FO: Twigs and Willows

When I dreamed about going to college as a kid I always imagined myself in the library, wrapped in a warm sweater or sweatshirt, hunched over a dusty pile of books.  Now that I'm done when I look back I have some of those moments, and they are some of my favorite mental images.  I may not be in school anymore, but this sweater totally brings me back.

This is Twigs and Willows, from Alana Dakos' new book Botanical Knits.  I knit mine out of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Pumpkin, a sadly discontinued colorway.  This is my second sweater in Wool of the Andes, and I still think it is one of the best values in worsted yarn (especially if you get it during a color-themed sale).

If you follow that link, you might be a little surprised by how much my version differs from the original.  I knit the 38.5" because the 35" would have given me zero ease and the pattern calls for 1-2 inches.  Well, that went interestingly.  I actually finished sewing the pieces together on Tuesday and was so distressed that it was so large that I shoved it in a bag and swore off of sweater knitting.

But then my buttons arrived.  I ordered these from Gnome Acres and they came so very fast to save my sweater.  On Thursday morning I got up early to sew them on and it all came together.  The coziness of the sweater is magical.  I wore it to work, I wore it home, and I am wearing it now as I write this.  I love the simplistic nature of its oversized slouchiness paired with the femininity of the branches.

I guess like a lot of things that I knit, this sweater is an example of how you can do everything right and still end up with something completely different.  I got gauge, I knit to pattern, I made sure all parts were the correct lengths, and it still came out as something unexpected.  But I love it!  It's perfect for this crazy weather that is sixty degrees one day and thirty the next.  I can actually pull it on without unbuttoning it, so it truly is the perfect, cozy-in-the-library sweater.

To see more lovely FOs, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis!

FO: Shipwreck Cove

What better subject for my first post of the new year than my biggest (and I do mean biggest) accomplishment of the last?  For lo, I picked up the scissors and brought the yarn to its knees.  Behold!  The finished Shipwreck Cove!

Slope by Cookie A in Dragonfly Fibers Selkie, Black Pearl

So I am feeling just a wee bit over dramatic, but I am super stoked about this sweater.  I finished it mid December and wore it twice before I finally got around to taking pictures.  If I say that this is the sweater that makes me feel stylish and sexy will you think I'm over doing it?  I did not do much in the way of styling for this picture but I love pairing this with black leggings, tall black boots, a chunky ring, and dangly earrings.  It is also fun to pair with a boldly colored beret and matching eye shadow.

The ingenuity of this sweater is what makes it so great.  Though, it is the way in which the body is knit in a single piece that results in tired wrists and a frustratingly large amount of fabric in one's lap.  But it is so worth it!  The construction also really leveled up my finishing technique.  My seaming may still need a bit of work, but it has improved so much over the last year since I decided that I was just going to have to bite the bullet and improve.

This is the sweater that suffered from the giant sleeve debacle, in which my sleeve was a good 8-10 inches too long and had to be cut and reknit back down.

Can you tell?  (If you can, please don't tell me.  My ego is too fragile and I'm just too darned proud)

If I was not already sold on Cookie A designs, this would do it.  I wrote before about trying to refocus my knitting on things that actually make me feel and look good, rather than things that are just in my budget.  This yarn is clearly not a budget yarn at $50 a skein, but I earned it in trade and waited until this pattern came along.  It used about two and a half skeins for the size 40, but that did include a swatch and the giant sleeve.

End result?  Five stars, two thumbs, a partridge and a pear tree.  Now, I just need to find more reasons to go out because I have not worn it yet this week.

For more exciting FOs, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis.

FO: Gramps Cardigan

It's been a long time since I've done an FO Friday.  Actually, according to Ravelry I have not looked at the FO Friday thread in six months.  But participating in the Blog Hub Swap has made me more determined to revamp the blog and participate more.

But enough dithering -- you just came here to see the FO, right?

This is the Gramps Cardigan by Kate Oates (the grown up version).  I knit it up in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Opal Heather and it took about ten of the twelve skeins I bought.  I can not say enough good things about this pattern.  It is brilliant.  Kate has given a wealth of sizes as well as explained what kind of ease would lead to what fit.  I knit mine as the size medium, which gave me just the tiniest bit of ease around a tshirt.

The only modification I made was to knit the sleeves two at a time before I started the body of the sweater.  This was partly because I wanted to see if it would speed the process along (it did) and partly because I wanted to have something portable and distracting while I waited for my thesis defense.  I managed to miscross one of the cables, but decided to leave it rather than picking out all of that work.  It's not an obvious error and reminds me fondly of one of the most stressful days of my life.

I had never used Wool of the Andes before and was surprised how soft it was.  It really is a lovely yarn, and at $2 a ball made this sweater much more affordable.  I'm hoping to try out one of the sport weights later this year for another sweater, but I have too many other things on the needles right now.

You can tell we took these pictures at home because I'm laughing at my mom the entire time.  It was really cold and she kept making faces at me.

For more FO posts go to Tami's Amis!

FO: Cria

This is the story of a sad little giant sweater that grew up to be something great.  Our story begins in October 2010 when our intrepid knitter saw a yarn sale on twitter that just so happened to fall around her birthday.  Now our knitter, being the knitter she is, decided that this was the perfect time to invest in some nice yarn and so ordered a cone of Marr Haven Organic Mull Sport in a lovely shade of green.  The yarn arrived, she reveled in its sheepyness, she swatched a bit, and then she put it on a shelf to be admired and generally become one with the furniture.  The poor cone of yarn watched other skeins come into the knitter's life and be loved and cherished while it sat lonesome on its shelf, feeling it would never  become a real knitted item.

Many months passed and the knitter acquired a new knitting book (as knitters are often apt to do).  This book gave many helpful tips about the magic of sweaters and held several beautiful patterns.  The knitter turned to the yarn and said, "Well, I'm all out of sweater wool, so I suppose it is your lucky day" (she was obviously forgetting the discount tweed she had drooled over at the fiber festival).  So the knitter swatched again, blocked her swatch, and managed to find the time to plot out her sweater.  It is here that she made her fatal error.  We like to think that it was due to the thesis clogging up her brain, but the knitter decided that to make a properly fitting cardigan under which she could wear proper long sleeved shirts she would have to knit a bust size that gave her three inches of positive ease.  The poor yarn tried to protest, undoubtedly certain that it would wind up yet another cast off hiding in the closet corner, but it was all in vein.  The knitter had gauge, her numbers, and a sensibly confusing sweater construction and so could not be deterred.

Though the knitter found the sweater more than a bit large very soon after casting on, she continued to knit in the hopes that the designer's ingenious construction would make it all better.  It didn't.  After months of slaving and swearing (We are really not sure how many, she won't even tell us when exactly she finished it.  We know it was sometime this month), the knitter finally decided to at least shorten the body and the sleeves for the sake of the sanity of all involved.  She then tried on the sweater, knowing it to be too large, and proceeded to stare in the mirror, willing it to shrink or at least not hang like Phoebe's wedding dress when Cole mucked it up.  Suddenly she was struck by inspiration.  To this day we believe it was the yarn speaking to her through it's new snuggly sweater form.  She unpinned the sweater and moved the buttons to the side of the neckline, giving the sweater more of a military look (it quite suited the Soviet military buttons our knitter had set aside for this purpose).  She also discovered that with the addition of the buttons the weight of the sweater shifted ever so slightly and it suddenly became a very comfortable, drapy cardigan, rather than a potato sack.

To this date we do not believe that the knitter has taken off the sweater.  If you happen upon her (the wool fumes got to her and she's run off again), you'll undoubtedly see her, wearing her now almost stylish green sweater, snuggled under all that wool that is finally loved the way it deserves.