Shawl Done, Skew Started

I finished my tea time shawl just in time! I didn't get to block it properly before I wanted to wear it, so I pinned it out and put a towel over it and ironed the shawl in the hopes I could get some good shaping and it worked pretty well. Here's how it looks!

The lace pattern will be even more obvious when I block it for real, and it will be bigger so it will give me more room to move my arms the next time I wear it. I also finished up the tea time gloves I made for my neighbor, but I was so excited to give them to her I forgot to take a picture! 

Now that the shawl is done it's time to get going on the skew socks for the knitalong with the wonderful ladies in Taunton. This project will be another chance to try a bunch of new techniques! My new technique of the day is magic loop. Instead of using 5 double pointed needles I just use one long circular needle and knit the round in 2 halves. I'm glad Lindsay showed me how it works first! That definitely made me feel more confident trying it for myself the first time. Anyway here's the progress I have so far (the toe of the sock)

Hopefully there will be more fun updates of progress soon! Having lots of free time makes for much more exciting knitting updates! 

Tea Time shawl

Well now that I finished my sweater I decided I wanted to work on something that would be relatively quick and that I could make out of a thinner yarn since worsted weight yarn makes my hands kind of warm when knitting in the summer time. So I cast on for a "Multnomah" shawl. Which is a pattern that has a regular garter stitch body and a feather and fan border. Here's the body part of the shawl:

I think it's coming out really well in the purple/blue/green yarn I decided to use. This was the yarn I got at the CT wool and fiber festival and this seemed like the perfect project to show off the colors. 

I'm hoping to get this shawl finished by Saturday for 2 reasons:

1. I want to wear the shawl to the tea party we are going to at our neighbor's house (which also means I need to attach the pearl buttons to those tea gloves)

2. I want to be ready to cast on the skew socks on Saturday since that's the day we are starting our knit along. I think it's going to be me, Lindsay and a few other wonderful ladies from the Taunton SnB. I'm really excited to get going on these! 

I think I'll print the pattern today or tomorrow and get my yarn and needles assembled so I'll be ready to get going with everyone else. As far as finishing my shawl I'm on track to finish it on time! I've gotten almost half of the feather and fan border done already. Here's how it looks so far:

Now, since I knew this shawl would be done soon and I knew I wanted to wear it I couldn't resist picking up a shawl pin that I've been admiring for about a week. Lucky for me the yarn store in Williston (Northeast Fiber Arts Center) had the one I wanted in stock since I first saw it in a shop in Montpelier and hour drive away. I ended up choosing this dark wood swirly shawl stick:

I'll try to get a picture of the shawl with the swirly stick once it's finished. 

Now, I think I have a slight problem with yarn purchasing and getting excited for future projects, because even though I went into the store saying I wasn't going to buy any yarn I ended up caving. The nice yarn and colors are just so tempting it's hard to resist! But on the upside I did buy a kit, so at least the yarn I bought already has a purpose. (That makes it better right?) Anyway, I've been wanting to find the pattern for/make a swrily spiral shawl that I saw at the yarn festival in CT and they had the pattern I wanted in the shop. They also had one already made and had advertised kits to buy all the yarn you need to make the shawl. I tried to resist but the yarn was blue and purple, and so I caved and spent probably too much money on fancy yarn.

But hey, it'll make a beautiful shawl! And I'll be working soon...so as long as I resist temptation for the rest of the summer I should be set. 

That's all for now, hopefully in the next couple of days I'll have completed shawl pictures and maybe some swatch pictures for the skew socks (since everybody else is swatching?). 

It Fits!

Here's my completed cardigan! Buttons and all:

It fits! woo! there is a small band of lighter yarn since I ran out with a row to go... but it's done! And best of all it fits perfectly! Hooray!

And we have....almost a sweater!

Well I've been knitting like crazy the last few days because I got excited to finally have the second half of the cardigan complete. And yesterday I did just that. Second half finished! So, I laid the pieces out on the carpet to make sure that when they were next to each other I'd have something that resembled the cardigan I'm aiming for:

Then of course, once I finished the two halves I had to jump right into grafting the two pieces together. I used the kitchener stitch to graft the pieces together, which for those of you that don't knit, is used to put the two pieces together in a way that looks just like the knitting so you can't see a seam or anything. It's usually used to close up the toes of socks. (or at least that's when I've used it before). 

Anyway I got the grafting and the seams done and I ended up with this:

Look it's almost a sweater! Woo! Now I just have to add the waistband and the front band with button holes and last but not least attach the buttons. I finally picked the buttons I want, and I picked these up at A.C. Moore:

I'm excited that this is really moving along! Hopefully by the end of today or tomorrow I'll have a new cardigan! Although I did try on the bit I have made already and sadly the shoulders are a bit tight, but at least the rest of it seems to fit. I might have been a little optimistic about my figure when I chose which size to make, but hopefully I can make this work since I put so much effort in. 

Another bit of motivation get moving on this project was that my package from knitpicks came in the mail and I want to hurry up and get to use my new yarn and needles. Look at all the goodies I got:

I'm most excited to get to use my interchangeable needle set, which will hopefully save me from having to buy needles every time I choose a new project. I also bought needles to make the skew socks using magic loop (hooray for learning a new technique!) and some pretty yarn for the socks as well (the blue/purple yarn above). 

Anyway that's all on the knitting front for now. Hopefully I'll have pictures of a complete cardigan to post here within the next day or so!

Sweater: We're Halfway there!

Well, last night I finished the right half of the cardigan! Hooray!  Here it is all laid out on the floor:

Now I just have to knit the other half, join them together, do the edging and add some buttons. Not too shabby to be almost halfway done after 11 days of knitting. 

In anticipation of being done with this project I've already planned for my next one. Lindsay and I are going to make some pretty cool looking socks. The pattern is called "skew" and hopefully we'll end up with something looking like this (but in different colors):

One of the project pictures linked to the pattern in Ravelry

I ordered the yarn and needles to make these along with a set of interchangeable needles I've been admiring for a while. They shipped today so now I'm just waiting patiently for them to come in the mail.

I also signed up for a knitting technique class in July at Webs (a yarn store in MA). I'm really excited to go and learn about different ways to knit, especially if one of those methods makes me a much faster knitter.

That's all for now, hopefully there will be more knitting updates to come since I don't have much else to do with my time besides running and hiding from sunburn.