knitting school dropout

:( (insert more dramatic sad face here)

anais is officially finished and although i absolutely love her, she'll be banished to the ziploc bag until i give her away. i was only able to wear this sweater for about 20 minutes total before i ended up with a rash and could no longer breathe out of the left side of my face. benadryl was administered, sad faces were made, but peeps, i had to face it, i am totally allergic to alpaca.

here are the first and last pictures you will ever see of it on my body:

the details:

pattern: anais, by norah gaughan from norah gaughan vol.1

yarn: berroco ultra alpaca light, almost exactly 4 skeins for the 34" size

needles: u.s. 10 bamboo straights (for inserts), u.s.4s for ribbing and u.s. 5s for the body

mods: i added 1.5 inches to the ribbing and another inch to the body because the pattern called for a much shorter garment than i wanted. i also ended up taking off the little webby capped sleeves because when i saw myself in the mirror after they were sewn in, the word "husky" kept popping into my head. i guess i felt like a wooly little football player. so i took them off and then all was well in my world. other than those little changes, i knit the pattern as written.

if i were to knit this pattern again, which i am determined to do (in an alpaca-free yarn), i would knit the body in the round up to the armholes, instead of having to seam the sides later. i re-seamed this baby 3 times. 3. times. that makes me cry a little. i'm just a perfectionist when it comes to the seaming and i make myself crazy for no good reason at all, because my seams were fine the first time, according to everyone else. this was also the first sweater that i've knit in pieces in over 2 years, ever since top-down raglans came into my life.

so yes, yes, go knit this sweater vest. i love it. the yarn is gorgeous stuff too and i'm very sad that i won't get to wear it.

the post title was inspired by joan jett. i just got back from seeing her play, it was awesome.

Posted by melissa at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

pattern: shetland triangle, designed by evelyn clark.
from: wrap style
yarn: handpaintedyarn.com lace, less than 1/2 of 1 sk.
needles: us6 circulars
approx knitting time: 1 week, with lots of other projects being worked on at the same time.
thoughts: though i probably won't be knitting anything else from this book, it was worth the purchase price for this pattern alone. it was easy to memorize the main repeat, and knit up quickly to a beautiful result. i think i'll be making another one of these as gift giving season approaches.
although i really love the color of the yarn, and that it's very soft, i'm curious to see how it'll hold up over time. it's a single ply and i'm a little afraid it will pill up eventually. still, at $5.95 for 850 yards, it exceeded my expectations. i still have more than half the skein left too!

i'm still plugging away at anais. i almost finished the back, then realized i had screwed up the armhole decreases and had to rip back. i'm bummed because after knitting the swallowtail shawl, and then starting anais, it has become very clear that i am allergic to alpaca. i pretty much feel like i'm coming down with a cold every time i'm near either of these projects for any length of time, because i end up sneezing, getting a scratchy throat and rubbing my eyes. waaah! so after anais is finished, i'll probably gift her to a friend and then knit a wool one for myself. it's just too cute. until then i'll be attempting to knit anais under the influence of benadryl. ugh. drowsy knitting. not fun.

i feel like i've been on a finishing streak lately, hopefully i'll be back soon with even more.

have and great (and maybe long, for some) weekend!

Posted by melissa at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)