FO: Cadence Pullover

Well that was fast.



I decided rather cleverly that everyone who would normally get knitted gifts around the holidays from me would get them very unseasonably this year. The logistics of having to pack up a sweater, keep it around for months in a yet-to-be-determined location and then ship it from overseas seems a bit silly to me. And expensive. And dicey. As our pseudo-winter breaks into buds and crocuses and birdsongs, heavy woolens will be gifted.

This sweater is a Xmas present for someone a tad bit smaller than me. As in, someone I have several cup sizes over, several inches in height and about ah, I don't even want to discuss weight. Let's just say I got the curves in the family. I could bench press the giftee without it being a big deal. Despite the fact that I could squeeze into the sweater like Lana Turner, this was intended to have some ease and be less form-fitting. So use your imagination.



It's the Cadance Pullover from Jordana Paige from the Fall 2010 issue of Knitty.com. It's a simple, top down design with the only embellishment being a set of lace diamonds around the collar. This is the 35" size.
It's a simple pattern and the heavier gauge yarn meant it was done before I knew it. I usually labor away on sleeves for ages, but I had both of them done in 3 days.



Once again, UPS Brown is my go-to yarn color. I used 1.5 skeins of Cascade Eco. I did a bit more waist shaping then called for, but otherwise, it's the same front and back. I would usually add some short-row shaping or darts to accommodate womanliness, but in this case I didn't have exact measurements so I let it be.



I'm sending this out today, cheerily wrapped with ribbons and tinsel, wishing everyone a great holiday and Happy New Year 2013.

FO- Devon Pullover

I love cabley things. I also love huge swaths of stockinette.



I make Bry a new sweater every winter. Here's the deal- he gets to choose the pattern (it's usually based on a commercially made sweater, and I either re-create the pattern or find something similar in my library) and the color. That way, he'll actually wear it. He's starting to amass quiet the wardrobe of handknits.

I whipped up this beast of a sweater in no time at all. It took me about 3 weeks of half-assed knitting to get it done. Bulky yarn and size 10 needles make for a quick knit, no matter what the size.



The yarn is Cascade Eco. It's a bulky woolen-spun 2-ply. It's not super-soft, but good for an outer layer. The yardage of each skein is huge- 478 yards- so this was a project that didn't leave the house. The wound ball of yarn took up my entire hand bag, so I stuck to my sock knitting when I left the house. It's warm, but because it's woolen-spun, it's fairly lightweight.



The color is "lichen". It's a perfect guy color.



The only modification I made was I knit the body in the round. I'm going to go back and make faux seams to give the sweater a bit more structure. That should help with the weird wavy thing it's doing at the bottom edge.

Once I seemed everything together and blocked, the sleeves grew and grew and grew. It was amazing, and my washed swatch didn't reflect that. I ripped back about 8 inches and re-ribbed the cuffs. Now they are perfect.



The pattern is from "Norah Gaughan Men" booklet. There are a few winners in that booklet.

I ended up buying way too much yarn for this sweater. I thought I would need about 1200 yards for this sweater, so I bought 3 skeins- over 1400 yards. I ended up using only 1 full skein, and about 400 yards off a second. I wasn't counting on that and I need to think of a new project idea for the remaining 600 yards.

This is part of my A-Z stashdown challenge. Slowly, my stash is getting smaller. Except for that gift certificate that my awesome coworkers got me, which made the stash much bigger. Damn them for foiling my plans.

Some Works in Progress

I've been a busy worker bee lately. I need to take advantage since I usually get sluggish in winter. I'm totally on a roll and checking things off my to-do list at a furious pace.

We made beer.



I don't even like the taste of beer. I keep trying it, thinking one day I will get over it and be the average beer-drinking american. I drink beer and I feel bloated and full of burps and unwell. Because I drink it so slowly, I never get a buzz going and spend the rest of my time desperately searching for a glass of wine to wash the taste out of my mouth.

I do like to make things though. I seem to like to make things that people will ask/tell me, "You could get that at WalMart/Target/Safeway, etc for cheaper/easier". Also, isn't science fun? Starches and sugars being converted into alcohol for our pleasure? It's entertaining on so many levels. Get to work, you yeasty bastards!

Please observe my wort.


I'm in love with the way everything smelled in the brewing process. It's currently sitting in the fermeneter, getting big and strong and alcoholic. If anything, I figure the one with the beer is the one with the friends, so this will get drunk by someone eventually.

My brew-happy co-worker also informs me that no one has ever died from drinking home-brewed beer. Always a huge concern of mine.

So I cheated and even though I took a dumpling-making class, I went out and made someone else make them for me.

Mandoo in Koreatown makes their own dumpling, right then and there. They are beautiful little gems that are the perfect cold-weather cheap-but-delicious eats. There's pretty much no limit to how many dumplings I can eat.



If this woman goes missing it's because I've kidnapped her. She'll be safe in Brooklyn, I assure you, making a mountain of dumplings in the comfort of my own kitchen.



Now I'm inspired...I will make dumplings very soon. I've been also making pickles lately. Cukes and cauliflower and garlic and hot peppers and pretty much anything else I can put in jars. Then I make bloody marys with the leftover pickle juice. It's fantastic.

I've been knitting and spinning as well, but I'm slow with the picture taking.



This is the Devon sweater by Norah Gaughn. It's from her lovely little book of men's knits that was published by Berocco a couple of years ago. This picture is a bit old as it is now done the sweater with the exception of the ribbing around the neck and blocking. It took no time at all- I really love making sweaters that are huge swarths of stockinette stitch, with some interesting details thrown in to keep things interesting. I used Cascade Eco in the lichen colorway (the yarn color doesn't show up true in the above photo at all, and that's my fault).

I finished another handspun hat, but I need daylight to do it justice in photographs.

I cast on for a pair of ribby socks in BMFA yarn. Socks are my daily commuting activity and I feel kind of lost if I don't have a pair in the works.

I spun up some fiber:



I made a big fat 3-ply from it. It's very soft, and I would imagine that it really blooms up nicely with all that downy baby camel in it. I'll post pictures soon.

Oh, and my mom got me some Angora fiber. She bought it at the Fryeburg Fair, which is an enormous agricultural fair that happens every fall in picturesque western Maine.



It's lovely and soft, but I think the downy fibers need some humidity in the air in order to be manageable- the static really creates a monster.