Emily Katt Knitting

LiveJournal Quilt Swap

I finished my blocks for the LiveJournal quilting community block swap. I did an Amish Star, which I thought was easy enough to get the blocks done, but still visually interesting. The swap theme was brights with black accents, and my color was orange.

Closeup of a single block

All the blocks laid out together

I can't wait to see what everyone else has done! I do like the secondary diamonds formed by laying these blocks out next to one another - it's definitely a block I would consider using again.

Cotton Candy

The sweater, she is done. I finished knitting last Saturday, seamed it up while I was in Bend, and wore it on Wednesday. It's a comfy, slightly oversized sweater. I will take a photo soon, I promise.

Right now I'm working on a Clapotis for a friend's birthday, immediately to be followed by a smaller version of Cozy for another friend's birthday. Then... I'm not sure. I have some Tahki Chat cotton tape yarn that I've been sitting on waiting for a project for a while. There's a tie front tank in the Spring VK that might be suitable for that. Otherwise, I don't really have much summer knitting lined up. Hopefully something in the Summer IK will appeal to me. The Spring issue (which I JUST got due to moving and not updating my address) didn't appeal to me as much. There are a couple of things I might consider, but I'll wait until I see the Summer issue in person to pick my next project. I might start Rogue, since it's still rainy and cold here, so knitting wool isn't a problem yet and then I could get a head start for this fall/winter. I also need to knit on Aaron's sweater, too. I'd like to get to where I split for the sleeves by the time it gets too hot to knit wool this summer. I want him to have it for our wedding in Boulder.

Homestretch

Front and back are both done. Sleeves are started (maybe 5 inches) - I'm knitting them at the same time. I should be able to finish them this afternoon (knock on wood). Then I can block tonight and seam this weekend. And wear the sweater next week!

I also need to finish my prototype pants and possibly make a real pair. Once I get the prototype done, I should be able to produce a real pair in a few hours. And then I can become a pants factory! I need to buy fabric for a quilt block exchange that I'm participating in anyway, so a trip to JoAnn's is definitely in the cards for this weekend.

Yet more Te Rosada

I think I am going to start calling this sweater Cotton Candy, since that's the name of the colorway (and the pattern sweater is named after the original colorway). Te Rosada just doens't make much sense in the pink.

And speaking of which, I am almost done with the front:

Here is a closeup of the stitch pattern (unblocked):

I also started a pair of test pants today - I'm working with a printed pattern to adapt the perfect pants. I just sewed the waistband in upside down, though, so I'm putting them away until tomorrow. Yeesh.

Bonus: very cute photo of Aaron and Ivy snoozing on the couch.

Hooray

Back of Te Rosada is done. Starting front tomorrow! Photos to come.

RIP Te Rosada

I ripped out Te Rosada. I was having yarn quantity issues and then I found a STUPID mistake so I'm ripping and knitting a size smaller.

The good news is that if I actually sit down and start over, this sweater should really only take like 2 weeks to knit. I just need to give it more than 15 minutes at a pop!

Rogue

Pattern: The Girl From Auntie
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool in Natural (8015)

Bridesmaid Scarf

We're basing our wedding colors around the existing decor in our venue. The questions is, what shade of Koigu goes best with these chairs?

Te Rosada Progress and Wedding Swatch

I made disgustingly little progress on Te Rosada when I was in Bend last week. The upside to that is it's because I had plans almost every night rather than sitting around glumly by myself. The downside is that this sweater should NOT be taking this long to knit. My knitting attention span is about 2 minutes lately. Anyway, I still have about 6 more inches to knit on the back. And then the front and the sleeves. Oy.

The other reason I haven't spent as much time knitting Te Rosada is that I've been charting and swatching for the wedding sweater. The pattern is WRITTEN OUT (I've never bought a Jaeger book before, so I'm guessing this is par for the course, but what the hey?!) And not only is it WRITTEN OUT, it is WRITTEN OUT WITH THREE ERRORS. One of the errors was easy to figure out once I had it charted, and the other errors were the same error on different rows. Those took my longer (and required some online help), but I got them figured out. And then I swatched the pattern. And found TWENTY-EIGHT MORE ERRORS. Literally. The pattern is not centered correctly, which means there is another mistake on every row. The same mistake, granted, but still. And actually, it's twice on some rows, since the repeat is a diamond pattern so some rows have half of two adjacent repeats.

I think I'm going to fix the mistake on my chart (which is a godsend) and then swatch two repeats, to make sure that they line up correctly, etc.

I don't regret picking this pattern, though, because it's beautiful. And can I say that I want to make out with the Koigu? Check out my irregularly blocked swatch:

Must soldier on!

Since I haven't been knitting much this week (just a few rows of Te Rosada here and there), I really need to get on it. I'm going to get back to Aaron's sweater for the weekend. Then I'm going to wind the rest of the Te Rosada yarn and take that with me to Bend next week. I should be able to finish it, since I'll be languishing at the rented apartment thing that has no cable (I'm bringing my antenna this time and hoping I can at least get PBS). Then I will come back and finish Aaron's sweater. After that, I have a couple of May birthday gifts that I'd like to do, the wedding sweater (which I will be swatching and measuring obsessively to make sure it turns out perfectly), and I ordered yarn (Cascade Ecological Wool, which I've been dying to use) and the pattern for Rogue, which I've always liked. I'm planning to do the original pullover, minus the pockets (I've never liked those kangaroo pocket things). Since everyone I love will (hopefully) be at the wedding in December, I'd love to come armed with a lot of hand knits for myself to show off. I really only have one nice thing that I've ever done for myself, and it's a SCARF!! (Oh, and a wrap, but it's too small and I think I'm going to frog it.) I love knitting for other people, but it's time to be a bit selfish.

In other news, I think everyone's getting lap quilts for Christmas this year. More expensive than knitting in a lot of cases (since I mostly knit accessories for gifts that don't require a lot of yarn), but so much faster (and you get something big out of it!)

I just need to give the house a quick cleaning and then I'm knitting for the rest of the evening.

Oh! Wedding Sweater

I completely forgot to mention that I've picked pattern and yarn for my wedding sweater (to be worn with a ball skirt).

I will be making Rosita from Jaeger 35 (which is winging it's way from England as I write this), but substituting Koigu for the 4-ply mercerized cotton. I'm still shopping around for the yarn, since not a lot of places seem to carry the solids, but I will probably order here before too long.

Rosita:

Koigu:

And...... I'm Back

I have been knitting, just not posting about it. Last week I was in Bend and Portland for work and I've been sort of vegging this week since I have to go back to Bend again on Monday.

Anyway!

I haven't worked on Aaron's sweater at all. The yarn is so nice when it's knitted and washed, but it's a bit rough on the hands to knit with since it has next to no spring. Before I went to Bend, I made a quick French Market Bag out of the koolaid yarn.

It needs to be wet and blocked again, since it got a bit smooshed in the car. It's very cute and cheerful, though, and the wide, shallow bag is good for storing a couple of knitting projects.

Because I didn't want to tote the huge cone of yarn for Aaron's sweater all over the state, I grabbed a ball of the Sheep's Gift that I have for Te Rosada and started that sweater. I'm hoping it's not too big - I made a size larger than I usually would, since I think the lace looks better a bit relaxed and not super open. I'm pretty sure I'll have some leeway during blocking, so I'll probably be okay. Aaron said that it looks like cotton candy, which happens to be the name of the colorway! It's knitting up better than I expected - the yarn seemed to have a lot of white in it in the skein, but it's nicely distributed in the sweater. I haven't done more than a couple of rows in the past few days, but it knits up very quickly when I actually work on it. I'm about halfway through the back.

I also finished the last 6 blocks for the quilt I was working on last night, figured out how to use the free motion quilting foot on my machine and quilted some of the baby quilt I'm working on (practice project, and I'll probably give it to Aaron's little nephew since he's the only baby I know about), and experimented with some quilt blocks for the online block exchange that I'm participating in. Still undecided as to what pattern to use. I need to make 15 12.5" blocks, all the same with orange and the main color and black to complement (we're doing brights and assigned various colors so we'd have a good mix).

Partial Quilt Top

Well, the class today was really good. I picked a really fast project, so I got 3/4 of the blocks done in class (which only leaves one "stack" of 6 blocks left to make). I laid it out on the floor to get an idea of what it's going to look like, and I think it's going to look pretty good.

Quilt Fabrics

I bought the fabrics for my quilt. I'm doing a yellow/red/orange color scheme, using the Rothko prints in my kitchen as inspiration.

Quilt Project

I've added a Quilting category, since I'm taking a class tomorrow and expect to be spending more time working on quilting in the near future. The class I'm taking is called "Crazy Rays/Stack the Deck" - I saw a quilt top that I really liked at the quilt store (scroll down to the Crazy Rays quilt) and Aaron got me a gift certificate for Christmas to take the class. Unfortunately (or maybe not), the pattern is really popular and the store couldn't guarantee that they'd get their order in by tomorrow. So, I opted to buy one of the Stack the Deck books (Stack a New Deck to be precise) and make one of those quilts instead. Then I could take the class, learn the technique, and make the Crazy Rays quilt later on. I'm making a quilt called Cottage Quarters, and while it isn't my favorite pattern in the book, it will make a nice small quilt for curling up on the sofa and requires fewer colors than a lot of the other quilts (and I'm pressed for time, so it's going to be way easier if I can just follow the directions as written). There are a couple of other patterns that look a bit more challenging or time consuming that I'd like to try down the road.

I'll be interested to see how much I spend on materials, so that I can see how feasible making quilts for Christmas gifts this year will be.

I need to head over to the fabric store to buy the fabric (I have a 10% off coupon to the quilting store that comes with the class, but I think JoAnn's is still going to be less expensive and I'm not ready to spend a lot on a quilt yet).