Obsession

Colinette Ab Fab Antique Rows 1-116
Originally uploaded by AdrienneC

I woke up the first morning of reading period several hours before our alarm was set to go off, compulsively thinking about knitting. When I first saw the preview for the spring Interweave Knits, I was underwhelmed by the Drawstring Raglan. Something about the color striping bothered me, but I just decided the pattern wasn't for me. Then the gallery went up at Knitting Daily, and I realized it was the colors that were driving me crazy; the dark charcoal color seemed to fade into the purple stripe it surrounds, which makes a huge dark block. I would never knit something like that.

Overnight I must have dreamed about the drawstring raglan, because I certainly wasn't thinking about horticulture and the growing habit of green beans. The first thought that came to me when I woke up was the fact that I still have linen yarn left from making facecloths a while ago. The colors would be perfect.

It's all over. I don't have the rest of the yarn yet, but I've placed an order for two balls of Cotlin from Knitpicks, and they'll be auditioning shortly. I've decided to make the bottom half of the sweater be a combination of textures, much like Adrienne's blanket pictured above. I first saw the Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Blanket when we visited Marylen, and it was the first time I really understood why you would use such a large group of radically different yarns on the same project. It's beautiful! (Fairy Godmother moment number three) Hopefully the final sweater will be slightly more sedate, as I think there could be a strong tendency towards blanket-qualities if I go too nuts with the color and texture mixing. I still have about $30 left on a gift certificate to Webs, and so I'm currently considering all of their linens. I'm particularly drawn to Elsebeth Lavold's new yarn called Bamboucle, and even though I haven't seen it yet in person I'm pretty sure that at least one stripe will make it into the final garment.

Many thanks to Adrienne of Yarn for Brains for allowing me to use her picture. Her Ravelry page for this blanket is here, and she's blogged about this photo here. There are a lot of other gorgeous Ab Fab blankets on Ravelry, I recommend taking a look around.

Jordan's Whale

Jordan's Whale
Originally uploaded by runawaypenguin

How cute is this whale? You have no idea how excited I am about knitting this chart. I've been kicking around the idea of a blue sweater with an orange whale since my very first attempt at colorwork (it was this tiny scrap). The orange is an aggressive color, so I've inserted a purple "W" to help bridge the gap between the deep blue and the bright orange. I haven't brought this in to Webs yet, so I'm not sure if the shade will be right, but if it seems off I think I'll go for either a green or a light blue.

I've solicited through Ravelry and found a knitter willing to send me a scrap to use for the eye, which is fantastic because buying an entire ball of yarn for that single stitch would be absolutely ridiculous.

I've already knit the back of the sweater up past the bottom of the sleeve join, and I'm a little concerned that it will be gigantic when it's finished. I'm making the 30" circumference size, and Jordan is only turning two, but he's on the tall side. The family lives in a warm climate so he'll have quite a while before he needs a sweater again. Besides, 3 year olds can wear whales, right?

Chart for Claudia

Chart for Claudia
Originally uploaded by runawaypenguin

I have found my next hat pattern. It is the perfect knit-anytime pattern. With a short cabled section along the bottom it has visual interest, and with a long section of 2x2 ribbing I'm fairly confident I can work on it in low light. It has a growing gallery of finished objects on Ravelry and it comes in a free pdf. Truly the only thing this pattern was lacking was a chart. Until now! I found this (extremely free) charting software online which took all of 20 seconds to figure out, and now I have my very own Claudia chart. And so, it would seem, do you. The quick diagram I made doesn't go all the way around the hat (clearly), nor does it indicate where you have to do funny stuff at the end of the row like move the marker around, so the original instructions are still very necessary. I apologize for the extreme smallness of the image; if you're interested in working from it and would like a larger copy than the view you get from Flickr just leave a comment and I can try to figure something out.

Pattern here: http://www.exartstudent.net/
Ravelry gallery here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/claudia-4/people?page=1
Extremely cool free charting software by Jacquie here: http://jacquie.typepad.com/Charts/knitChart.htm