some finishing

As spring springs, I’ve been working on getting some half- and mostly-finished projects off my needles and into either the “finished” pile or the “frogged” pile. This pair of socks obviously falls into the former. I don’t know how long I’ve been working on them, since I don’t think I started a Ravelry entry when I cast on, but I remember knitting on them sometime last July, so. It’s been a while.

(They were also my go-to portable knitting when I went to New York, wayyyy back in August, which is when I finished the first sock of the pair.)

The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock, on 2.75mm needles, and I believe the colourway is Jingle Bell Rock. I have not had great luck with STR colourways – I don’t know if it’s the yarn or the size of my feet or a combination of both. I have never been good at the “work out how many stitches to cast on to make this yarn not pool” game, so I’ve mostly come to terms with pooling in my variegated socks, but I tend to get some extra aggressive pooling with this particular yarn. These socks are clearly no exception. I kind of like it, though? They’re very cheery and festive, in an eye-searing sort of way.

The stitch pattern is Gentleman’s Fancy Socks, from Knitting Vintage Socks, which is one of my favourites. It’s a dead easy pattern to memorize, and the almost-mindless seven-row repeat is a nice incentive to keep knitting just a few more rounds whenever I pick them up.

better late than never

While I’m playing catchup and posting a bit more frequently, I thought it might be a good time to mention another sweater that I finished quite a while ago and forgot about blogging. I started my Idlewood last year – Ravelry tells me last November – and knit it up in shockingly short order. I posted a few progress photos, as some of you may recall. But it was winter, and the light wasn’t great, so I kept telling myself I’d take pictures of the finished sweater later.

“Later” apparently meant sometime in April – I took these pictures last week, before leaving for work.

I love this sweater an unreasonable amount. It is one of the few handknits I’ve worn to work multiple times, and one of the few pullovers I’ve been able to wear indoors without overheating. It’s warm and cozy, but incredibly practical, and works very well with my body type. After seeing how often I wear this one, I sort of want to make a few more in different colours – I’d love a grey version, and maybe a navy or dark purple one.

Plus, knitting it with Quince & Co Osprey made it a pretty inexpensive sweater – this only took 5 skeins in my size – and the yarn is holding up really nicely with wearing. This picture was taken after I’d worn it to work, multiple times, and washed it once. It doesn’t quite look new, but I haven’t had any problems with pilling or parts looking “worn” yet.

In conclusion: this was a pretty good sweater decision, and I’m glad I made it.

finished: coraline

I was planning to talk about this project a lot sooner, but it kind of got away from me, and now it’s done.

This is the sweater I started during my trip to Vancouver – I bought the yarn at Baaad Anna’s, and cast on that night. It moved really quickly. Like, really quickly, despite the fact that it’s knit on 3.25mm needles, which makes it the finest-gauge sweater I’ve ever knit. I think a lot of it had to do with the simple, straightforward pattern – there’s something about a hundred zillion million miles of stockinette that delights and amuses me, and I really took to this project.

This is Coraline (Rav), from Ysolda Teague, which is one of Those Patterns that everyone and their sister has already knit. To be honest, I passed it over more than once, because I originally thought that the swingy look in the pattern photos was from actually decreasing the fronts, rather than letting the stockinette curl naturally. I thought the way the sweater was worn in the photos would be unflattering on my body, and didn’t really want to go through the mental effort of doing math to modify it into something that suited me better.

But on my vacation, I was browsing Ravelry, looking for a lighter-weight sweater to knit going into spring, and I took a closer look at the pattern description. This sweater is knit straight from the bottom up! The fronts touch on their own! Knit with no ease, it is, in fact, exactly the sweater I was looking for, and the fit is fantastic. The pattern didn’t need to be changed one bit.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I modified two minor things: I knit the bottoms of the sleeves to match the body, because I have a secret passion for turned-over hems, and I added a zipper. Really, that’s all I needed to do.

The yarn is Mirasol Nuna, which is a merino/bamboo/silk blend, and it’s wonderfully drapey and warm.