Back to the Needles

Yay, the yarn to finish my Simply Marilyn sweater shipped today!! Once I finish the collar, I'll block it and wear it EVERY DAY. Just kidding. Maybe every other day. I also got some yellow wool yarn to try a cardigan from a Phildar catalogue that I ordered. Hopefully the instructions won't be too difficult. Can't wait!

Finish Line In Sight

Just when I thought I'd reached the final stretch of my Simply Marilyn sweater, I ran out of yarn. That's just not fair. Perhaps the extra length I added outbalanced the width reductions I made. Whatever the reason, I have another 3 inches to add to the collar. Here's how it looks so far.

Aside from the collar, I'm pretty satisfied with the fit. The arms (despite my best efforts) are still shorter than I would like but the torso fits well and the neck seems to be right. I think the sweater would have been cute baggy as well. If I were to make it again, I'd follow the pattern and cast on 68 stitches, rather than the 60, and I wouldn't shape the waist. More to come once the sweater is finally completed. Time to go yarn hunting...

Beginnings of a Sweater

My yarn finally arrived in the mail last week and oh is it soft! The texture is plush and almost silky against the skin and the color is a gorgeous dark green. After a quick dash to the Joann in Poway to get 10.5 needles, I had all the materials needed to begin my first sweater.

It turns out that many knitting bloggers have posted about this particular pattern. Most have mentioned that the pattern is rather large so I followed some suggested modifications and casted 8 stitches less. I also added some ribbing at the bottom to prevent the sweater from rolling up. After about 3 nights of knitting, I've finished the back panel and one sleeve. Everything has been pretty easy so far including the cables which I've never done before. Sometimes I'd get distracted by football and lose my place in the pattern but nothing that was too painful to fix.


I'm a bit nervous about how all of this will fit when I sew it together, but I guess I'll see soon enough. Hopefully, I can have the sweater finished in time to show my mom when we go to LA next weekend.

Purple Mittens

Here's my first mitten. I used Monkey's mitten pattern and leftover purple yarn. It's a bit messy since this is my first increasing/decreasing project, but otherwise it's a success! And by success I mean it covers my hand. I also showed only one mitten because the second mitten turned out a bit bigger. Oops. I think my next project will be to make these in dark grey for Ryan.

Slouchy Beret Hat

While in LA, I was motivated to try knitting a hat by my sister who was furiously knitting her cabled hat at the time. I found a great pattern for a knitted beret online and decided to give it a go. I used a green tweed yarn and kept with the size 8 needles throughout rather than switching to size 9 after the ribbing as the instructions say. The hat turned out pretty well even though I ran out of yarn and wasn't able to make it quite as slouch as I would have liked. I think if I had used the size 9 needles, the hat would be a not quite as stiff but oh well, I didn't have any at the time! Final verdict: super warm and stylish.