I am Sarena. I live in Geneva. I like to knit.

Friday 25 January 2008

Serial Project Starter

I planned on just working on my Iceland sweater but I couldn't help myself! My friend is having twins (a boy and a girl) so I just had to cast something on for them! I am knitting his and hers Baby Yoda Sweaters (the proud parents are big Star Wars fans!). I am knitting them in Patons Washed Haze, each in a different shade of green.

This is proving very simple and quick to knit. There is very little shaping involved, which is great, so hopefully they won't interfere too much with my sweater!

I have also cast on Bud Baby Booties from Let's Knit! Issue #1. The girl's version is knit in Patons Fairytale DK, I'm not sure what the boy's will be in but I think I have a few balls of baby DK sitting in my stash. My friend says she expects knitted booties from me for the twins, so I felt I should oblige! She's 22 weeks gone, since she is having twins, I'm giving myself 10 weeks to get the baby things finished as twins tend to be early. The Baby Yoda Sweaters are rather big, so they might not actually be suitable for the twins from birth if they are smaller than a normal newborn but at least they will have something to grow into.

I haven't made a huge amount of progress with my Iceland Sweater. I was having problems with the stitch pattern and couldn't get past row three. I eventually worked out where I was going wrong (after frogging it 5 times!) and have now completed one repeat of the pattern. I think it's looking good. I'm just waiting for the yarn for K's sweater to arrive (it really should be here by now, I should have just brought it back from the UK with me) but I think I will have to hide it when it arrives as K says I have to knit it fast and I'm not allowed to work on anything else! Right, like that's ever going to happen!

Tuesday 15 January 2008

More Swap Bot

I'm signed up for a few more yarn related on Swap Bot.

I knitted this little cup cozy for my Knitter's Treasure swap partner. It's called Hugger and is from Let's Knit Issue 1.



I have also knitted Portia from Louisa Harding's Venezia recently.


Nothing to report on my Iceland sweater. Hubby now wants me to knit him the Rugged sweater from Rowan 42 and says when the yarn arrives I'm not allowed to knit anything except for that and he wants it done in a week! He'll be lucky. I will have to hide the yarn and say it's been delayed in the post!

Sunday 6 January 2008

Finished!

I finished my Debbie Bliss Francesca bolero from the Rialto book! I am pretty chuffed with it at the moment. I was a little worried after I finished knitting the ribbed edging as it was bunching up a bit where I picked up the stitches and wasn't hanging properly and I thought I may have to redo it. Then I thought to myself 'hey, I know what I should do - block'. I have never blocked anything before (such a rebel!) and was skeptical as to what effect it would have on my strange looking knitting. I vow I will now block everything!

(Sorry about the picture, I was so excited that I just had to take the photo and get it up as soon as I could).

Now to cast on the Portia hat by Louisa Harding in Venezia.

Thursday 3 January 2008

Lots of Stitches

My Debbie Bliss Bolero is coming along nicely. I did think that I was almost finished until I realised that I have to pick up 408 stitches around the entire edge and knit 34 rounds of ribbing, that could take me a while *sigh*. I'm determined to get it finished within the next couple of days. The cast off is also really fiddly as I have to cast off with a crochet hook and crochet at the same time (I'm not the best with a crochet hook) to create a picot edge. It does look pretty and I'm glad I've done it as I did consider doing a normal cast off but I think it looks much better this way. I'm just not looking forward to casting off all 408 stitches of the body!

I have some pictures of some of my Christmas presents. Having a mother who works in a yarn store means I always get spoiled with knitting goodies for birthdays and Christmas!

I got this really cute cupcake tape measure. I just hope I don't lose it as I have a habit of losing them all the time, either that or my cat eats them, which is why I have to have retractable ones. There are lots of different types of these. She gave me a sheep one to pass on to the owner of my LYS, Tricolaine, as she loves all things sheep.

Something I got which is more cool than cute are these fantastic Knitlite knitting needles that light up, how cool is that??! I imagine they will actually be quite useful when working with dark coloured yarn. They are surprisingly light but are a bit bendy. I haven't used them yet, they're 5.5mm, which isn't a size that I use that often but I will have to find something as I want to give them a go!

I went off to my Stitch 'n' Bitch group last night, all ready to show off my goodies but I arrived to find that Starbucks was closed, grr. If I had been on time, I probably would have been able to see if they went elsewhere but never mind, there's always next week and by then I should have finished my bolero, yay!