WIPW: Southern Grace v2.0

I have to say, working on the yoke for my 2nd Grace cardigan has been such a nice break from the Whisper Wrap. There's been shaping, there have been lace panels, there's been pink...it's great.

The lace is a super simple netting, but I love how it looks in the finished cardigan. It's enough to keep the knitting interesting but isn't so much that the cardigan won't work with literally everything else in your wardrobe.

I've finished the yoke, which means I'll be putting the sleeve sections onto waste yarn and working the rest of the body in stockinette. You know, the part I didn't want to think about? This feels like it's working up so much quicker than the Whisper Wrap (thanks, fingering weight yarn!) so I'll probably try to power through some more of the body before switching back to the wrap. The pink color is so bright and springy that I'd love to have it finished in time to wear it before summer, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Numbers

So, this Whisper Wrap situation? Oh. My. God.

Casting on 481 stitches was not the most enjoyable experience of my life. I think I counted them about 10 times, despite the fact that I put stitch markers every 50 stitches. I knew that the stockinette would probably drive me crazy, as would the laceweight yarn and every row appearing to be making no progress, but dude. Seriously. I promise I've been working on this regularly, and this is as far as I've gotten.

I did the math on the wrap--the pattern is 186 rows long. That's 89,466 stitches. Even worse, I timed myself and found out each row takes at least 20 minutes (depending on my level of distraction/the surprising number of mistakes I've made knitting a mostly stockinette item). That means that, conservatively, it would take me 62 hours to knit this thing. I'm going to go ahead and round that up to an even 70.

Looking at this makes me sad, but I want the finished wrap so much! I know I'm going to get through it, but I'm not going to be as faithful to it as I had originally planned to be. I can't. I would just go absolutely stir crazy, and I love my boyfriend way too much to let him see me like that.

In that vein, I'm casting on for a new sweater! I got 4 balls of Knit Picks Stroll Sock Yarn in Dogwood Heather a couple of weeks ago to make myself a new Grace (the yarn was basically a refund, so I'm not chastising myself for adding to the stash). I loved my original cardigan so much and am just never that happy when I wear the felted "cropped" version, so I'm going to be boring and knit the exact same sweater for a second time. Coincidentally, Jane Richmond put a call out for test knitters yesterday to test some revised yoke instructions. It seemed like a good sign to me, so I signed up and cast on tonight. I'm blocking the fact that this is, again, a mostly stockinette item out of my head because of my current cast on excitement.

FO: Chuck, Extended

I finished my Chuck, and I'm so, so glad that I decided to make this sweater full-length. The original cropped design looks adorable on Andi, the pattern's designer (who is amazing, in case you weren't aware. Seriously, her designs are all adorable), but I just don't wear enough dresses that it would get a lot of use as it was written. Granted, San Diego is warm enough that it's not necessary to wear a full-length sweater for most of the year, but this one is so adorable and bright and cozy that I think I'll be able to work it into my normal wardrobe.

In addition to adding a 4th diamond repeat and reversing the shaping on the body, I added an extra 30 rows of stockinette after the last decrease on the arms before beginning the ribbing. They were a little short before blocking, but Wollmeise DK blooms a lot after the first washing so they ended up being the perfect length.

Shout out to B for being my fashion photographer. Hopefully I'll be able to keep convincing him to take pictures for me so you can actually see all the awesome stuff I'm planning.

WIP Wednesday: Chuck, Extended

I finally bit the bullet and ripped back my Chuck.

I wasn't too crazy, though--I ran my cable needle through the stitches first. Yanking out inches of knitting can be cathartic but dropping a cable stitch past where you want it to go is no bueno.

I originally ripped back to 5 rows after the last decrease. I talked to a Raveller who had added length to her Chuck and this is what she recommended, but I thought this was too high to start increasing. Since the decreases ended 35 rows from the underarm, I started the increases 35 rows from the start of the ribbing (row 26 of the 3rd diamond).

The shape looks super curvy, but the fit is great and makes my waist look tiny. I also love the comparison between the nice blocked sections, the wonky bit of yarn from where I ripped back, and the tighter unused yarn at the end. I'm assuming this will all even out in blocking--isn't that what we always tell ourselves?

2013 Year in Review, Part 2: The Ashley Edition

As a proud Selfish Knitter, the majority of what I knit is for myself. I went a little sweater crazy this year and have learned a lot, both about sweater construction and how my body is actually shaped, as opposed to the weird way I've always imagined it to be (I have a waist. Who could have guessed?).

My very first Wollmeise project! This Lush is made from Wollmeise DK in Grashupfer and is the most insanely rich kelly green. I love it. I tried to be extra carefully with gauge, but this ended up being pretty big from the boobs down. I will probably end up reknitting the body at some point since it doesn't get much use as it is now.

These (Un)Padded Footlets were made from the yarn left over from the baby cardigan, which was made to match the mom's socks. So I inadvertently have made us sock sisters for life. This pattern was one of the first sock patterns I ever knit and I've made several pairs since then. The padding part is really fiddly so I don't even bother with it, which makes this great for using up smaller amounts of fingering weight yarn.

Ah, Grace. My beautiful Southern Grace. I dreamed about this sweater. I love the pattern, and the yarn was the most beautiful light, fresh pink. I started this sweater living in a condo with 2 girls and finished it after moving in with my boyfriend. This beautiful cardigan is made out of Knit Picks Stroll.

Whatever the label says, KNIT PICKS STROLL IS NOT SUPERWASH! Felted the first time I washed it. I was heated. Still am. I've managed to stretch it a little bit and will do a blog post in the future about the 2nd go-around.

Very basic, but I did knit my first washcloth to use up some Lily Sugar n' Cream I had sitting around. The pattern (Nai-Nai's Favorite) makes a really nice, squishy fabric, so I bought some more cotton to make more.

I've loved Sperry since the moment I saw it on the Ravelry Patterns page. I knit the entire body before trying it on and finding out that it was too big, so I did some angry frogging. I love the way it turned out.

Finally there was my Chuck, made out of Wollmeise DK in Vamp. As I mentioned before, I'm planning to rip back and add another diamond repeat to the body as well as make the sleeves full-length. I can see myself wearing this a ton once those changes are made.

So, it's been a minute...

I know, I know. I move all the way to sunny San Diego and get distracted by real life and forget to post on my blog. I'm determined to keep up with it this time, so here are some life updates:

1) B and I have moved in together. We have a pretty nice one bedroom that's really far from work, but it has an amazing ocean view.

2) I've decided not to become a CPA because I don't want to stay in public accounting long. This decision is new, but it made an immediate improvement on my mental state and I feel good about it.

3) I may have a yarn problem.

A major reason for going full-force on the blogging thing is my major goal for 2014: Operation Stashdown. Spurred by my recent decision to cohabitate with my boyfriend and said boyfriend's discovery of jut how large my yarn stash really is, I have decided to only knit from stash for the next year. I took a picture of my stash about 6 weeks ago when it looked like this:

Since then, I have knitted the 2 skeins of Wollmeise DK in Vamp into this lovely Chuck (pattern by Andi Satterlund of Untangling Knots):

 I love love love the pattern, although I made a mistake at the beginning of the center motif--it should have an extra twist. I lengthened the body by 1 repeat and am not really loving the length, so I'm planning to rip back and add a fourth diamond as well as make the sleeves full-length. As it is, this sweater used 700 yards of Wollmeise DK. I have over 300 yards left from my 2nd skein (love those oversized skeins), so I should have plenty to work with.

My current project is a Clapotis from the 3 skeins of Knit Picks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn in Looking Glass. It's about 40% done and really much to look at at the moment:

Finally, I gave in and purchased some yarn from Knit Picks right before New Year's with a gift card my dad gave me for Christmas. I'm only knitting from stash for the next year and I didn't have any sweater quantities in the stash, so that's my excuse...for buying 2 sweater quantities. And 2 skeins of Felici. But seriously, no more! To keep me on the straight and narrow, my 2014 goals are as follows:

1) Find patterns for all stash yarns (Finished!)

2) Knit at least 12 queue projects.

3) Start building up stash of gifts through #2.

4) Start working on hexipuffs again for my Beekeeper’s Quilt. I have 100+ little balls of fingering weight rolling about in my stash for this project.

5) Knit at least as much as I did in 2013 (let’s call it 7,500 yards).

Let's see what happens.