Rose Bolero - Finished!

 

I finished this up last weekend.  I didn’t have enough yarn to work the picot edging, but I did have enough to work a single crochet around the armholes just to give them a neat finish.  I had to undo all of the joining I had done of blocks to the body, but not the joining of blocks to blocks.  When I got the last block attached I had a gap of 12 stitches between the last one and the first one.  Oops.  So I pulled the thread and all the blocks came off.  Then I counted out intervals of 18 stitches, plus two that had 19 stitches, and marked them with locking stitch markers.  I then finished joining all of the blocks to each other in a long strip (per the pattern instructions) and joined them together into a loop, being careful not to twist the loop when I joined.  With the wrong sides facing each other I joined the loop of blocks to the body using the locking stitch markers.  Once that was done I started joining once more.  This time everything worked out.  

Pattern:  DROPS 126-8 Rose Parade by DROPS Design

Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)

Hook:  D (3.25 mm)

Rose Bolero - Attaching the blocks

After sitting sealed up in a plastic project bag for the last eight years, I finally pulled this project back out and am almost done with it.  I had set it aside after making one of the crochet blocks for the edge.  For some reason I just didn’t feel like making seventeen more.  I actually ended up needing nineteen to make it around the edge.  Amazingly enough the other eighteen that I made in this past week matched up size-wise with the one that I made eight years ago.  The pattern calls for joining all of the blocks and then joining to the body of the bolero, but I decided to join the blocks to the bolero individually first, and then joining the blocks.  I am doing a single crochet join for all of my seams, as I like the way it looks and I didn’t feel like doing a lot of sewing.

My last six blocks are drying.  They should be dry later today and I can finish this up this weekend.  In the process of finishing this bolero I have re-discovered that I enjoy crocheting.  I may have to do more, even though I can’t read or really watch TV while doing it.

Here are my last six blocks.

Pattern:  DROPS 126-8 Rose Parade by DROPS Design

Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)

Hook:  D (3.25 mm)

Rose Bolero

I finished up the basic body of the bolero last night.  I used my Knitting Math Wizard program for figuring out the increase spacing for the increase rows and then marked the last increase stitch with a split ring marker and incremented a counter.  I did my increases on rows 5, 7 and 9 because I needed a row that was entirely double crochet.  I stopped after row 11.  That makes this section only 11 centimeters deep - the pattern calls for 12 centimeters - but the pattern also says to adjust so that you stop after a double crochet row.  I have enough yarn to add two more rows, if I want to.  I'll wait and see how the dimensions work out when I get the blocks done.  And speaking of blocks, here is the first one finished and blocked.

I will probably crochet the blocks together rather than sewing them, and also crochet them to the body of the bolero.  And here is a shot of the front of the bolero.

Project:  DROPS 126-8 by DROPS Design
Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)
Hook:  D (3.25 mm)

Rose Bolero

My Rose Bolero is actually starting to look like...a bolero.  I finished up the back and forth rows of the main section of the back and am now going round and round, extending the back and also working the front.  The pooling is...interesting, and the red and yellow really dominate in this picture.  Working in the round is affecting the pooling, in a good way, breaking up the red and yellow a bit so they aren't quite so prominent and letting some of the other colors come out more.  I am almost half way done with this section and then I get to make a bunch of squares.

Project:  DROPS 126-8 by DROPS Design
Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)
Hook:  D (3.25 mm)

Raspberry Mocha Pullover - Finished!

Finished today, my second project for Camp Loopy 2012, and the gallery on The Loopy Ewe web site hasn't even been set up yet.

Pattern:  Top-Down Raglan, from Sweater Wizard software
Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Raspberry Mocha, 3 skeins
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 6 (4 mm)

Raspberry Mocha Pullover - Body Done

I spent most of the 4th working on this, and finished up the body this evening (as evidenced by the darkness beyond the window in the background, and the poor lighting).  Even with my knitting mojo at a low this is an easy knit and still enjoyable.  Plus, I have a deadline as this is the second Camp Loopy project - 800 yards and must have a color from my country's flag.  Easy.

Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Raspberry Mocha
Pattern:  Top down raglan from Sweater Wizard software
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 6 (4 mm)

Rose Bolero

Part of the reason my knitting mojo has been a bit low is the fact that I had some unhappy yarn.  This yarn.  When I tried this top on it felt absolutely wonderful against the skin, but I really started to worry about how well it would wear.  The yarn just seems fragile to me, easily snagged and frayed.  Also, being silk, the top was a bit lifeless.  This week it occurred to me that the yarn might be better suited to being crocheted rather than knitted, so I did some searching on Ravelry and found a cute bolero from DROPS Design.  Last night I did a swatch, and now I have three rows.

The yarn is happy, and so am I.

Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz in Rose
Pattern:  DROPS Design DROPS 126-8
Hook:  3.25 mm (D)

Raspberry Mocha Pullover

When it comes to knitting, I can't stay monogamous for very long, and I seem incapable of having less than 8 works in progress going at a time.  Of course it doesn't help that the second Camp Loopy project started this past Wednesday.  This time the challenge is to knit something that takes 800 yards, and has a color from your country's flag in it.  I took the easy way out and decided to knit another one of my top down raglan pullovers in Fiesta Yarns Boomerang.  I have the pattern down and I know that I can finish it quickly and that it will use more than 800 yards.  The color is Raspberry Mocha and there is both red and blue, and you can even convince yourself that there is some white in there as well, so I think I have the color thing covered.  I do love this yarn, and I do enjoy knitting this pattern.  I think that this project will give me an even dozen of these pullovers.

Rose - Making Progress

This is another of Fiesta Yarn's Flower of the Month colors, Rose.  The yarn is 100% silk, and not tightly spun, so I am not sure how well it will wear.  It tends to split and is easily snagged, but it feels heavenly on.  I was going to do another raglan pullover, but now I am thinking it will be a raglan tunic-tee.  I thought I would do a simple edging on the neck and the arms, maybe eyelet, and then just use up the rest of the yarn adding length to the body.  But right now I need to get back to my second Hibernia sock.  I have just passed the half way point on the leg.  I need to finish that sock this week.

Calla Lily Pullover - Redux - Finished!

We had to go down to Blacksburg, Virginia this weekend.  Our son was moving into a new apartment with his fiancee and we went down to help.  Our daughter and her boyfriend also came down from Charlottesville.  In the end, we couldn't move the bed as we had planned because it wouldn't fit in my Element (I could have told them that), but I think the real reason we went down was to spend some time with the kids.  Our son is heading off to New Mexico for a summer job, and we wanted to celebrate his engagement before he left for the summer.  It is a four hour drive, which really makes it too long to go down and back in a day, although we have done it.  Bruce did all of the driving, and I knit.  I knit one sleeve on the way down, and one sleeve on the way back.  This came out a lot better knitting it at a tighter gauge.  There is almost no pooling at all, just some striping.  There isn't even any pooling in the sleeves, which is unusual. Here is a picture of the original for comparison.  Quite a difference!

Calla Lilly Pullover - Redux - Body Done

This is the third and last of the original pullovers that I knit in Fiesta Yarns Boomerang that I decided to re-knit in a tighter gauge.  This is the Calla Lilly colorway and it was pretty crazy when I knit it the first time around.  It is amazing what changing the gauge will do with these variegated yarns.  Boomerang is listed as an Aran weight yarn, which frankly really blows my mind.  I knit Boomerang on Size 6 (4.0 mm) needles (the yarn band recommends a size 8) and I am not a loose knitter.  In fact I usually get gauge when knitting with commercial patterns.  Of course, now that I am on the last of these Boomerang sweaters I finally have the pattern dialed in.  I started out with the Sweater Wizard top down raglan pattern, but I modified the shoulder and neck shaping.

African Violets Pullover - Finished!

I finally finished up this pullover.  It fits pretty darn well, too.  I like the modifications that I have made to the pattern with the shoulder shaping.  I think on the next one I will start the body a little bit earlier though, the arm hole is a little long.  This is certainly the tamest pullover that I have made from the Fiesta Yarns, I'll try not to let that happen again.  Colors rule!

Yarn - Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in African Violet, 3 skeins
Needles - size 5 and 6 (3.75 mm and 4 mm)
Pattern from Sweater Wizard Software, top down raglan with modified shoulder and neck shaping.

African Violets Pullover - Body Done

So this colorway doesn't really remind me of African Violets.  I will confess that the first word that came to my mind was camouflage.  Camouflage is an interesting word.  It is probably derived from the word camouflet, which is French, and means "smoke blown in someone's face as a practical joke", but the modern definition is "an underground explosion of a bomb or mine that does not break the surface, but leaves an enclosed cavity of gas and smoke".

This is certainly the tamest of these pullovers that I have made, and it is also the best fitting.  I adjusted the increases of the body and neckline to give more ease in the very top portion, where it fits across the shoulders.  I have wide shoulders and the other pullovers, while they fit, are a little snug across my shoulders and will ride up a little.  So I increased every other row for about half of the distance of that upper section before you separate out the armhole stitches, and then spaced out the rest of the increases.  It increased my yarn usage a lot more than I thought it would.  In fact I ran out of yarn on my second skein while I was working the rib around the bottom so I didn't do all 15 rows, and I had to break into my third skein to work the ribbing around the color.  I still have plenty to knit the sleeves, though, there just won't be as much left over as my other pullovers.

Azores Islands Pullover - Finished!

I finished this up on Thursday.  Once the body is done the sleeves go very quickly and I have started a new project at work so I had a fair bit of reading to do.  I only have two more colors of the Boomerang yarn to knit up into pullovers, and then I will start working my way through the Baby Boom, which is a lighter weight version of the Boomerang.  This colorway is Azores Islands, part of the Fiesta Yarns Color Cruise 2012 series.  The pattern is a modified top-down raglan from Sweater Wizard software, 3 skeins, size 5 and 6 needles.

Azores Island Pullover - Body Done

A trip to Charlottesville, two trips to Aberdeen Proving Ground, reviewing documents at work and reading Alexander Dumas at home (The Three Musketeers) produced the body of my latest pullover.  The yarn is Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Azores Islands, the Color Cruise colorway for May.  Do you see what I mean about the colors?  They are a somewhat unusual combination that I would never have considered - purple, blue and red all go well enough together, but then they added that seafoam green.  And yet, somehow it works.

I wore my Casablanca Pullover to dinner last night.  We took the kids (both in college) to dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise.  The food was fine, but the service was extremely slow.  It took over an hour for our food to come out.  The waitress was very apologetic, even though we didn't get mean about it.  After the kids took off to do some shopping, the manager came out, apologized, and told us that he had comped our dinner.  All we paid for were our two beers and the appetizer.  The thing that I don't understand is why it was so slow, the place was not very busy.

So, this morning I was checking the stats on my blog (I like to see where the hits come from) and I had 89 hits from Russia, in one day.  Kind of weird, huh.  I know it is a big country, but I've never had that many hits in one day, let alone from one country.

Casablanca Pullover - Finished!

I finished this up this weekend, taking a break from lace knitting and enjoying the soothing rhythms of simple knitting.  I will confess that this colorway does not really remind me of Casablanca, but I do like the colors.  Honestly, I haven't really found any of the Color Cruise colorways to be that evocative of the places that they are supposed to represent, unlike the Flower of the Month colorways.  And wait till you see the Azores Islands Pullover.  It has a very unusual combination of colors that I wasn't sure about at first, but which is growing on my as I knit.

Yarn - Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Casablanca, 3 skeins
Pattern - Top Down Raglan from SweaterWizard
Needles - US 5, 6

I have also been busy organizing my studio.  I have been taking photos of the pattern envelopes of my sewing patterns with my iPad so I can leaf through the pictures when I want to find something to sew.  I have made it through my collection of Vogue and McCalls patterns, and am on the Simplicity patterns.

Casablanca Pullover - Body Done

I have been working away at this one between other projects.  This is my easy project, perfect for car rides and reading boring documents at work, both of which occurred in the past week.  I took some time out this morning to finish the ribbing and knit the neck band.  I'll get the first sleeve started and then go back to working on the border of my Christmas Carol Shawlette - I'm over half way done.

The yarn is Fiesta Boomerang in Casablanca, one of their Color Cruise 2012 colors, 3 skeins, size 5 and 6 needles, simple Top Down Raglan from Sweater Wizard Software.

Barcelona Pullover - Finished!

I also finished my Barcelona pullover last week.  The change in color between the top half and the bottom half is partially due to uneven natural lighting and partially due to the way the yarn colors pooled.  In the bottom half of the sweater the pink really started to dominate.  I love these sweaters made with Fiesta Yarns, they are just so colorful and fun and now that the weather is cooling off a little I am wearing them whenever I have the opportunity.  I wore my Poppies sweater this past Thursday and threw my Limestone Shawl around my neck to add a little extra warmth.

Pattern - Top Down Raglan from Sweater Wizard Software
Yarn - Fiesta Yarns Boomerang in Barcelona, 3 skeins
Needles - Size 5 and 6

Caribbean Pullover - Finished!

Considering that I finished up the body of this sweater on August 29, it sure has taken me a long time to knit two sleeves, but I finally finished the sweater this past Friday.  This is my third Camp Loopy project, the 800 yard project.  It took 872 yards.  The yarn is Fiesta Yarns Boomerang, Caribbean colorway, 3 skeins (2.73 to be exact).  The pattern is a top-down raglan from the Sweater Wizard software, although I modified the spacing of the increases for the neck and body, using the spacing from a bottom up raglan.  I have experimented with bind offs on all of these sweaters.  On this one I did regular bind offs on the neck and the sleeves, although I did go up a needle size for the bind off on the sleeves.  For the bottom of the body I did a lace bind off because I wanted something stretchy.  It is definitely stretchy.  On this sweater and also on the Barcelona pullover I cast on 16 stitches under the arm instead of 14 to give a little more ease in the sleeves as well as the body.  I also made the cuffs a little looser by only decreasing to 42 stitches rather than 39.  I don't like tight cuffs.  Now we just need some fall weather so I can wear my pullovers, it will be a nice change from turtlenecks.

Caribbean Pullover - Body Done

I got a lot of knitting done on this today, despite having to go to work, because my building had no power.  I am still perturbed that the status was listed as fully open when the power had not been restored and the only buildings that did have power were those that had backup generators.  To add insult to injury (quite literally) the traffic lights at the major intersections approaching the facility were still out and there were no police there directing traffic, resulting in at least one accident.  The real crime was the fact that after the police cleared up the accident they left the scene.  We were finally sent home at 1230 after several generators failed, but I have already received a status update stating that the facility is fully open tomorrow.  Maybe I am cynical, but somehow I don't believe it.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have a meeting up near Baltimore tomorrow, so regardless of the status of my building I will actually be able to work.

But enough griping about stupidity, so here is the body of the Caribbean pullover completed, and I have started on one of the sleeves.  This is my third Camp Loopy project, the 800 yard one, and I should have no trouble finishing it with time to spare.  I did this deliberately, picking a project that I know I can finish easily in the time allotted.  I have enough stress in my life without adding any more.  I am looking forward to cooler weather, when I will be able to wear all of these lovely sweaters that I have been knitting.  I have completed five and have two more in the works (including this one), as well as yarn for several more.

The yarn is Fiesta Yarns Boomerang, in Caribbean, 3 skeins
Top Down Raglan from Sweater Wizard
Size 5 and 6 Needles