My Life in Stitches: I'm a Westknits Girl

Recently I had the very great pleasure of meeting one of my favorite knitwear designers, Stephen West.  He was doing a book signing at one of my LYS and I decided to go and meet him. I enjoyed my visit very much and bought one of his books, Westknits Book 3.

I was even a total fangirl and decided to wear one of his patterns but promptly realized that I had more than one to choose from. I decided on Daybreak and headed out. When I arrived at the store, Stephen had examples of all his patterns on display and that's when it hit me: I have made a lot of his patterns.

I have made five of his patterns, one of them twice, and am currently working on my sixth (and I have the pattern for Rockefeller). Here they all are:

Boneyard

Daybreak #1

Daybreak #2

Garter Ridge Cowl

Spectra

Pagona

Gyllis

I didn't realize that I'd made so many. I am definitely a WestKnit girl!

My Life in Stitches: Get Off My Needles!

I have a sad confession to make. I have four projects on my needles right now. Not happy about that. I need to finish some of them, mainly my Mini-Mania scarf. I really loved this project when I started, but now, I just want it to be over. Hopefully by the time I post this entry, it will be finished.

Not only do I have all these project on my needles, a few have been “in progress” for a while. Here are my current WIPs:

Mini-Mania-cast on March 23, 2012 (soooo over this)

Monkey Socks-cast on March 22, 2012

Josephine Shawl- cast on March 31, 2012 (in its defense, this is my current mindless

Bible study project, which means I normally only work on it on Wednesdays and for the hour that Bible study lasts)

Spectra Shawl-casted on June 5, 2012 (a part of my birthday knitting and sadly it probably will be done before the others)

Phoenix Wingspan

Despite my multiple projects, I managed to finish a few projects. I finished my Wingspan. I am so pleased with this project. This yarn just didn’t know what it wanted to be as one of the ladies in my knitting group says. But when I introduced it to the Wingspan pattern, they seemed made for each other. I had originally named this shawl Red Rising, but one day when I was working on it, my DH commented that it looked like a phoenix rising. I promptly changed the name to Phoenix.

Pei Cowl

I also finished a Pei Cowl by Michele Wang. This was the first project in my birth-month knitting. This pattern went so fast! Once I finished past the lace rows, I zoomed through the rest. I made this with my Yarn Love Elizabeth Bennett. Lovely yarn to work with. I’m thinking about buying some more.

As for my unfinished projects, I wonder if I devoted a few hours a week to them, maybe they’ll grow up to be what they were destined to be.

My Life in Stitches: Birth-Month Knitting

Yesterday, I shared my birth-month celebration plans (my birthday is actually on the 29th). But there is one more important thing I must add: knitting. I’ve already planned to go yarn shopping, but I also have planned out what I’m going to knit this month.

I normally am a very organized knitter. I pick patterns before I buy yarn (most of the time), and I try to knit my yarn in the order in which I bought it (First in, first out. Thank you five years of working at Burger King). Last month, I assigned most of my stash to projects and saved them in my Raverly queue. My next project is supposed to be the Emerald Isle sweater, but for my birth-month, I’m ditching my queue…by creating another queue.

Pei by Michelle Wang

Now the point of birth-month knitting is not to actually finish the projects. I probably will, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to work on patterns that I like with yarn that I like. Pure enjoyment knitting.

First in my queue is Pei by Michelle Wang. I will be making my Pei out of my very special Elizabeth Bennett yarn from Yarn Love (Earl Grey colorway). Seventy percent merino and thirty percent silk, it’s lovely on the needles (I casted on today). I don’t think I’ll have any problem finishing this one. I would like to wear it on my birthday, but that depends if the weather cooperates.

Spectra by Steven West

Second in my birth-month queue is Spectra by Steven West. I’ll make it with Spud & Chloe and Noro Silk Garden. I’ve had my eye on Spectra for a long time and was certain I purchased it but I didn't. No matter. That’s an easy fix.

Color Affection byVeera Välimäki

And if, by some freak of nature, I get both of these done before the end of the month, I’ll cast on my Color Affection made from Kollage Yarns Sock-a-licious and Giant Farm yarns I got from Nature’s Yarn in Fairfax, VA.

The best part about this queue is I reserve the right to change it if something else catches my eye. Aren’t birth-month celebrations great?

My Life in Stitches: My Life in Stitches 2011 Review

I had an interesting fiber year in 2011. When my husband left to serve his one-year deployment, I thought sure I would read a ton of books, but that wasn’t the case. It seems that most of my leisure time went to into knitting. At the beginning of 2011, I only had four completed projects on my Ravelry page. I started and completed 29 projects in 2011.  Yay, me.

Here is my official My Year in Stitches review, the good, the bad and the ugly style.

The Good

Most Helpful Technique Learned: LIFELINES!!!!!

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. One of my knitting friends, Jill, told me about lifelines at the beginning of the year.  The technique is when you run dental floss through a row of your stitches as you knit it. It’s helpful because if you make a mistake, you can rip the work back to the lifeline and all the stiches are on the floss and easier to pick up. Jill told me, but I must admit I was a little slow in putting it into practice. Like several projects slow. But when the above-mentioned Milky Way started kicking my butt, I did a lifeline…and kicked myself for not trying it earlier. Would have saved me a lot of heartache.

Favorite Project: [Three-way tie] Milky Way (Sheryl Thies, Nature's Wrapture), Daybreak (Stephen West) and Fetching (Cheryl Niamath, Knitty, Summer 2006)

Milky Way

This is my favorite project to wear. The color makes it versatile to wear with multiple outfits. And the fiber, (cotton, rayon and silk) is the perfect balance of dressy and casual. And it’s uber warm!

I love Daybreak for two reasons, the colors and that it’s a simple pattern with dramatic results. I made two Daybreaks this year and loved them both.

Daybreak #2

Fetching makes my favorites list because it was instant gratification. I started one day while I was sick in bed. It barely took me 12 hours to finish it. And again, it’s one of those projects that’s really easy but produces dramatic results.

The Bad

Most Frustrating Project: Milky Way Scarf (Sheryl Thies, Nature's Wrapture)

I thought I was going to lose my mind on this one. This is not a social knitting project! I had a complete meltdown at a knitting group meeting because the twisted stitches in this pattern. It wasn’t a hard stitch, it was just one I had to pay attention to…which often I wasn’t and had to go back a rip out huge chunks at a time. The pattern is so defined that it wasn’t one you could fudge you way through your mistakes. This project drove me to the brink of sanity.

Project with the Biggest Design Feature (aka mistake): Ginkgo Shoulderette Shawl (Southern Selkie)

It’s a good sign that something has gone wrong with a project when you have an entire skein of yarn left over when you’re done… and you weren’t supposed to have it. I bought the yarn for this shawl while in Indianapolis during the ACFW annual writers conference.  I loved the color and it was on clearance. Win-win, right? I’d added the Ginkgo pattern to my favorites before I left, so it was a match made in heaven…

Until I finished the shawl and couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t used the amount of yarn the pattern called for. It was a big problem with a simple solution: READ! I was supposed to go up two needle sizes when I got to the lace section of the shawl! Of course, the shawl turned out way smaller than it was supposed to and I hardly ever wear it because it’s so small. I kept threatening to rip it out and redo the lace on the correct size needles. Maybe that will be on my 2012 knitting year in review.

The Ugly

Project with the Worse Fit: (Two-way Tie): Swirl (Andrea Weinrick) and Ellen's Knit Hat (Ellen Harpin).

Swirl was my first pair of socks ever. I made them for myself so my feet wouldn’t get cold while I was praying. I was very proud of myself for conquering my fear of socks. I started before my husband came home before for R&R in July. I was so excited to show it to him, but I didn’t bank on his reaction. He didn’t say anything at first, but his face (my husband has very telling facial expressions) told me that he didn’t like the sock. After a few minutes of examining the sock, he asked, “Is this for a reindeer?”

The sock on the right is for the reindeer.

Needless to say, my feelings were hurt, but I pressed on and finished the second sock. But in finishing the second one correctly, I realized how bad the first one was. All I could do was laugh. The only way to save it is to rip it out and do it over. Maybe I’ll only rip out the first reindeer sock.

As for the Ellen’s Knit Hat, my husband was the victim of the bad fit. I was knitting hats for my church’s clothes closet and my husband told me he wanted a black hat with a green stripe. Of course, I decided that I would give him the hat for Christmas.

I put a very generous green stripe on it. Unfortunately, the top of the hat was about four inches longer than the top of his head. Thankfully, it will be easier to repair than the socks.