This past weekend I took a workshop on designing fair isle sweaters from Janine (aka Feral Knitter).  It was wonderful! We started with an inspiration photo; and picked out colors that were in the photo’s color families and then knit up a speed swatch.  Day two began the motif swatch; and mine needed a bit of tweaking.  Pictures of that when it’s blocked.

In the meantime, here’s something pretty to look at: (click to see bigger - it’s worth it :)

It’s too nice out to knit. Although I did knit a bit on a sock on my way into work this morning. :)

Proof I’m still alive, and still knitting!

This was a knitty pattern, Helena, knit top down. I made a few modifications (of course!). The yarn I used said it would meet gauge, but my gauge was tighter than the ball band; and I was rather pleased with it so I stuck with it. As a result I made the larger size to come out about a 6-9 month (up to 12 month maybe). I also did i-cord for the ties instead of simple garter stitch that was only 3 sts across.

I used Dale Lerke, a wool-cotton that is super soft. It has a tendency to split when knitting so you really have to watch the strands when you do decreases or other fancy maneuvers.

In a desperate attempt to show that this blog is not dead; here is a picture of my wheel on the left; and another pocket wheel (older vintage) on the right. Someday the singles on mine will be yarn and I will knit with it.

Someday.

Finished! And before the next kit is here. Which means I need to cast on a pair of socks for my son. I let him dig through my sock yarn stash and pick what he liked. They’ll be bright.. that’s for sure :)

So since my blog fodder is non-existant, I’m going to leech off my mom’s spinning.

First, we see some yarn that she sent me a picture of:

The colors are nice, but to me, it really didn’t have enough twist in it. So we talked about it. How it might be splitty when knit with; what she might want to knit with it, and so on. She decided to add more twist to the yarn.

Here’s the result:

I really like the 2nd one better.  I think she does too.  I haven’t been able to see how the yarn feels; but I would bet it has a bit of bounce to it. :)

It’s done! It’s beautiful. I’m very pleased I worked so hard to get this done so she can wear it before she outgrows it.

While knitting I was hoping I’d be able to block this out to around 15″ across total; it was measuring around 14″ across when I was knitting it. A quick dunk in the sink; gentle squeezing out in a towel and I laid it out to be 15″ across.

I finished the first sleeve last night too - but won’t block that until it’s mate is done. I did a sample fitting into the body (pre-blocking) and it was fitting nicely. One more sleeve, a collar, some sewing, weaving in of ends and it’ll be done.

Sometimes you just gotta make a chart! I recently took a look at the February Lady sweater pattern available for free - and it has a simple lace pattern in it. No chart provided, so I whipped this up in Knit Visualizer lickety split.

You can download the free pattern here.