Knit Off: I'm behind already

I leapt into this challenge feet first and had been happily knitting along on my sweater making great progress. I had knit about 12" of the back and was ready to start the armhole shaping. I was acting rather smug about it too, flashing it to Marsha, showing off how much I had knit, until I reread Marsha's blog post about our Knit Off yesterday.

Heather has her sweater well under way. She has altered her pattern and the changes over the pattern may slow her down. That girl wants to win.

I did make a change to my pattern, I cut four inches out of it. The pattern book said the smallest size would be 40" around when finished. I wanted a less bulky, more form-fitting sweater and I worked out that if I removed one pattern repeat it would decrease the size by 4" making the sweater 36, my size.

Had I used my BRAIN when calculating this major pattern alteration, I may have realized that by removing one pattern repeat removed 4" from one half of the sweater. It would have required me to also remove 4" from the other half of the sweater, thus making my pattern 8" smaller and a size 32. This alteration would have most definitely been form-fitting but it would not have been attractive.

I started over.

My knitting renaissance

Tah dah! I finished another stocking for Santa to fill.

Last year I designed and made the red-topped stocking and it hung on the fireplace until April. I liked it so much I didn't want to take it down. Last week I decided we needed two hand-knit stockings, one for each of us. I hauled out the yarn and got to work. As you can see, I switched the red and green so they didn't match but coordinated, like Thomas and me.

Also, I've been challenged to a Knit Off. I'm making this sweater that I bought last year from NobleKnits.

Marsha's daughter wants a new sweater for Christmas and made an off-handed comment that she would be lucky to see a finished sweater in under six years. Marsha took that to heart and is determined to wrap the sweater and have it under the tree on Christmas morning. We both doubt that will happen so we set a competition finish line for January 25. Wish me luck!

But now what?

I finally finished a sweater! I used to have a yarn store and would burn through knitting project after crochet project, but in the last year and a half it hasn't been the same. I think I've made a scarf, a hat and a mitten, yes A mitten. But today! I finished this cropped sweater.

The Viva sweater from Ella Rae Book 7 is knit in Manos Silk Blend, an amazing yarn. It feels so soft and isn't itchy, I just love it. I know I'm going to wear it so much everybody will be tired of seeing it.

What do I knit next?

Yarn Giveaway

If you like to knit go check out my crafting blog, Housework Rules. There's a very exciting gift certificate giveaway sponsored by NobleKnits.

I'm still waiting for my autographed copy

Announcing the very cool, very new Chicks with Sticks Guide to Knitting! It's the follow up volume to The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Crochet. It's chock full of knitting patterns that gently advance a new knitter from beginner through intermediate and ready to stare down any challenging project. The only problem is that I don't have it yet!