This and that

Since the last hat streak, I thought I would work on Classic Cable, ready for something more challenging. I took the pattern out, read where I left off, then sighed heavily and returned it to its little bag....I just don't think I can immerse myself in this attention-needing pattern! I feel kind of bad since I imagined myself wearing this nice cosy red turtleneck at Christmas. C'est la vie, there is always Valentine's!



So I thought I would work on Wicked.



This was ticking along jim dandy when I started to doubt the fit. I knew the gauge was not perfect when I started, but at that point I was so ready (yes, that would be at cast-on) to just whip it up and get on to the next project...I thought I would go for it. Well, ahem, the sweater may turn out to be rather snug. I have not started the sleeves yet, but I think I'll pick up a few stitches when I start (at the armpit) which I find I have to do anyway with a raglan. Then if that doesn't help ease up the fit, I'll block it out a wee bit. If that fails, well, little miss M will hopefully wear it in a year or two! I am down to near the bottom and now I have this bad feeling I'm going to run out of yarn. In a panic I worried about them not having more of this colourway, so off I went and ordered more, yep, one more skein! That should arrive later this week. So, while waiting for that, I churned out a couple more things.



Here's a close-up of a Christmas gift which is just finished!



Here's something else - this little vest was a happy surprise. The yarn is Grignasco Karma, made up in Blue Sky Alpaca's ribbon vest pattern. I did not use ribbon, and the vest turned out to be a little big for me overall (not because of the lack of ribbon, but because I was too lazy to play with the gauge). So after about a year of wondering how to make it smaller, I psyched myself up to bravely put it under the needle of my trusty Bernina. That was fun! I turned the vest inside out, hand basted the fit compared to something else that fit me well, then seamed it on my machine a couple of times (same seam), then repeated this 1/4" away into the seam allowance. Then, with my trusty Janome, I serged off the new seam allowance to about 5/8" and voila, a perfect little vest with some fun colour and little bobbly things! There's deal on this yarn at Urban Yarns this week!