I had the pleasure of test-knitting Carabe - a new pattern from Justyna Lorkowska of Lete's Knits. It's a striped sweater with a slip-stitch detail and shawl collar. It has easily become my favorite comfy sweater.

I can finally re-home that ill-fitting bright pink cabled Gap pullover because my Shifting is finished!

Years ago I bought a bright pink cabled pullover from the Gap. I don't know if it ever fit properly, but now it's about 3 inches too short, and if I'm honest, the crew neck isn't all that flattering. It's still in my closet because I love the classic, preppy style of it and I can't bear to let it go. I never wear it, but I want to. Once a year or so, I try it on thinking that magically it will have gotten longer. It hasn't, so back into the closet it goes...except this year. This year, it's sitting on top of my dresser as a reminder that it needs to go. So this year, I'm replacing it with something that actually fits.

If you follow my blog regularly, you may have noticed that I took the month of August off from blogging. I decided that instead of focusing on knitting and blogging, I wanted to focus on the last month of summer with my family. My oldest child starts preschool next week and our entire schedule will be changing. I wanted to spend my days running through the sprinkler, playing in the sandbox, chasing fireflies, lighting sparklers, and just enjoying my kids. I spent a lot less time knitting than I usually do and therefore, didn't have much to write about. I hope you'll forgive me. At least I'm back with a pretty great FO.

Project Details
Pattern: Larch Cardigan by Amy Christoffers
Yarn: Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Sport in Grasshopper
Needles: US 5 (3.75mm), US 7 (4.5mm)

After finishing Alice, I decided to finally cast on for a Larch Cardigan. Larch has been in my queue pretty much since I started knitting. I don't know why I put it off for so long. I'm using Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Sport in Grasshopper. The MCN sport is amazingly soft and drapes so well. This sweater is going to be like wearing a hug. A hand knit hug.

I started Larch a week and a half ago and while I'm making progress, it really doesn't feel like I am. To this point, I've only knit top-down sweaters for myself. I don't know about you, but I get all kinds of "new project excitement" and generally fly through the first several inches of any project. When a sweater is top down, the rows are shorter and I can move much faster. Since Larch is bottom up, I'm knitting all of this stockinette at the widest point of the sweater and it feels like I knit forever with no progress. I've started clipping stitch markers to the edge to prove to myself that I am, in fact, making progress. I have a few more inches before I can shape the neck and divide for the fronts and back.

I'm not totally convinced that I have enough yarn, so I'm going to attempt to do top-down set-in sleeves (another first for me). If I can pull that off, I can knit them two at a time and ensure that I will use every last inch of yarn available. Anything to avoid another yarn debacle. I'll keep you posted.

I finished Jack's Gathering Stripes last week and as predicted, he wanted to wear it on the hottest day we've had so far this year. I guess that means he likes it.

This little sweater has been languishing in my WIP pile since the beginning of June. I started it at the end of May, quickly made it through the body, promptly tossed it into the WIP basket and forgot about it. Oops! I'm not in a hurry to finish a long-sleeved, cowl neck sweater for my "always runs hot" 3 year old. By his own choice I'm sure he'll wear it constantly. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite understand dressing for the weather yet.

I ordered some custom buttons for it around the same time that I tossed this into the WIP basket, and when they arrived last week I was reminded that I should probably finish the sweater. It's another Gathering Stripes. Jack needs a decent sweater and since he likes stripes it seems like a perfect match. He picked the color combo, which reminds me of Superman.

I was going to wait to post this until the pattern is released, but I love it too much not to share. I finished my East End test knit. In case you missed my last post on this knit - East End is a soon-to-be-released pattern by Alicia Plummer. Update: you can find it here.

I knit my version out of Tosh Merino Light - a single ply merino wool. It's warm, but airy and will be great on cool summer days (we've had a lot of those already this year).

If you haven't entered this week's blogiversary giveaway, you can do that here!

If you take a look at my Ravelry projects page, you can see that I really like knitting for kids. [Sidenote: every project gets added there, not every project gets blogged, so if you really want to see what I'm up to, you can add me on Ravelry, too!] I admit, the projects are heavily biased towards my daughter. What can I say - the girly patterns are so much cuter! I think I might have knit 2 hats for my son, ever.

Jack is 3.5 and has a total opinion about what he wears everyday. If we're staying home, he insists on pajamas (and I don't mind!). If we're going anywhere (and I mean anywhere - grocery store, playground, post office), his first outfit choice is always a button-down dress shirt and corduroy pants. Even in 85 degree heat. Last week, I tried to get him to wear shorts with his dress shirt (one battle at a time) and that didn't go well. He wore the pants.

Needless to say, if I knit him something, I want to make sure he's going to wear it. For almost a year now, I've occasionally asked if he wants me to knit him something. The answer has always been "no". A few weeks ago, we had a familiar conversation - I told him that I really want to make something for him, he said no. I figured that was my effort for the time being and we'd revisit soon. Imagine my surprise when a few hours later we had this conversation:

"Mama, do you want to make me a sweater? I might like that."
"I would love to. What color do you want it to be?"
"....hmmm....ALL THE COLORS!"


The next day, I got out the appropriately stashed yarn and let him pick. He chose a really great, deep blue and red. The blue looks either navy or bright depending on the light. I'm making him a Gathering Stripes and he already loves it. "Mama, did you knit the third stripe yet? How about the fourth stripe? .... How many stripes does it have now?"


Last night I finished the body and in the next few days I'll do the sleeves. It'll be finished in just enough time for Summer to be in full swing. I really hope he doesn't want to wear it everyday.

I'll be back later today to announce the first blogiversary pattern winner and put up a new contest. Stay tuned!

As promised, here are the last of my Mad May projects. One of my best friends is pregnant with her first baby, a girl, due at the end of the summer. Since we had just attended a shower for our other close friend, Kelsey knew I was going to knit her something. She just had no idea what. I was happy to fulfill my duty as the friend that knits and make that something she knew was coming.

Her baby shower was last weekend. The shower was beautiful, though very pink! Not that I'm complaining, I love pink. In true Jenn fashion, I knit a pink sweater and matching hat. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry, the sweater is a 6-12 month size and the hat stretches a lot. Plus it gets cold where she lives in mid-September. Trust me, I thought about all of that. After having two winter babies and receiving beautiful summer clothes for them in newborn sizes, it's ingrained in me to pay attention to the seasons.

Over a year ago, I bought 2 skeins of Madelinetosh DK Twist in Faded Calico - this really beautiful dusty, pale pink with slight tan undertones. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it was too beautiful to pass up. When Kelsey found out that she's expecting a girl, I knew immediately the Faded Calico had her name all over it.

There are a ton of great baby sweater and hat patterns out there, and I agonized about which one to use. I finally decided to knit a Baby Sophisticate. It's a classic sweater with a shawl collar and 4 buttons. It's simple enough not to be fussy (even if the baby is), and the collar/ button combo guarantee that it will fit over the baby's head easily. Mom won't even have to unbutton it if she doesn't want to. Maybe that's just my button-hating bias showing.

Since I went relatively simple and safe (read boring) with the sweater, I wanted something a bit more fun and feminine for the hat. As you all know, I'm pretty addicted to the Cabernet Series, so it should come as no surprise to hear that I made a Cabernet hat. This hat is so incredibly clever. The crown shaping is practically invisible in the Cabernet cable pattern. Sidenote: I can't wait to make one of these in my size!


Kelsey cried when she opened them, which I was really hoping to avoid, but I'm pretty sure that's the hallmark of a good gift. All in all, I'm really happy with how this sweet little set turned out. But more importantly, I can't wait to meet her baby girl. Is it August yet?

Project Details: 
Pattern: Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down; Cabernet Hat by Monika Sirna
Yarn: Madelinetosh DK Twist in Faded Calico
Needles: Us 4, US 6, US 8

It's been pretty quiet around here for the last week (sorry!), and I'm sure this coming week will be more of the same. I haven't been blogging because I've been furiously knitting the last of my Mad May projects. I was able to complete 6 projects for Mad May, which is about 4 more than I thought I'd be able to do. It worked out so that 3 are for gifts and 3 are for me. That's a pretty good ratio, right?

I've already shared my Pressed Leaves and Dahlia Cabernet cowl. Over the weekend I finished my Window to my Soul. I could not be happier with this sweater, especially given it's shaky start. I was worried about completing a fingering weight cardigan in less than a month, particularly after having to start over. However, this knit up much faster than I thought it would - 3 weeks of on and off knitting.

Or back to stitch one. Anything to make frogging an entire WIP sound better.

Last week I declared the war on charts to be officially over. I was clearly the victor, since I am no longer scared of them. Well, earlier this week I discovered that I made a pretty big error on my MadMay sweater, Window to my soul. I was almost finished with the raglan increases when I spotted said error on the second lace repeat. I decided to rip back to the mistake and fix it, since there was no way I was going to tink all.those.stitches. I fixed the mistake, but then inexplicably, my stitch counts were totally off. Like half a lace repeat off. I don't even know. 

So instead of trying to figure out what the heck went wrong, I just ripped the whole thing out. I probably spent less time doing that than figuring out the problem, and at least now I know it will be right. Re-knitting has gone a lot smoother this time. Probably because I am more familiar and comfortable with the lace pattern, having knit it so many times (trying to find a silver lining here). I also learned this handy trick for knitting the smocking stitch. I'm especially thrilled with this little technique because I really don't like cable needles.

Well played charts, well played. You may have won this one, but I will conquer in the end.

Earlier this week, I finished Ease. It took a whole lot longer than it should have, which I admit is totally my fault. I knit the entire body in  2 or 3 days, the sleeves in another 3 and then I started the cowl. That's where things got derailed. The pattern has you pick up stitches around the neck for the cowl, but the yarn I used (Dream in Color Classy) did not cooperate. I tried several different ways, but no matter how I did it, the pickups looked sloppy (no fault of the pattern). I knew I wanted the cowl neck, so it was time for plan B. I decided to do the cowl in garter stitch instead of stockinette. I purled the first round after picking up the stitches, which seemed to help camouflage the wonky picked up edge.

Do you know what today is? Yes, it's the first of May. But that means it's also the start of Mad May! For those unfamiliar, Mad May is a series of huge KALs (knit-a-longs) hosted in the Madelinetosh Lovers Group on Ravelry. There are several specific pattern KALs and a slew of general KALs. As a part of the General Sweater KAL, I've committed to knitting Window to my Soul by Joji Locatelli in Tosh Merino Light in Wash.

For the General Hat KAL I'm knitting Pressed Leaves by Alana Dakos in Tosh DK in Magnolia Leaf.

I hate to rip out my knitting. I hate feeling like I wasted time knitting something just to rip it out. I'm pretty sure that goes without saying - I'm sure most knitters feel the same way. You know what I hate more than ripping out my knitting? A garment that I don't like the look of, doesn't fit, or I won't wear. So there's something really satisfying about seeing your errors and course correcting along way. I think that's why I love knitting so much. There are all sorts of deviations you can take on patterns - put your own spin on your work. I like that. I like that there exists a set of rules (a pattern) and I'm allowed to break them.

I should have finished Ease on Friday, but I made a course correction that derailed my progress all weekend. I was picking up the stitches for the cowl collar when I realized that I didn't like the way they looked at all. The seam was really, really obvious and it just didn't flow well with the relaxed nature of the rest of the sweater. After some fiddling around, I decided that I wanted to knit the collar in garter stitch instead of stockinette. Not a big deal to do and it will add some texture to an otherwise plain sweater. The first purl row helps hide the oddly picked-up stitches. Which by the way are no fault of the pattern, or the knitter for that matter - I blame the yarn. The stitch definition on this DiC is incredible to the point of being annoying. It's so stiff.



Anyway, I knit the collar and realized that the ribbed cuffs and bottom hem didn't really match. So I ripped those out and I'm reknitting them. I was able to finish the sleeve cuffs over the weekend, but I still have about half of the bottom hem to go. I should be able to finish it today, but definitely tomorrow - I have to meet my sweater-a-month deadline, after all. Can you believe it's almost MAY?!

In between a few other projects this month, I've been working on Ease.

I made it to the sleeves Monday night, and anticipate finishing those either today or tomorrow (fingers crossed!). I almost always do sleeves two-at-a-time on a long circular needle - this is no exception.


After the sleeves, I just have to knit the cowl neck portion and a little drawstring. Barring any crazy circumstances, I should be able to finish this by next Wednesday. Which is really perfect timing to start Mad May! I still can't believe I've knit a sweater a month so far this year - crazy!

What are you working on?

We're in the home stretch of the Colorblock Shawl KAL! And as expected, we have a few more FOs up on Ravelry - congrats to Sonntagskind, rijelviolet, and TheNattyKnitter for finishing your shawl. I have a few more rows to finish by Friday and man are those last rows L-O-N-G. I've also been a little distracted by other deadline projects in the last few weeks, and haven't been able to give my WIP as much time as I wanted (I'll stop pouting now). I will finish it though, and I'll be back on Friday to prove it!

In other exciting news, the Colorblock Shawl pattern hit 500 downloads last week! I am completely speechless. I never thought as a brand new designer (it's still weird to say that) that my pattern would have so much attention in less than a month. It hit the "Hot Right Now"* on Ravelry for several days when it launched and now to have this many downloads, I'm just blown away. So a big, big thank you to all of you that have queued, favorited, and most importantly knit this pattern.

*Hot Right Now is a section on Ravelry with the top 20 most popular patterns. It's based on an algorithm that tracks queueing, favoriting, linking in forums, and a few other things. With the millions of patterns on Ravelry, it's a tough feat to make it to the HRN.



And just as a quick reminder - you don't have to finish the KAL to enter the prize drawing. The only requirements are that you cast on before this Friday, April 12th, and leave me a comment telling me what yarn you're using. All of the other entries (emailing me photos to post here, posting a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #colorblockKAL, following me on Twitter or BlogLovin', etc) are all optional, extra entries. And each time you post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag, you can come back to this widget for another entry! To make it easier to enter, I've added a KAL tab to the top of the blog - just click there and it will take you to the newest KAL post with the widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'll announce the winner 1 week from today in a new post. I don't blog on the weekends and I want to be fair and wait until Midnight April 12th before drawing a winner, so I hope you can stand the suspense!

I mentioned last week that I'm on track to knit a sweater a month this year (eek!). I'm not quite sure how that happened considering I only finished my first sweater 8 months ago. I have several knitting deadlines this month - a few tests and a gift - but I also don't want to break the streak.

To meet my goal I picked Ease from my queue. It's a simple top-down raglan pullover with lots of positive ease. I'm opting to do the cowl neck because it just sounds like something I want to snuggle up in. Like wearing a hug all day. I can already see this becoming my go-to lazy day sweater, to replace my decade old hoodie. At least this looks a little bit more polished if I need to run a quick errand.

AND I just found out there's a kids version. I promptly added that to my queue. Wouldn't it be cute to make the kids version for my little ones? Maybe we can all have matching sweaters, like one of those horribly tacky family Christmas cards where everyone is wearing the same ugly sweater. Except our sweaters won't be ugly.

I'm knitting it in Dream in Color Classy in the Charged Cherry colorway, which I purchased on my yarn tour a few weeks ago. I'm only a few rows in, but the Classy is fantastic to knit with. It's really sturdy, but soft and has incredible stitch definition. It would be amazing in a cabled sweater too.

So, that's what I'm up to (well, that I can talk about anyway).

Don't forget about the Colorblock KAL, we have a little over a week left. That's enough time to start (and likely finish) a shawl if you still want to join in! You don't have to finish to be entered for the prize - you just have to cast one and comment here to let me know what yarn you're using. 

Happy Friday and happy knitting!

To go along with WIP Wednesday, I thought I'd do a FO Friday post too. I finished my daughter's Tiny Rocky Coast earlier this week, just in time for the warmer Spring weather. Here she is rocking out in her (Tiny) Rocky Coast.

Since it's essentially the same pattern as the Rocky Coast, just on a smaller scale, I have a lot of the same notes. Namely, size up (seriously), learn to cable without a cable needle, and use more stitch markers than you think you need.

1. On the size - my daughter is 15 months old, her measurements suggest that she could fit into the 12 month size, but I knew I wanted it a little bit big so she has some room to grow. I also know that you're supposed to knit a few inches of ease into the sweater. Armed with that info, I opted to knit the size 2, though I lengthened the body and sleeves by .5" each. Now that it's finished, I probably could have (and should have) knit the 4 and been totally fine. Also, apparently my gauge swatch telling me the 2 would be big was a lie. My kid did not grow several inches and gain several pounds in the 3 weeks it took me to knit this.
2. On the cable needle - it might seem scary, but it's not. You save a ton of time cabling without one. It's totally worth it to learn the technique. Practice on the swatch if you're nervous. But really, it's not that bad.
3. On stitch markers - I ended up using stitch markers to note where to do the raglan increases, but also where to start and end the cable repeats within each section (front, sleeve, back, sleeve, front). It saved a lot of headaches (and a lot of counting) to be able to see how many stitches I had and whether that was enough for another cable repeat or not. I used different colored markers for the cable repeats (green) and raglan increases (purple).

I'm also not amused by the white fur everywhere, all the time (both labs and beagles tend to shed a lot). I'm really not amused by it after I've spent a half hour taking pictures of some knitting, uploaded and started editing the pictures before realizing that there is dog fur all over the garments. Grrr...

That's exactly what happened yesterday while trying to take some progress shots of my Tiny Rocky Coast. The deep plum is a great choice for a toddler sweater (it won't show stains very easily), unless she lives with a white dog. I've apparently also knit a lot of dog fur into the sweater. That was fun to pick out, since the lint roller didn't get it all.

How many (active) WIPs do you have at any given time? Is it weird that I only work on one or two at a time?