Five for five

After 5 RSC packages, I have maintained my goal and I have knit all five kits thus far. The final package was shipped on Monday and I hope to have it by the end of the week.

But, again I am negligent in the blogging of the completed item. The September RSC package was lightweight STR in the Tide Pooling colourway. I love this colour, love it. It's totally me.
Both in the skein


And in the cake.


I cast-on for these as soon as I finished Vintage, they were waiting for me, my reward. Yes, every fourth row was fiddley, but I cabled each and every stich without a cable needles and soon got a pretty good rhythm going. I don't think I'll cable more than one stitch cables without a cable needle but I think it was definitly a time saver on this project. The first sock worked up pretty quickly.



I really love the almost randomness of the colour on the legs, not the typical striping I get with STR. Loved it so much in fact, that I didn't want to rip it out and go down from a 2.5mm to a 2.25 mm needle on the leg for a little bit more negative ease.



I did switch to the smaller needle for the foot though and got the same wonderful little stripes and, the correct gauge.



And there we go. I would have to say the 5th RSC kit is a hit, I like the socks a lot. I'm going to wear them tomorrow in fact. Look at the colours, they're just so pretty!



I almost forgot about these. I think she liked the socks.

Oh what a Tangled Yoke we knit

So, it was a couple of weeks ago, but Tangled Yoke is done. It's so so pretty, I'm really glad I knit it.

The Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan, by Eunny Jang. Interweave Knits Fall 2007
The Yarn: The recommended Rowan Felted Tweed (amazing!) in Herb. Turns out, it's a good colour for Project Spectrum, Earth.



The pattern was very well written and I had surprisingly little trouble doing cables from a chart for the first time. The cable rows were crazy long and sometimes quite complex, I was only able to get one cable row and one purl row done in an evening. That was about how much my brain could handle too.



I started in November 2007 and worked on it was I was either bored with Avast or waiting for something that was backordered that I needed for Avast. The fit is OK, the lower arms are a little big, but not bothersome big and when I tried in on after I finished the yoke, I thought it was smaller, almost too small, but it's not. It's good, it's a really nice sweater. I like it.



I'm not sure why the husband didn't tell me my hair was so weird. This is why I'm always the one behind the camera.

Next, a stash update!

Big Grey Sweater? Check.

The Big Grey Sweater is done.

I started knitting Avast, for Jer, in August 2007. He is a picky, picky man when it comes to his clothing so it took a long time for him to decide on a pattern and I stressed the entire time if the final product was going to be to his liking. And it is.



It took me too long to knit this, I admit. I took breaks between pieces to knit other things, I had to wait for back ordered needles and I ran out of yarn at one point. Amazingly, I found more of the same dye lot in a store in a very different city from where I bought the orginal. So finally, on Saturday night after reading a number of tutorials on how to sew in a zipper, I sat down with my needle and thread and 2.5 hours later (so painfully long, there is a reason I don't sew) the sweater had a zipper, and I was done. There was very little seaming, the body was knit in one piece to the armpits, then the sleeves were added and the whole thing knit, doing raglan decreases, to the neck. The only seams were sleeves and hems, there was a lot of picking up and knitting to create the hems and I am now much better at it.



I used Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in Night, which I believe is now a discontinued colour. It's a beautiful yarn, but the cabled band that runs along the bottom of this sweater doesn't show up very well and that is a little disappointing. I didn't really alter the pattern much, I'm no designer, but I did add extra length everywhere for my husband and his Monkey arms. I'm really quite happy with the fit, it's a great sweater for the long and lean.



Now, back to stalking the mailbox for my RSC package.

Nothing like a good block

I finished the scarf for my brother's wife this weekend. It was a really quick, easily memorized pattern resulting in a very nice scarf. It could be a bit a longer, if I had more wool. The length is pretty good though, it's around 58in.



The pattern is Crest of the Waves Scarf by Judy Jacobs and I used Misti Alpaca Worsted. With it being a worsted weight I decided to do a somewhat lacey scarf a)to take full advantage of the yardage and b)to make it a little less warm since L tends to wear her scarf all day, inside and out. We don't want to boil the girl. I liked the look of the scarf before I blocked it, but it's amazing now.



I didn't do the tassels or beads on the ends, I'm kind of anti-tassel. I think she probably is too, again because of the wear the scarf all day issue. And I've never seen her wearing a scarf with tassels.



I hope she likes it!

This week - zipper, egg basket, and button bands.