Saturday was life suckingly busy. I headed a women’s tea at our church and churchable helped out at the boy scout garage sale. Both these events are held every year for each of our groups and they require coordination. I became president of the group that holds the women’s tea in January. I did not realize how much time and energy this event takes. This year we had each table be decorated by different ladies in the church. Each table was amazing. The above tables were the winning tables. I barely got any knitting done.

Sunday was the usual business plus a church meeting. At least I was able to knit during both church and the information meeting. I have progressed greatly on Sahara. It is going way faster than I expected which is good because time is moving faster than I expected.

On Monday I realized that the little girl had outgrown her sock sweaters that I made for her. She finally needed a real sweater. So in between all the hiking, I whipped up a cute little dog sweater from scratch with colorwork.

We have a finished object. I have been knitting along with the Sexy Knitters Club since the beginning of the year. This is my 3rd sweater with them and my 2nd KAL. This is Rusted Root. I really love the fit and enjoy the look I have here. Here are the stats.

Pattern: Rusted Root by Zephyr Style
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (80% cotton /20% Merino Wool) 3 skeins in Candy Apple.
Needles: US size 6 circular (unknown maker – an original from before I knew about wood) and US size 5 circular (unknown maker) and dpns (clover) for ribbing on arms and waist. G hook (susan bates, of course) for the neckline.
Mods: Ok here goes. I stuck pretty much to the pattern but took out the puffy sleeves. I really am happy with the lack of puff. I decided since I was making the size down from my chest size that I did not want the ribbing to pull in too much and went up to a size 5 needle for the ribbing. Also the photos of the neckline did not jump out at me as being cohesive to the pattern so I skipped the ribbing and did a single crochet around the neck – going into every stitch on the shoulder sides and into every two out of three stitches on the front and back neck. Also I did not like the look of the p3tog on row 9 of the lace pattern and placed a k3tog instead. I felt this caused the lace to flow more smoothly.

More pictures below:

Last time I mentioned that I had a shrug to make for my sister-in-law Bud. I got to start it Tuesday since I had finished Rusted Root on Monday. The I do shrug has a complicated lace pattern that is different every row. I am using Valley Yarns Southwick (52% Pima Cotton / 48% Bamboo) in Onyx. I am not so excited about this yarn as when I ordered it. The yarn is loosely twisted and thus individual strands snag while knitting. I have the 18 line lace pattern memorized and I am halfway up one side. Hopefully I will get a lot done on it this weekend while I am at a retreat where I get to sit, listen and KNIT.

I am off for the weekend to go to a retreat. On the way there, my friend and I will be doing a yarn shop hop. See ya next week.

My only FO is a dog sweater for Kiwi one of our dog breeder’s dogs.

I used STR heavyweight in Alina and Spinel. The solid is Spinel and the varigated is Alina. I used the fibernachi number series to do the striping. I missed up in my row count. For some reason I thought the dog was a 28 inch doxie. I was inspired to knit this stripe series when listening to Brenda Dane on Caston.

This is my first project with STR. I am in love. I like the colors and I like the feel of the yarn. I can’t wait to make socks from this yarn. They will be so delish.

You will probably see many more dog sweaters of this basic structure since I am making several commission dog sweaters for our breeders.

This here is Sheldon the Turtle of the famous Knitty.com. This will be for my youngest nephew who is turning 1 at the end of the month. I dragged my feet to start this because the pattern is 7 pages long. Once I got it start it flew through my fingers. I have two more legs and his shell left. You can check out other people adaptations at sheldon’s blog.

I am going to embroider the eyes on so that they stay and are less of a chocking habit.

This swatch is of the Indigo Ripple from the Spring Interweave. I got gauge before washing the Knit Picks Cotlin that I decided to use. Upon swatching for the lace section I discovered a mistake in the pattern. I emailed Kat Coyle the designer. She sent me the correction and helped me understand things better by sending me a close-up of the lace. Plus stupidly I also misread the psso as ssk and was getting some bizare other lace pattern, but when i charted it out things looked weird. After much head hitting and frogging of the lace, I started again and slowly read the pattern and thus discovered my mistake. I am so excited to start knitting, but first I want to finish Sheldon.

Now since have have had more than 20 hits on my blog looking for a review on Cotlin, I will do my best. The yarn knits up to 20st and 29 rows in a 4 in square on US 6 dpn bamboo needles. The yarn has a crisp hand that feels nice and cool for those perfect summer garments. Once washed the swatch grew width wise and shrunk only slightly in row count, washed it became 18.5 st by 30 rows. It might have been more stable at a tighter gauge, but I did not try it.

This yarn will not take kindly to agressive frogging. The light twist in the yarn makes the fibers separate after frogging a section multiple times.

Once knit up the fabric has lovely drape and flow. I can’t wait to have a completed garment out of this summery yarn.

These are Fingerless Mitts for myself. I really liked the ones that I made Memo.

Fingerless Mitts (Interweave Knits, Fall 2005)
Yarn: Noro Transition
(55% Wool, 10% Silk,7% Cashmere,7% Alpaca, 7% Angora, 7% Camel, 7% Kid Mohair)
Color: Color #2 – blues and greens
Gauge: 14st and 20 rnd = 4″ on size10 US
Comments: Super Easy, It took me about 2-3 hours to do each mitt.

Dog Sweater – I have been commissioned to make sweaters for our breeder.

Original Pattern
Yarn: Noro Transition
(55% Wool, 10% Silk,7% Cashmere,7% Alpaca, 7% Angora, 7% Camel, 7% Kid Mohair)
Color: Color #2 – blues and greens
Gauge: 14st and 20 rnd = 4″ on size10 US
Comments: Fast pattern but I did have to frog it 4 times before I got the proportions just right.

Baby Shoes for a friend who is expecting.

Pattern: Vogue Knitting Baby Knits Two
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted(85% Wool / 15% Mohair)
Color: M-11 White Frost and M-69 Old Sage
Gauge: 14st and 20 rows = 4″ on US size 10
Comments: These were finished in 2 hours. Super fast. I held two strands together to create the approximate gauge. And just happened to have leather yarn in my stash from Turkey.