Sunday, September 30, 2007

I'm making a list, checking it 3,472 times....

Stitches East is less than 2 weeks away!!! And then Rhinebeck is right after that people!!!! Yay!!! Call me an overthinker, but I always make a list for fiber related events like these. The list makes up some things I need to get and then some general instructions. This way I don't end up buying too much or too yarn for certain projects, hopefully. An example of something I need-I have 2 men I have to knit socks for by Christmas and somehow the lavender Louet Gems in the stash is not going to cut it. So I need to get some more masculine sock yarn. A suggestion-I know I would like to buy some yarn for a shawl this year. I think something more fingering than lace weight. And I don't have a shawl pattern in mind, but I just need to make sure I buy a large enough amount to make a shawl out of. Another suggestion that I'd like to stick with- when I've gone to Stitches in the past I usually like to buy enough yarn for at least one sweater for myself. Well, since I still have a sweaters worth of yarn left from last year, I guess I'll only buy for one this year. I have 2 sweater ideas kind of kicking around, one is a bulky weight sweater where I could use any kind of bulky weight yarn probably. The other is a Berrocco pattern which I would want to use the Berrocco yarn for, I would not want to substitute yarns for this sweater. So tell me what you think-

One thing I've decided lately is I'd like to be knitting from my books more. I'm afraid I own more knitting books than I'd like to admit, and honestly I've knit from them a lot less than I'd like to admit. Enter my first consideration... Order and Chaos from Inspired Cable Knits.





Ok, I know it sucks the one in the book is knit in white, and the model's poses make it tough to make out how the sweater actually looks. Forget the fact that the guy she's forced to pose with is a complete tool (and why are they posing like it's for a prom photo???) forget all that. This really is a great sweater. I think. It is bulky weight yarn and yes I know bulky weight is not always that flattering on those of us who happen to be more curvy than the average bear-however- I think the cabling action will detract from that don't you? It's a comfy cozy type sweater, v-neck, not overly long and I like it alot. I've only found one other person who has made it - Melanie from Pink Lemon Twist (yes Mysterly Stole Melanie) has some great pictures of her finished Order and Chaos here and here. Bonus-if for some reason the yarn does not work for this sweater I could also easily use it to make Starsky or I also have a Ruana pattern I like that I could use it for. So purchase of yarn for this sweater would be a versatile purchase as well...

Unfortunately the amount of money I have to spend to buy the yarn for the other sweater I'm considering may well rival the budgets of some small, third world countries.



Jiada is a sweater that has haunted me ever since the Berrocco newsletter that featured it popped into my Inbox. I love the collar, and the colors, and the sheer stylishness of it. It is knit with Berrocco Peruvia and Jasper. Cha-ching! But that's ok, remember these fiber events are usually where I spend most of my yarn money for the year. It's one of the few times I don't look at the price tags of stuff. And I've only heard very drool worthy comments about Peruvia and Jasper, so I don't mind spending that kind of money since it's good yarn I'm getting in return. But, would this style of sweater even look good on me? Of course the model in the picture has no chesticles to speak of whatsoever. It's hard to picture how this would look with boobs. But I like how the collar 'frames the face' and that with the straightness of the diagonal front edge I consider this a bit of a 'jacket' type sweater and I think the color and the fabulousness of the yarns might hide some sins under there. Hmm... So any opinions? Order and Chaos or Jiada? I know, I like them both too...

In the meantime I'm knitting soakers. The soakers I knit before were a little too small for their recipients, so the bigger recipient donated hers to the smaller recipient and at least one of the girls has a soaker for now. But I'm knitting away at them, I finished one for my sister's friends baby, (pretend the ends are sewn in on the pic below) I'm on a second for her and once I finish it up I'll do another for my niece. And the small from before that didn't fit anybody is being donated to charity that accepts soakers. So you see, it's not that it didn't fit-it was really just meant to be for someone else!!!

3 comments:

Tracy said...

As your offcial knit enabler I say get the yarn for both sweaters. They are both jackety so I don't think the normal rules apply (cables + boobs = no, no). However, if you're getting just one I like the second better because it's more unusal - you can also get the other yarn from knitpicks later in the year if you want that one as well.
There, that's my 2 cents.

lobstah said...

I like Jiada a lot! I think it would look OK on a "normal" body though it's always so hard to be sure--that is one of my eternal frustrations with knitting patterns! It's funny though, as much as I wish that they'd use "real" models, I notice I'm not attracted as much to patterns when they do that! I guess that is why advertisers use models, eh? ;)

BEESTLYproducts said...

that second jacket is amazing!!! how lucky are you? going to stitdhes and rhineback????