Wendy Knits

Lizzie!

Isn’t she gorgeous?

Well, you can’t tell much about the pattern yet, but she will be a cropped raglan pullover with a crew neck, reverse stockinette stitch, and one big-ass cable running up the center front. The start of the back is pictured, and I decided to not do a cable on the back.

Lizzie is knitted from Knit Happens’ own Laughing Lizard “Big Lizard” hand-dyed yarn. This design is knitted on size 11 needles at 2.5 st/inch. So it’s a fast knit and I believe will take only three skeins of Big Lizard, which is about 200 yards/skein.

I think the reverse stockinette stitch shows up the beautiful colors beautifully.

Elastico Tank

Did a bit of knitting on this on my commute yesterday.

A question about the tank from Friday’s comments:

Do you know how much it would cost to knit that tank in a size small? . . . and does it have any difficult shaping?

The pattern has two sizes — 76cm and 84cm (that translated into 31 and 33 inches!) which take a total of 5/6 skeins of Elastico respectively. One skein is the contrast color.

Difficult shaping? The top and straps are a little tricky. Made more so by the extreme brevity of the instructions, which I believe have been translated from another language.

Bottom line is that I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner.

And about the sizing . . .

Sounds pretty skimpy, doesn’t it? I’m making the larger size. I measured the width of the work I’ve completed thus far and smooshed together in the rib it’s 11 inches!!!! However, it easily stretches out to 18 inches and beyond. The yarn is quite stretchy and the rib pattern is quite stretchy, so I have no worries about the fit. I’m 28″ in the waist and 37″ in the boobage, so I think it’ll fit just fine.

Wendyknits Designs

A number of you have asked when my designs will be available. They’ll be ready to go as soon as all the testknitters are done and I’ve made any needed alternations to the patterns. I don’t want to release any pattern until it’s thoroughly tested, you understand. My testknitters are all volunteers with other demands on their time, so I don’t expect them to drop everything and do nothing but knit my designs.

So . . . soon.

Speaking of such . . . here’s the photo of Lucky being worn.

In asnwer to a comments question, I experienced no stretching of the Jaeger Silk. It was great to knit!

Critter Knitters Update

Check out the Blankets Received page to see the latest additions! Wow! And we have a couple more prizes on the Prize page as well.

Lucy

. . . is working on her tan.

As Martha Stewart would say.

What’s a good thing?

When it’s a million degrees outside with two million per cent humidity, knitting little dainty strips of lace on the train is a good thing.

(Another good thing, according to Martha Stewart, is Valrhona chocolate. Trust me, she is not wrong about this. Brownies with Valrhona baking chocolate? A very good thing indeed.)

In the Ingeborg Knit-along group, a number of people initially said they were planning on leaving off the lace edging, as they thought it was too girly.

Now I’m not into girly stuff really, but I think the lace edging makes the sweater. Particularly in this colorway. The touch of white really really brightens up the sweater. And it’s not a particularly frilly lace — just neat little points. The instructions tell you to sew it in with just 3/8″ showing. Mine has just a smidgen more showing I think, as that didn’t seem quite enough.

There was a request to see the wrong side. Here it is.

I inserted the lace by pinning it at the center back, then pinning the ends at each side of the front, then carefully pinning in the rest, stretching the lace slightly as I did. You are directed to knit the lace so that it fits with just a little stretching, so it does take a little bit of fiddling to get just the right amount of stretch. But nothing too arduous.

Then I sewed the top edge of the lace to the inside of the hem. Then I carefully steam-pressed the lace and hem. I did not press the lace at all before inserting, as I think you get a better fit if you steam it after everything is secure.

I considered carefully sewing the bottom edge of the band to the lace as well, as the lace is attached only at the top of the lace to the inside of the hem (so it can be wiggled back and forth), but I really don’t think it needs it. After pressing, everything lies down obediently and looks good, so I’ll leave it alone.

I’m Sneaky

Yes, I slipped another project over in the ol’ sidebar. It’s just barely a project at this point, but I cast on for it a little while back so I’d have something mindless to knit on when I needed it.

It’s the tank in Lana Grossa Elastico, yarn and pattern from Knit Happens. Kristine blogged about it last month, here.

In answer to some comments questions . . .

The Luanne tank is still being test knitted.

And no, I don’t have anything particular in mind for my Montana yarn. Yet.

Lucy sez:

Have a good weekend!

After a really really late night Monday, we got up early and were at Knit Happens, ready and waiting, for Debbie Bliss’ talk.

Debbie was a delightful speaker. She talked about the design process, her upcoming new yarns, and new designs. She had lots of knitted sample garments to show us, and Kristine and Amelia made very elegant runway models, trying on the samples and showing us the sweaters’ lovely lines and beautiful design elements. There were lots of nice jackets and wraps that were body-conscious but very flattering to many figure types, and I was quite impressed with them all.

Debbie also showed us the beautiful baby and toddler sweaters in her upcoming book. There were gasps of admiration (and rightly so) when she held each little garment up for us to see.

We also had the opportunity to drool over and fondle a new Debbie Bliss yarn — a silk alpaca blend. Thanks to Kristine’s generosity, I had the opportunity to knit a swatch of this a while back. It knits up at aran weight.

I wish you could feel it. It’s wonderful.

Debbie took any and all questions, ranging from how one develops a new yarn to the mechanics of producing a book of knitting designs.

After the formal talk, everyone got the opportunity to chat with Debbie one-on-one, have books autographed, and try on the many sample garments she brought with her.

Afterward, we had a lovely lunch with Debbie before saying good-bye as she continued on her way in her travels.

I’m really looking forward to Debbie’s new designs — she has some lovely, sophisticated adult garments and the baby things are absolutely exquisite!

Ingeborg

I also managed to get some work in on Ingeborg over the past couple of days. I completed the front bands.

And started on the lace edging. Yawn.

No, actually, it’s not that bad. It’s an 8-row pattern repeat and easily memorized. Commuter knitting, here I come!

I need to make button loops as well, but I want to wait until I receive the buttons. I ordered them last week (from Nordic Fibert Arts), so should have them soon.

Prezzies!

L-B brought me some lovely gifts. Among them was this:

This pitcher is Kara Irish Pottery. It’s decorated with aran cables! Isn’t it wonderful?

And look at this lovely skein of Dancing Feet sock yarn, from Joslyn’s Fiber Farm!

Thanks, L-B!

Back to work today. I am so not amused. It’s a bit of a letdown after hobnobbing with knitting royalty, lemme tell you.

But Lucy needs me to keep her in Fancy Feast.