And we have sweater

Look at her... she's just so beautiful...

The sweater... not the girl. The girl looks like she's on drugs and doesn't brush her hair. I have no idea who that person is. I assure you that *I* do not look like I'm on drugs, I have a charming rather than creepy smile and I do brush my hair.

Here's a better view of the pattern on the sleeve.

Specs:

Pattern: Phoebe Pullover from knitpicks.com (based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentage saddle shoulder sweater)

Start/End: 2/15/2007 - 5/18/2007

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of The Andes. 11 balls (not 12, definitely not 13!)

Size: 40" around and 26" from top of shoulder to bottom of ribbing

Needles: size 6 KnitPicks DPN's on sleeves size 6 36" AddiTurbo Circular on body

Mods: I decided not to do the mesh pattern on the shoulders and instead just do the straight lines of twisted stitches. I decided to do this because it is more aesthetically pleasing. It has nothing to do with it being really hard to do the mesh pattern on the wrong side while doing the saddle shoulders. Nothing at all. How dare you even suggest it. Otherwise, that's it.

I feel victorious. I must return to family obligations now... but I just wanted you all to know that I made the greatest sweater ever.

Finito!

I finished Phoebe on Friday
Blocked her on Saturday
Wore her on Sunday

Plus I took pictures!

But I haven't gotten them off my camera yet. Joel said that she makes me eyes look "really pretty" So that's nice.

Blogging will be intermittant at best this week. My grandmother is very sick. I'm spending most of my free time with her while I can. (This is not free time... I'm supposed to be working)

I'll get back to all you peeps later.

Look what I can do!

I can knit a sweater!

And take pictures of it.

Phoebe on Sunday. Despite being directly in front of a window, the color still turned out like poop. The Arctic Pool Heather is much more blue and not very gray at all.

I have completed the shoulder shaping and at the point in the picture I am ready to start joining the front and back with the sleeve pattern beidging the two.

Today I have completed the first shoulder and will start on the second once I get home. I hope to finish it tomorrow at knit night and do the collar on Friday, block the sweater Saturday and take pictures Sunday.

I believe it will actually fit me. The sleeves are a teensy bit snug... but not exceptionally so. The body has the perfect amount of ease and the sweater will be just the right length. Hooray!

Any Day Now

Phoebe is SO CLOSE to being done. I probably would have finished her this weekend if I could have spent the time taken up by getting ready for and going to the opera Saturday night (about 5 hours) and the time spent cooking/eating/cleaning/hanging out with mom on Sunday (6 hours).

I even have pictures! But they're trapped in my camera... I'll try to get to my parents' sometime this week and get it uploaded.

Right now I have finished the saddle shoulder shaping (which I like... it looks nice). I need to put the neck hole stitches on scrap yarn and start attaching the front and back. Which by my calculations will be about 26 rows of 32 stitches back and forth on each side.

That means each shoulder will be approximately 832 stitches, which is the equivalent of 4 rounds of body knitting. Although the shoulders are in pattern and the body was in stockinette... so I guess it's closer to 13 of the sleeve rounds. That would have taken me about an evening, I guess that means I have two more evenings of knitting before I can pick up the neck.

I think I'll only do about an inch of the 1x1 ribbing for the neck so that should take one evening or a lunch hour (half hour).

That means I expect an obscene amount of criticism if I am not finished by this weekend. Feel free to kick me out of the knitter's club. I will deserve it. Yup.

The 13th ball

I'm so close to being done with Phoebe.

I finished up the second sleeve this weekend. I did about 13 inches in a week... without trying that hard. If only that had happened, oh... 4 weeks ago.

Now I have about 3 more inches of boring stockinette tube to finish for the body, then I join the three pieces together at the armpits and continue up the shoulders to the neck. Hurray!

Here's where I'm concerned. I purchased 12 balls of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Arctic Pool Heather for this project. I am currently using the 8th ball (50% finished), on the body. I used 1.5 balls on each 19" sleeve and have so far used 4 full balls (probably 5 once I'm done) on 17" of body.

Does this sound like 4 balls will be enough to finish once I join at the underarms and work up to the saddle shoulders then complete the crew neck? I really think it is, but since this is my first sweater I don't feel 100% confident. Do I need a 13th ball?

The thing that's keeping me from just getting some spare yarn is that I'm sure if this isn't enough all I'm going to need is one more ball. But since it is KnitPicks that means I'd have to pay $2.50 shipping on a measly $2 ball of yarn and that hurts my heart a little. Am I the cheapest person alive? I think maybe I am. *sigh*

So the only comments I want to see right now are "Yes Lexy, you will definitely have enough yarn to finish that sweater. Don't worry about being 6 yards short and crying yourself to sleep because you're a cheap idiot who doesn't order an extra skein. You will have enough yarn"

Ya' dig?

P.S. I do realize that if I do not order the yarn, I will be short, and if I do order it I will finish not only without using the 13th ball, but with 20 or 30 yards left on the 12th one. I'll accept this in time.

Phoebe has progress!

But no photos.

See, Joel only has dial up (the horror, I know) and a really old laptop, which he takes with him much of the time. I sold my computer to my mom when I moved... well my half of it since we paid 50/50 for it. Anyway, the blog may be photoless for a little while until I figure out some voodoo. I could take pictures with my phone, but, ew.

I finished one and a half repeats of the Phoebe sleeve so that the second sleeve is now 13 inches long (I believe it needs to be 18, I'll have to look that up) I'm really closing in on the sweater... I know that it will not be sweater weather when it's finished (or maybe it will... I can be pretty slow when I want). But I'm still excited to get my first sweater off the needles and in the closet.

This weekend, I organized my stash *gasp* *shock*. See, at my parents' house the stash was very spread out, there was some in my room, some in the living room, some in the office, some crammed into tiny corners... whatever. I had to pack it all up and find room for it in Joel's impeccably organized tiny little house.

So I stuffed it into two drawers in my dresser and two drawers in this little wicker 3-drawer organizer thingy. The top drawer in that is holding all my WIP's from the previous post, and those two bottom drawers are stuffed with sock yarn. I guess what this means is that I shouldn't any problem sticking to my yarn budget, since I can't buy yarn that I don't have room for, obviously. Except for the yarn for Andy's petit bebe yarn for gifts doesn't count toward stash right? Right? Somebody get my back here.

To recap:
Mission 1: Finish WIP's, do not cast on new projects (except for Dulaan, charity doesn't count)
Mission 2: Use up my tres awesome stash yarn for most future projects. Until I deem a reasonable amount has been used. One dresser drawer full, at least. Not counting yarn necesary for gifts, of course.

You know, in January I didn't have enough stash yarn to join knit from your stash. My how the mighty have fallen.

carry on.

What's on your needles?

Well, let me tell you.

Phoebe is still on the needles... body is 15 inches long, one sleeve is finished and the other is about 6 inches long. Quite a bit larger than in this picture, but still... maybe 70% done.

Floral Felted Tote by Nicky Epstein, which I have from the holiday issue of IK. I have completely finished one side... and that's all. Just one lonely side, and to think I bought the yarn for this nearly six months ago ::shame:: so it's about 40% done.

The Clapotis which I really don't even want to mention... except that I pulled it out of it's hiding place last week so now I must acknowledge that it exists. I have not touched it since around Christmas. probably 50% done.

Twisted Flower Sock I love you, I really do, but I messed up on the last row and I'm avoiding ripping back (yes, I know it's only one row... shut up, I hate you). Not terribly larger than in this picture. I'd say, 55% done on this sock (which means, what, 27% done on the pair? Oh the shame)

I did just finish a Dulaan hat. I will be casting on another in Encore Chunky. Probably the Avalanche Hat pattern. It's not on the needles yet, but let's face it, it will be soon.

So with all this in mind, I bet you can guess what I did this week. That's right, I worked dilligently at completing my in progress projects so that I can rid myself of the terrible guilt.

HA! In your dreams sucka. I cast on this little trouble maker:

Yup, it's the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club sock kit from February. Since the April one is at my parents' house, but not yet picked up (therefore not yet in the stash, right?)

Yes, it's suggestive, and yes knitting with STR Mediumweight on size 0 needles kind of sucks. But overall, I love it. I especially love how the colors are spiralling so loverly all around.

That is all... tune in next week when our heroine loses all self control and casts on projects with every set of needles she owns.

Somebody's fabulous!

and it's me!

First, the knitting.

I am really rolling along nicely on the Phoebe body. I didn't get much done this weekend because I was busy over indulging in alcohol. I have a little more than 12 inches right now and I need 16.5 before I join the sleeves and start working my way up to the shoulders. I'm halfway done with the second sleeve, the first one is almost complete. I believe I can legitimately say I'm half way through with this bad boy.

I know many of you are thinking "but Lexy, aren't you going to finish this right when the weather is getting nice, thus rendering it unwearable until next winter"

a) Even so, I don't care, I just want it off my back (haha... punny)
b) I go to the Oregon Coast quite frequently, and even during the warmest days of summer it can be windy and quite chilly on the beach, making a sweater practical, punk ass.
c) Our family vacation is in Sunriver (yup, that's the house we're staying in, no it didn't cost that much, we got a deal) this year, the beautiful High Desert of Oregon. While the summer days are lovely and warm the evenings (and mornings) can be down right cold.

So, that's my knitting world right now. I'm actually finding it quite lovely to be monogamous with my knitting. It brings me peace. Someone please remind me of this in a week (day? hour?) when I'm dying to cast on some new fling.

Now for something completely fabulous!

Before:

This is actually a pretty good picture of my nasty-ass-down-to-my-boobs-haven't-gotten-colored-in-a-year-hair. It's from Saturday night... note the green.

After:

This is a crappy cell phone picture of my new haircut. Three inches off in length, plus lot's of awesome layers. I thought this was an okay picture of myself, but now I realize I look kind of drunk... I'm not, trust me.

I have been toying with the idea of chopping my hair off super short, but now that I actually have a very nice long haircut, I like it a lot. And I'm pretty darn close to having most of the old blond color out... so I think the time is not right to chop it off super short... we shall see what the next moon brings though.

Okay, that's enough about my hair. See ya later.

Phoebe Sleeve

I have 12 inches of sleeve, see:

As you can see I have overcome most of my problems with the travelling stitch pattern (of course we're all pretending this photo isn't a touch too blurry) I am also halfway done with the body... but I figured a picture of a tube of stocking stitch would be pretty boring. MY goal is to finish this sleeve by the end of the week and get a couple of inches further on the body and cast on and complete the ribbing on the second sleeve. I'm trying to work it so that I finish the sleeves and body at the same time, thus avoiding second sleeve syndrome.

Once I got used to the stitch pattern I now really like it and am considering incorporating it into other garments. I have not yet memorized the repeats, but I"m getting close I suspect I will be able to do the second arm from memory.

I realize that I'm making two posts today. I'll tell you right now I probably won't have anything tomorrow... unless my Rockin Sock Club package comes in (hehehehehe)

Plans for Project Spectrum

So I am feeling very ambitious today. I'm very close to being done with my first item for project spectrum 2.0 it is a hat of my own devising, I will post pictures of it this weekend (hopefully finished) when I can take pictures during daylight hours. The brim is a sideways broken rib made with some deep blue handspun merino I bought a while ago from Violet. The cap/crown is dark charcoal gray from Lamb's Pride held together with two strands of white mohair laceweight from Colinette. I think I'm going to call it "New Moon" it really is lovely, I'm quite fond of it.

I also ordered yarn (arctic pool heather) for my first sweater, inspired by project spectrum.

Doing this has inspired me to knit one sweater for each color group. I know, crazy lady here! But i've been very hesitant to make sweaters and I think using P.S. will get me off my ass and committing to large projects. I also want to do at least one project using all three colors, like my hat with this group. I have other ideas floating in my head, but I think committing to two projects for each group is plenty for me.