable! I use it for everything. Oh yeah, and did I mention it's cheap?)
Modifications: Slight gauge difference...so I'm making one size smaller to make up for it. And also working fewer rows between sections, since mine would otherwise be longer than it should be. Also worked the hem in twisted knit stitch (as opposed to regular knit stitch) so it would be tighter and fold up better...and picked-up stitches at cast-on rather than using a provisional cast-on, just because i was lazy and didn't want to get up for a crochet hook. And when I get to the neck, I'm making this a turtleneck, which means I'll work fewer decreases at the neck and then work straight up into a short tube that folds over.
Start Date: night of Sunday, January 28 (around 8 or 9 p.m.)
Completion Date: not yet!

-Pixie