Hello Knitty

Today is my blog’s second birthday!

In it’s first year, it saw 9,428 visitors.

In it’s second, there were 52,950.

Wow!

If you pay attention to such things, you may know that cotton is the traditional gift you give couples on their second wedding anniversary. As my way of saying thank you for reading my blog, I thought I’d do a cotton-related giveaway!

Blue Moon Fiber Arts sells a cotton sock yarn, and I’m giving two skeins of it away to one lucky reader – enough for a pair of socks. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with what color(s) you’d like. Of course, if you have any suggestions for the blog I’d love to hear them too.

I’ll keep the giveaway open until midnight on Wednesday, February 10.

It has been a terrific year. Thank you so much for being a part of it – your comments always mean a lot.

In my last post I mentioned that MadelineTosh Worsted is now called MadelineTosh DK, and someone asked why the yarn had been renamed. And since I’m currently having a love affair with all things MadelineTosh, I thought I’d answer it a little more in depth.

The yarn on the left is MadTosh formerly-worsted-now-DK. It was always considered to be more of a light worsted so while it certainly works for knitting worsted weight projects, the finished fabric is a little airy. I really like this yarn – the colors are phenomenal, the price is great ($18 for 225 yards), and it’s super soft. The only drawback is every time I’ve knit with it I knit at a tighter gauge than the pattern calls for so the fabric is denser.

The yarn on the right is MadelineTosh’s new worsted weight yarn, which they’re just starting to get out to stores. They’re calling it Vintage, and it’s lovely. While I haven’t had the opportunity to knit with it yet, I can tell by the feel of it that it will produce a heavier fabric.

Vintage is 200 yards and $18 per skein, and comes in the same colors as DK. It is spun at a tighter twist, and when you squeeze them it’s obvious that DK is much bouncier (meaning it will compact more when you knit with it). Vintage feels a little different, but I think that has to do with the density of the yarn – both are 100% superwash merino wool. I’ve seen Vintage in a couple different colors, and all of them look as beautiful and saturated as they do in DK.

So that’s the scoop on the new MadelineTosh yarn. I already know what I’ll be knitting after I’m finished with my Tea Leaves Cardigan – a sweater out of Vintage!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the MadelineTosh DK color is Terrarium, and the Vintage color is Kelp.

Last week I asked you to help me decided what sweater to knit next, and the Tea Leaves Cardigan won with 40% of the vote.

As you can see, I’ve been hard at work on it! The yoke is done, and I’ve knit 5.5″ on the body in about a week – not too shabby if I do say so myself! The yarn – MadelineTosh DK (formerly worsted) in Oxblood – is a dream to work with. I’ve used this yarn before, and there’s a reason it’s become one of my go-to sweater yarns. It’s so soft and the colors are incredibly rich.

My goal is to have this cardigan finished before the start of the Winter Olympics. That’s two weeks from today. Think I can do it?

To me, the most fun thing to knit is by far sweaters. I enjoy the smaller projects too, but they don’t give me nearly the joy or the sense of accomplishment or make my imagination run wild. So, it’s kind of a small let down when you finish weaving in the last end and all you can do is look lovingly at the sweater you’ve knitted and cross your fingers that it will fit in a few months.

Since I’m not going to stop knitting sweaters while I’m losing weight (making every finished project a crap shoot since I don’t know what my finished measurements will be) I won’t be blocking anything yet. While I might be done knitting my Ribbed Pullover Vest, there’s still a picture to take. In the future, when I’m at my goal weight, and my vest is blocked out to fit me perfectly.

The yarn I used, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Heavyweight in Bleck, was wonderful to work with. I’ve made socks out of it before, but in a sweater it somehow seems softer. And I love the tight twist in the yarn – the farther away from single ply the better in my book.

I did make a couple modifications to the pattern. I adjusted the gauge to suite a lighter weight yarn, increased the length by 3″ because the pattern was a little too cropped for my tastes, and added in waist shaping, which you can see above. And if my typing gets wonky at any point, please know it is because one of my cats has decided it is not blogging time, it is pet me time, and is trying to accomplish this by laying across my keyboard.

This vest marks my first entry into nakniswemodo. For those of you who don’t speak knitter, this is National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon, meaning I’m going to try to knit 12 sweaters this year. Wish me luck!

HelloKnitty’s Ribbed Pullover Vest – Ravelry link

If my blindingly pale skin hasn’t burned out your retinas, I’d like to show you my new hat. My new hat that I finished like a week and a half ago and just now got around to taking pictures of. Sorry!

This is the last whimper of my hat knitting obsession. Probably. I knit myself six hats in the last 6 months, so I should be good. Maybe.

It’s another Slouchy Copy Cat Hat, which is a super terrific, easy but still interesting pattern. The yarn is Dream in Color Classy in Gold Experience, a color that I am in love with at the moment.

HelloKnitty’s Slouchy Copy Cat Hat #2 – Ravelry link