I finally had a chance to cast on for the hypoteneuse stole on sunday afternoon after the in-laws went home. I did a quick swatch and decided to go with 5mm needles like the pattern calls for. the fabric is light and airy and at first I thought it almost felt like paper. my fingers weren't ready for the fiber change I guess after all the sweaters I've been knitting. the summer spun* is definitely a "farm yarn" which is one of the reasons I didn't go with a vest like some people suggested. those patterns almost required a smooth, classic yarn while the summer spun is rustic. I didn't have enough yarn to knit those patterns at their smaller gauge, but I probably could've eeked out a cardigan knitting at a loose gauge as I am now. I think that I fell in love with the simplicity of this stole and knew that it would bring out the beauty of this yarn.

while this yarn is soft, I've found that it's handspun look not only creates an interesting fabric but it also creates a different texture. the light-colored ply, which I think is the cotton and silk, is spun in a thick and thin fashion; when this is plied with the wool it creates loose and tight spots in the yarn, translating to soft and, let's say, less soft spots. my fingers have gotten used to it, but I can't help stopping to check out what the fabric looks like every few rows. so far I'm done with the first hank and have six repeats done.

* I'm not sure why, but this yarn has three different names. on the yarn label it's called 'summer spun', but on the farmhouse yarn site the mention 'silk blend' and 'silk spun cotton', both leading to the same page.

for those of you more interested in the shoes from the last post (you know who you are!), they're made by cydwoq out in cali. I love their shoes and I can't recommend them enough! after a few wears they mold to your feet.

Posted by bitter purl at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I just wanted to jump in and say a quick hi. I've been enjoying the spring weather, which has distracted me from my knitting, and also cleaning up like crazy yesterday and today since the in-laws are apparently coming for the weekend. fun. at least I was able to hang out with tom the first half of the day today, which is a rare treat. it was so nice to be able to sit out and have lunch under the sun. you know it's spring when all the restaurants have outside sitting all of sudden.

I hope I can sneak some knitting in, but if not at least I know what I'll be casting on for next. I'm taking alli's suggestion and knitting the hypoteneuse stole using the summer spun yarn. (alli, I already emailed you but just in case, email me your address so I can send you the bamboo!)

for the rest of you, thanks for your pattern suggestions! some of you must think I'm smaller than I really am though. as great as some of the other patterns were, 700 yards would definitely not be enough for my size.

Posted by bitter purl at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

thanks for the compliments on the 28thirty! it's definitely been the perfect thing to wear, especially since spring finally decided to show up. I'm so freaking happy for perfectly blue skies and mild temps. now watch, in a week or two I'll be complaining about how hot it is. until then, I'm trying to finish up some of my knits. I started my latest sweater shortly after finishing the 28thirty cardi. I don't have a photo of it since it's just a plain stockinette scoop neck sweater and thought that would be pretty boring. the yarn definitely keeps it from getting boring.

I'm using laines du nord cashsilk in chocolate, which I proclaim to be the best brown EVER. this is another 25g put up yarn, which I guess proves that I love weaving in ends. (no, not really) what's been keeping me going on this sweater, besides the color, is its stitch definition. I don't know if it's the silk in it or what, but something just makes each little v pop. the fabric is so crisp and smooth, I'm really looking forward to wearing it. I just hope this spring weather holds for a while.

I'm in the middle of the second sleeve, so I'm basically done. all I'll have to do is set in the sleeves and then figure out what ribbon I want to add to them. I bought two strips of hannah silk at knitty knotty in westmont. most of their stock was pretty bright (think lots of purple), so I went with the two neutrals I found. I'm hoping one strip is enough for both sleeves, if not I guess I'll have non-matching sleeves. or maybe I can order some of the aqua directly from hannah silk.

I think I'm going to go outside and finish that sleeve before dinner. the faster I knit, the faster I can show you!
I hope it's gorgeous where you are!

Posted by bitter purl at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

so remember my whole "I'm not buying yarn, need to clean out my stash blah blah blah"? I've been pretty good about it, just knitting from my stash and not randomly bringing yarn home....until now. I have to come clean. it started out innocently enough, going to the yarn store to simply pick up ONE thing I needed for a project (which I'll blog about later). while I waited, I noticed their 50% off yarn corner. a corner people! can you blame me? I did hold myself back though since a lot of the yarn was novelty-like except for the yarn above. something about the contrast between the two different plies drew me to it. the yarn is a third silk, cotton, and lambswool and each four ounce hank has 350 yards. they only had two hanks in the charcoal left, so this is where you come in.

I have no idea what to knit with this! do you have any ideas? a shawl maybe? is there some top I can knit with just 700 yards? there's no gauge information on the yarn label, but this site states a gauge of 5spi with 4mm needles. so can you help me out? I figure I'll combine this with my third blogiversary, which was yesterday, and make it a little contest. think of it as a "Thank You!!" for helping me find a pattern and for keeping me blogging for this long! the prize?

560 yards of handdyed bamboo, as seen in veronique's joie de vivre from sensual knits. it's not enough for the cardi, but probably enough for a stole or shawl. just leave a comment with a pattern suggestion and whoever inspires me gets the yarn. if I love more than one idea I'm sure I can come up with some more yarny presents!

eta: I'll post the winner on Friday the 18th.

Posted by bitter purl at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

I'll just never blog. I sometimes come up with blog posts in my head, but just never write them down. I guess thinking about it feels 'done' to me. I've also just been slacking, doing some boring stockinette knitting that I'll show later, sneaking in a trip to nyc for a couple of days, and dreading the upcoming warm weather. what I haven't had a chance to do is get a proper photo of my finished 28thirty.

pattern: 28thirty
yarn: debbie bliss pure cashmere, duck egg (04, sometimes "light blue")
needles: 5 mm, 24" and dpn's
buttons: seven from albert zoll
date started: 2.14.08
date finished: 3.12.08

sorry for the lousy pic, but I've been too busy wearing the sweater to bother blocking it (gasp!!). oh and yesterday was about 75 degrees and I started sweating as soon as I put the damn thing on.

let's see what I can remember a month later! I obviously love the finished sweater since it's been a wardrobe staple since binding off, but this doesn't mean it was an error free knit. first things first, I changed the side the button band to match the pattern image instead of the written pattern, changed the buttonholes to k1, ssk, double yo, k2tog, k1, and used mirrored decreases for the shaping. no biggies really. I got into trouble when I started on the sleeves, when I somehow I entered a math black hole.

I worked on one sleeve three different ways. the first time the sleeve was huge even though the body seemed to fit perfectly. so I frogged back and started the sleeve decreases earlier. by the time I got to the elbow I could see that the sleeve was still huge and now had a lovely pouch from the underarm to the elbow. the third time around I frogged the sleeves and part of the body; I had already done less raglan increases than the pattern suggests but I had to remove quite a few more to get both the body and sleeves to fit. I still don't think it's perfect but it works (and I was tired of trying to figure out why I wasn't getting the right measurements even with spot on stitch and row gauge) . once I figured that out, I knit the sleeves on the car ride up to boston and noticed that my little yarn stash was quickly diminishing and I still had the body to finish! thankfully I found two more hanks (their last two!) at knit & needlepoint on newberry st. that matched exactly. I ended up using the second hank to bind off. : (

I think I shed a tear or two when weaving in alllllll those ends. housekeeping was wondering why I wasn't leaving the room (they even called!) while I was sewing the buttons and wondering how many hanks I actually used. I'm going to say at least 18 but probably 20 or 21. want to know a little secret? I didn't weave in the ends in the sleeves. yeah, at that point I just wanted to wear it already! the yarn is super warm and it's soft (as cashmere should be) but I still love the laines du nord I used before more. I found the lnd to be lighter in feel (it has a different type of plying) and a bit softer. I also thought the db cashmere had more guard hairs in it that should've been cleaned out. but, obviously, this hasn't stopped me from constantly wearing this for the last month.

Posted by bitter purl at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)