Sweater weather

I have started several sweaters for myself in my career as a knitter. Last spring/summer I made myself a short-sleeved shrug in a beautiful shade of purple:

Still on the needles

Unfortunately, I did not pick up enough stitches when I went to knit the 2-inch ribbed trim, so it flops unattractively when I put it on, so I need to unstitch it, rip out the trim, and pick up the correct number of stitches.

I've also started 2 winter cardigans for myself:

Neither of which are yet finished.  The problem is that my primary knitting time is on the train, commuting to work, and the sweaters are too large for my cosmetic-sized knitting bag.  At least, that's my excuse.  I suppose I could stop packing my lunch, and then I'd have more room for yarn.  Who needs to eat, when you can knit?

But I have finally finished a sweater!  A friend of mine from high school and her wife have a three-year-old daughter who is obsessed with Tyrannosaurus Rex - every night she and her mother play "dinosaur," with E telling her mother, "Mama, you be the TRex!" and my friend chases her around the house, roaring.  They bought her a 3-foot inflatable TRex for Christmas, and put it under the tree wearing a Santa hat.  I love that she is so into dinosaurs, because I went through a phase between about 6-10 where I couldn't get enough of them either.  So while perusing Ravelry and thinking about knitting her a hat, I stumbled upon a pattern called Tony Tyrannosaurus Rex Jumper by Christine Grant, I bought it.  It called for Intarsia, a type of color work knitting I had taken a class in but never tried.  I am so excited by how it turned out:

Even the inside didn't turn out too bad:

I am meeting her mother for lunch in just a few hours to hand over the sweater.  I really hope it fits her.

Nothing says summer like.....gloves

This morning I finished my Socrates gloves.  You may remember the first photo:

Now there are two.  They don't match at all, in terms of the fingers lining up when you put the pair together, because I knit them to fit specific hands since I could try them on as I was working.  This has made me wonder whether or not my hands are different sizes.  It will not be something I lose any sleep over.  I am going to take the rib pattern and modify it to make a scarf and possibly a hat as I have 6 skeins left from the 8 skeins I purchased.  I tend to need scarves before I need hats, so I'm starting with that but I have my fingers crossed that I can do both with the remaining skeins. Each skein is about 77 yards long, so the scarf won't be very long but it's not a wool base so I'm likely only to be using the set in early fall and early spring.

Currently on the needles - fingerless gloves for my friend A, who does a lot of theater ushering in the winter (when the theaters have their busy season) who told me last Christmas that her hands are often cold as she takes tickets.  Ushers dress all in black, so I am knitting Woven Fingerless Gloves using some sparkly black yarn called Vanna's Glamour - its yarn from a collection by Vanna White, the hostess from "Wheel of Fortune."  I've spent more time than I should thinking about whether she's hands on with the yarn selection, or color dyeing, or thread counts.  It seems strange to me that she'd be a television personality with her own line of yarn, but if I were famous I certainly wouldn't be designing clothes, because I'm just about the least-fashionable person you will ever meet.  So I suppose a line of affordable yarns would appeal to me.  Anyway, this was the pair I knit for myself:

I can't get a good shot of the patterning with this yarn because it's so dark.  A will really like these, particularly because there's a shot of sparkle running through the yarn, and she loves shiny things. Sort of like Dory from "Finding Nemo."

And I'm still working on that Opening Night cardigan, still knitting the first 65' x 12" trim piece.  It's now about 15" long.  I might be done by fall.....of 2015.  Still love the yarn though, and not the slightest bit sorry about how much money I spent on it.  The cardigan will be beautiful and very warm once it's done.  If it's done.

What else I'm working on

For my birthday, my favorite local yarn shop sent me an email coupon for 15% of my total project - yarn and needles.  In my mind, that's practically free.  I had been intrigued by a pattern I saw in the winter 2012 edition of Love of Knitting called Opening Night.  Instead of the recommended yarn, I splurged and bought 14 skeins of Manos del Urugay Wool Classica in this lovely purple colorway:

You knit the sweater in pieces, then stitch together.  I have successfully finished the back and two front pieces; now I am working on the upper trim.  Sadly, both the upper and the lower trim are 12" wide and about 65" long, so that part is not going so fast.  Also, it's a winter sweater and we're headed into summer, so while I am still excited about how it's coming out, I've lost focus.

Fortunately, the summer issue arrived on Wednesday, and in it was an article about a Summer Night Shawl calling for Metallic Rayon yarn from Blue Heron yarns.  I was delighted to see this, because I remembered that I had seen 3 skeins of it (and they are large skeins - 550 yards) in a slightly different colorway at Windsor Button in downtown Boston.  It is an expensive yarn - it retails for $46 a skein - but the pattern calls for only one skein.  Plus, Windsor Button was going out of business (sadly, they've lost their lease) so all the yarns were discounted.  I went online.....and discovered I had missed their final day by about five days.  I looked online but couldn't really justify spending the money plus the shipping to order it online since my local yarn shops don't carry it.

I decided to see if I had a substitution in my stash on Friday morning.  And discovered that I had splurged on all three of the skeins from Windsor Button at some point before they closed.  I clearly need more sleep if I can't remember a purchase like that.  I determined that I could use the other two skeins to make a summer sweater pattern I had recently downloaded, and that the shawl was a go.  I'm about 90 rows in of 145:

It is an incredibly easy pattern:  cast on three stitches, turn.  Next row, knit one, yarn over, knit to the end.  Repeat 143 more times, adding the yarn over as the second stitch on each row.

I am hoping to finish it by our anniversary this weekend so I can wear it out to dinner.  I am thinking that's a bit of a stretch, but it will be finished in time for me to enjoy this summer.  It might be a little fancy to wear to the movies, but I'll get over it.