Baroque Violet Folded - Finished!

I finished this up on Monday.  I love working sweaters in fingering weight yarn, they come out so light and drapey. This one fits me better than it does my dress maker dummy because my shoulders are broader.  The pattern was easy to follow, well-written with good explanations of the stitches and techniques.  It is worked from the bottom up in the round, so very little finishing.  I joined the sleeves with three needle bind off instead of grafting because I prefer that technique when working bottom up raglans.  I actually did the joining when the pattern called for starting to work the sleeves and body together and left a tail from the sleeves to close up those pesky little holes.  Of course I finished it up on a really hot day (in the 90s) and it's been hot all week.  I'm looking forward to the cooler weather so I can wear my sweaters.  Now I just need to figure out which of my numerous sweater projects I want to start next.  So much yarn, so many beautiful patterns, so little time.


Pattern:  Folded by Veera Valimaki
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) & US 5 (3.75 mm)

Baroque Violet Folded - Body and Sleeves Done

I cranked out the sleeves this weekend and this afternoon I attached the sleeves to the body.  I've done the pleats (the folded part of the pattern) and have just started the raglan decreases.  I might even finish it up before the long weekend is over.  I did finish the first Game of Thrones book today and have started the second one.  Perfect reading for mindless knitting.

Pattern:  Folded by Veera Valimaki
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) & US 5 (3.75 mm)

Baroque Violet - Folded - Body almost done

I was making pretty good progress on my Folded top until I had to start my test knit.  So now this one is on hold until I finish that.  In fact everything else is pretty much on hold until I finish the test knit.  I am almost up to the arm holes on this one and I have the perfect reading material to keep me going when I get back to it - The Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin.  I have read his work before.  He wrote the extremely disturbing short story Sandkings, which I first read in Omni magazine as a teenager, while home alone during a storm.  I read a lot of science fiction growing up but have trouble finding books that grab me anymore.  It was really nice to start reading The Game of Thrones and just be able to lose myself in the story and the wonderful writing.  I'm moving quickly on the test knit, reading while working the rest rows and even a little on the lace rows.  Yes, the book is that good.

Pattern:  Folded by Veera Valimaki
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) & US 5 (3.75 mm)

Baroque Violet - Folded

I was more or less contentedly knitting away on La Vie Baroque until this past Wednesday.  I ended up coming home from work early on Wednesday, very early.  Tuesday had been a long day and I had spent most of it in an interminable meeting in a frigid auditorium with a flickering projector. I had another meeting on Wednesday so I tried to make it, but I was exhausted and had a bit of a migraine going and another day under fluorescent lights was definitely not a good plan.  I lasted only two hours before I decided I should head home while I could still function enough to drive safely and spent the day watching film noir on Fox Movie Channel and TCM.  After eating breakfast, which I had skipped, I pulled out La Vie Baroque and decided to try it on only to discover that it was too tight under the arms.  I decided to frog back to the underarms and knit a few more increases, but when I got back to that point I really wasn't up to picking up all of those stitches, so I ended up ripping all the way back and going back out on Ravelry to look for something else to knit and found Folded, which happened to also be in my queue.  I'm almost done with the decreases.

Pattern:  Folded by Veera Valimaki
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) & US 5 (3.75 mm)

La Vie Baroque - At the waist

I have finished all of the decreases leading down to the waist and am working the straight part leading to the increases for the hips.  I did decide to do the lace panels down the sides, just to keep the mindless part of the knitting not quite so mindless because I do find it boring, and have actually falling asleep while knitting it.  It works best if I'm reading or watching something that actually requires me to pay attention.  I'm almost done with one skein and have already wound the second skein.

Pattern:  La Vie Douce by Vera Sanon
Yarn: Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

La Vie Baroque

Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet.  I bought this yarn not too long ago and it has been sitting in one of my recent acquisition piles so I picked it up when I finished up my Wind in the Willows and needed to cast on a new project.  If I had bought this with a project in mind, I forgot what it was so I did a pattern search on Ravelry and found a top-down raglan, La Vie Douce.

The cast on was new to me.  A crochet cast-on that I like.  I got through all of the raglan increases and am on the body.  Now I just have to decide if I want to do the lace panel down the sides.

Pattern:  La Vie Douce by Vera Sanon
Yarn: Madelinetosh Pashmina in Baroque Violet
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)