I couldn't resist posting today, especially since I didn't want to wait another four years at the chance of a 2/29 post. unfortunately, my knitting mojo has left the room and I haven't really touched 28thirty till earlier today. I've been busy doing and worrying about other things to care about the big, gaping hole I have at the sleeve or that I'm this close to being done with the body. so really, all I have for you today are some random knits I've finished in the last few months that I just never bothered to blog. the unbloggables if you wish. really this is going to turn out to be the post you get sick of the top of my head.
hat and stole.jpg

I knit this hat back in december after finishing everything else on the needles and noticing I didn't really own any cool hats. this used up only half a hank of the yak (or shambala as apparently it's known as now) and knit up in a couple of hours. I loved it right away, except I wore it during one of those wintry mix/ ice storms and the hat ended up stretching out a bit. every time I put it on now it just feels like it wants to fall off. I'll probably knit it again with a different cast on number or with smaller needles.

as an aside, the scarf in the photo is amy's stolen moment wrap. I haven't had a chance to take a proper photo of it only because I've been wearing it all the time. I didn't even bother to block it. I used about three hanks of pear tree merino 12 ply in natural and 8mm needles.

pattern: koolhaas
yarn: shokay pure yak down in dusty wind
needles. 4mm and 5mm, 16"
mod: knit "man's" version with one less repeat

I finally made a hat for the husband that he approves of! as much as I love the end result of this hat though, I hated knitting it. all those crossed stitches killed my wrist and I never got the flow of the pattern till the very end. unlike most of you, this will be the one and only version of this hat I make.

pattern: stella's hat
yarn: malabrigo merino worsted in natural
needles: 5mm, 16"

I loooove this hat! it knit up super quick and it's just a quirky enough for people to know it wasn't store bought. I'll probably knit this again, but in a yarn other than malabrigo. I can pretty much say, I'm sick of single ply yarns and their ugly pilling ways. it's not bad at all on this hat, but let's just say there's a cardigan that looks pretty worn already in my drawer.

Posted by bitter purl at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

I should be posting about the finished garter st baby sweater I mentioned before. actually, I should have finished the garter st baby sweater I mentioned before. instead of doing the little seaming I have left, I've totally ignored the vintage cardi for 28thirty. carrie's right, there is something about all those purl ridges that is hypnotizing. I wish she would hurry up and post her finished sweater (hint!hint!) so I can finally see what it looks like. in the meantime, I'll just have to carry on with mine.

I've separated the sleeves and have knit a few inches on the body and I'm now in that weird part of a project where I have to decide on the length. do I follow the pattern or mess around and try it on a bunch of times? I haven't decided yet since this cardigan knits up so quickly. is it weird that 4spi is starting to feel really chunky? the knitting itself has been pretty uneventful, except for when I got to the first buttonhole. I had to email carrie to make sure I wasn't crazy. in the pattern photos, the buttonhole band is on the right but as written its on the left. I kept staring at the photos, then at my knitting thinking I wasn't reversing something right in my brain. finally, after checking my coats and tom's shirts, I talked myself into some semblance of sanity. the buttonholes 'should' be on the right, so there. then I noticed another small prob, the buttonhole is the double yo but there's only one decrease written in. easy enough to spot, but still the buttonhole should be k1, ssk, double yo, k2tog, k1. on the next row k1 p1 when you get to the double yo.

now I have a question for you. this is something that's irked me for a while and no one has ever been able to give me a proper answer. in top down raglans, when it comes time to work on the sleeves, if you simply join it in the round you are left with a gap and some loose stitches (as seen above). how do you keep this from happening or how do you hide the gap? I think it's even worse when you knit a raglan bottom up, since you have gaps on both sides of the grafted underarm stitches. thoughts?

Posted by bitter purl at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

have you ever had the spark just come back for something? was that feeling amazing or what?
for a while there I wasn't doing much knitting or blogging. I would still read blogs here and there, but more as a lurker and less as a commenter. lately though, I can't seem to stop knitting. maybe I just needed a break to remember what it felt like, let that void get a little too wide for comfort. or maybe I just needed to step away from the blog for a while and just let the crafting go its course.

I've been knitting a lot of little things, so the instant gratification high is helping me along. a couple of days ago I started yet another tiny project for mazie, the vintage baby cardigan from shibuiknits. I had some extra sock yarn that I had dyed ages ago and I wasn't sure what to do with. I figured this would be the perfect way to use it up.

it's mindless garter, but something about it feels so good. isn't that a sign that I just want to knit? I've been plugging away at it since monday night and all I have left now is the left front/sleeve and a little bit of seaming. for some reason I thought it would have gone faster than that. the suggested needles are 3.25mm but I had to go down to 2.5mm and I'm still not getting gauge. I've been following the newborn size st counts, but aiming for the 6mo measurements. I really, really don't want to knit another project on 2.5mm unless it is a sock. maybe that's why I cheated a little.

just a wee bit really. carrie mentioned starting a 28thirty and something about it just stuck in my mind. it wasn't exactly love at first sight, it took a couple of weeks for me to finally break down and buy it. I'm guessing it's the collar that slowly creeped into my subconscious. that, or I just want to dress like carrie. I only knit the first six rows, just to get a little variety, and then I hid it away so I can finish mazie's sweater.

that's the knitting, but what about the blogging? I'm still working on that, but baby steps right?

I'm woefully behind on passing this along. it's just so hard to pick a couple of blogs when there are so many that I read. i love teyani, leah, and tiennie, but for the list I decide to grab a few oldies and some new-to-me ones from my bloglines and share them with you here. how apropos to do it on valentine's. almost reminds me of elementary school when you bring cards for everyone in the class.

some knitting ones:
a friend to knit with
coloursknits
flint knits
hello yarn
sixoneseven

some cooking ones:
cookthink
mattbites
smitten kitchen

and one that I wish would come back:
streets and yos

Posted by bitter purl at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

I'm so sick of the grey weather we've been having for the last couple of weeks. yesterday was finally sunny, but it was also four degrees. can't win them all I guess. I've been keeping busy knitting little accessories here and there, which I'll try to show you tomorrow, until I decide what sweater I want to knit next. a pang of guilt hit me though when I realized I hadn't knit anything for mazie! to remedy this and beat the weather doldrums, I reached for the brightest yarn I could find. enter yarntini.

yarn: yarntini sportweight in fuzzy navel (pureknits club exclusive)
pattern: baby bell bottoms
needles: 3.75mm
date started 2.06.08
date finished: 2.07.08

I've been wanting to knit these little pants ever since I saw adrian's. tiny pants are just the cutest, easiest thing to knit. I pretty much followed her mods (knit magic loop, 5.5 spi gauge, knit the newborn size ending up with 6mo size, added an inch of length at the butt, grafted the 4 leg sts together), except I think I ended up with an 18" waist rather than her 17". since taking the photo, I knitted a little cord and pulled it through the band. I originally couldn't decide between something knitting or a crochet chain, but in the end the crochet chain looked a little wimpy.

the yarn was great to knit with, creating a soft, light fabric with beautiful stitch definition. I don't really have to go on about how much I love yarntini since you all already know. I'll just say that watching the little blips of hot orange cheered me up to no end. after the weird two weeks I've had I really needed it.

I just hope these fit mazie, I'm awful at gaging what the right size for babies is.

something else that cheered me up was that teyani, leah, and tiennie all gave me the "you make my day" award (is it right to call it an 'award'?). thanks! I'm glad someone likes reading my blog : )
I will make a list of my own, but right now I need to hurry to catch the speedline so in the meantime how about another sort of gift?

some of you have asked for a pattern for the asymmetrical cabled cardi. I finally sat down and wrote it, but I haven't had anyone look at it. hopefully everything makes sense. I did make a change to the stitch count, I added two inches to the left side so you get better cover when you wear it and so that the cables don't get eaten up so guickly on that side. If you like the original look better, just remove two inches worth of stitches from that side.

asymetrical cabled cardi (PDF)

Posted by bitter purl at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)