New! Baby sweater and matching hat!

Dearest friends,

How are you all? I am glad that you are still looking at my blog, it makes me so happy! I have been knitting a lot these days, it is such a relief to stress. As I told you, I was planning to knit a baby sweater for the son of a friend. He was born barely a month ago, and the sweater is intended to work for this winter, so I tried to figure out how big the baby would be in those months. Now, I have been looking for a pattern and discarded one that looked a bit too difficult. The one I chose, though, although it looked easy, contained many mistakes. Wonderful Allison from the Knitting Novices helped me SO MUCH with this sweater. I am totally indebted to her for all her personalized advices and instructions. This was soooo important to me. I would like to publicly express my gratitude to such a wonderful teacher, even at thousands of kilometres away (she is in the USA, as most of you, while I am in Europe!).

Allison helped a lot, so I could make something decent out of this wrong, imprecise pattern. This is a one-piece sweater, with lots of "put stitches on holder" and similar thingies involved. It was OK, although the mistakes in the pattern made the whole thing slower because I felt so puzzled when the results didn't show up like the photograph given with the pattern...

I chose a baby yarn, very soft acrylic, but since I love SO much to mix yarns and colours, I bought two skeins: one white, and the other blue. These look so cute together. The result is very very soft, really. The yarn was also very cheap. I added yellow and pink ribbons (yes, yellow and pink...) -- and, of course, I did a little matching hat. I am not sure about the size... this is still something that makes me nervous about knitting: being able to calculate the size of the person you are knitting for... basically, my thought was: If I get the size wrong, the present will be useless and they will never make the baby wear it. I know this sounds a bit too pessimistic, but... I hate the idea of knitting something that will never be worn. Now... maybe they'll save it as a "symbolic" present, something their friend had knitted with his heart on the needles (sorry, this might not sound very idiomatic, but I thought it was poetical!) - who knows?

Anyway, here it is. The whole thing, I mean. Also, this has been my very first time trying mattress stitch. Oh yes. The "almost invisible" seaming. It was challenging. It looks fabulous. BUT. BUT. BUT! Sleeves are awful. Really. The mattress stitch went wonderfully until I reached the arms of the sweater. One of the sides was BOUND OFF, not stockinette stitch. And the direction had changed: not vertical, but horizontal. I had no idea where to pass my tapestry needle through. So, I simply seamed as it came... a bit "chunky" and "ugly". I know. But that's what I did. Now I know what's the next thing I have to learn. Seaming sleeves, when one of the sides has been bound off. Argh. Any comment on this?

By the way: this is my second sweater (this was the very first experiment: but then, the pattern was perfect and it worked wonderfully!) - I have learned mattress stitch (more or less) and I have learnt a huge lesson from Allison: I have to focus more on my knitting, without hurries. It must be a meticulous process, really. I am so glad I am progressing at this. I feel proud to be able to knit - it is one of my childhood dreams and now I can do it! Wow. I wish my sweet great-aunt could see me, but I am sure she's looking at me while I knit. She was always knitting, always. And she was soooo great at it. Knitting makes me feel nice because it is like going back to the 80s, when I was a child, looking at my great aunt knitting and talking about the weather and how hard BOTH World Wars had been. She had lived both...

Well, sorry for the ranting. I hope you like the pictures... I know, it's not perfect. But I hope they will appreciate it.

Lots of love from your Flavio!

Cables and cables and cables...

Hello, dear friends!

I joined both KAL (the Irish Hiking Scarf and the Conquering Cables). Since the project applies to both, here it is. I have begun my very first scarf with cables... following the pattern given by the blog's homepage. I am enjoying this very much. It knits up quite quickly, and the cable isn't difficult... I bought a cable needle and I enjoy it, although sometimes I am not very sure how to handle it when it's hanging in front of work. Sometimes it gets stucked with the work while I am trying to knit the first three stitches before those on the cable.. oh well :) About the yarn: It's called "Colore", by "Rubí" - this is made in Seville. I haven't been able to find it anywhere on the Internet. I am afraid it is an obscure brand made exclusively for a big commercial centre (El corte inglés). Anyway, here is the beginning of the scarf.

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The yarn is multicoloured but the cables show up nicely. It really looks lovely, more than in the photographs (isn't that frustrating?). Anyway, I am going to continue this. I have two balls... it should server. They measure some 260meters together.

Would love to hear your comments :) Look how it mixes in a lovely way with my "ocean" ribbing scarf (also under "construction" :D

Love,

Flavio

Lots of new finished projects! And a new scarf...

Hello dear friends!

Well, I am back, finally! I had lots of work this week, but I was able to finish a few pending projects. Now, let me explain in detail: I had these one hat and one shawl going, those in the previous post. The mixed-alpaca dark hat is so itchy. I wasn't quite in the mood to work on it because of the hot weather - nonetheless, I managed to finish it. But I had to do it in a hurry, because a friend just gave birth to a baby and I thought I'd make a soft acrylic hat in light colours. I bought lots of new balls at the mall, they were on offer! There was thick yarn (how do I say this in English? It's good for 5/6/7mm needles).

I bought white and blue, so I could do a little sailor hat. I used the very first hat pattern I did as I started learning - the "Ken Dulaan Hat" I had found on a knitting blog. The pattern is intended for huge yarn or three threads at a time, so I always make too small hats with that pattern: but they are OK for a baby! So, now I had two hats: a dark one in alpaca (maybe too itchy for the baby, whose name is Rubén) and the little sailor hat which is sooo fresh. I'll give these as a present on Monday :) I hope the mother will appreciate it!

The shawl... well, I am quite nervous these days, as some of you know. I didn't have the patience to make a huge shawl, and I needed the needles. So, I just bound it off --- why not? Ok, it's too small to be a shawl.. but I have an excuse now :) It can be a "doll shawl", that is, a shawl for a doll! It's perfect this way! Or it could be a triangular dishcloth.. only, it's too strange, because of the pattern experiments I did on it! Oh well... I'll save it as a sample :) Or maybe I could make a triangular flag with it, adding a pole to the longest straight side!

Also, I thought I have never ever finished a complete scarf. That's incredible! So, since I need a scarf for the next winter (I'll move to a very cold country, Switzerland) - I bought a fantasy yarn which is soooo lovely. It's made of shades of blue. Maybe I could add in a green/red mix in the middle in case the two balls aren't enough... but I am not sure yet. Let's see what happens. I am doing plain 2x2 ribbing and it looks fabulous. Wow, I love this yarn! In case you want to look for it, the brand name is "Rubí", the specialty is called "Colore". They are made in Seville (Spain). I am not sure you'll find it abroad... but who cares, you have so many wonderful yarns in the USA! :) ***envy envy***

Would love to hear your comments on those little thingies. I feel better being back to knitting more or less actively!

Love,

Flavio