sweaters – Page 7 – Yarn, Books & Roses

MacKenzie Speaks: Sweater Skeleton Update

Hi. I’m MacKenzie,

The Mother of Cats has been working really hard on her sweater for the Ravellenics competition. I’ve been helping her all week. She is upset about all the cat hair in the sweater: totally ungrateful!!

It has been almost a whole week of knitting on the sweater. She is mostly cheerful, but there have been a few incidents where she got snappy about me chomping yarn and chasing the needles. It is so hard to support her when she gets like this, but Yellow Boy and I continue to contribute as much as we can. Really, we don’t need all of our fur; happy to share.

Cat and knitting. — The sweater is now so big that is covers me while I’m sitting in her lap.

Last night towards the end of the ice skating event she spread out the sweater to admire her work and started making sad noises. Really sad noises. Yellow Boy came running to see what was wrong and if she was giving away food.

She took the sweater off the needles and did a lot of ripping. RIPPING! WOOHOO!!! I just love ripping! Lots of yarn flying. The ball got away from her and I chased it across the floor. The issue seemed to be about the pockets being on the BACK of the sweater instead of the front, but I have to tell you it was major cat party time. Yay! We cats even chased each other around the house afterwards and Yellow Boy’s fur was just flying everywhere!

Picking up stitches with cat supervision. — Once the party was over I helped her pick up her stitches again. Ugh. BORING… I closely supervised so she wouldn’t make any more mistakes.

Finally she got all the stitches back into order, moved her markers and got ready to start knitting again. This time the pockets will be on the front of the sweater where they belong.

But instead of doing that she packed it all up, got an ice cream bar and went to bed. Seriously? Hello… I think we should get back to work here!

Nope. She stayed in bed. The sweater is still packed up but she plans to get back to work tonight when the Olympics start. Downhill racing. Ice Skating. Skeleton. We will knit then.

Right now I need some cookies!!

I’m such a good boy.

>^..^<

Note from the Mother of Cats: The sweater is Cushman by Isabell Kraemer. My Ravelry notes are here.

Ravellenics Update: Sweater Skeleton Start

I have to be honest here, I was afraid to commit to the Ravellenics. Knitting under a deadline is stressful. Making a sweater can be stressful. Joining a team is stressful. I mean, why should I put myself into the position of committing to something when my overarching goal in life is to maintain a stress-free bubble for myself within the chaos of life. I just emerged from the mother of all flares; best to stay low key.

Yarn — Look at this great Malabrigo Rios. It has been making a ruckus since before Christmas demanding that I make it into a sweater. With pockets. Who am I to argue with a great yarn?

Well, some of you guys really encouraged me to give it a go. Huge shout out to muddlingthroughlifesite and nothingbutknit2 who convinced me to go poke around to see what was going on with Ravellenics. Oh, my goodness. This looks both overwhelming and horribly exciting at the same time. So much information. So many groups and events. SO MUCH FUN!!! There is an event called Sweater Skeleton. Head first! Yay!! You know that I needed to jump into this action. I just needed to find a group and a team.

Hello Chronic Bitches group. You were just what I needed. Who knew there was a group on Ravelry for people with chronic medical conditions to share and support each other? I am now a Chronic Bitch knitting as a member of their team. I have to be honest here… Village Hopelessly Overcommitted was a pretty good fit, too. A support group for people who just keep on buying new needles and casting on while hunting for sources of chocolate to munch on. See… a great fit for me. Still, since I was so worried about staying flare free for the whole 15 days of Ravellenics, I went with Chronic Bitches.

Sweater — I got my yarn wound and all kitted up so I could cast on and begin knitting as soon as the event opened, which was at the start of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Oops. That’s 4am my time. Okay, knitting started a little later than that on Friday. This sweater is Cushman by Isabell Kraemer.

I binge watched the Olympics and knitted all weekend. Yesterday I reached the point where the sleeves are put onto holders and I am now racing down the body of the sweater.

Sweater in progress. — The colorway of this yarn is “Cirrus Grey”, and the knitted fabric does look a little like a rain cloud. I’m really loving the look of this.

So, I am just rocking along at this point. My gauge is spot on, and I haven’t run into any issues with the yarn or the pattern. It was cold and snowy all weekend, so staying in to knit was perfect. My disease is behaving itself and even the cats are cooperating.

Yesterday I took a little break to go shop the stash to put together the yarn for a couple of new projects. “What the Fade” shawls, to be exact. Crazy. I’m dreaming of new shawls while knitting along on this sweater under a deadline. I yearn to cast on some cute socks. My arms want Valentine’s Day arm warmers.

I may be a Chronic Bitch, but I so belong in Village Hopelessly Overcommitted!!

I’m off to find some chocolate…

Starting the Year Right: Finished Objects Already

So, last year didn’t end quite as well as I had hoped. I was in a flare of my autoimmune diseases (systemic sclerosis and Sjogren’s Syndrome), drowning in fatigue and befuddled with brain fog. Ugh. Not the best for knitting or anything else come to think of it. Christmas shopping was a challenge, Christmas cooking didn’t happen (expect for a cheesecake!), and I took almost a month to do one knitting projects (ahem… the Turkish Hell Socks).

This, however, is a new year. As in, my energy is coming back, I rediscovered my special cache of “yarns I love beyond all reason” (seriously, that is the label that I put on the storage bin…), and I started casting on with abandon. I have had these projects waiting to go for weeks and weeks, my needles were empty, and… knitting happened!!

Hat — I made myself a cute, cute, cute winter hat. This is the Copycat C.C. Beanie. My project notes on Ravelry are here. I have some more of this yarn and am thinking about how to make fingerless mitts with the same pattern.

My niece in Virginia contacted me right at the end of the year to ask if I could make her some fingerless mitts and a pair of the ones with dragon scales for her to gift to her own niece. Wow. Time flies. This is a sort-of grandniece who is now an adult. How did I get here so quickly? Anyway, you know I bought the supplies the weekend before New Years and here are the finished mitts.

DragonPaw Mitts — Pretty darn spectacular, don’t you think? These are actually warmer than you would think, as there is a layer of wool between the aluminum scales and the wearer. I mailed them off to Virginia yesterday. My Ravelry notes are here.

I also have two pairs of socks and a couple of shawls on the needles. Crazy, right. The socks are for simple knitting while doing errands, and the shawls are for binge television watching and long evening knitting. I don’t want to bore you with all the pictures of knitting bits on needles, but this Marfa shawl is totally worth a picture.

Shawl on the needles. — This triangular Marfa shawl is garter stitch with strips of two color brioche. After a couple of false starts (and some frogging) I am rocking the brioche and really loving the way this looks. My Ravelry page for this project is here.

I have to admit, I have already started digging in the stash to put together the yarns for another of these brioche shawls. I need to seriously cruise Ravelry to see what else is there. Brioche love. Who knew?

Finally, I have had a sweater all knitted up and stored in a plastic bin waiting to get finished. For weeks. Kind of embarrassing as this sweater was knit from the neck down and needed very little finishing. In my defense, I was hunting for the perfect buttons. Feeling pretty good about myself after I completed the hat I took it out one afternoon and finished it up just in time for a weekend snow storm.

Buttons being sew onto the sweater. — These simple wooded buttons aren’t all that special, but they were certainly hard to find. I needed them to be exactly the right size with two holes big enough for the yarn.

You know what they say, start out as you mean to go. I’m feeling pretty good now, I’m catching up on chores, and the knitting is just jumping off of my needles. Way to go, 2018.

We’re having snow here tomorrow. I’m ready, winter. Bring it on!

Houston, the Magic has landed!

I know, I know. You have been wondering whatever happened to me. I have been knitting and knitting on the Marled Magic Sweater (by Stephen West), and it just seemed that it would be boring to put up even more pictures of my cat MacKenzie sleeping on ANOTHER chunk of knitted fabric (even if it was mohair fabulousness…).

Cat with knitting. — But this cat isn’t MacKenzie, and besides, he is awake. This is my extremely elusive cat BobMorgan, who I call Yellow Boy in MacKenzie’s posts because, well, he is somewhat lacking in courage. My DIL only knows what he looks like because I sent her a picture. He wails if anything strange (like my sister and I replacing a window screen) happens. He is afraid of the camera, so a shot like this is rare. He is also the source of most of the cat hair in the pictures that I take.

I eventually stopped posting to the blog and just kept on knitting. And knitting. Then I finished the knitting and I was so exhausted by the whole experience that I didn’t get the ends woven in for another week.

I-cord bind off. — I think what did me in was the i-cord bind off, which seemed to go on forever. It did make a really nice finished edge, however, so it was worth the time.

Thursday I took the sweater back out and finished it. It is done. It is beautiful. It is very, very warm. Did I mention that the temperature is in the 80’s outside? I sadly packed the Magic away to wait for colder days and some snow.

Don’t you want to see it?

Blocking the sweater. — Blocking was an issue. I didn’t want to stretch the sweater, which would make it longer, so I finally just laid it out on a towel, misted it with a spray bottle, and patted it into shape.

Finished Marled Magic. — Here it is! This sweater is lofty because of all the mohair I used, and is the perfect sweater to wrap up in for cold weather knitting and outings. Oh, did you notice the loose ends? They are all woven in and behaving themselves now.

Side view. — Check out the brioche on the arm (wine colored) the other stitches in this masterpiece were seed stitch, garter, and a simple lace.

Back — The black and grey panels in the back happened to be the yarns with cashmere in them too. Oh, my goodness. Wearing this baby feels wonderful!

Not the best pictures, but pretty good for selfies, don’t you think?

I used so many yarns to make this I finally just listed them the best I could in the notes part of my Ravelry entry. If you are interested, here is the link to my project page.

I just checked the weather report… it is going to snow next Thursday! I know what I’ll be wearing while I’m knitting that day!

Have a good weekend everyone.