This deserves a lot of hoopla: I actually finished a sweater. I’m REALLY good at starting them, but finishing is another story.

This is the newest design from Chic Knits. It’s really fun to knit, since the construction is unusual–which makes it interesting–and the lace pattern is easily memorized. I knit this using Cascade 220 Superwash. I haven’t used superwash yarns very often. My lack of experience proved a problem here. When I blocked the sweater, it grew like crazy. I was able to squish the body back into a reasonable size, but the sleeves refused to do my bidding. You can see how much the sweater grew if you look at the shoulder seams. This isn’t meant to be a drop-shouldered cardi. Right. I could have tossed this in the dryer, stabilized the shoulder seams with ribbon, etc., but I didn’t because I didn’t know better.

Next time. Despite the issues I had, I’m still pleased with how it turned out! Kudos to Bonne Marie for another beautiful design!

I meant to be wearing this with a pretty spring skirt or dress, but this was the wrong color blue for what I had in my closet. Hmm…perhaps I should sew something…

Read my notes for this project on Ravelry.

I’m feeling stoked. I finished a sweater for myself–the first in all too long–and love how it turned out.

This is the Chicknits Mondo Cable Cardi, a fantastic pattern and very easy to knit. When I started knitting this, I was primarily attracted to the tall buttoned-up collar. When I finished knitting it, I had grown partial to the collar sans buttons. This may or may not have had something to do with how scratchy the yarn is.

I’ll sometimes wear the cardi open and, when I feel I need a little more “closure,” I’ll pin the fronts closed with one of my grandmother’s brooches.

The Chicknits sample was knit with a smooth, elegant yarn. Just for fun, I subbed in Plymouth tweed, which is just about as rustic as they come. I love the depth of color and how “crunchy” it is. The cables really pop. It was quite rough on the fingers when I was knitting it, but softened up considerably after a wash.

Now, I’m busy daydreaming about what I’ll knit next. I’m supposed to be working on a cardigan for Robert–which I am in fits and starts–but would really like to tackle something else for myself. Currently, several members of my knitting group are working on Aidez, which my lemming-like soul was also drawn to. I’ve bought some yarn and am swatching. Soon, I’ll either be knitting that or something completely different, depending on how my swatches turn out.

When I first looked outside yesterday morning I was shocked. There was snow everywhere! We usually don’t get a lot of snow in Seattle, which is one of the things I miss from my youth in Montana and Wyoming. It kept coming down all day long and the kids were ecstatic. I had a hard time getting them to come inside every once in awhile to warm up.

The only bad things about the storm were

• my husband’s horrible commute home last night (he had to walk a good part of it, because buses were skidding out of control and couldn’t scale the hills to our neighborhood) and;
• it interfered with my plans to go to knit night and hang out with some friends.

I put the time to good use and finished up my daughter’s tiny tea leaves cardigan:

I was going to give this to her as a Christmas present, but it’s cold NOW, so I gave it to her now, without even bothering to block it. She’s very happy with the cardigan, and especially enamored with the iridescent fish buttons:

Good buttons are important, you know?

This was a lot of fun to knit. The only thing I’m “iffy” about is the sleeve length. I added an inch to the sleeves, but they sometimes look too short when she tugs up the neckline to fit closer about her neck. I may fix this, if she’ll take the sweater off for a minute or two…or, I may not. There are too many other fun things on my list to knit!