Saturday, January 7, 2012

Making some headway

. . . on my knitting list.  But I think I won't be able to finish all the December items before it's time to start Spring Knitting!  Although now that I live in Chicago, I have about an extra month of winter knitting.  In St. Louis, I always used to start Spring Knitting on Feb. 1 - here it's more like March 1.  And now that sewing is back in the mix, who knows how things will go this year?

Anyway, I began 2012 with another little piece for my favorite boy - some socks for Hubby:


Hubby loves handknit socks in the winter, but ONLY if they're made from yarn that has lycra in it.  This is some Paton's Stretch Socks I picked up at Michael's on sale in the fall.  These are going to replace the other grey socks I made him years ago that don't have stretch.

I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to be monogamous to one knitting project, even socks (which only take me about 8 hours in total), so I also started my Still Light dress.  But I'm calling mine Northern Lights, because of the colors:


This is DROPS Alpaca in a color called Dark Petrol Mix - the perfect name for it.  It's a dark blue-teal, with bits of turquoise and magenta.  The above picture was taken in bright sunlight, up close.  Most of the time it looks like this:


I chose this color because I think it will look great with the cognac colored boots I bought a couple years ago and hardly ever wear (can you say Seamless?).  But unfortunately, it's one of those colors that requires a fair amount of light to knit, which has limited my work time on this piece. Still, I've managed to get it to the point of removing the sleeve stitches - I was up to 368 stitches on the needle at that point!

Before I started, I did a fair amount of research on Ravelry about sizing.  I fall between the XS and S size, so I decided to do as others have done and increase to a number halfway between the two.  Not quite sure what I'll do when I get to the hip area, where I could really use the extra room of the size small.  I haven't read ahead in the pattern yet!  Fingers crossed!

10 comments:

  1. Yay Still Light! That color is amazing! And, holy cow, you're moving so quickly! It took me f o r e v e r to knit that-- you're a machine! :)

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  2. I love knitting socks - in fact, they seem to be the only things I knit lately!
    Your Still Light looks amazing - I love the color.

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  3. Oh you brave soul knitting socks for your husband! I want to knit some for my dad but I just can't commit to socks that big! All of your knitting looks awesome. :)

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  4. 8 hours for a pair of socks! I'm impressed. Does the dress pattern have waist shaping? I'm guessing you will need to refigure the bottom portion of that. Or you know, "just" throw in some extra increases between the waist and the hip. It is a beautiful color.

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  5. The dress is a-line, but I'm definitely going to have to give myself a little extra room in the hips!

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  6. It's incredible to see the two photos of your DROPS Alapaca. Can't wait to see more!

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  7. I worked on it some yesterday, and I was thinking it's miles and miles of stockinette! So I did a conversion, and if I use up all my yarn, it will be .93 miles!

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  8. Isn't this going to be a luxury wear.

    hugs

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