Tag Archives: sweater

What happened to November?

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Well, I got really, really, really busy with several projects: knitting, sewing, refinishing and reupholstering a desk chair, sewing, knitting, sewing, knitting, and getting ready for a new addition to our home.

I finished (finally) the November socks for my daughter. These socks seemed to take forever. I put them on hold while I was helping my sister recover from surgery, then one of her precious greyhounds got involved, our two closest grandkids moved to Michigan, my birthday happened, and the list could go on and on. Here are the socks in all their glory.

November Socks
November Socks legs
Closeup of leg and truest color shot

I love the colors and it’s really hard to capture how pretty they really are. The honeycomb pattern was fairly easy but I did have to concentrate on those rows.

My sister gave me some fabric with a plate and silverware design so I made six placemats for my daughter.

These two chairs have been sitting in my basement since I rescued them from iPad aunt’s garage in 2015. I stripped one chair, refinished it, and put on new upholstery suede fabric. I took lots of pictures during the process but I’ll just show you the before and after. If you really want to see all the work-in-progress pictures, let me know and I’ll try to make some sense of them for you. Personally the before and after pictures should be enough. I plan to redo the other chair but that will have to wait till next spring as I have to do some of the work outside.

Before…..
After…..

This quick sewing project took about an hour or two. I made mesh laundry bags to send with all of the socks I made with the hand-dyed yarn we dyed in June.

The Karate Kid’s socks were next on the project list and I finished them in record time (for me at least). I used this Syncopation Sock pattern that I’ve used before. The pattern is written for toe-up socks but I made these from the top down. I love the colors and wish I could keep them for myself! They deserve a post of their own so I’ll just show the finished project for now.

All of the socks I knit for my three grands and my daughter along with the mesh bags and placemats will be boxed up and sent to Colorado ASAP.

Another quick and easy sewing project was this leash. The fabric is a heavy brushed cotton that looks like a patchwork quilt. I had everything in my sewing stash so, in less than 30 minutes, it was done.

I just started this sweater (I’m just using one color) the other day and have a deadline of December 16 to get it off the needles…

…because we are getting ready for a new addition to our family.

A female miniature schnauzer puppy! No pictures of her right now but I will soon. Very soon! For the next several days puppy-proofing the house will be our #1 priority!

Two years ago…

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…I made this top.  It was too large and knew it would end up on the Island of Misfit Knitting.

So I ripped it apart and chose a different pattern: Drops Design Sunny Day Top #170/32.  It’s been almost finished for over a year.  What was the problem?

I had to weave in the ends.

The yarn is a 50g, 90-yard ball of a cotton/acrylic/nylon blend in DK weight.  I used almost all eight balls.  I have 28 grams left and I wish I would have made a top-down top so I could use every last inch.  Alas, that was not the case.

Saturday morning found me weaving in the ends.

And now I can call it FINISHED!

I’m a bit hunched over so you can see the eyelet details but I think I look like a linebacker.

Have you finished anything lately?

 

Something’s not right

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I finished the grey cardi and something’s not right with the button band at the neckline.  Blocking will not correct that.

It’s too, I don’t know, angular.  Too out there.  Plus it sticks up too far from the top button marked with the yellow stitch marker.

The button band begins at one bottom edge, goes up to the neckline and continues around to the opposite side and back down to the bottom edge. A total of 304+ stitches!

I did a kfb (knit in the front and back) of the stitch before the turn at the neckline and after to keep the corner from puckering.  I don’t like how it looks so I will rip out the last few rows of the button band and try to make that turn less sharp and more rounded.  Or move the buttonholes.

Then I can block it and find some buttons for the win.

Grey cardi

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I’ve been working on another top-down cardigan for myself following the same outline as the one I knit last April/May.  Yeah, the one that is too large but is still in sweater form.  I thought that it might fit better over a heavier turtleneck, however, I was wrong.  That sweater will be ripped apart and remade.  Someday.

Anyway, I bought enough of this Red Heart Tweed yarn ages ago* (maybe 15-18 years ago?) and tried to knit myself a sweater.  I loved the tweedy bits of aqua, purple, yellow and orange mixed in with the various shades of grey and white. 

I did a gauge swatch and it was off and thought that it didn’t matter all that much.  It did.  It was too small.  The yarn was turned back into balls and remained in the stash until I could face it again.  So I decided to try another top-down cardi after I knit another gauge swatch.  Yes, I did.

Most of the body is knit though I’m waiting to see how long I can make it once the sleeves are finished.  One sleeve is done and I tried it on.  Too tight.  I fudged a bit on the decreases as I thought the sleeves might be too loose and once again, I was wrong.  So I’ll be ripping back to the first decrease and FOLLOWING THE #@&% DIRECTIONS!  

* way before I became a yarn snob