Marnie, speak! Good girl.

Between pity parties about our gas and working, I have managed to get in some knitting. On the bus I knit that Dragon Hoodie and at night, I've been working on the pattern for my shawl with my own roving.

Confession time, I have made designing a shawl far more complicated than it really is, until I had the "AHA!" moment and I realized how flippin' easy it really is. I should really clarify that sentiment. There are some amazingly beautiful and complex shawls out there, but the essential premise of increasing at the center and edge and gradually incorporating more and more repeats of a single motif, is very easy. This is what happens when you try to design something you've never knit before. I'm sure if I had knit even a single triangular shawl, that concept would be rather straight forward.

Nonetheless, three days of toiling have brought me here:

Not so exciting, but I think the effect will be nice once I've worked a few more inches.

The Hoodie is much further with far less toil

I'm hoping this will be a good size for the baby. My gauge is slightly tighter because of the difference in fiber, but she is very young and I'm knitting the largest size. Worst case scenario, if it's too small, I have a friend who is due in a few months, I can give her this and make a new one for Matt's friend.

I still have several more posts I'd like to get up this week, including one about a cowl that won't do what it's told and some amazing Christmas presents from my family.

The Dragon Hoodie is moving right along. I love knitting baby stuff. I feel like such a prolific knitter.

The body is done and a sleeve begun. The sleeves are going slowly because this yarn is hard to knit on plastic needles. Metal is definitely the best choice but since I'm saving my pennies for Christmas presents, I'll get by.

I've also been working on my shawl a bit. You can use the squares on my ironing board for scale, if you like. The top pieces hoodie is about 11-12" wide (it's not blocked so I'm estimating a bit)

What do you think of the shawl?

I ripped her out and washed and dried the yarn, so I could start over. There was a problem, several rows back, no life line and not enough shawl in existence to really warrant a tedious fix, so I ripped her. The deadline is so far off, that I'm not terribly bothered by that.

But it hasn't all been the foul smell of failure. The Dragon Hoodie is progressing beautifully.

I'm working on the hood right now and will begin all the little dragony details after that.

In spinning news, my parents sent me roving for Christmas. What? Christmas is a week away? Are you saying that when I get a package at my door, a couple weeks before Christmas, with my parent's return address, I should know not to open it? Insanity!

And look at what was inside! Each bag is half a pound of gorgeous roving. The left two bags are a rich olive green Corriedale roving. It appears that MJ has almost identical roving, herself. I met her in person for the first time this weekend, at a knitting get together. It's a little eerie that we both have matching Kundert spindles and green roving, if we hadn't been seen in the same location at the same time, someone could have assumed we were the same person.

I managed to snap a pic of the Corriedale, on the spindle this weekend. She has her own ray of sunshine here. That means this is the only picture with enough lighting to be any good.

It sort of makes the rest of the pictures look even worse. I began spinning this on the Kundert, and it spins well, but I really found myself feeling like I had to spin pretty thick singles on it, so I switched to the Golding. I may have to invest in a few more Goldings just so I can spin more than one roving at a time. This 0.9 oz has been perfect for just about everything. I love it.

This is how it looks plied. The color is really a true olive green, despite the variety of shades you see here. When I was spinning it near daylight, I saw undertones of yellow shine through, it's actually quite lovely.

The other roving in the bags is a Merino/silk blend. It spins up into more of a sage green shade because the white of the silk soften the colors.

You know, though, there's a pretty good chance that I'm not going to be able to spin all that roving by hand. I mean, I'm a relatively quick spinner (spindler? spinster?) but a pound of sock weight yarn is a lot of yarn to spin. So Julia and I are talking about renting a wheel. I'm a little scared to go down that road, but I think it's time. Look for news of that next year.

Isn't the hoodie looking cute? I have to admit, I enjoy this knit even if it is my own design. Unfortunately, having talked to the woman to receive this, it appears the piece may be a little too short. I'm going to have to pull out the trim on the body of the piece. It's all knit in one piece with nice mitered corners and a tubular bind off which is great because it looks so nice but I suspect that now that the ends are woven in, it may be a bit of a P.I.T.A. to pull out. That's what I get, though, huh?

On a completely unrelated note, this should be reassuring to every one of us who has ever wished we looked as good as a woman on the cover of a magazine. Warning: requires Flash

Also, a couple hilarious songs (one with video)
Here
and
Here

Sofi is the name of the little girl who will be wearing this sweater soon.

The only thing not done are the spots. I'm not sure I'll have time to do them and I don't think the sweater is hurt by being plain, but the spots sure are cute. We'll see. I'm also dangerously low on purple yarn so what spots I might knit will be of a fairly small quantity.

Well, I took the comments to heart and I decided two things,

1. You need a view of the back of the Dragon Hoodie Thanks Julia


2. The sweater needs spots

And here's what I think I want to do for spots. Instead of patches, like the original has, I'm doing bobbles. I used Nicky Epstein's Knitted Embellishments as a reference for the technique. I think it'll be cute and much faster than trying to get full sized spots knit before this afternoon when the recipient's mom arrives.

I'll, of course, have a final picture for you when it's done.

I had enough time to make a few spots for the little Dragon Hoodie, before the gift was due to be received. I really like how they look in front.

The back of the sweater, and notes on this version of the pattern, after the bump.

Put a baby in them.

Jess said I could post pictures of her little one making my Dragon Hoodie look almost too cute to bear.

If you think that's cute, check out the other pictures, after the bump.

What do you think of the shawl?

I ripped her out and washed and dried the yarn, so I could start over. There was a problem, several rows back, no life line and not enough shawl in existence to really warrant a tedious fix, so I ripped her. The deadline is so far off, that I'm not terribly bothered by that.

But it hasn't all been the foul smell of failure. The Dragon Hoodie is progressing beautifully.

I'm working on the hood right now and will begin all the little dragony details after that.

In spinning news, my parents sent me roving for Christmas. What? Christmas is a week away? Are you saying that when I get a package at my door, a couple weeks before Christmas, with my parent's return address, I should know not to open it? Insanity!

And look at what was inside! Each bag is half a pound of gorgeous roving. The left two bags are a rich olive green Corriedale roving. It appears that MJ has almost identical roving, herself. I met her in person for the first time this weekend, at a knitting get together. It's a little eerie that we both have matching Kundert spindles and green roving, if we hadn't been seen in the same location at the same time, someone could have assumed we were the same person.

I managed to snap a pic of the Corriedale, on the spindle this weekend. She has her own ray of sunshine here. That means this is the only picture with enough lighting to be any good.

It sort of makes the rest of the pictures look even worse. I began spinning this on the Kundert, and it spins well, but I really found myself feeling like I had to spin pretty thick singles on it, so I switched to the Golding. I may have to invest in a few more Goldings just so I can spin more than one roving at a time. This 0.9 oz has been perfect for just about everything. I love it.

This is how it looks plied. The color is really a true olive green, despite the variety of shades you see here. When I was spinning it near daylight, I saw undertones of yellow shine through, it's actually quite lovely.

The other roving in the bags is a Merino/silk blend. It spins up into more of a sage green shade because the white of the silk soften the colors.

You know, though, there's a pretty good chance that I'm not going to be able to spin all that roving by hand. I mean, I'm a relatively quick spinner (spindler? spinster?) but a pound of sock weight yarn is a lot of yarn to spin. So Julia and I are talking about renting a wheel. I'm a little scared to go down that road, but I think it's time. Look for news of that next year.

The Dragon Hoodie is moving right along. I love knitting baby stuff. I feel like such a prolific knitter.

The body is done and a sleeve begun. The sleeves are going slowly because this yarn is hard to knit on plastic needles. Metal is definitely the best choice but since I'm saving my pennies for Christmas presents, I'll get by.

I've also been working on my shawl a bit. You can use the squares on my ironing board for scale, if you like. The top pieces hoodie is about 11-12" wide (it's not blocked so I'm estimating a bit)

Between pity parties about our gas and working, I have managed to get in some knitting. On the bus I knit that Dragon Hoodie and at night, I've been working on the pattern for my shawl with my own roving.

Confession time, I have made designing a shawl far more complicated than it really is, until I had the "AHA!" moment and I realized how flippin' easy it really is. I should really clarify that sentiment. There are some amazingly beautiful and complex shawls out there, but the essential premise of increasing at the center and edge and gradually incorporating more and more repeats of a single motif, is very easy. This is what happens when you try to design something you've never knit before. I'm sure if I had knit even a single triangular shawl, that concept would be rather straight forward.

Nonetheless, three days of toiling have brought me here:

Not so exciting, but I think the effect will be nice once I've worked a few more inches.

The Hoodie is much further with far less toil

I'm hoping this will be a good size for the baby. My gauge is slightly tighter because of the difference in fiber, but she is very young and I'm knitting the largest size. Worst case scenario, if it's too small, I have a friend who is due in a few months, I can give her this and make a new one for Matt's friend.

I still have several more posts I'd like to get up this week, including one about a cowl that won't do what it's told and some amazing Christmas presents from my family.

I had enough time to make a few spots for the little Dragon Hoodie, before the gift was due to be received. I really like how they look in front.

The back of the sweater, and notes on this version of the pattern, after the bump.

Well, I took the comments to heart and I decided two things,

1. You need a view of the back of the Dragon Hoodie Thanks Julia


2. The sweater needs spots

And here's what I think I want to do for spots. Instead of patches, like the original has, I'm doing bobbles. I used Nicky Epstein's Knitted Embellishments as a reference for the technique. I think it'll be cute and much faster than trying to get full sized spots knit before this afternoon when the recipient's mom arrives.

I'll, of course, have a final picture for you when it's done.

Sofi is the name of the little girl who will be wearing this sweater soon.

The only thing not done are the spots. I'm not sure I'll have time to do them and I don't think the sweater is hurt by being plain, but the spots sure are cute. We'll see. I'm also dangerously low on purple yarn so what spots I might knit will be of a fairly small quantity.

Isn't the hoodie looking cute? I have to admit, I enjoy this knit even if it is my own design. Unfortunately, having talked to the woman to receive this, it appears the piece may be a little too short. I'm going to have to pull out the trim on the body of the piece. It's all knit in one piece with nice mitered corners and a tubular bind off which is great because it looks so nice but I suspect that now that the ends are woven in, it may be a bit of a P.I.T.A. to pull out. That's what I get, though, huh?

On a completely unrelated note, this should be reassuring to every one of us who has ever wished we looked as good as a woman on the cover of a magazine. Warning: requires Flash

Also, a couple hilarious songs (one with video)
Here
and
Here

Put a baby in them.

Jess said I could post pictures of her little one making my Dragon Hoodie look almost too cute to bear.

If you think that's cute, check out the other pictures, after the bump.