I've just been busy planning my trip (just 3 weeks away now)....and planning my wardrobe! Although I am planning on packing light, I still want to bring some handmades and hand-knits to wear along the way. Since most of my sweaters are classified as "winter", it was time to knit something new. This is where I gush a little bit about Ravelry....
If you haven't already heard about it, Ravelry is a wonderful community site for knitters. After you join, you can search for pattern ideas and even buy individual patterns on the site (some are free). The possibilities really are endless. Once you settle on a potential pattern, you can easily look at pictures of finished versions of the sweater (that other people have posted), see the various yarns people have used, read about modifications they made, discover any errata (a general lack of errata is a great thing I've noticed about downloaded patterns vs. those in a book). In fact, you can even search by yarn type -- to see if anyone has knit your desired sweater in your desired yarn yet or not, or to see a list of all projects that people have made using the yarn in your stash.
The best thing about Ravelry for me, is that I am a lot more confident about my knitting projects. Being able to see so many versions of the same sweater pattern (on all different body shapes and sizes) helps me to make better choices and thus have better outcomes (i.e. sweaters that I love, and that look better on me than most other sweaters I've made in the past). If you knit and you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely should....
So now back to the knitting. I love Veera's designs -- this is the 2nd of her patterns I've knit and I'm pretty sure that my next sweater will also be one of hers. That is, when I can decide between all of those I love..... :-D What can I say -- the patterns are just the right combination of simple with a few twists, and the fit really works for me.
This was a very fast knit for me -- not counting the days I had to take off to wait for my new needles to arrive, it was less than two weeks. The yarn is Madeline Tosh Merino Light in Cousteau, purchased from Julie at The Needle Emporium. I love it....and just want to make sure that it wears okay before I stock up on more.
My little mountain of sweaters waiting to be blocked has now grown to three....so I had best get busy. It's just hard to make it a priority when it's been so nice and warm this summer. In the meantime, I discovered some CP prototypes in a basket yesterday, all abandoned due to some problem encountered during the finishing...and I'm hoping to have them all finished up in the coming days. Will post pictures soon.
