Monday, January 25, 2010

Knitting fast and furious

On Friday, as predicted, I finished the panda sweater
Panda Girl

And Saturday I started the bee sweater
bee sweater

must.
knit.
fast.

Back to it.....

Friday, January 22, 2010

panda sweater progress

I've been working away on the panda sweater and have made quite good progress.

Panda sweater

And most importantly--it fits her! I wish I'd had the camera out when I tried it on her (for length mostly, but I was glad it fit everywhere). I was kind of nervous given that I am working with a "homemade pattern." Which is funny because I often have better luck with the more organic patterns.

Since I took that picture, I've knit even more and finished both sleeves and am starting on the collar. I'm hoping to have it finished tonight, so I can start the "bee" sweater.

I realized, that I've never explained this sweater, although it feels like I have because of the "lost" post.
The pattern:
I had wanted to buy a pattern, but I couldn't find a top down raglan that was for kids. At the LYS, I talked to Martel who suggested that I could use the woolworks pattern. I don't know why I always think I'm going to mess up some math thing, I have a calculator and I know how to use it. But for some reason I do. But this time, I just took a deep breath and swatched. Now that I know that it fits, I'll feel more confident starting the next sweater--because it will be roughly the same size.

The Yarn:
I'm using knit picks swish worsted which is 100% superwash merino and it washes up soooo soft. (Size 7 needles if anyone cares) I underestimated how much black I'd need for this sweater--which turned out to be 3.5 skeins. So the other day, I bought some more, so I can do the bee sweater. I hated to spend the money for the shipping, but I have both girls pushing me along (knit faster mama!) and so waiting for any reason just wasn't going to work.

The Plan:
Finish the panda sweater tonight and start the bee sweater tomorrow and knit like crazy.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

panda sweater

I started this whole post on how I am knitting a sweater that looks like a panda for my panda crazy daughter.
panda sweater

I wrote about how It was helping me to get better about relaxing and breathing and just diving in at knitting. About how I am taking the leap of faith of plugging my own numbers into a pattern, doing the addition and multiplication and trusting it to come out.

I wrote about how my concept of black sleeves and white middle to make my daughter look like a panda, but how she kept asking where the face was going to be. I said sweater, she heard, evidently, costume. So I'm kind of on tap for a hat with ears. I might have even written about how I think between the panda sweater and the striped "bee" sweater I'm afraid I need a few more skeins of black.

But then I got called to dinner, saved my post and... well it didn't save.
I think I swore more at that than anything I've done for the panda sweater. And when I get over it, I'll fill in the details.