Felted Tweed Sweater

Stats:
yarn: rowan felted tweed (color: melody). I don't remember how many balls.
pattern: copy of something I already had. While I tried to copy faithfully except for making it circular, it didn't quite work out.
needles: bamboo circular, size 1 (I think)
comments:
This was my first sweater. My first 'real' knitting project of any note. It's has flaws, but considering, I'm pretty proud of it. When I was unsure about how many balls of yarn to buy, the lady at the yarn store expressed disdain that it would be possible to copy something from an existing garment. That's crazy. I thought it would be easier than following a pattern, and it mostly was.
It's also exceptionally warm. Looking at the content (mostly wool, with equal parts alpaca and rayon) and gauge of felted tweed, I assumed it would be relatively cool, if not summer wear. I guess the alpaca goes a long way.
That said, the problems:
The gauge is a little off. I'm not sure where this came in, whether I measured the original wrong, or preferred the felted tweed at a smaller gauge that is specified on the label, it's really a mystery. For the most part, this works fine, it fits snuggly, but the ribbing expands, and it's 'fitted' rather than tight.
It's itchy. Not intolerably so, but I prefer an undershirt with it.
It shows bra-straps.
You may notice the sweater is a midriff, and while I am at that brief stage in my life where I can debatably pull that off, this matches poorly with the 'incredibly warm' point mentioned above. It also matches poorly with the idea of showing this off in front of conservative relatives & whatnot. I attribute this (the shortness) to a combination of the gauge problems, and being impatient to finish the darn thing. I've considered knitting more ribbing, then kitchenering the whole thing together to make it longer, but I think the ribbing would be disproportionate, so I'd have to go all the way up to the lacey bits. Also, that's a darn lot of kitchenering. Also, the needle I would need for it is currently occupied.

A closeup view of the colorwork:

(this was the last picture - by the time I got to it the light was completely shot. This is the best I could do. The color in the first is much more accurate)

Lots of pictures

So we had a little down time today while there was still light, and I've taken pictures of most of my FOs.
Learned two things: 1)the delay button is your friend. While there was light, there was not much light, so most of this pictures are .3 second exposures. Way too long to hold steady manually. Plus, it means you don't have an arm sticking out holding the camera. 2)when taking pictures of self, take a larger image size, since you will be a smaller percentage of the total image than when manually lined up and zoomed. Therefore, most of the 'sweater on a person' images are quite small. By the time I realized this an could have retaken them, the light was gone. I probably won't have time to post all of them tonight, but the biggest work is done.

Lace

After reading this today, I've been strangely inspired to work on lace. Well, perhaps not strangely, as I've been eyeing the forest path stole for long enough to have purchased the pattern, and did some swatching from the Barbara Walker treasuries I received for Christmas, but at least ill-advised, or ill-timed.
Because...For one, I do not like the laceweight yarn I currently have. (Not counting the alpaca which is promised to NotBeLace, I only have one skein) It is single ply, and I don't like the puffy-ness it gets. Very gauzy and unsubstantial in the actual thread, as opposed to distinct thread making a gauzy and unsubstantial object. Not to mention the color really isn't terribly good for lace either. Additionally, after hand-winding the unsuitable laceweight, I have resolved to NeverDoThatAgain. Which until I drop $100+ on a swift and ballwinder, limits my lace buying choices to a local store which will (hopefully) wind it for me. I have not been out to tell if this is a possibility, since all (2) of the local stores have hours which conveniently coincide with my work hours, and I haven't felt like making a special trip on the very cold weekend.

--the infamous laceweight--

--swatches of the infamous laceweight--

Even beyond that, All of my lace sized needles are stuck in things. I use size 0's or 1's for anything below a DK. I also tend to start lots of projects in this gauge and not finish them because they are tedious, so they still have needles in them. In fact, many of them have needles of larger sizes that I crammed in so that I could steal the correct size needles for something else. I do have concrete plans to buy more needles, but this requires planning and decisiveness that I haven't mustered yet (how many? what brand? what sizes & materials?). This is made more difficult by the fact that no store to date has managed to stock all the varieties of needles that I want.
So. No lace for me.
I will probably wind more yarn, or, depending, finish the darned socks.
winding yarn last night was not quite so smooth. Both hanks had knots in almost the dead center. For now I'm looking at this as a good thing, as I plan on alternating rows for even variegation, and smaller balls may help with that.

--M: "that's a lot of yarn" me: "it's a little under half"--

yarn cakes

Sorry this picture has wonky lighting. One of the things I less than like about my new camera is that you can't plug it in a take pictures, you have to take the battery out and charge it. So in the 90 seconds after I got home that it took for the battery to suck the strength from the wall to turn the camera on, the light was gone. I improvised.

Yesterday was unexpected. Snow right at the close of business, so traffic was terrible going home. I stopped at my parents' to pick up a spare blanket I had there, and realized I would get home just as fast if I waited a few hours for the roads to clear. Yay for someone else cooking dinner.
It did give me an opportunity to measure the jacket-template in question, and I now have a reasonable pattern drafted up. I still have to figure out how to make a couple of fit adjustments, but I'm pretty sure I'm going with the jacket. I also forgot that it isn't actually ribbed all the way up, and since I prefer how the variegation in this yarn looks in ribs, that will be some modifications too. But given my balling progress that's ok.
Though ye-gods this stuff goes fast compared to the lace and fingering-weight I'd be doing before. I know, I know, no kidding, but the actually experiencing the difference is impressive.
I really, truly do love this color more and more as I see it. When it first arrived, I was convinced that the main color was dark purply-grey, but winding it tonight I definitely saw green in it too. It's making me think about color theory and lean closer & closer to dyeing my own yarn. But not yet.

conviction

I'm going to start using the handpaintedyarn today.
I've been putting it off, as motivation to finish the socks, but I've decided I really don't want to finish the socks first anymore, and my only alternatives are colorwork which takes lots of thinking, and a lace top which has gone terribly awry from it's wonderful start and I just can't bear to look at now. This sudden conviction may also be influenced by the fact that it has gotten darn cold here (the 0's) and our office apparently doesn't have the heating capacity to quite keep up with that.
Of course, 'start' means winding yarn, not casting on. right now all I have is this:



Which is probably good, because I still haven't decided whether to make a turtleneck or a cardigan. Either way it will be based of of an existing garment/made up, and either way it will be 2x2 ribbed, but I have yet to decide which.
I will in all likelihood buy more of this yarn and make the other one in another color. Which has me leaning towards the jacket for this, since it's subtler, and would possibly go with more things.
I really do like the color of this. Like all my purchases from there to date, it was not quite what I was expecting, but this time it is in a very good way. Odd, since the best way I can describe the color is like the worst bruise you've ever seen - but in a good way.

smurf feet

statistics:
pattern: fuzzy feet, from knitty, rather modified.
yarn: Imperial Stock Ranch lopi style. Two skeins.
gauge: felted, disatrously. Who knows.

thoughts: I made several modifications to the pattern. One, was to change it to a toe-up version with a short row heel I saw somewhere. This, despite being perhaps an agressive change for my new-to-knitting ways worked fine. The second was to substitute the yarn. This too, was probably not a bad thing, and I believe the choice I made was apropriate. The problem comes in with gauge. Since I was making all these changes, I couldn't just blindly follow the recomended gauge. Having heard only a little about sock knitting or felting at the time, the one piece of information I remembered was that socks should be knit tightly for durability. So I knit them very tightly. Do you see where this might be a problem for felted slippers? Well, as you can see, they did felt some, but not completely, and it darned near killed me to get them to do that. I also didn't know that felting things made them shorter more than it made them narrower, and I didn't have regular washing machine access in order to swatch appropriately and find this out myself.
So, they're too big, particularly too wide, but for slippers they work fine, they're pretty sturdy, and I can wear my mohair footies inside of them for extra warmth.
I have mixed thoughts on the yarn, it wasn't itchy or rough, but it gave the impression of being dry, or powdery, it's a hard-to-describe sensation, not necesarily bad, but odd. One of the skeins was full of knots, and this was before I knew to send something like that back, but they're felted slippers, so who really cares?

Fuzzy socks

Statistics:
Yarn: ozeyarn kid mohair brushed, 100% mohair bulky weight.
Amount: ??? leftovers from one skein after making two scarves & a hat.
Gauge: 6sts, 9rows per inch
Pattern: madeup, basic toe-up sock recipe. Short row heels
Needles: #2 brittany birch dpns.

These turned out way better than they had any business whatsoever turning out. I was using leftovers from some x-mas scarves, I didn't really check gauge, or have any pattern theory other than keep knitting until they're big enough.
They are one of my favorite FOs
Never let anyone tell you that 100% brushed mohair socks are a bad idea.
They are soft (and not itchy like so many mohairs are for me), they are squishy, they do the best job of anything I've ever tried of keeping my feet actually warm. (this is an impossible task, really). I love the colors in the yarn and how it subtly stripes. They are kinda slippery on hard floors, and I imagine they will get gnarly with age, but that does not diminish my love for them. I wear them like slippers and while I'm sleeping.
They were a bit of a bear to knit up, due to both unfamiliarity with socks and just plain knitting brushed mohair at a tight gauge. They stained my needles.

By the way, I would recommend this yarn in this gauge for sweater knitting, it's nice and opaque, but not stiff. You could probably make a polar expedition it it though.