Big Knits

I've been working on big stuff for about a month now, and they are finally all done, just in time for a fancy birthday dinner!

So here's a bag of yarn I got from WEBS when they had a spring sale in April:

yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK Colorway:smoke

I picked out a retro waistcoat which didn't have any yarn suggestions, it just said 1000 yards of DK weight yarn for the size I'm making. (34 chest). So I got 1090 yards of yarn total. I did the back.

All 1x1 ribbing with some shaping. argh. I used 250 yards.

I did the front and back: 350 yards. Here they are blocking. The stitch is linen stitch and the buttonholes are sort of worked in about every 2 inches on the WS.

Then I did a single crochet edging, which annoyed me to great extent. Usually when you pick up and knit an edging, you pick up 2 sts every 3 rows, right? Well, I did that, and it was giving me waaay too many stitches. I ended up picking up 1 st every 2 rows (1 st from each selvege st) and it was still on the too-much side.

Well, that's ok because the recipient loved it. He even actively pursued shopping for buttons. He picked out the buttons himself.

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Pattern: Men's waistcoat by Woolcrest from Retro Knits

Needles: US 3 and US 6 and D hook

Yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK ~640 yards

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I was sort of disappointed in big erratas like wrong needle size requirement for gauge and vague and plain instructions. I suppose that's how patterns were written, but they advertised that the patterns were rewritten for modern knitters. Oh well. All's well that ends well. :)

But what about the 4 balls of yarn left! I only used ~640 yards for the vest (which is a fair amount for vests. I usually use about 1000-1200 yards for a sweater)

He requested matching socks, but I suggested a better suggestion: matching hat.

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Pattern: Morgan from Knitty.com (spring 2008)

Needle: US 5

Yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK ~220 yards

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This pattern is not intuitive. I'm not all that familiar with hat terminology, so I was quite lost for the entire thing until I grafted the brim and voila! a hat emerged! It was a short-row party from beginning to end. For the brim I used plastic canvases which was really easy to use to secure the edges and then to sew on the snap-ons between the brim and the top portion of the hat. He LOVES this hat. He even wore it to school the next day. and the next, and the next.

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And now something completely different!

I won some yarn by placing 2nd place in the great hat race hosted through ravelry in the spring of this year. I recommend it to anyone who likes making hats. It's lots of fun and a great way to give back to the community.

Anyway, I got ~450 yards of cream colored yarn. I was quite impressed by the gradated colorways in Miriam Felton's Andromeda Shawl in ravelry and wanted to make one for myself. I'll write about how to go about dying this later.

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette Cream, 2 skeins

Beads: Miyuki Delicas-8 Dark amber Lined AB from Rare Earth Beads in Durham, NC

I always admired the Aeolian Shawl, and this yarn wanted to be it. So after few days of knitting away with beads (it gets fun with practice I promise), here she is:

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Pattern: Aeolian Shoulderette with Narrow Edging

Needle: US 5

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette 2 skeins (~400 yards)

Beads: Miyuki Delicas-8 Dark amber Lined AB (about 750)

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I love it! This is the first shawl I made using fingering weight yarn. I like the balance between the size (shoulderette) and the weight. It's not too heavy, and boy the edging looks fancy! I think I like the narrow edging better than the original pattern. I'm entering this into the state fair!

yardage used from stash: 640 + 220 + 400 = 1260!