Tuesday, February 28, 2006

An Addition to the Flock

About a week ago I finished a second Butterfly for my best friend. Posts about it had to wait until it was received, but now my own little suspense hell can be banished by flaunting it all over the internet.



Isn't she adorable? ^_^


In case you wanted a brighter shot of it.





Pattern: Butterfly from Rowan 37

Yarn: Approximately 400 yds of Handpainted Yarn's laceweight wool in "roanoke."

Needles: US 8 for the frill and body, US 3 for the picot bind-off and the straps.

Modifications: Knit in the round, altered the sizing to be S at the bottom and L at the top. I also made it smaller and used US 3s instead of 7s for the picot bind-off.
Notes: The pattern was much easier the second time through. This one only took me a couple of weeks, as compared to the month+ of the first one. I also taught myself to knit backwards in order to avoid switching around the needles constantly while doing the straps.


I knew I'd love this pattern enough to make 6 of it. ^_^


Anyway, on to what else I've been doing. I've of course been working on the Adrienne Vittadini Lace and Ruffle Cardigan, although only at work. It's just too much mental effort to work on while watching movies or surfing the net at home. The only time I have to work in it is during my break at work or when I don't feel like doing anything other than knitting, which is rarely. Picture 11" in mauve lattice stitch and you'll know what my progress looks like. Because it's sort of anticlimactic at the moment I don't feel the need to post a picture, but I promise I will once the back is done.

I've also made progress on my Colchique. The front is done and the back is temporarily stalled 7" in until the rest of the yarn I'm using for it unkinks enough to be usable. It's hanging in my very steamy bathroom as we speak, not exactly relaxing the way I hoped it would. I suspect I'm just going to end up winding it into balls without caring about its kinkedness. I also hope I'm going to have enough yarn for it. The stuff I'm using is discontinued; 10 skeins won off of ebay last year and made into Berrocco's Tatania pattern, which wasn't as nice as I wanted it to be. So far I managed to make the front and 7" of the back of Colchique without even touching Tatania, but now that I've had to frog it to make any more progress I'm starting to worry about how much yarn I have left. The skein wrappers were useless in that all the information they gave about amounts of yarn was "50 grams," so I'm really winging this. If worse comes to worst I can always shorten the sleeves, but one of the biggest things I like about Colchique is its ridiculously long thumb gusset sleeves, which I'd hate to sacrifice. If I try to work this out rationally it goes something like this:

-I used a little bit more than 3 skeins of yarn for the front of Colchique, which had to be modified to accomodate the boobage.
-My back has no boobage, so it should take 3 skeins or a little bit less.
-That leaves about 4 skeins, or 2 apiece, for the sleeves.
-If I make the sleeves simultaneously I won't have to worry about ripping either one out to make them even.
-I really, REALLY hope 2 skeins +/- is enough for each abnormally long sleeve.
-Oh crap. The collar.

Gee, that went well.


Ugh. In order to not think about the Colchique for a little while and have something fairly mindless to work on while watching movies I started the Pomatomus socks. I'm using the remaining skein-and-a-half of Silja sock yarn left over from my ruffled gloves. Which are not in here, but can be found on Craftster. So far I'm loving my new 40" size 1 circ which allows me to magic loop both socks simultaneously and the stitch pattern, which is unique and fun to watch while not being too difficult or tedious. If there's good lighting tomorrow I'll take pictures, but right now it would be just my worktable and uberwattage spotlight and it wouldn't be very flattering, so you'll have to trust me when I say that they look really good so far.