Knitted Sweater · Knitting · Storage · yarn

Crafting the Days Away


Happy May Day my blogging friends! Wow! 2 months have come and gone without a post from me. I don’t even know how that happened. I even missed my 12-year Bloggaversary! I have been crafting, organizing, purging, donating and watching lots of flosstube. I have stitched quite a bit the last couple of months too, and I am not even sure where to begin. So, let’s start with what I stitched on today. I knitted on my Lace & Fade Boxy Pullover by Joji Locatelli. This was a project I planned over a year ago. Remember this?

Well, I had made some changes in the yarns. Added some, took away some. Changed my mind several times. I finally landed on my colors and started this in February.

I just love all of these colors and think they play well together.

I was so excited to get this started. I had a bit of a setback in the beginning. This is my first top-down sweater, so it was different. But once I figured it out, it was easy going. The lace is easy but does need my undivided attention.

Oh so pretty! My first lace stripe is finished!

I had so many cables hanging that were holding stitches. I was so happy to get them all put onto one needle and start knitting in the round. You can see a sweater taking shape! And here is where I ended this morning.

I just added my 6th color. The pattern says to add the ribbing partway through the last color stripe that I added, but it is way too short for me. So, I added another lace stripe and the last color shown above. I will probably add another lace stripe after this and then add another stripe of this same color and then go into the ribbing. I will have to put the stitches on some stitch vines and try it on at some point. But I am really loving how this is looking. The colors are just beautiful. You can’t tell in the photo, but the shoulders and the lace mohair are a very light pink. So lovely. I am working on 420 stitches around, so not so quick. But I am enjoying it. My word for 2024 is Enjoy, and I have been enjoying all of the projects I have been working on.

I mentioned that I have been watching a lot of flosstube. Recently I have been watching just one channel. I stumbled upon a video mixed in with my flosstubes and have just been drawn to watching all of her older videos. The channel is Stitched By Mrs. D and her name is Paula. She is from the UK and I can just listen to her all day. She makes me laugh and her knitting and crocheting are beautiful. She sews adorable little bears and knits sweaters for them and sews their skirts. she also makes lovely project bags. I hope to purchase one of her bags someday. A lot of the knitting patterns she does, I have done, or I have them in my ravelry. Anyway, if you are into watching those kinds of videos on Youtube, give her a look. I love that she says everything is “Lovely”. On one of her videos, she showed a beautiful shawl called Dust of Snow by Helen Stewart. Ooooh so beautiful! I looked it up on Ravelry and it was already in my library. So, I decided I should start gathering some mini skeins to start that one in the near future.

This past Saturday was Local Yarn Store Day, and I visited a shop that is about 35 minutes from me, and this is what I brought home.

The skein at top left is just beautiful and I had to have it. It has sparkle in it, too and it will become a lovely shawl or cowl someday. It is a fingering yarn from Just Bee Fibers. The next 3 skeins are La Jolla from Baah yarns and they are the called for colors for the Local Yarn Store shawl pattern called Garter Me This. I love La Jolla yarn. So soft and squishy. And while at the store, they had minis! So, I picked up 12 of them for the Dust of Snow shawl. They are also from Just Bee Fibers. I will need 12 more for my shawl and can’t wait to go back and pick some more beauties. I will have to save up for that. The pattern calls for a mohair to be carried along with the fingering minis, but I don’t think I will be adding the mohair. I would need 4 full skeins of the mohair and that will be another chunk of change. I think the shawl will be lovely without the mohair. In fact, Paula, from Stitched by Mrs. D didn’t add the mohair to her shawl, and it is beautiful. Lastly, the 4 little balls of Happy yarn I picked up to add to my jar.

I always pick up a couple when I see them because they are just too cute! And I just love looking at them all together in my jar. Someday I will make something with them.

So, I think that is where I will leave it today. I have so much to share, so be sure to come back. What have you been stitching up over the last couple of months?

Happy Stitching,

Knitted Sweater · Knitting · New stash! · yarn

Planning A Project


Hello blogging friends! I currently have nothing on my knitting needles, other than my travel project. But it isn’t for lack of trying. I visited my Local Yarn Shop during their Shop Hop a couple of weeks ago and fell in love with a pattern the gals there were talking about. One of the gals that works at the shop was wearing the sweater, the gal who was having a trunk show with her amazing yarns was knitting the sweater. And one of the other gals that works there and myself were busy trying to find the perfect yarns to make the perfect fade for the sweater. We decided on pinks and mostly Adelaide Fiber Yarns. This is what we came up with and what I went home with.

This is the pattern.

I am planning on adding to the bottom of this one to make it longer. Maybe an additional 4 stripes. I love the soft, elegant, cozy look of this sweater. I am not sure how I will like the sagging arm pits, but I think it will be a nice loungy sweater for at home.

I love all of these colors and was anxious to get started on a swatch to see how all of the yarns would knit up together.

Lots of yarn winding going on here. In fact, my bum shoulder was hurting for a couple of days. So much so, that later when I added a 600 yard skein to the line-up, hubby had to wind it for me ❤

Yep, that’s him. He did a great job, too. This yarn cake will be added to the line later.

This is what I caked. These colors make me so happy! They pretty much match my flower arrangement.

Something still didn’t seem right with the fade. So I added a skein of Antique Lace from The Wicked Knittah.

The fade still does not seem to be flowing. I was having such difficulty coming up with the colors that would show the fade that I had in my head.

I was taking skeins out, adding skeins in, winding more skeins, going through my stash trying to find the perfect colors. By this point I was getting pretty frustrated. But I think I finally found my fade! These are the colors that I ended up with.

So I started knitting my swatch to see how the colors would knit up next to each other. The pink mohair yarn in color “A Mother’s Love” by Adelaide Fibers will be the lace stripes in between each of the color stripes. I had started knitting with the color for the bottom. I had knitted 2 stripes of that color when I first thought I was going to repeat 2 of the colors.

So the purplish color will be the bottom color. The next different colored stripe will be moved up and the color at the top will be moved down to the second color. The light pink will be used for the neck edge and sleeves. I pretty much get gauge with my stockinette stitch as knitted. Even though the pattern calls for gauge after blocking. I still don’t quite understand that as I have no idea how to block a swatch. Do I pull and stretch a little? A lot? Not at all? Will the yarn keep it’s shape after wetting? Thankfully, I don’t think this pattern will matter too much if I get gauge or am close. I will have plenty of yarn, so I won’t need to worry about that.

So this will be my color line-up…I think…I’m pretty sure.

Now I just have to figure out which size I want to do. Not sure when I will be starting this. I am planning on knitting this as a KAL with Kristine and she is waiting for the light pink to be dyed by the dyer. I think this was the most intense project I have planned for yet. Have you had a project that just seemed to take forever to plan out?

Happy Stitching!

Ginny