Masterpiece Monday: Harris Slouch FO

A new pattern has been in the works for some weeks now, and here it is! 

This is the Harris Slouch, a pattern that I have designed to accommodate long hair in winter, especially long hair tied back.  The slouch and the snood are pretty popular these days, and this hat is sort of a combination of both.  On me, it definitely qualifies as a snood--all of my hair and my ears disappear inside because of my chin-length locks.

This was a super-quick pattern to knit!  I dare say that I knit the last 1/3 of the pattern in one evening in front of the TV.  The pattern is currently available through my Etsy shop and through my Ravelry pattern store as a pdf download.  (You can get to the Ravelry listing from the sidebar.) It took me about 214 yards of worsted weigh superwash wool (Stitch Nation Washable Ewe in "Zinnia" was used for the model) to complete the pattern.  It requires the use of a US 6 (4 mm) and a US 7 (4.5 mm) circular needle and is knit from the band, upward.

Totally a masterpiece!

Padma Wrap Photo Shoot

Yesterday I was so excited to be able to announce that I had finally finished the Padma Wrap, but the best I could do was to show pictures of it while it was being blocked.  Today, though, I have some better pictures.  I think that my lacy version is much prettier than the worsted weight version in the original pattern, don't you?

 

Masterpiece Monday: Padima Wrap FO

Do you hear that?  Are those trumpeters proclaiming the wonder of my latest FO?  I think so!

It only took me 4 1/2 months of knitting every time I was in the car (including 24 hours of car time for trips to Florida!), spare moments after work, entire afternoons in the final hours of my summer vacation, Saturday morning knitting club hours, and a few late nights in front of the TV which resulted in ... you guessed it ... a whole lot of tearing it out and having to re-knit those precious rows I had just accomplished.  But IT'S FINALLY DONE!

I give you the Padma Wrap, knit in a Christmas red hand-dyed (by Zibeline Knits) jewel tone superwash fingering weight merino on a US 7 needle.  The original pattern came off of the Vogue Knitting website and was designed by John Brinegar.  It called for a US 5, and if I had followed those directions, well, I'd probably still be knitting.  This shawl required approximately 880 yards.

Here's a link to the pattern if you are feeling adventurous:  Padma Wrap.  It took me about 7 inches worth of knitting to get into the groove and get the pattern memorized; then it was an automatic kind of knitting for me.  The pattern is actually pretty easy once you get it down.  For me, though, it became one of those Penelope and her shroud projects that felt like it would never get done.  Finished and blocked, it is 62 inches long and 26 inches wide.  Sorry that the pictures aren't better.  Not sure what's up with my camera lately.

I hope that my friend will cherish this wrap for forever, and then leave it to me in her will.  It's truly gorgeous and I am very pleased with myself over this FO.

Masterpiece Monday

I know it's a holiday, so everyone is pretty busy being on vacation today; but I have a few little masterpiece gems to share today from my weekend labors.

First, I made homemade spaghetti sauce for pennies and ended up canning 11 quarts of sauce and a quart of stewed tomatoes.  The tomatoes were from the garden and the sauce ingredients were from Sam's.  Honestly, it cost me about $9 to make 11 quarts of sauce.  If I had bought that much from Sam's in the form of a name brand sauce, it would have easily cost $30.  And it's pretty tasty!

Second, I have this little sweater to show off.  Have you ever had a friend who was, toward the end of her pregnancy, WAY closer to her due date than what you thought?  And that "plan" you had for knitting the ideal baby blanket turned out to be WAY further behind the actual schedule than you thought?  Well, that happened to me last Thursday, when I got the email about the baby shower being a week away!  So, I had to scrap the blanket (I was only about 6 inches into it) and go with something cute but fast.  And, Lion Brand patterns to the rescue ... I managed to knit this little number up between Thursday night and Sunday night for WAY less than you think because I had, the week before, chanced upon a RIDICULOUSLY good deal on baby sport weight yarn.  The pattern is called Feather and Fan Baby Sweater.  It's top down (my favorite!) and I actually learned a new top-down construction trick in the process.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  This is a 0-6 months size.

 And, what's this?  I had my own labels made by Mountain Street Arts, so this is their debut in my knitwear, too.

And now off to dye some new yarn for the shop!  Happy knitty holiday!