Sweater

I am finally done with my sweater. To be honest, I am not quite sure how many balls of Berkshire Bulky I used. I would have to check the invoice and subtract how many balls I have left. I cannot find the pattern online anymore, so I can't show you what the pattern was supposed to look like. It's very similar minus a row of bobbles. Some of my cable "v's" aren't as define as I'd like them to be, but it isn't bad for my first cable project. Bobbles, yeah, the original pattern caught my eye, and here you have it, my finished project. I ended up finishing it last night at home where I was able to obtain size 11 dpn. It certainly is warm, and bulky. The sleeves are a tad bit too long, when stretched out normally, they come to the middle of my palm. When I folded the sleeves over this morning I couldn't put my jacket on because my sweater was obstructing my arm's path of getting through. It's a bright blue and I'm proud of it. It only took me roughly 2.5 weeks to finish as I've said before.

Now onto finishing my blue hat, and a black hat that I ended up taking out because I screwed up the pattern. I may start at the crown instead of the bottom, but we'll see. I'm basically making up a pattern for that, although the pattern can't be too fancy because it is for my brother and he is somewhat picky when it comes to clothes, etc. It has to be plain and simple, nothing too extravagant with cables or anything of the sort. I'm not sure if I'd want to make up my own cable/hat pattern just yet anyways, I'll have to get more proficient with making up simple patterns down first before I take the next step. I ended up making another charcoal grey hat over the summer to use up yarn and that hat turned out quite well for making my own pattern too. I've also made up a pattern for the mittens that I've been wearing lately (my blue ones with the snow-flake). Speaking of, I still have yarn left over to make a hat to match, although I'm going to wait for summer where I can really sit down and decide what I want to do; it's going to have snowflakes in the pattern, I just have to decide how big I want them, how many, etc. Which is for another day and not during this semester.

Anyways, my sweater is done and I'm happy with it no matter what anyone thinks of the sweater (some people may think that the bobbles are weird), although it isn't the best sweater ever, it certainly isn't the worst. My mom was right about people wanting to play with the bobbles, my roommate right off of the bat when I first tried it on liked to play with them. It's a warm sweater on these single digit days, which is what counts.

Bobbi

I ended up getting some free yarn a few months ago and since I am pretty much done with my sweater (I had to get different size dpn, which are an hour away at home), I've decided to use the yarn up. I'm making the hat "Bobbi" from Hip Knit Hats and the pattern is published incorrectly. I've had to futz with the crown several times, until I figured out how to get the amount of stitches that was needed. I've found corrections to the 'Rise' online, which I am now using. I'm currently on the first row of the bobbles and they are a pain in the behind to do. Not that the act of making a bobble is incredibly difficult, but putting all of the stitches over the far most stitch on the left is difficult. My tension tends to be on the looser end of the tight side, so it's not like I can easily move 5 stitches over one stitch. I have a size E crochet hook that I'm using to move all of the stitches over, which makes it easier, but it is still difficult. I've done 13 bobbles thus far and it's going all right, but I can't wait until I complete the last bobble. My goal for today is to complete this row and do the following knitted rows, then I may put the project away for another day, since I have other pressing things to do such as homework/studying. I started this hat Friday, 26.01.07 night and I'm hoping that I don't have to take anything else out on this project since it's already been a pain with the incorrect pattern.

Red Scarf Project, continued

Last semester, I had proposed to the group that I am in (Alpha Phi Omega) that we knit/crochet scarves for the Red Scarf Project and that I would be more than willing to teach people how to knit. It turned out to be a success - yay!! Here are our scarves (some people and scarves are not pictured). Tomorrow or Friday, I am off to the post, hoping that the scarves will arrive in time to Virginia.

Red Scarf Project

I finally started and finished my scarf for the Red Scarf Project (orphan.org). I absolutely love knitting with this yarn, especially on bamboo needles. The yarn is from Valley Yarns, Berkshire Bulky (85% Wool, 15% Alpaca). I'm knitting a sweater with this yarn, although in blue. I've got the back of the sweater done, but stopped due to other projects that needed to be finished prior to my sweater. I started this scarf on Christmas Day, worked on it all during the drive down to Kentucky, during legislation while I was in Kentucky, and ended up finishing it yesterday night, so it only took me two weeks to finish.

I would have to say that the most time consuming part of the project was finding a pattern for the scarf. I didn't want it to be Plain Jane scarf of course. When I found this faux cable wave pattern, I thought it would work perfect with the yarn and it looks beautiful. It would look even more beautiful if the yarn were variegated, but the yarn chosen only comes in solid colors.

Here's the link to the scarf pattern if anyone is interested in making it:
http://yarndemon.typepad.com/demonic_progress/2005/05/rainy_day_scarf.html

It's a very simple pattern, just make sure to keep track of all of your rows. The finished length of my scarf was 58 inches and is 6 inches wide (I think I casted on 32 stitches instead of the indicated 28). I also used size 9 US needles and 3 balls of yarn.

Now, I just have to mail the scarf in and it'll be complete.

Enjoy.