I'm Back

This blog has been badly ignored, almost abandoned, for the last seven months. I have nothing better in the way of excuse other than that life got in the way.  I put away my needles for the summer and all the other crafts also took a back seat to my family obligations. The next few months are also going to be busy but I hope to put up a few posts now and then.
In knitting news, I only restarted knitting last month and have knitted only two pairs of fingerless gloves.

The first one was a DROPS design that I made on comission. I always enjoy colorwork so it was a breeze. Once it was done, I wanted to knit another.

This design was reverse-engineered from an pin on pinterest. It has some embroidery too, in the form of a flower an the back of the wrist, and I add some pearl beads for good measure. I guess my eldest daughter will be claiming this pair.

  In other news, my biggest project of the year (fourteen months to be exact), the dollhouse, is nearing completion. I just need to add a few minor things and take pictures.

  Other than that, our life has been most ordinary and routine, Alhamdulillah. The weather is slowly turning milder and I feel knitting beckoning me once more. Letvus see how much I can manage in the coming months.

Snowflake Gloves

These days, my son is really taken with all things frost-related. So it came to me as no surprise when he wanted me to make him a pair of gloves with snowflakes on them. But it was taking a things to far, when he decided he wanted the color of gloves to be light blue. I tried to talk him into navy blue, but there was no dissuading him. Also, he handpicked the snowflake and all.

   Though not my first choice of color, the light blue has slowly grown on me and the finished gloves do look quite cute. And, of course, they make him very happy, so much so that he has worn them to school for two days straight (and brought back an intact pair).

By the time these pictures were taken, the gloves had seen two days of  wear.

 For the actual knitting, I took elements from a couple of patterns, with a bit of improvisation thrown in. The patterns are listed on the ravelry project page. I ran out of blue yarn with an inch of thumb left to be knit, and the extra few yards that I managed to get from the yarn shop, were not an exact match. So, I did a bit of striping, alternating both yarns at the left thumb, in an effort to blend them. All in all, this pair for a pleasure to knit, and I think I love knitting fair-isle more than the cables.

Neville Sweater

I started this sweater in March and worked slowly on the body. Then it remained mostly untouched during the summer, only to be taken out last month. At the time of my last post, two weeks back, I was working on the first sleeve. Continuing on, I knitted both sleeves and joined them to the body and knitted up the fair-isle yoke to finish up the sweater.

 The yarn is our local acrylic, the pattern is a Garnstudio DROPS free design. I chose to make an adult size sweater for my ten-year-old, because it is a bit tiring when kids grow out of the handknits after a single season. My son can wear this one with rolled cuffs this year, and hopefully will last him a few more years.

The plain black part was boring and tedious stockinette st, and it was extremely slow-going, but the things looked up with the yoke. I loved knitting the fair-isle part. And the end result was totally worth all the slog.

The sweater has been well received, my son did not want to take it off, regardless of the fact that it was 32 C today. My husband also thought it was outstanding. And as a bonus, I think I got my knitting mojo back with this one.

Fair Isle Baby Set

 

 This baby set winds up my baby knitting, unless I decide to knit a random vest or two. I took my time with knitting this set but still it got done pretty fast. The jacket, cap and socks are one DROPS pattern and the pants are another DROPS pattern. I have knit the later twice before, in fact the last baby pants were also made in this pattern.

The yarn is all our local acrylic in DK weight and I love how it is far softer than the usual stuff, and has a nice variegation to it.

This little fair Isle project has put me in the mood for some more colorwork and I am contemplating an intarsia project next.

Spartan Pullover in Progress

My newest WIP is Spartan pullover and I am knitting it for my husband. It is a very basic design with drop shoulders and a fair-isle band at the waist. At the moment I have gotten just past the band.

From now on, it is going to be pretty straight forward and probably boring. However, I am hoping to get it done by the end of this month, inshaAllah.

Fair-Isle Yoke Sweater

It took me about a month to knit up the sleeves but that was basically because I put this project on hold to work on some others. However, I picked it up again yesterday and it's done now. And my son was more than happy to pose for it. He even picked out his favorite photo.

It is a bit big for him right now, but that was intended as he is going to wear this next winter, inshaAllah.

Starting the New Year

Knitting-wise, I will be marking the start of the new year by casting on for Central Park Hoodie, inshaAllah. I will be joining a CPH KAL starting Jan 1st at ravelry (Sporum Forum). I did a swatch for it today and it turned out ok:

I also plan to continue working on my two older WIPs side-by-side. The sweater for my son is done down to the sleeves. I always intended it to be large. I think it is turning out to be a 6-8 year fit so my son will wear it next winter, inshaAllah.

My last WIP has been ignored lately. These socks are for my husband. After repeated frogging, I finally settled for a simple garter rib pattern. My aim is to finish the pair in January, inshaAllah.

So these are my new year WIPs. Only 15 minutes to New Year Here. Hope everyone has a healthy, happy and peaceful New Year!

Another yoke...Fair-Isle this time

I had been waiting to finish the Tangled Yoke Cardigan to start a sweater for my son, for which I bought the yarn last month. I had got these to colors with no definite idea about the design.

Finally, when I started, I went for a top-down Fair-Isle Yoke pullover. The fair-Isle design is my own and hence somewhat rudimentary. I added two additional colors for the fair-isle.

Tonight I finished the yoke and will have my son try it on for the fit in the morning, inshaAllah. I am intending a larger size anyway.

Now I have to confess that I was up till 4:45 am last night to knit this and tonight it is almost two already. So, I am a bit groggy right now. Must go to bed...

May Mystery Socks

As I posted last month, I had started these last month as part of Sockdown May at SKA group at ravelry. I had to frog them twice, first time due to guage problems and the secound time due to some tricky part in the pattern. As a result, it got a bit boring and that's why it took so long. I did the alternative chart (shorter) for the cuff but made it multicolored instead of monchrome.

I ran out of lighter green in the final chart of second sock, so I had to substitute with another yarn. You can see the different yarn in the picture. These socks turned out quite good in the end. And along the way, I tried my hand at magic loop a.k.a. one sock on one circular needle and loved it. No more DPNs for sock knitting for me!
I plan to give them to my mom who has refused to try them on for now (too hot).