Month: April 2018

All the News That’s Fit to Print

Due to a recent announcement that Area Voices will be shutting down, this blog will move to https://knittingupnorth.com/  Please head over there to follow me!  You will not see my blog posts on any Forum newspaper websites, so I ask that you click on the “Follow Us” button to sign up to have me delivered to you inbox when I post.  I’d hate to lose any of my readers in the move!  I’ll be working over the next month to migrate my blog posts to the new site.

There I was, enjoying my delicious cup of coffee…. just hanging out in my dining room… what, this old sweater?  You mean my super comfy, cozy Boxy sweater? 

The one made out of Malabrigo?  Why yes, I did make this sweater myself!  Have I mentioned that it is very comfortable? And that it goes very well with my brown and white patterned pants.  Who would have guessed that I would have very little to wear with these pants?!  Now, white and I don’t always play well together.  In fact, I’m incredibly paranoid that I will spill coffee on this sweater!  (So paranoid that there’s actually no coffee in that cup!)  (Actually, that might have more to do with the fact that the pictures were taken after I got home from work).  Regardless, it was clear that I needed a white sweater and that I needed one right away.  Since it’s April in Superior, I plan on getting at least a month out of this sweater.  For those of you not in Superior, we’re experiencing Second Winter with this weekend’s predicted snow storm.  I expect this will last until sometime in late May when we will get First Rainy Spring.

The details:

Start:  March 17

Finish:  April 7

Pattern:  Boxy by Joji Locatelli

Yarn:  Malabrigo Rios in Natural

Needle:  US 7

Modifications:  Knit seamless in the round.  I knit this in the smallest size because I was afraid it would hang down to my knees and overwhelm me if I wasn’t careful.  When I blocked this it grew beyond human proportions, so I threw it in the dryer for a few minutes when it was mostly dry.  I watched it carefully so that it wouldn’t shrink too much.  I absolutely love how cushy the fabric is.

 

And just for a giggle today…..  It’s a lot of fun having my girls be my photographer and stylist!

 

 

And just a reminder:  due to a recent announcement that Area Voices will be shutting down, this blog will move to https://knittingupnorth.com/  Please follow me there.

Hi! How’s it going?

2018-03-17 09.31.21

So there I was, plugging away at the Area Voices blog when all of a sudden, (*Bang, Boom! Crash!) I was told I needed to migrate my blog onto a new site because Area Voices was to be no more.

So here we are, chilling and knitting on the new site.  I sure hope you’ll follow me here.  Just click the “Follow” button over on the right and you’ll get a handy dandy little email every time I post.

See you soon!

Miles and Miles of Stockinette

 

I’m at that point in my projects where I am knitting what feels like miles and miles of white stockinette.  It’s the knitting equivalent of snow blindness!  I have two sweaters on the needles right now for me, which is extremely unusual.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve knit a sweater for myself.  Although Addie has already volunteered to take at least one of the sweaters if it doesn’t fit or I decide I don’t want it.  The Clayoquot Cardigan you see above is my Ravellenics project.  What?  The Ravellenics are over you say?  Well, hmmm…. guess I missed that deadline!  I hit a serious slow down with this project as I was knitting the body of the sweater.  The needles and the yarn were just not jiving together well and I was getting seriously achy hands.  (Did I talk about this already?)  Anyway, I splurged on some Lykke needles and things started moving faster.  Then I got to the SEVENTEEN INCHES of stockinette.  Which doesn’t sound like a whole lot of knitting, but it’s a whole. lot. of. knitting.

So I did what any rational knitter would do.  I bought a lot of natural Malabrigo to start a Worsted Boxy sweater by Joji Locatelli.  In case you’ve been off grid lately and haven’t heard every knitter on the planet talking about this sweater or one of the variations, this is a sweater with a whole lot of stockinette.  Like do the ribbing and then knit SEVENTEEN INCHES of stockinette.  Only this is a very wide sweater as it’s meant to be big and loose.  Do you sense a theme?  White.  Stockinette.  Lots of it.  I guess it’s to be expected as these are both adult size sweaters.  I’m extremely motivated to finish this sweater though, as I actually really want to wear it.  You see, I have some brown skinny pants that don’t really seem to match much of anything in my closet and I really want this to go with it.  Only in Superior do you knit a sweater in March & April and expect that you’ll still have time to wear it that year!  Ha!

I’m just taking it a bit further and hoping that I will be able to wear both sweaters yet this spring!  Actually I could see myself knitting another Boxy or two for the girls.  And knit in Malabrigo Rios, who could complain about that?  It definitely makes the miles and miles of stockinette a lot more fun to knit!

Oh, and that pretty little progress keeper?  It’s from my friend Knittymuggins over at The Violet Valentine.  Beyond just being an all around awesome friend, Knittymuggins has awesome color sense.  She’s getting ready for a trunk show at her LYS right now, so I can’t wait to see what she’s got up in her shop after the show is over.

So what are you knitting?