well.

so, it’s been a while and i’ve been neglecting the blog. there are a lot of reasons for that, but mostly i haven’t done much knitting over the past few months; in the months from february to june, i finished a crop of designs that were to be released in the fall, and then never started anything new. i’ve been doing a lot of live music photography and reading, and started taking pottery lessons. but i have been feeling the itch to get back into knitting.

here are a few of my deadline projects from the first half of this year.

gammon, from o-wool. this henley with deep hemmed edging and lacy accents was fun to knit and is the perfect fall weight. it has snap closures and you can wear it open, like in the photo, or closed, so that the high neck keeps you nice and toasty if you forget your scarf (like i always do!). i love working with o-wool yarns, so this one was a real treat.

tern and the mitts pictured below, peregrine, were put out by harrisville designs. i LOVE this sweater. another fun thing about the harrisville patterns is that i did some photo work for their fall line, so some of the pictures you see on their website are mine! both of these pictured are mine, although a different picture is used officially for the tern pattern. it was a great opportunity to hone my photoshoot skills.

well, that’s what i’ve been up to! i hope to get back to the blog in less than ten months next time.

oops.

i’ve been a bad blogger. truth is, i just haven’t been doing a lot of interesting knitting OR spinning recently! i got kind of caught up in a last-minute, totally ambitious holiday project and kind of lost my motivation for a little while. that plus a large secret project put blogging on the back burner for a while.

the big holiday project was spinning a skein of sock yarn for my boyfriend’s mother’s christmas present. with better planning, i could have gotten this done easily, but i had the idea five days before christmas. i don’t remember the yardage; i think it ended up being about 325 yards of sport-ish weight, though, which for about 4 oz of superwash bfl is pretty good for me.

i also finished my good buddy melissa labarre’s greenery beret from her & cecily macdonald’s book weekend hats for a webs store project! as i already blogged, i had a hat pattern in this book, too, but i felt like i should branch out a little for the store project and picked a different hat. after all, i’ve already knit mine three times! my coworker greta was nice enough to model for this picture.

i’ve also picked up another craft, possibly permanently, possibly temporarily. either way, i am so excited about this project, but for now you just get a teaser photo!

off-season available!

hi!

just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know that the pattern for my off-season cardigan is now available on ravelry! named for my favorite time of year to go to cape cod, this is a cozy cardigan with some interesting colorwork details.

meanwhile, i’m still over here, knitting and unknitting and knitting again. more on this disaster later:

stuck

so, you may remember a few months ago, i had a great tunic going that was going to knit up “so quickly”! and you haven’t seen it since then. the reason is, i got to the end and decided i was unhappy with it, so i ripped a bunch of it out! now it’s languishing in my on-hold bag waiting for me to get to it.

since i think i will love it so much when it’s done, i figured i’d post about it online to try to motivate myself to complete it. does anyone else need help with a hibernating project? we can motivate each other!

finished!

yesterday, i finished the seaming on my personal briar rose. the knitting was done at the beginning of last week, but seaming reverse stockinette always makes me nervous, so i put it off. i will post a few full length photos later when i get the time to take them during the light of day, but here are a few from yesterday:

it is pretty darn comfortable! that malabrigo twist is really one of my favorite yarns!

thanksgiving sweater

this is turning into something of a thanksgiving tradition for me. last year, over my thanksgiving break (thursday-sunday) i knit my charlemont pullover. i hadn’t heard back about the cardigan pattern yet, and had assumed it wasn’t accepted to knitscene, so i started knitting it for myself as a pullover with the end goal of self-publishing. of course, just after thanksgiving, i got an email asking about it for the fall 2011 issue! so i never posted about it. but the majority of the knitting did occur during those few days!

this year, i decided it would be a good idea both to knit up a sample garment of a recently published pattern, and to indulge my desire for a mini-sweater-dress (sweater-mini-dress?). i’ve finished a sleeve, but of course didn’t read the directions and will have to rip out the cap!. i’m also done with most of the body. i made a few alterations – mostly in length and shaping, but i also wanted to experiment with starting the pattern lower than i decided to in the pattern. i’ll post more about this later when i know how i feel about the changes.

over thanksgiving, i also got a chance to take a photo of an old FO. a few months ago, due to some crossed wires, i accidentally knit up a pi shawl, in madelinetosh prairie, as an unwanted gift. of course, what the recipient (who had no part in the wires crossing) actually wanted was a much easier circle scarf, which took about two hours to throw together when it came down to it, so it wasn’t a huge deal. and then, my younger sister lay claim to the pi shawl, so no knits were orphaned by this story.

unfortunately, i only had my phone to use as a camera, but this will give you an idea of the size! it is just large enough to act as a scarf and keep her warm in her chilly office.

speechless!

i am so excited to make this post! i have to get that out of the way first.

last summer, as i was moving out of my old apartment, i found a box of yarn waiting for me on the doorstop there. it turns out, it was for a design i had submitted to interweave knits! i couldn’t believe that my garment had been selected for the issue. of course, i loved what i had submitted, but i’ve learned that even the best designs sometimes don’t end up in publications. there are many reasons why this happens, and all of them are equally valid, so, as a designer, i try not to take rejections personally.

i love interweave, so i felt like the pressure was on to make a great sweater. i knit this one twice and still wasn’t pleased with it! but everyone who was around me while i was working on this told me that i was being obsessive in a bad way, and it was a few days before it was due anyway, so i cut the proverbial cord and sent it off into the world. by the way, the calendar in the following photo is awesome, i bought it from a fellow smith graduate, website here

it is a much smaller size than i am, and i hoped that my good (and smaller) friend louisa would be able to help me take some photos. but she left for a semester in italy before i could corner her and make her wear it for a while. so, i didn’t really think about it all that much until a few days ago, when i checked out the interweave website and saw this:

i couldn’t believe it! i feel so honored to be on the cover of this issue. the other garments and accessories in it are gorgeous. their other photos of the sweater are beautiful, too.

for more information, check out the interweave knits preview of this issue.

blizzard!

well, i was lucky enough to get through this weekend’s blizzard just fine. we lost power and heat for about 36 hours, but had the good fortune of hot water, a gas stove, and a plethora of wool accessories and sweaters to get us through that time. at risk of sounding out of touch with the issues of the world, i had a very good weekend. it was a good chance to step back from all the technology i’m plugged into almost my entire waking life! i got a good night’s sleep two nights in a row, went for a walk through town, cooked a delicious pot of soup with the about-to-spoil contents of our freezer and refrigerator, and spent a lot of time spinning by candlelight.

i finished these singles, spun from pigeonroof studios’ “mcmurdo sound” colorway of her 50/50 silk/merino blend.

340 yards of deliciousness. more blackout spinning to come.

sweater finished!

well, i finished the sweater!

i stayed up until about 4 am on saturday, but i was able to get everything done in time to have a photoshoot on sunday morning.

it fit my sister perfectly and she loved it! i’m so glad, because i made her come visit me just to take photos of her in a bunch of knitting, so i sent her home with the sweater. she also modeled a few of my other recent designs. the patterns will be coming out in the next few weeks.

the lightweight cousin of my rhinebeck sweater. i have just been so into garter stitch and back detailing lately, i can’t stop!

a circle scarf, in malabrigo twist, that i think i’ll keep wearing 24 hours a day until spring. it is just so cozy!

rhinebeck sweater the second

i loved my rhinebeck sweater so much that i decided i wanted to reknit it in a commercial yarn and publish the pattern. my sister is coming up to visit me this weekend, so i was hoping to get the second one done to take photos of her in it! so, i started on tuesday evening, which was the day that i was finally able to get to webs while it was open and pick up some yarn. i am currently this far along:

now, will it be possible to knit the body of the sweater tonight and tomorrow night? i have no idea, but i hope so.