Tina's Sweater

Now on hold waiting for cooler weather is my dear friend Tina's gansey. Tina lives in Florida and only wears a sweater once in awhile during winter. She has only one, so I measured everything and decided to make one for her. Tina is Irish with red hair, her favorite color is green. It had to be cotton and light weight - no worsted weight- and she wanted a pullover with a stand up neckband. I finally settled on Casco Bay Sport cotton from Halcyon and the pattern is from Beth Brown-Reinsel's "Knitting Ganseys". It's kind of wimpy feeling but that is what she wanted. It does show the patterns well and the color is perfect. She tried it on when up in Maine on vacation and it fits well. Now all I have to do is finish it and hand deliver it of course. February is coming! If she ever moves back north again I will have to make a "real" wool Irish sweater for her.

Caspian Sea Socks

Now these socks I did not enjoy knitting and will never make another pair. I ordered the Tuir yarn for them, had to wait as it was out of stock, and couldn't wait to get started. I have knit toe up socks before, had no problems, and liked the technique. These, however, I could not get going. I don't know if it was the yarn or because there were two colors. After much frustration I finally gave up and did them from the top down. That worked fine for me, but I did not like working with 3 colors in a row, and found that I absolutely hated knitting with Tuir. It split, was so slippery I had problems with tension, just generally did not enjoy the knit. They did get finished though, and I am sure will feel great along about January when the snow is flying. They are very warm and thick. It says in the pattern to be ready for a flood of requests for more pairs - not likely!

Winter Dreams

Some of my summer projects have been socks and "Winter Dreams" from Red Bird Knits had been waiting in the pile for awhile. The first sock was too large I thought, so I set it aside and started the second on smaller needles, a size 2 Inox dp's. The sock was perfection, stitches were so smooth, it looked gorgeous. Only one problem - I couldn't get my foot in! Stranded knitting has no stretch. That sock went to the frog pond, started over with a size 2 Clover bamboo dp and it came out perfect, fit fine. Now I had to rip out the first sock to make it match the second. All in all, there were four socks in this pair - too funny! At least I have the pattern down pat! They were fun to do (good thing) and I will knit more pairs.

Selbuvotter

Summer is almost over and finally I have a new post to my blog. It's been too hot to work on sweaters so "Alcea" and the gansey have been put on hold. I've finished several pairs of socks and today have finished my first pair of Selbu mittens. They are #NHM7 from Terri Shea's book "Selbuvotter". What fun to knit! I actually used up two leftover skeins of shetland and by my calculations, if I knit about 500 pairs of these I will make a dent in my stash! I started them on double points and then decided to try two circs when there was a discussion of this method on one of the forums. Works like a charm and is much easier to keep track of the pattern. As I didn't have two needles the same size, I ordered a pair from KnitPicks, and must say I do love their fixed circulars. So smooth, cable is nice and flexible, and nice points. I used a 2.50mm needle and Jamieson's shetland. They are a perfect fit for my small hand, would go to a 2.75mm to make them a little larger I think.