finished: lucy’s low tide cardigan, lansbury cowl

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finished knit, lansbury cowl, low tide cardigan

Knits ahead!

This might be it (haha, might be “knit”!) for awhile. I always go through a little spell of finishing ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE, and then I start a whole bunch of new things, and then there’s dead wasteland middle time.

(If you are good about cycling your projects more skillfully, so you’re not doing a ton of block-piecing-stockinette-knitting all at once, holler, please, and teach me ALL YOU KNOW.)

1) Lansbury Cowl: pattern by Shannon Cook of luvinthemommyhood; can be purchased on Ravelry here. Last Friday, I was feeling rushed and weird and disoriented. Crazy stuff kept happening! And it was 95F hot hot hot. I couldn’t settle down to work on any of my ongoing projects.

So I wound my lonely skein of The Plucky Knitter Primo Aran in the April Classics colorway Whistlestop, and put it to excellent use.

The irony of knitting with aran weight yarn, in an around-your-neck-keep-you-warm pattern, on the hottest weekend of the year did not escape me, but this pattern was easy, and soothing to knit, with just enough texture and cabling to feel fun. And now I have a new super-soft luxury cowl ready for the first whisper of cool weather!

2) Lucy’s Low Tide Cardigan: pattern is by Tin Can Knits, and can be purchased at Ravelry here.

I was nervous to start this sweater, I really was.

Lace charts! (The simplest-ever lace chart.) Kitchener stitch! (For like, four stitches.) Crochet buttonholes! (I downed a glass of wine real quick, watched two YouTube videos, and dove in, no problems.)

I knit it in The Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering, colorway Frostbitten (retired colorway! Such a shame–it looks fantastic on my little, and I know it’d look great on me too). 20% cashmere in the mix, so it’s baby’s first cashmere.

Again, I royally messed up the short rows on the sleeves, so if you do make this, your sleeves will look much better. But the end result is still pretty cute and Lucy LOVES it. Her favorite color right now is blue!

Both of these projects are Ravelled at my Ravelry page. If you’re a Raveller, I’d love to see you over there too!

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finished: moth mo cardi (and two knitting wips)

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finished knit, knitting, lucy low tide cardi, moth mo cardi, whisper wrap

I waffled for a long time (six weeks?) about whether or not I should post photos of this finished object.

 

This is the spring cardi that I cast on in March, with the first shipment of my madelinetosh Magnolia Society yarn (yes, fancy yarn–they were smart to open subscriptions during a major snowstorm in February. I ordered so much fabric and yarn that weekend when we had 30” of snow!). This is tosh mo light in the club colorway moth.

 

I used Veera Välimäki’s Celery Cardigan pattern. This is my first finished sweater project. I’m fairly frustrated by the silly mistakes I made (more in a moment)

but it turns out that I wear this little cardigan often. It’s the perfect light layer for New England–the fabric is soft, with a bit of soft halo, and because I knit it myself (hey hey) I was able to make the sleeves just so.

 

I also love the color, which wears well with navy blue. I own a lot of navy blue clothes!

OK, rookie mistake confession time. Ever heard of twisted stockinette? Me neither. Until.

 

I picked up the sleeves to knit them in the round and I was all, why do my in-the-round stitches look so different? I google around and found out:

I WAS WRAPPING ALL OF MY PURL STITCHES INCORRECTLY.

Each purl stitch, since the dawn of my knitting, I had wrapped clockwise, not counterclockwise. How could I not have noticed? Well, I knit most of my things in the round, and the mistake just didn’t show in the round.

I’m doing it right now, it’s all cool, but I’ll always have this sweater to remind me of self-taught-beginner-knitter mistakes. That’s a doozie!

Quick peeks of wips:

 

A bit of Lucy’s Low Tide Cardigan, knit in The Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering in Frostbitten, which I executed perfectly (Kitchener stitch and all) until I messed up the sleeves. Failed to read the pattern while I was gossiping with my grandma. I just duplicated the mistake on the second sleeve and shrugged it off–they’re there, they don’t look awful, and it’s for a two-year-old. I need to sew on buttons, crochet the button loops, and wash/block this, and it’ll be done!

 

And this is my long-term wip, the Purl Bee Whisper Wrap in Tosh Prairie, colorway Antique Lace. It’s going to take me forever to knit a large laceweight wrap, but I so desperately desire the finished object (so soft and versatile!) that I’ll stick with it.

Thanks for bearing with me for a knitting sidebar. I’m finding that my summer run-around-everywhere lifestyle is much more conducive to knitting than sewing. I always have a project on the needles in my tote bag!

finished: a lucy hat for me

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finished knit, knitting, lucy hat

Bad Mom knits hats for herself, not for her kid.

(You like the chocolate chip stain on my oxford shirt? Toddlers.)

Especially when the hat is knit of Tosh Vintage. I’m not sharing that.

I bought two skeins of Tosh Vintage (French Gray, Molly Ringwald) with my Christmas money, planning to make this hat. It’s the Lucy Hat, pattern by Carina Spencer, published in a recent issue of Knitscene. This seems to be the hat of the moment over at Ravelry. 800ish people are doing it. So, even though I’d never knit a hat before, I figured, if 800 people are doing it, how hard could it be?

I surprised myself and worked this up in two days flat. And I made only one tiny silly unnoticeable mistake. Even though I’d never knit with two colors before, and when I tried to do short rows on my ugly sock I cried and cussed and ultimately threw poor ugly sock in the trash, this hat was so easy to knit. I had a ton of fun making it.

And I blocked it. Yep. I didn’t have any Soak Wash (it’s on its way from Amazon to me right now) so I just used water and a vintage Pyrex bowl, but I did block it.

Be jealous of my decreases.

Love it. And, as a bonus, I have enough leftovers to do a Regina Hat in opposite colors (an idea I gleaned from other Ravellers who are all smartly doing this).

Hat mania is beginning.