Finished: Sedum Sweater

:::dances around:::

It’s done It’s done It’s done It’s done.

Actually, it was done September 6th. I love it.

And I am never making a one piece, top down, bulky yarn, oversize cardigan again. Especially not during the summer.







I feel like I need to say that it actually does fit very well, even though they way I am standing in one photo makes it appear too small and the other a little too big.

I don’t have buttons for it yet, and hope to find some lightweight plastic ones that will blend into the fabric rather than stand out.

Let’s see, what else to say about this. I changed the pattern to make the body of the sweater in stockinette stitch instead of seed stitch. While I love the look of seed stitch, I didn’t think the extra bulk of it in this yarn would be very flattering on me.

I also wish I would have had one more ball of yarn to make the ribbed collar a little longer. Still, it's very comfy and is going to be perfect to wear this fall for running out to the store or keeping warm at home.

Pattern: Sedum Sweater (on Ravelry)
Yarn: GGH Aspen in Camel
Needles: size 10 US circs and dpns
Started/Finished: May 19, 2009/September 6, 2009

Fall Football Season

As much as I hate to admit it, Fall has arrived in Chicagoland. This has both bad (weather) and good (football!) points.

It is pretty easy to tell when college football season begins around here. Every time I turn the TV on, it is tuned to ESPN or the Big Ten network. Radios are tuned to AM stations, especially if we are in the car on a Saturday. We stop in front of any TV showing score for a quick update. And I am struggling to keep up with the player’s names and team standings as every other sentence out of my husband’s mouth is football related.

It’s lots of fun. He has plenty of things to say about how ESPN treats the Hawkeyes, and about the polls in general, but I think I am going to let that go here for now.

Since we can no longer make it to Iowa City for all of the Hawkeye home games anymore, we have switched to Illinois State Redbirds season tickets. We meet my family there; my Dad is an alumnus. It is a lot of fun and we get to see some excellent 1-AA football. Also, their marching band is fantastic and it makes this former band geek/drum majorette feel very nostalgic.

(Every time I am on a college campus I have to resist the urge to run to the admissions office and sign up for classes. But as I’ve said – geek.)

Do you remember Reggie?


seen here, trying to steal my watermelon


He was actually named after Reggie the Redbird.




An extra special bonus to attending Redbird games is that we have a 2.5 hour drive each way. That is a lot of quality knitting time while my husband drives. I’ve actually finished a few small projects already – two games into the season.

(And once again I have a serious backlog of FO posts.)

This weekend the Redbirds are away, and we are actually driving to Iowa for a Hawkeye game. This is our first one in… two years I think? I’m very excited. Well, except for the fact that the game starts at 11am, and we have to leave at ridiculous o’clock in the morning to get there in time. Oh well – more car knitting!

Last Weekend

I can't believe a week has gone my since Mom and I were at Stitches Midwest. I am once again so far behind in things I want to write about.

I took Friday off work and stayed in a hotel in Schaumburg (about 45 min from home) for two nights. Friday night was basically just for fun - a girls night with mom - but I stayed Saturday because my husband and I were going to a concert at the Park West in the city and I didn't want to have to drive home after my class on Saturday, down to the city, back home, and then back to Schaumburg the next day. It worked out really well, and was a nice little escape from the real world for a few days. In fact, by the time work on Monday rolled around the perpetual mental list of things I needed to do that morning was gone from my brain. Wow. It's a good thing I write everything down!

Unfortunately I don't have any photos at all of the entire weekend. Lame. I'm gotten so bad about pulling my camera out and taking pictures. I need start that again. I think it's nice to have a record of even the somewhat mundane things in life.

The two classes I took at Stitches were excellent. I am going to take a few photos of what I learned and talk a little bit about them in a separate post.

We (well, I) did quite a bit of damage at the Stitches market. Since I was there for three days (Friday with Mom, Saturday and Sunday for classes) I kept going back and picking up 'just one more thing'.





I'm not going to show a photo of the yarn, since much of it is for gifts.

______

I feel it necessary to say that I am a little overwhelmed my all of my yarn and projects at the moment. I didn't mention it here yet but a few months ago I ran across a sort of local yarn store that was going out of business, and had everything 75% off. Ahem.





I have enough yarn now for about 10 sweaters, 25 pairs of socks, and countless other smaller projects. This is the first time it has ever felt like too much and I am looking forward to finishing some of the gift projects and getting them out of here.

Swatching.

I spent part of my weekend combining patterns with yarn and doing a few swatches for the things I want to start soon.





The green is Cascade Sierra, the gray is Plymouth Encore, and the red is Rowan Summer Tweed. The first two are for vests and the Summer Tweed is for a Liesl cardigan. I am constantly pushing long sleeves up at work to keep them out of the way (and out of chemicals/media/burners) so I thought I'd try combos of warm vests with short sleeves to stay warm this winter with less hassle.

The swatches have already been washed and blocked. I know many people don't swatch at all, much less wash and block them, but my scientific brain can not comprehend how to make a garment that fits without knowing how the yarn is going to act. I am a little disappointed to see that my stitches still look uneven in the Sierra after blocking. This is actually my second time attempting to use this yarn and I just can't get it to look smooth. Is it the cotton content? Frustrating.

These swatches:





are homework for a seaming class I am taking at Stitches Midwest next weekend. I am really looking forward to this class; my seaming is atrocious and no matter how many times I read instructions on how to do mattress stitch I just don't get it.

Judging by the swatches, we are going to learn to seam many different types of stitches and edges. Maybe after this I will not shy away from knitting a sweater in pieces instead of top-down all at once. My bulky, heavy, too hot on my lap Sweater of Doom has made me question that method, as convenient as it sounds.

The Neverending Sweater of Doom

The only thing left to finish on my Sedum cardigan is the collar, which is long and ribbed (har) so it can fold over on itself and be cozy.

I have worked on it every night since last weekend. It doesn't seem to be getting any bigger.

Arggh! I just want it finished!

As much as I love sweaters that are knit in one piece, having the entire thing in your lap while working on a sleeve or the collar is really a pain. Especially when it is a large cardigan/coat sweater in bulky yarn.