Tidal Wave!

Guess what I finally finished?
Tidal Wave is done! I'm happy with how it came out--not too big as I had feared. I spent two hours over the weekend shortening the sleeves by four rows, and I am so glad I did. No monkey sleeves for me!

Pattern Notes:

"Tidal Wave" designed by Kim Hargreaves and found in the Rowan Plaid Collection. Knit in Rowan Plaid yarn, color #158 (Nuzzle) on U.S. Size 11 needles.

I had no problems following the pattern. The only thing I changed was to make the turtleneck about half the length called for in the pattern, because I hate really bulky turtlenecks. It doesn't quite have the design punch of the original, but it'll be much more comfortable for me to wear.

Like most Rowan yarns, the Plaid is really soft and nice, and I love the unique marled look. However, I found the pattern gauge to be a little looser than I would like. The yarn also didn't hold up to recycling that well. I knit the turtleneck from a new ball of yarn and the fabric has a lot more "squish" to it than the rest of the sweater, which is kind of flat looking. It is also a VERY warm sweater, due to the alpaca content. Good thing it has lots of ventilation!

In other knitting news, I'm now about halfway up the front of Cherie, and patiently waiting for the last ball of yarn to arrive...*twiddles thumbs*...I guess if I get too bored I can swatch for my Rebecca wrap cardi.

I can't believe I am only about 3 weeks away from my trip to Europe! Woo hoo!

Rowan Arrives

This weekend in Boston was fun but...brrr! The wind howling through those high-rise buildings will get ya! It wasn't an overly eventful weekend. We went out for a couple of yummy meals, walked around and checked out some stores, went to bars, etc. We also saw Blue Man Group, which was kind of dorky but very entertaining. I'm not generally into the whole 'audience participation' thing, but the show was fun (especially since they didn't pick me to do anything). My friend also took a photo of me with the Blue Men after the show, which I can't wait to see (has to be developed first). I also gave my friend the scarves I made, and she loved them!

While I was gone, the new Rowan made its appearance in my mailbox. My general thought is...eh. There are some cute things but nothing that I am dying to make right away. Here are the items that I'm digging:
Left: Bliss, a little cropped wrap sweater.

Right: Jewel, a fair isle tie-front cardigan

Left: I think this one is called "Lizzie." It's a cardigan in All-seasons cotton, which is a fave yarn of mine. I have a feeling that this may be the most popular pattern in this issue.

And to the right, "Nicole"...I love this design, except for the crop length. Gah! Who can wear that stuff anyway? I might try to re-work this pattern to be regular length...we'll see.



I managed to get Tidal Wave blocking last night:

I am sensing that this sweater might have the same problem as I did with the other sweater I made with this yarn...too long! The body seems to be about 3 or 4 cm too long and the sleeves are about 4 cm too long, even though I swear I measured carefully while knitting. At least this explains why I ran out of yarn. Oh well, I'll put it together and see how it looks. If it's bad, I don't know if I can rip this yarn again, it was already looking a bit ratty from the first time. I did manage to find an extra ball of this yarn over the weekend to do the turtleneck...if I get that far! I really need to work on my sizing/gauge issues, as it seems to be the one thing that trips me up a lot.

I also cast on for Cherie: I did the famous tubular cast-on, and it looks great. This is the ribbing for the bottom of the sweater. I think this will be a pretty boring knit (lots o' stockinette), but at least that makes it easy to do while watching movies!

Huge Bummer

See that bare ground in the photo? That's because we didn't get a lick of snow from the storm on Sunday. Nada, zilch, zero...not even a dusting. Blah.

I had a good time skiing this weekend, although I really stink at it. I only get to go maybe once or twice a year, so that obviously makes it hard to improve. I also really need a new pair of skis. Mine are 12 years old and are the old straight kind, and they're a bit too long for me, too. Which was fine in high school when I went skiing more (and wasn't as wimpy), but I think the new shaped skis will give me an edge (sorry, bad pun)! I'm gonna try to go skiing at Sugarloaf in March--if you go on a Wednesday, it's only $26 for Maine residents. Then I could demo skis and see which ones I like, though I'll have to wait until this summer to buy them. I am praying we get some snow soon, too. Trail conditions weren't all that great--lots of ice and man-made snow.

On to the knitting news...I put the zipper into the wallet thingie, so that's all done:

I am also plugging away at the Tidal Wave Pullover. The front is now done and I am working on the sleeves:

As you can see, I decided to work both sleeves at the same time, and I am so glad I did! Much easier than worrying if the second sleeve will match! The only problem now, is that I'm 99% sure I'm going to run out of yarn before I'm done. I should be able to get the sleeves done, but there is a turtleneck collar that needs to be knitted on at the end. I'll have to see if I can scrounge up another ball, though I doubt I'll be able to find the same dye lot, since I orginally bought this yarn over a year ago. Let's hope that the variegated nature of this yarn hides the differing dye lots!

Recycling

After much trial and tribulation, I managed to frog an entire sweater and get it back to this state: I had a funny photo of what it looked like before this week (a half-frogged, tangled mess!) but I accidently deleted it. Which is a bummer because now you can't see the dramatic transformation. So much for drama.

Anyhoo, here we have Rowan Plaid that was once my very first sweater, Freya from Rowan 36. It didn't come out very well...let's just say it was about two sizes too big. Plus, the trim along the bottom made it sag even more. Altogether not a pretty sight. As soon as I finished the sweater, I started ripping it, but got frustrated and threw it in a plastic bag. There it sat for the last year. Finally last week I decided it would be a shame to waste all that nice (expensive) yarn. I sat down and patiently ripped the entire thing, washed the yarn to get the kinks out, and wound it into balls.

Then I laid them out on the floor as you see in the photo above and left them there for a day.

Yesterday, when I came home for lunch, this is what I found: "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, can't prove anything." Luckily he didn't cause much of problem, mostly he just pulled off a yard or two from each ball. Love his oh-so-innocent look. Quincy is absolutely fascinated by this yarn. I'm guessing it's the stripiness that catches his eye. If I have some leftovers, I'll have to make a cat toy out of it.

Last night I cast on and starting knitting my new project with this, Tidal Wave (scroll down just a tiny bit, it's the pink sweater right at the top) from the Rowan Plaid Collection booklet. Here's what I have so far:This should be a pretty quick knit, which would definitely be a novelty for me. I think this pattern should be a much better fit for the yarn, since it has no heavy trim and is much shorter than Freya.