Entrelac

For a long time I have thought about trying Entrelac.  At least ever since I saw Danica.  I think I even decided to make it and bought some light blue yarn for the accent squares.  I never quite believed it was as easy as they said it was. But then I started seeing what people were doing with noro yarns and entrelac and Stubled across the most beautiful scarfs.  I don't have that much silk garden in my stash, but learning the technique would be a good first step.  So I dug through my stash for leftovers.

At the same time, I had decided that it might be time to conquer my fear of the dollar and a half cardigan (it isn't) and dug out the Interweave knits with that pattern in it.  Coincidently that issue (Spring 2007) has an entrelac tutorial in it. Then came a rainy day when the girls wanted to watch a  tv show we'd taped (and I wanted to see it too or ahem, I needed to ff through the commercials for them) It seemed like the fates were saying--do this.

And so I did:

It was pretty easy too.  Now to figure out how to justify the pruchase of 4 skeins of noro silk garden.

Gray sweater

The girls are at daycamp this week and I've never felt so productive or so worn out as I have this week. Today for example, I pitted 4 quarts of sour cherries and made jam (1 batch) and froze the rest. Sour cherries make excellent cherry crisp, and there is nothing better in my mind than having warm cherry crisp in the middle of a cold winter.

There must be something in the preparations for a cold winter, because today is the second installment of "kid sweaters I've finished when it got really hot."

This one is again made from Knit Picks Brava Worsted and again on US size 6 and 7 needles. The pattern is central park hoodie. This is the third I have made. Because sizing runs small (you didn't want to button it did you?) I made her a small women's.

I love how it turned out.

I only missed one cable, but it is hidden by the hood.

She does love it. When they get cold in the mornings (because after a week of upper 90s, 72 feels chilly) they both run for their sweaters. I also have tons of pictures of her posing it it, mostly in her nightgown, so I'll spare you all that.

And because we love a good button photo:

purple panda sweater

In looking over the pictures I took of the sweaters, I realized that I don't have a lot of suitable pictures of the gray central park hoodie. So instead I guess I'll separate the sweater entries.

First up is what we are referring to as the purple panda sweater. In fact I should probably update the ravelry page to call it that. At any rate, I made this for my daughter who loves purple and pandas. The yarn is Brava worsted by knitpicks. I used size US 7 needles and basically created the pattern by using the top down raglan calculator. I added a hood using other patterns as guidelines for length and shape. Instead of ribbing, I used seed stitch for the edges, and used a buttonhole I found in The Knitters book of finishing techniques.

And we were very happy with the finished product:

Given that it was over 80 outside and 77 inside and she sat there wearing it until we said--really aren't you hot? I'd say she likes it. It wasn't even as big as I thought it would be.

And just in case you missed it we're calling it the panda sweater because two of the five buttons are pandas. Purchased 1/2 price at Joann's!