New York Minknit

I wanted to make a gray version of my Ithacowl. And I did. I knit this a couple of weeks ago…it only took a week.

Pattern: My very own Ithacowl! Free!

Yarn: One skein School Products’ Donegal Cashmere Tweed, bulky. $20 for 95 yards.

Needles: 16″ bamboo Clovers, size 7 (same as the first Ithacowl!)

Project began/ended: Started February 5, finished February 13.

Notes/modifications: I wear my Ithacowl a lot, so I wanted to try making another one. This yarn is much bulkier and has much smaller yardage, so I CO 72 stitches instead, and knit until I ran out of yarn. Once you’re done, the yarn looks kind of ugly and oily. (I think they oil it at School Products for machine knitters?) Wash it in VERY HOT water (the hottest my tap could produce, to the point where I couldn’t touch it), with dish washing detergent. Wash another round in very hot water with vinegar. Soak in a new round with hair conditioner. Rinse. Wack the cowl against the bathtub a bunch. Let dry. Voila! Soft cashmere cowl.

I’m sort of participating in Knitting Olympics, in that I’m knitting and watching them. I did cheat (not with steroids), but by casting on the toe and knitting it before the opening ceremonies. This yarn’s color is “Lemon Drop” and the stitch pattern is a bit lemon drop-y too. Adam, without seeing the label, remarked that the color looked like a lemon drop, so it’s fairly accurate. Yes, New York has snow. Not a ton, but it’s here.

Here’s the first sock:

The yarn is Yarntini (from deep in the stash) and the pattern is from More Sensational Knitted Socks.

It was cold, so I was wearing my Hot Pink Mittens. Adam says it looks like I am wearing oven mitts. The pucker at the waist can and will be blocked out–I haven’t washed and blocked it yet.

Pattern: Garter Yoke Cardigan, by Melissa LaBarre, in Knit.1 Fall/Winter 2008. [Ravelry link here.] This is (and I am not dissing Melissa/Knitting School Dropout here, because it is a beautiful and clear pattern) a women’s cardigan version of Brooklyn Tweed’s Cobblestone Pullover. Same garter yoke, etc.

Yarn: 6.5 balls of Debbie Bliss Tweed. This yarn has extremely minimal yardage, beware. It has 97 yarns of aran weight yarn/ball, which is very little for the price. I can’t remember the exact price for this, though I have a receipt floating around on my desk somewhere. I bought a bag of 10 balls on discount when Yarn Connection went out of business. I’m guessing maybe around $70-80/bag? It seems to retail for $10/ball, and I remember there was about a 20% discount on the yarns, if not more. If I paid $8/ball and I needed 8 balls, then I paid around $64 for the yarn for this sweater. I found my receipt–I paid $77.50 for a bag of 10, and I used 6.5 balls (I originally put 7.5 balls), so 7 x $7.50=$52.50. Plus another $7.50 for the buttons. Knitting, not always so cheap.

Anyway, the prototype of this sweater was knit by Melissa in a tweed yarn (the one in the magazine was knit in a solid yarn), which is where I got the idea for my tweed version.

Needles: various types of no. 5 needles (circs and DPNs).

Project started/finished: Started January  2009, finished January 2010. One year!

Notes: When I started knitting this sweater, pretty much right when the magazine came out, and if I had finished it, I would have been the fourth project or so on Ravelry. Now, there are more than 700 projects–almost 800–on Ravelry alone. Basically I started knitting this sweater and then a couple of things happened.

First of all, life. I remember when I got laid off, I thought, “Ooooh, I can finish that sweater,” but you know how things go. Anyway, I did actually knit the majority of it in a couple of months, but then the second thing happened.

That would be the sleeves. Ugh, I hated how I had tried to taper them (a personal modification not in the pattern), but I SO did not want to rip them out and re-knit them. So I stuffed it in a bag in a drawer and hoped that magical elves would come and reknit them for me. Finally I had to face the music. (Like all of life, I suppose.) I ripped out the sleeves and re-knit them to bracelet length, which meant less work and was also more attractive, I think.

Anyway, this pattern is super clear. I found no mistakes.

The buttons! Aren’t these cute? They are pretty standard leather woven buttons. We went to 38th St., which is like button/accessory central in New York (it’s part of the garment district) and we passed by this crazy store:

SPANDEX!!! I have never seen so much spandex and glitter. It was like drag queen paradise in there. Anyway, I probably drove the button lady crazy because I first asked for these woven buttons, but then I asked her to pull down other colors and wooden buttons and stuff before changing my mind and going back to my original choice. $0.75/each–I’m not sure if that’s cheap or expensive or what, but at least they were affordable.

This is only my second sweater ever (the first one had no sleeves, so it was basically a tube). Came out pretty well, even if it took forever!

Here’s a link to an interesting project–send your sweater to this guy’s mom and she re-knits it into a scarf or this month, cut-off gloves. (My concern would be if you sent a seamed sweater instead of a continuously knit one, but anyway.) 

In knitting news, (which I almost just typed as “knews”) I have a completed project to show you! But probably not until this weekend, when Adam finds his camera battery charger so he can help me take photos. (By the way, I just looked on the dining room table, and I think I see it.)