I’ve been having tons of fun reading other people’s knitting and sewing blogs, and following the Zimmermania knit-along. I think this is going to be fun, too. I love seeing what other people are making and trading questions and advice. The internet rules.
Let’s start with some recent projects and stuff in progress. If I’m a good girl, maybe they’ll let me join the NYC Knitters ring someday… ;-)
I made this hat for my best friend for Annual Winter Holiday. [Apologies for the poor photo quality. Right now I'm working with a camera phone. We'll just have to muddle through until a digital camera is acquired.]
The scrolly part is actually her initials, GJ. It's knitted in black Classic Elite Princess, which is wonderfully soft and fuzzy. I used a magenta washable merino yarn in a similar weight (I can't remember what!) for the contrast color. While I was working with it I thought it perhaps had been a mistake to mix the two different kinds of yarn because they had different textures, the princess being very soft and fuzzy, and the merino being more bumpy and springy, but after I wet blocked the finished hat, the two yarns mellowed into each other more and I liked how the texture changed along with the color. The contrasting yarn is magenta so it stands out nicely against the black.
This hat is per the instructions in Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop. Because the yarn is fairly lightweight, I cast on 84 sts and went up to 96 after the ribbing. The ribbing itself is twisted rib, which I prefer a zillion times over regular 1 to 1 ribbing.This was my first foray into two color knitting, and I taught myself the continental method as EZ suggests in order to hold each color in a different hand. This was so fun!
I got so excited that I broke from my husband's endless sweater (more on that later) to try my hand at Center Square from Knitty. There's a cheap-o yarn store on my block in Queens that's always good for some Paton's (or Red Heart, if you go that way). The hat turned out a little on the small side. I like my hats bigger and will add a few rows of mc before the bottom row of circles and a few rows of cc above the circles the next time I knit this. It's fine to wear, though, and I love this mod design.
I am now very into color knitting and can't wait to do a longer (sweater) project. I have my eye on Eunny Jang's Venezia Pullover sweater from Winter Interweave. We'll see...
Meanwhile, I started We Call them Pirates, from HelloYarn. I have some (lots -- I always overestimate) of yarn leftover from GJ's hat and a ball of white merino was hanging around the stash.
I'm off to Canada to visit my in laws for New Year's, and am bringing my first Zimmerman sweater with me. This will eventually become a seamless saddle shoulder if all goes well. The yarn is Plymouth Suri Merino, which I fell in love with hard at Fabric Place in MA over Thanksgiving. I hope I have enough. I bought 12 balls, but am going through it fast! I keep reminding myself that I'm knitting both sides at once b/c it's circular, but I still get a little panicky when I look at the diminishing contents of my yarn bag.
Look, there's Kitten; she's ready to go!
