Swallowtail

After a long battle, interrupted by so many other projects, I've now finished by swallowtail shawl.
It's a very easy pattern, but two things made this difficult. First, the 14 repeats of identical simplicity in the beginning was boring me out of my mind. Now that it's finished, I can see that it really works well with the edge, but... too boring.
The other problem was the yarn, Cherry Hill Suri Alpaca. I don't know if this is characteristic of this type of alpaca, but it is a very stiff yarn. Very difficult to manage. If the stitches slip off the needle, they don't stay in shape. They just immediately unravel. Not to talk about knitting nupps. They can be bad enough as it is, but become disastrous with this yarn. All the stitches and yo's just fly apart.
But enough complaining. The process was a little hard, but I think the result speaks for itself:

Jumpsuit

The jumpsuit I started in August is now finished. It came out very nice, the transitions from knitting with dpn's almost went away when I washed it.



Of course I couldn't help but modify a bit... so the top part, which was supposed to be knitted back and forth and sewn together, is just knitted in the round. I know, I had to purl every other round to get garter stitch, but it meant no sewing :) To hide the transition, I did a fake seam in each side, knitting that stitch every other round and slipping it every other. Finally, added some cute, asian-looking buttons from Fandango:

Warm Set for Tadpole

I've started knitting a set of clothing to keep the little Tadpole warm when it comes out i February. I was allowed to use some gorgeous yarn from my sister's stash, Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca & Silk. I know, the Tadpole will probably puke on it immediately and it's handwash only. But it's so soft. A entirely decent thing to wear when you have never been encumbered with clothing before.

The pattern is from Drops, here it is in English og her er det på dansk. The Danish version actually says it will look good on a little girl, but I think it is unisex enough when knitted in green:


The legs are knitted separately in the round, which probably makes good sense, I'm sure the pattern would look bad sewn together. But it is quite problematic to put the legs together. OK, the pattern says to knit 2 cm back and forth to make it easier, but it doesn't make it easy. Also, a circular needle that would be small enough for this number of stitches would be annoyingly short to knit with, so I had to continue with dpn's after putting the legs together. But because the legs were pulling in each opposite directions, there are some ugly transitions although I pulled all stitches really tight. Oh well, here's to hoping it goes away when washed.

Cardigan for Tadpole

This project is a quick little knit that wasn't really that quick, as it involved some finishing. The pattern for this little cardigan is from "Simple Knits for Cherished Babies" by Erika Knight. I was seduced by the wonderful photography throughout the book, but I guess I should have researched the case a bit more before buying. The book is filled with errors, so beginners definately can't knit most of the projects. Advanced knitters can probably reconstruct most of it from the photos. The pattern for this little cardigan did not have any errors, possibly the only error-free pattern in the entire book! Earlier, I tried making a little garter stitch wrap top, but had to give up because the pattern was so unclear. Well, also ran out of yarn, and didn't want to buy more for such a dubious project.

But this little cardigan turned out very nice - from the front:


and from the back:


It's made of Rowan wool cotton, knitted on 3 mm needles though the pattern recommends 3 3/4 mm. But I think garter stitch needs to be tight to look good. I made a couple of modifications:
- added 5 stitches to the sleeve length
- knitted on edge around neck-fronts-back in the round with alternating purled/knitted rows

Aeolian

I've been working on Aeolian for a while... for some reason I got really bored in the middle, and put it away for a while. But then it came back with a vengeance, and I finished it in no time. Here it is:



For some reason I can't capture the beauty of this shawl in a photo at all, but I guess everybody knows what it looks like.

But the result is what I hoped for, soft and with good stitch definition. It is the shawlette size, but big enough by far - i used a 4 mm needle, so that gave some size too. I hated working the pearls, and they don't even show that much. So this may be my last beaded project as well as my first.

Mixed WIPs

I haven't blogged for a while, but I also haven't finished anything for a while!

But I do have a truckload of WIPs. First my Noro Bohus vest. It's coming along, I'll be at the underarm quite soon. Meanwhile, the patterns and color combinations are proliferating in unexpected ways



I've also had some good progress with my Bog Jacket. I'm past the critical point - the point where you remove the thumb trick stitches and graft the two ends together. Quite nasty, but it came out... not invisible, but not that frankensteinian either



Some other TV knitting (and lots of episodes of The Wire) is my Cobalt Jacket. A top-down raglan of my own design. The earlier version was knitted on bigger needles, but the most recent incarnation is on 4 mm, relatively small for the thick mystery yarn I'm using



Last, but not least, I've knitted most of my Aeolian for Vibeke, shhh! My first and probably last piece of beaded knitting. But it does look good, and I'll be done soon (just unraveling several rows tonight, but that's a temporary step back. Lifelines? No)

Winning the lottery without playing

On a recent trip to NYC, I stayed with an old friend. At some point, she told me she had a sewing project that didn't fit her. Maybe it would fit me, so could I try it on? Well of course I could, and this is what it looked like:



Perfect. Like it was tailor-made for me. And as it turns out, it is. Several years ago, we made a jacket for me by mutual effort (well, mostly she made it), and in a moment of confusion, this was the pattern she reached for when she made this jacket. How lucky can you really be??

In NY, there was also time for a little bit of shopping. I have been wanting to go to the Habu showroom for a while, and this time I did. It is very small, but there are so many treasures packed there, all of the exquisite Japanese type. And I suppose it also helps that the place is so hidden. No signs outside. Just go into the camouflaged building, say "Habu" to the doorman, and take the elevator to the 8th floor:
Habu Textiles
135 West 29th St. Suite 804
New York, NY 10001

I've been eyeballing the Kusha Kusha scarf for a while, so I got the yarn for that (two right skeins). And, I ordered A-4 2/10 Kusaki Zome silk for another project on my shortlist, a 1932 blouse from "A Stitch in Time". The darkest color was not in stock, so it was sent from Japan, and here it is (on the left):