Vittadini Progress

Amidst all of the Christmas knitting, I have been slowly, very slowly working on an Adrienne Vittadini sweater pattern from her Fall 2004 pattern book. It was supposed to be a gift for my mom, but she wanted the afghan, so I decided it wouldn't look too bad on me. I'm making it out of the discontinued Classic Elite Attitude, which I have mixed feelings about. It's really beautiful, being a combination of pima cotton and silk, so it's going to be very soft and comfortable to wear. It's got a lovely sheen to it. However, it was discontinued very shortly after it was introduced, and I have a feeling it was due to quality issues. It pills like crazy, which I didn't even know was a problem with cotton. So, we'll see. But anyway, here is my progress on the front. The back and one sleeve are already done.

In other news, I just ordered some Peruvian Collection Baby Cashmere and Baby Silk to make Airisaig from Knitty. I basically tried to copy exactly the colors chosen by the designer because I thought they were both interesting and beautiful together. I am also going to use some Baby Cashmere to make Rosita eventually.

Finally, I was very bad and ordered the new Debbie Bliss Home book from Amazon. I always choose the free shipping option thinking I have infinite patience to wait for it, especially considering I've already had a chance to look through it and see the beautiful patterns. But as soon as I push the confirmation button, I want it to be here right this minute. I'm so impatient! Obviously, it would be easier to just to go the bookstore and buy it, but we must save money, musn't we?

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope you're having a good day!

Gift Yarn

Gift Yarn

Over the Columbus day weekend, I fed the two cats of one my the members of my Wednesday S 'n B, the Bitter Knitter. Because I did that she very generously gave me three skeins of Atacama hand dyed Alpaca. I started playing with the yarn, trying to turn a cabled scarf into a double knit cabled scarf, but that was taking too long and I became impatient, so I tore it out (twice). Instead I decided to make River, from Rowan 38 with the yarn. Because the gauge for Atacama (18 st/4") is bigger than Kid Silk Haze, I decided to use some size 12 needles. I did not do all of the repeats, I simply went until I ran out of yarn, then I modified the border on the ending side to make up for the fact that I was quickly running out of the yarn. This is what I ended up with:

I wanted to post a photo of the finished Men's Rustic Scarf. I knit it in the yarn called for in the pattern, Yorkshire Tweed Chunky by Rowan. Even the colors are the same. I asked my handsome husband, Joe, to model it for us.











I also wanted to post a photo of my mom's afghan, in progress. The photo is terrible...it actually looks much better than this in person, but at least it's something. The color of the base yarn is burgundy and the carrying yarn is variegated with gold, silvery blue and burgundy.

As promised, an FO photo. I knit this sweater for a baby shower I'm going to tomorrow. Whew! Got it done just in time. The pattern is from Miss Bea's Rainy Day by Rowan, and the pattern is the Bookworm Sweater. It's knit in Candy Blue Cotton Ease, Size 1-2 yrs. I think the pattern had an error in it, so I did it the way I thought it should have been done, and it seemed to have worked out well.




This is a picture of the booties I knit to give with the sweater. The pattern is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and the yarn is Lorna's Laces Angel. At least I think that's the name of the yarn. You can also see a detail of the cable in the picture. It's hard to see in the other photo.

Hi! I'm the San Diego contingency for this blog. I am going to use this soapbox to post in-progress and FO pictures of my various knitting projects. I am completely addicted to yarn, both buying it and knitting with it. There's probably help out there for me somewhere, but for the moment, I'm happy with my obsession. I have a yarn stash that takes up half of one of the rooms in my house and the other half is filled with half-finished knitting projects. I'm sure someday I'll get around to finishing them...or frogging them to make something else.

Anyway, my "knitting room" is too messy to take photos right now, but once it's neater, I'll post photos of some recent FO's that are going to be Christmas presents for family members. I've been working on the Men's Rustic Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts for my father-in-law, the Branching Out scarf from Knitty for my mother-in-law, the Sophie bag from Magknits for my sister-in-law. I guess that covers all of my in-laws. For the rest of my family, I'm making the Men's Cashmere scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts for my dad, an afghan of my own pattern for my mother, out of Chunky AL by Elsebeth Lavold and La Boheme by Fiesta Yarns, a pair of socks for my brother out of Plymouth Encore and a hat for my husband out of yarn TBD. For my new 8 week old neice, Savannah, I'm making the Baby Bobbi Bear, pattern by Blue Sky Alpacas. There will be photos posted of all of these projects in the coming weeks. Hopefully, none of my family members will read this blog until after Christmas!!!

Until then, happy knitting!

Welcome

Welcome knitters to the cult of the Purly Gate, all you have to do to join the cult, is love yarn and know how to turn a strand of yarn into something wider, flatter, different than the original. The only other thing needed to join the cult is a donation of your entire stash (as if any sane knitter alive would do that!)

This blog will have two posters, I live on the east coast, in Boston. The other prospective comes from the west coast, San Diego. I have no photos to post today (dial up, why bother) but photos will definitely come in the future.

Until next post, goodbye.