FO: 'Krim'

My Krim Tomato is done! I will give it a light blocking. And, now that I see the picture, I think I might pick out and re-weave in the yarn end that shows up at the back of the neck. I can hide it off to one side.

I'm feeling a little under the weather today, so just a short post. I think it's mainly the heat and humidity getting to me. I'm looking forward to a cool day so I can wear my new sweater!

Mags, Yarn Mail, KALs, Tomato Update

Jeff and I went to Barnes and Noble Tuesday night for coffee and browsing. I look forward to getting my copy of Simply Knitting each month, so I was glad there was a new one! I think it might be nice to make the blue top shown on the cover sometime. It would be good to wear next summer. If I knew how to crochet, I'd make the purple shrug!

I also got the September In Style. The big fall issues of the fashion magazines are my favorites as I love the range of colors and textures you can wear in cooler weather and there is much more knitting pictured.

Part of my gift certificate order from The Irish Ewe arrived yesterday! Yarn mail makes me so happy! It's the Cascade Sierra for the shaped lace tee from Knitting Lingerie Style. The Cascade Fixation was backordered, but I will wait for it since I have plenty of projects OTNs for the time being!

I wound this into balls last night when I was too tired to do anything requiring much mental effort! It cooperated very well, no tangling, so I think it's going to be very pleasant to knit with.

In anticipation of working with the Cascade Sierra and Fixation, I have joined two KALs:
Knitting Lingerie Style Along

Romantic Hand Knits Along (cover of book for now, suspect a proper button will be available soon!)

Here is a progress picture of Krim knit to the waist and ready to begin the increases for the hips.

I've actually done a few rounds of increases since this pic! When I was two or three green rows below the pattern band, I transferred the live stitches onto scrap yarn and tried it on. The top part fits! As long as the rest fits as well, I'll be thrilled!

Yarn Shopping and Tomato Progress

Sunday afternoon, I visited Sakonnet Purls to see if they had any more Classic Elite Wings and to browse the fall pattern books.

Since Classic Elite Wings is discontinued, there wasn't much choice left of colors for a contrasting band in my Green Tomato top. I finally chose a shade of purple. I'm not sure I love it as I was looking for a light, off white shade, but it is growing on me as I work on Tomato. It helps meet the purple requirement for Project Spectrum too!

As I'm having such a good time working with Wings, I selected 10 skeins in brown. That's fitting for Project Spectrum too, though I probably won't get it knitted up very soon. I have no idea what pattern I'll use it for, but I'm sure something will come to me. I could always make another Tomato!

There were a few new fall knitting books, but not the one I'd been hoping to buy (RYC Classic Tweed). I did enjoy looking at the beautiful photographs in Accessories, AM to PM and Travel (all from the RYC Classic Series), but those aren't top on my list at the moment! Even without buying any pattern books, I think 12 skeins of 1/2 price yarn was a pretty nice haul.

Having a contrast shade of yarn, I was able to continue to work on Tomato! Here is where I'm up to, or should I say down to?

This is my first ever stranding project. I found it very fun! Even though I know my stitches aren't totally even, I think I can cope with how it came out. Here is a detail of the pattern, but please don't look too closely at the uneven bits! Perhaps blocking will help?

I'll even let you have a peek at the reverse side showing my stranding!

What do you think of the color? It keeps changing on me. In some light the purple is darker and looks a little red, like burgundy, and I think of Christmas. Other light makes it look more like in these pictures, very grape. Maybe instead of Green Tomato I should be calling my version something relating to wine! Although, I've just thought, there are a few purple tomatoes, so perhaps I should call it Krim, after my favorite purple heirloom variety.

I can't say enough good things about this pattern so far. I keep staying up late at night to work on it! I'm probably about the last person in blogland to try it, but if you still haven't you must download your free pattern and knit =)

I can't stop casting on!

Thursday evening, I had plenty of choice of current knitting to work on, but I couldn't stop myself: I cast on another project! Since a trip to Sakonnet Purls in June, I've had this Classic Elite Wings in a basket in my living room and I've been so eager to work with it. When I got the free pattern for Tomato, there was no stopping me!

Here's what I've knit since Thursday night on my 'Green Tomato'. I have to go to the yarn store this weekend to look for a contrasting yarn for the 'hounds tooth' pattern, but if they don't have any, I should have enough yarn to complete it in solid green.

I did the neckline after getting the body to where I should change over to the contrast color. I guess I picked up more stitches than some examples I've seen, but I think it will fit me fine. I did skip every 4th stitch on each side of the neck, so a little blocking will open up that ribbing. Actually, it's such a fitted top that just wearing it will essentially block it! The loft of the yarn helped prevent any gaps from forming at the line of picked up stitches. Here is a detail pic.

This is my first top down sweater project and I love it! Wings is also fantastic to work with. I should have more progress pics of this very soon. I just need to make a decision on whether I'll be using a contrast color and knitting the pattern part or not.