Friday, May 09, 2008

gathered cardi

The Gathered Cardi is complete. The pattern is from Knit.1, Spring/Summer 2008. I used 6 skeins of Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in taupe on size 8 needles. The only modification I made was on the gathered seam. I was worried about the gathered seam hitting across the chest, and decided to try to just block the heck out of it. It helped a bit, but not quite as much as I had hoped. However, now that it's finished, it turns out I don't really mind! I'm actually pretty happy with the way this looks. Sure, it's big and swingy and slouchy...but I like it like that. :) It's sort of cute and it's definitely comfy and even though it's a pretty uncomplicated design, I appreciate the simple design elements it does have: the wide seed stitch borders, the cuffed, shortish sleeves, and the big wooden button (which I found on eBay). I'm still really happy with the way I bound off and picked up stitches for the gathered seam---it was definitely worth the pain and effort! Part of me wishes I had chosen a bolder color, but when I buying the yarn I was thinking that a big, gathered, swingy cardigan in a bright color would be a bit too much. Even though it's very similar to my Patti cardigan, the Gathered Cardi looks much more casual (to me), so I don't care much that I knit two such similar garments. There are more slightly blurry photos taken in a smudgy mirror on Flickr!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

a worser bucket hat

Hi. I made a completely unwearable hat this weekend. I used A Better Bucket Hat pattern, and due to a combination of not paying attention, and probably using the wrong needle size, and misunderstanding the phrase "brim's edge," I'm going to have to rip this one. The yarn will be eventually be knit up into something else. The Malabrigo is just too pretty, but I decided that I'm not really a bucket hat girl, anyway.

Hopefully next time I'll have something better for Show and Tell.