FO: Puff-Sleeved Cardigan

Presenting the puff-sleeved cardigan:

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It's actually been finished for awhile, but I needed to block it and get buttons. I ended up ordering the buttons from earthenware studios and had to wait for them to make them and ship them. I blocked it and sewed the buttons on a couple of days after I got back from the beach.

All in all, I really like the way it turned out. It's kind of a departure from my usual style in color and shape, so I'm not sure how much wear I'll get out of it, but I love it anyway. I'm considering making a long-sleeved version for a winter jacket.

It was really fun to knit, as well. I've been in kind of a funk lately, with plenty of The Weirdness, and I'm finding myself more drawn to plain stockinette and ribbing than crazy textures and cables, so most of it was good mindless knitting. I also learned a lot about shaping, which was cool. What's especially great about this peice are the details. I really like the collar and buttons! And the puffed sleeves! And the peplum!

See what I mean? Ok, less rambling and more gory knitting details.
Yarn - about 7 skeins of Vermont Organic Fiber Co. O-Wool Balance (50% organic wool, 50% organic cotton, 130 yards) in Amethyst. This is really nice yarn with a lovely tweedy texture. I also like that it's half cotton, which makes a short-sleeved cardigan much more wearable than an all-wool one.
Needles - 29" Inox size 6 circulars. The pattern calls for smaller needles too, but I ended up not needing them.
Pattern - Puff-Sleeved Feminine Cardigan from Fitted Knits. I really like this pattern (again, all the little details!) and it's really what made me buy the book. The rest of the book is awesome too, and I've already cast on for a second project from it. But, as with any pattern, there were modifications:

• The biggest mod I made was reworking the length of the garment, because I'm really short, and really short people tend to have petite wee little torsos. I'll cover that in three sections:
• shoulder to bust: I separated the sleeves a bit sooner than the pattern and then added some extra increases along the sides to accommodate my boobs. I don't know about the rest of you, but the widest part of my bust isn't right up under my armpits. why are patterns always written like that?
• bust to waist: More than just being petite, I'm ridiculously short-waisted. I do have one, though, so I needed to cram a more waist shaping into a smaller space than called for in the pattern. I started them just under the bustline and continued right to the peplum, even though the pattern calls for you to knit an inch or so straight.

• Waist to hip: The hip increases in the peplum are made with the lace insets, which is really clever. I scoped out some of the finished cardigans on other knitblogs and saw that the peplum really flares out. Now, I'm more top-heavy than pear-shaped, and don't really need that much hip room, so I only worked 2 repeats of the lace pattern instead of the 6 or so called for in the pattern. I placed the lace right on the sides of the cardigan.
• I only worked one band of reverse stockinette on the sleeves, peplum, and hem. A big part of omitting the second reverse stockinette band had to do with the shortness of my torso.
• I knitted on the button bands as I went and made a 1-row 2-stitch-wide buttonhole every 15 rows. I did this so I wouldn't have to pick them up later and change ot smaller needles, because I am lazy.

I think that about covers it.

Updates

Sorry for the absence of late, the last week has been kinda weird. Despite the non-blogging weirdness, I do have some recent developments to report!

I: I'm a joiner

Well, I joined the Fitted Knits-Along. I'm making a lot of progress on the puff-sleeved cardigan, and you can see it here.

II: Sockpal Yarn!

After much deliberation, I orderd the yarn for my sockapalooza socks online last week, and it came in yesterday!




It's Yarn Botanika merino/tencel in the colorway bluebells. My pal really didn't give me much to go on in terms of pattern or colors, so I scoped out her blog and saw she tended to gravitate towards pale greens and sky blues. I think this yarn fits the bill. Now, I have to figure out what pattern to use.

III: Cat update



The fat one's still fat, and has taken to sleeping in strange locations of late. Which is really cute.

The return of knitting content

Ok, as promised, here's some actual knitting content!

The Exchequered scarf is clicking along at a decent pace. I'm now to the checkered midsection, and I'm planning to keep chugging along until I'm out of yarn and then graft it to the other end section. Since it's a ridiculously easy pattern now that the check is established, and since I kind of totally hate knitting scarves (the length! The utter lack of any variety! Gah!), I've decided it will be my travel knitting. There's no real rush for a squishy double-knit scarf now that the temperatures in the mid-80s anyway, right?

Since the scarf is on the backburner, I started a couple of new projects. First, I'm working on a pair of pomatomus socks. I started them last week when I was sick and have since already completed the first sock!

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I've been wanting to make them for awhile, and the pattern has not disappointed me so far. I also decided to use this as an oppurtunity to further my appreciation fro toe-up sock construction. I wanted to be able to use the entire skein for once, and not get left with a whole lot of yarn at the end. Man, this puppy turned out tall! Also, the cats gave their stamp of approval when they carried it off in the middle of it's inaugural photoshoot.

I also started the puff-sleeved cardigan from Fitted Knits. I bought the book originally for this design, because it's just so damn cute. I'm using the organic wool/cotton yarn I got awhile ago that I originally planned to make into a Ribena-inspired vest. I swatched and cast on for the vest no less than 3 times, and it just wasn't working. It seems to have taken quite nicely to the cardigan though.


I'm about 1/3 of the way through the raglan increases. I ended up reworking the pattern a bit because my gauge was larger than the pattern called for. Which was soooo easy! Not only is it knit top-down in one peice, which automatically makes it customizable, but the author included a section in the book on how to resize garments....and used this sweater as an example! Funnily enough, I'm more or less following the directions for the 36" size, even though the finished product will boast a bust measurement of 43".

On a somewhat unrelated note, look at those stitch markers! I love them. Jon's mom got them for me when she was up in the Upper Peninsula. Heather, if you're reading this, I'm also grateful for the saffron bread you left here when you passed through last. It did not last long.

In really exciting knitting news, I now have knitting buddies who don't live hundreds of miles away! I went to brunch with a wonderfully sane and funny person in my program (which, I'll have you know, is quite a feat in my cohort. Some of them are just nuts.), a friend of hers, and her sister. It was lovely and refreshing. On the way home I cut through the market and picked up this geranium.


It's a present for Jon. Our friend Van has several houseplants and each time we've visited Jon's mentioned wanting to get some for our apartment. I have no knowledge of plants and asked the woman selling them what would be best for an apartment and she suggested this. Jon was thrilled and has dubbed it Francis. Long live Francis!

PS - We've already established that I have a deep, abiding love of reality TV. Its not surprising, then, that I have become obsessed with So You Think Can Dance? It's got everything you could really want: acrobatic moves that make someone getting hurt a real possibility, attractive young people in ridiculous outfits, and a judge that is quite probably drunker than Paula Abdul. Seriously, Mary Murphy is just insane! Lots of weird screaming and swaying. I feel bad for the judges sitting on either side of her as she must smell like a barrel of paint thinner.