The Thrifty Knitter

2 balls of Rowan Biggy Print orange & gray, overdyed turquoise. Here is a cautionary tale about rinsing your yarn. I was lazy with my rinse & got an ugly bleedout and fade on the trim. It’s not wildy obvious, but the color was a more yummy, shocking contrast before. The button is crocheted. I’ll take a picture on me later, when I’ve showered and I haven’t been wearing the same thing for 3 days straight.

Used 2 Balls of AdrienneVittadina Emma. Hopefully Angele will have a nice, fat baby!

I’m quite happy with these booties, despite my yarn false alarm. I realized early on that I would’t have enough yarn for both, so I stopped right after the heel gusset and started the matching sock with the other end of the yarn. After the gusset on the second sock, I alternated rows until the yarn ran out, so they were both the same distance along, then spliced in the ends of another ball of yarn. They’re a little odd, but I dig them.

I also gave them a cute pointy toe to go with the quirky coloring.

The pattern is my Kinderwhore sock pattern from Naughty Needles, with a few changes. The yarn was 75g of recycled light worsted recycled wool I got from last year’s Flash Your Stash stash swap at The Studio in Kansas City (there’s another on this March). I used it for dyeing practice and was happy with the colors, but had several small odd-sized balls that I wasn’t sure about.

These & some handspun I’m gifting bring my grand total for February to 1905g, nothing to sneeze at!

Ta da! I’m well pleased with my new cardigan. Inspired by the Faux Fair Isle sweater I just finished from Spin to Knit, I decided to make a top-down raglan cardigan. I used a wider neckline, garter edging, and 1×1 ribbing around the cuffs and hemline. The sweater and the sleeves are both cropped. the sleeves have 5 more rnds of handspun than the yoke, and the elbow detail on one arm was Ron’s idea. I like it!

It used a 5.4 oz skein of stoneleafmoon handspun and a 4 balls of Volare. I wouldn’t have figured that would make nearly so substantial a sweater, so I’m happy as a clam at high tide. It’s cozy, and the barrier of black between the body & my face cuts down on the sallow-making.

his style would also be cute with a more cropped cut and a rounded hemline, or a closer fit & buttons down the whole front. But I think the bulky yarn and the open neckline do well with a one-button closure. I have some wayward Biggie Print that might have something like this in its future. Maybe with longer ribbing at the sleeves, and a 1×1 edging added all around afterwards? Hm. I also have that kool-aid dyed swap handspun, which goes well with some other bulky handspun I had in my stash…

Just needs to finish drying and get a button. I really like it, despite that the right sleeve is 2 st wider than the left until the end, dammit. Just wasn’t paying attention & didn’t notice until I got to the cuff. And of course it’s accentuated by the band of handspun on the left sleeve. But I know you won’t be able to notice when it’s on.

The picture doesn’t do it justice (my indoor light at night is for shit). The black is superblack and lustrous mohair-wool and all the little color globs are really textural. I’ll get some nice details in the daylight tomorrow. And although I can’t officially call it finished until it’s dry and sporting a shiny button, I can call it finished for the purposes of my stashalong, motherhumper! Yay! 360 grams more!

I got these today from my handspun secret pal! Now I feel like an underachiever, because the ones I sent my secret pal were so much more modest. But I still have one more skein to send out, so maybe I’ll make it a little more flashy!

Hm. So I didn’t make a rule about yarn gifts in my destashing pledge…. I guess they should go into my full disclosure total, but they don’t need to add to my goal, since I don’t control the incoming yarn. And I signed up for the swap before I joined the stashalong, so… Oh, pish posh! I shouldn’t feel guilty! And I don’t! So there!

I’m over halfway done the handspun cardi I’m working on now. I spent the afternoon cleaning up damage and trash at our other buildings, so I’m too tired for pictures of the progress, but here’s the yarn again:

Happily, the plain green is going much farther than expected. I was nervous because I only have 4 balls of it, but I’ve only used 2 and the torso’s almost done, and I still have extra handspun for the cuffs. I’m going to have to weigh what’s left and do the math to figure out how far down I should start the handspun sleeves (it’s another top-down raglan).  And I know every torso round equals 2.3 sleeve rounds. I’ll probably crack my brain working it out.

I’ll post the pattern next week (the sweater is a mere 1 ball of yarn!), but for right now: look how cute! It would be even cuter if I had put something in the pictures to show scale. It is TEENY. It’s a present for a pregnant friend and my first baby outfit, and I’m working on them for other baby-makers.

Here’s a little short sleeved cotton version I’m working on for Angele, since she’s having a summer baby. This was my first one and it came out much bigger, but I honestly have no idea what size babies are. I tried to go with the craft yarn council numbers, but who knows? I’d guess the snuggly bubbly thing is a newborn and this is maybe a one-year old. But the mom I interrogated about baby things said it was nice to get bigger clothes, since all the presents come when it’s a baby and they grow so quickly. So maybe baby Angele can wear it on his or her birthday. Or maybe it will fit sooner. What I know about babies would fill a matchbook.

Ta da! That was FAST. Of course, now it’s all warm and beautiful outside.

Pattern: Faux Fair Isle Sweater from Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey

Yarn: About 110 g My Hanspun 2-Ply + 425g (8.5 balls) Hand-dyed Classic Elite TwoTwo (from a Webs grab bag purchase last spring).
I can’t shut up about this pattern. I love it. It’s simple and FAST. I made the Forsythia version and used bulky yarn throughout (the pattern calls for a mix of bulky & worsted, but the all-bulky worked well). I’m short and wear about a medium.

A bag of bulky yarn and a big fat skein of handspun made me a sweater, hat and mittens. This is a nice, roomy sweater, very snuggly wintertime vibe. My next one has less yarn, so I’ll show the results of making a more fitted version. Also looks great on a man (Ron tried on mine, and although it was really tight, it was quite stretchy, and you could tell the style looks great–though I’d recommend casting on 16 or 24 fewer stitches–or using a worsted like the pattern suggests–for a closer neckline, as the wide neckline looks a bit feminine.)
Mods:

Threw in a few stripes of the main color into the yoke to break it up a little (I picked high-contrast colors) and to make it easy to carry the yarn down so I wouldn’t have to rejoin.

CO just 3 st instead of the recommended 10 (25% of my sleeve st) for a slimmer fit (but still nice and roomy) because I’m small-busted.

As a result, I have fewer sleeve st, so instead of the recommended decrease, I did this to decrease slower for a baggy sleeve: decrease on the 12th, 10th, 8th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 4th rnd. This give you a big roomy cuff, which I wanted for my slightly shortened sleeves (I like my cuffs out of the way for washing my hands, putting on mittens, etc.; and I don’t like my wrists constricted)

Added a few rnds of handspun before the sleeve ribbing.

Used 5 rnds of K1P1 ribbing for both the hem and cuffs.

Here are some more pictures: