Whisper FO

I've been promising a picture of the Whisper Cardigan for a while, now, so here it is! I've worn it a couple of times and love the softness of the wool and the only slight addition of warmth due to the large gauge of the stitches. It is light and airy and very comfortable to wear. I wore it after dark when it was fairly cool outside and it even seemed to dull the wind that was blowing. Others were complaining of the cold, but I didn't feel it and yet was never too warm, either.

More Whisper Progress

I am seeing some great progress on my Whisper Cardigan. It is really starting to look like a sweater, now! I have 6 of the 8 inches required before binding off for the bottom edge. I may have a new FO to show on Monday!

More Whisper Progress

This weekend, I made much progress on my Whisper Cardigan! I finished the ribbing and all of the short rows on the last section, including about an inch of fabric all the way across the back. I was able to try it on, and it looks like it is going to fit beautifully. When I picked up stitches, I wasn’t quite sure how many it should be, because I had knit the back somewhat longer to increase the pattern size. To figure this out, I divided the number of stitches the size L calls for in the pattern by the approximate number of knitted rows. (This last number I calculated by multiplying the number of rows per inch from the gauge times the total length of the back.) I took that number, roughly .75, and realized that I could just pick up 3 stitches per 4 rows and get the same ratio. There is just a slight gather to the stockinet pieces on both sides of the ribbed section. When put on the body, this ribbing stretches just perfectly, allowing all of the other stitches to lay beautifully flat. This type of work, especially when it comes out so well, gives me great satisfaction.

Knitting During Work Hours!

Thursday was an awesome day! I woke with a migraine (alright not so great) and took a full dose of Excedrin Migraine to ease the pain so that I could work. The caffeine always gives me a bit of an adrenaline high for the day, so I was rushing through everything that I was doing. I sped through many of my tasks at work and then had a meeting from 10-11:30. I always love meetings at work, as long as I’m not presenting, as I can knit! I worked on Whisper and nearly finished the second sleeve. Forgetting that I had another meeting in the afternoon, I spent my lunch working to finish the sleeve and did! As I was binding off the last stitch, the coworker I was eating with said, “It’s a good thing that you went to lunch early. Remember we have a meeting this afternoon.” At first, I thought that I might not have anything else simple to work on, but found my teal, cotton pullover in the bottom of my bag! Whew…Disaster averted! (I get very bored in most meetings and have difficult time concentrating and not fidgeting when my hands aren’t busy.) So, that afternoon, I had another 2 hours to spend knitting. I finished half of the last few armhole decreases and am only an hour or two away from splitting the sleeves from the body of the sweater. I reached this point a little over a week ago, but then realized that I had knit the armhole too long and ripped it back so that it would fit better. I usually find it difficult to regain momentum on a project after a problem like this and the meeting was perfect for this.
After arriving home from work, I picked up Whisper, again. I pulled out my circular needle and wound the 2nd ball of yarn. Then, I sat down to pick up stitches. I didn’t count how many, but it is a ton! Luckily, I had this week’s episodes of NCIS and CSI: NY to watch, so the time went rather quickly. I even knit a couple of rows!

Whisper Progress

Since finishing the Baby Hoodie, last Sunday morning, I have gone back to knitting on my Whisper Cardigan. (I have yet to photograph the baby cardigan as I did not take my camera with me to my parents house when I gave the sweater to his parents.) I am almost finshied wit the second sleeve! It looks like a long tube, and everyone seems to think that I am knitting the most boring scarf ever. (Those are my words not theirs. They love the color, softness, etc.) I showed my SIL that it was indeed teh start of a sweater by putting on the finished sleeve and then pulling the other side around so she could get an idea of how it will look. She loves it on me. All this stockinette makes me a little sleepy, but hearing the raves come back keeps me working away on it. Finishing that one, little sweater has spurred me on to finish some other things, so you can expect me to be working on projects that have already been started for at least a few days! :}

Fourth: March's Malabrigo Project

I have continued to work on Whisper from the current Interweave Knits, but it has been all stockinette stitch, which I find boring. I have finished the first sleeve and most of the back. (In the second picture, you can see the "gathers" that make up the center back jus a little bit to the left of the marker.)

Progress Update

Wow, have I been a schizophrenic knitter lately! It seems I get a little finished on a project and then move on to something else. I have many, many projects in various states right now. In my knitting bag, I have my Whisper Cardigan and a short-sleeved pullover that I have been making for myself, as well. Both of those are getting some work. On the cardigan, I am back to about one third finished. It is looking much better this time. I am also getting little spurts of my pullover finished. Somewhere in there, I grew tired of those 2 projects and didn’t want to go find a different one, so I picked up the Fuschia Scarf that I had started a few weeks ago. In 2 nights it was finished! I really enjoyed the quick knit of the scarf and the lace pattern. I still need to block it, so I don’t have a finished picture, yet. However, you can see the beautiful pattern from the picture I took at the beginning of the project.

And now, I'm off to Ikea for a free breakfast and a good time with a friend!

Stash and a Little Progress

More than finished projects, lately, I have been acquiring stash! Last week, I received my Malabrigo Club shipment for March and an order form Elann on the same day, last week! I have been really wanting to knit something for spring and therefore ordered a sweater’s worth of Elann’s Lara in a deep turquoise. I also ordered their sampler bag for spring/summer in blues. I may knit the free shawl pattern that is on their website, or I may use the yarn for something else…I haven’t really decided, yet. As for the Malabrigo, I loved the idea that several others had on the Ravelry group for this club: knitting the Whisper Cardigan from the most recent issue of Interweave Knits. Now, this cardigan hardly caught my eye when I first received the magazine, but I think that was because of the rest of the outfit that the model was wearing. I liked this idea so well, that I cast on the cardigan the very same night! I made it about a third of the way through the pattern, when I realized that it was coming out too big and I probable would not have enough yarn to finish. So, I ripped it out and restarted on Sunday. I am more than half way through the first sleeve. Getting and hour and a half of knitting time during a staff meeting yesterday really helped, too!

I have also been working on a scarf that I started a couple weeks ago when I couldn’t take my current work in progress near where the receiver of the finished project would be. I have it half done, now and it is looking quite beautiful. I really should get a picture of my Fuchsia Scarf to show it off!