Silver Bell

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I'm still here, just been very busy. I did finish my silver belle. Actually I finished it back in May. I noticed it was over a year ago that I last posted about it so here it is all finished.
Pattern: Silver Belle from Vogue Knitting's 25 Anniversary Issue. The pattern is free online.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I loved using this yarn!

I had to order more yarn to finish it. I can't remember exactly how much more yarn I needed but I do remember it took more than what the pattern recommended.I also had to go down a couple of sizes on the needles. I knitted the bottom part of the sweater first and it was huge. I mean really huge.

I found some buttons at the local fabric store that has a celtic look to them. I like how the buttons turned out looking with the cabling in the sweater.
The only downside of this sweater for me is that it is a heavy sweater and drapes pulling downward because of it. I hope that makes since. Overall I really like the sweater and wear it whenever the days are cool enough for it, like today.


I hope everybody is having a great day.

Happy New Year

Have you ever heard of the Dear John letter; well the Dear blog letter is beginning to rival the Dear John letter. It goes something like this…

Dear blog, I am so sorry that I abandoned you over the last few months but I just don’t have enough time for you…

Yes I’m another one of those bloggers who has let their blog slowly disintegrate. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get all the things done that I would like to do, but I have missed my blog. So I’m back :).

As for knitting I’m still working on my silver belle. Here are some progress pictures for you.



If you haven’t noticed one of my resolutions for 2009 is to not be so neglectful to my blog.

I hope everybody has a great 2009.

Summer review

Whenever I haven’t blogged for awhile it gets overwhelming on where to start at so I decided to do a summer knitting wrap up since fall is here. I did a lot of spinning this summer so I’m very pleased with that but my knitting…, well it didn’t live up to my expectations.

I thought I had finished the sideways vest but after blocking it I noticed that one side was longer than the other. I kept thinking how could this be? It was all even before blocking. With further investigation I found the problem. This vest is knitted by casting on stitches for the front side and binding off for the other front side. I hope that makes since. Anyway my binding off stitches are much tighter then my casting on stitches. Arrr, I’m not sure what to do with it. My sister suggested to try doing the bind off with a bigger needle. I had already tied the ends in so taking the bind off stitches out was a bear but I did get them out. I think I need to do a swatch and play with the bind off which I haven’t felt like playing with so it has been abandoned. It is still sitting there waiting for the final bind off. Does anybody have any experience with how to keep the bind off stitches loose? If I use a bigger needle should I go up one or two needle sizes?


Then there is the Ugly sweater. I got the bottom part of it done and tried it on and it turned out a bit snug on me. This is the back view. I didn’t want to give you guys the Buddha belly shot ;).It’s my fault I was thinking the cotton yarn would bag out and not snap back so I knitted it to be slightly smaller. My first reaction was to see if Dax would take it but she wasn’t that interested in it so it has been abandoned to for the time being. It's a good chance this one will be heading to the frog pound. Well unless I can lose say 20lbs or so :), yeah probably the frog pound.

So after these disappointments, which are leaving ufo’s all over the house, I decided to not deal with any of them and cast on a new project. I’m working on a free pattern from Vogue’s Knitting magazine called silver belle.

There you have it, it’s been a summer of UFO’s. Let's hope the fall will be a little more productive.

Have a great week.