Bulle Means Bubble in French

So, um, yeah I've been gone from this space for practically eternity.  Being pregnant with 5 kids sorta makes you switch your priorities around.  However, I just finished a project and goodness I got so many pictures that I just HAD to share them all here.

The lovely Shannon from luvinthemommyhood is hosting her annual Tops, Tanks, & Tees Knit Along.  I must confess when she announced it I wasn't sure I would take part.  While I love the KAL experience I haven't had the best track record with actually FINISHING projects and I was (still am) in the throes of knitting for Somebody coming in June.  However, after finishing up not just one, not just two, but THREE different knitting projects for Somebody I felt it was time to knit for someone else (how many sweaters does a baby really need?)  Elsa, seemed a tinge envious of all the baby knits and since Shannon graciously allows us to knit for babies and children if we desire I was in.

 The B&W photo was the very first picture I took during our photo session and by the looks of the Girl I wasn't sure how well it would go...she went ahead and surprised me:

Of course we had to have a little fun too:

Honestly I just kept clicking away, 47 pictures in about 5 minutes and all of them so delightful to look at.  We timed it perfectly because as soon as we were done the sun went behind the clouds and hasn't popped back out since.

Details

Pattern: Bulle by Karen Borrel

Yarn: Cascade Sierra Quatro, 80/20 cotton/wool blend

    I actually happened upon this yarn already knit up into a cardi at the thrift store.  I knew the yarn on site (parlor trick of mine) and at $3 for the sweater I couldn't allow it to stay languishing on the rack.  The cardi wasn't my style at all (nor the color) but I knew I could unknit it and make something stunning-which if I do say so myself I did!  There was just over 300gms from the sweater which equals 3 hanks and I didn't use it all either :)

Universal Dolce Merino, 50/50 micro fiber/merino blend for the pockets

Mods

I didn't get gauge but didn't want to tinker with different needles to see if I could so I simply cast on for the 3/4 to get the 5/6 width and just knit the extra length.  I'll tell you that I began to grow nervous that it might not be big enough...well long enough but after blocking it was perfect.  She'll be able to wear this all summer long and the bonus about it being a tunic is eventually she'll get to wear it as just a top!

I loved the pattern, it was so neat and just about the time boredom set in something changed.  I'll definitely consider making it again, maybe in all wool for the autumn season.  The part that I loved the most in the pattern, but was the most irritating to do...the pockets.  Yeah, you knit those after the sweater is done and in the round, but because it is in the round you are constantly having to pick up the sweater and turn it for each round...annoying but certainly not a deal breaker in the pattern.

And ladies, don't fret, if you see what you like here I'm happy to report that there is also a Lady Bulle pattern!  I'm thinking I just might knit one for myself this summer :)

Guess What I'm wearing today???

Yes that's right!  My new sweater :)  I'm so excited that the weather has finally cooled off enough for me to put it on...well cooled off enough in the morning that is, I'll prolly have to take it off this afternoon.

Still I'm happy to have it on.

I love that I decided to make my own buttons.  Part of that was because I didn't have money for pretty buttons and the cheap ones wouldn't work.  The other part is that I love fabric covered buttons :)

Well, I promise I'll try and pop in here a little more frequently but currently I am crazy swamped and can barely get what must get done finished each day.  I thought with the kids in school I'd have more time looks like I have less...a connundrum if I ever heard of it!

So I'm in desperate need of some love and need you all to tell me how much you love the sweater.  I still want to do a photo shoot with it but that will have to wait for another day...

Finshed Sweater...well almost ;)

Yes!!! My sweater is finished, well except for a few ends to weave in and buttons :) 

I'm in love and can barely wait for fall so I can wear this baby every. single. day. 

I've already started another sweater, just a baby sweater but a sweater nontheless.  I do have plans for more too but you'll just have to wait. 

I seriously can't believe that I finished a sweater for myself, with sock yarn in 7 weeks!  This is the first time I've finished a sweater with a deadline not only on time but early :) Ohmygoodness craziness.  Now to find the perfect buttons and have a friend take pictures of me wearing it :)

There's a Body!!!!

So sorry to have missed you all last week but I was traveling.  I had fully intended to schedule a post but I got that horrible orrible flu bug (on my birthday no less) and was just starting to recover on Tuesday so it was a no go.  Plus I didn't have much to show in the way of progress as I couldn't knit when I was sick...yes I was that ill!

Still today I have some great news...I cast off for the body of the sweater last night!  Yay for me :)

I'm still trying to figure out how to take decent photos of myself so you know laugh along with me at my self-portrait attempt in my bathroom (newly cleaned and painted thankyouverymuch).

I really love the stripes.  I have to say I was a bit nervous about striping the whole thing but I love how it has turned out, it is a very Buffy sweater look.  I also discovered much to my joy, that I have a shorter torso which means that I did not have to knit 15 inches of stocking stitch under the arm before the hem.  I knit 12 and I did the hem per the directions which is 20 rows of garter stitch which should be an 1.5 inches but it looks closer to 2 for me which gives me a total of 14ish inches in length which is perfect!  It is exactly the same length as my tank top and since I always wear and extra long cami under my clothes it'll be perfect :)

Those stripes I love.  I can hardly wait to get that baby soaking in a bath and watch the yarn relax and fill out the pattern.  Everything will look that much prettier once the blocking has happened :)  Still there are two sleeves left and I for one am looking forward to have less that 100 stitches on my needles :)

How is your sweater coming along?  I'm so close to finishing I can taste it! In fact I'm already planning my next sweater, well sweaters as one is going to be a baby sweater (seriously, baby season is upon us).  I promise when I'm done to have someone wonderful take photos for me so I can show it off in its true splendor :)

and then there was scrap yarn...

It's true my sweater no longer looks like a hat for a giant but now an actual sweater with sleeves...

well maybe not sleeves exactly but at least there are stitches on scrap yarn marking wear sleeves will one day be :)

Since this is a top down I decided to try it on, make sure it wasn't too big or worse too small.  Drumroll...

It fits!  I have to say that I am entirely happy that I chose to knit the 36/38 size instead of the 40/42 because it's obvious that the 40 would have been too big. 

I'm gonna have to get some measurements and see when I want to start the waist shaping, that's probably the only modification that I'll be making, I'll put the decreases for my waist where, well my actual waist is :)

This past Sunday I took the some of the kids to the park (Husband was sick)...

I got to knit a little while I was there

It was awesome.

Well there you have it scrap yarn, parks and sleeves!  And oh yes, a giveaway as promised.  Nothing too spectacular, just an apron...

I saw this fabric and it cried to me to make it into an apron, so I obligied :)  I think it's perfect for summer and will be great on the dark, long winter day's to help brighten your kitchen and lighten the workload of cooking :) 

So just leave a comment below, if you need help thinking of something to say you could tell a joke, write a limmerick, or even give me a math problem to work on :)  Just be nice and in a couple weeks I'll pick a lucky winner at random.  (please for my sake and yours leave someway to be contacted via email or if your name links to your email that works too)

Hope you have a day that's sunny side up and get knitting :)


*Disclaimer*  I just want to clear the air in that I'm giving this apron away for fun and for no other reason.  I love to make things and give them away and I love making new friends :)

what they call obsessed...

It's true I'm obsessed.  Completely and unabashedly obsessed.  With Sherlock...

source

wait, wait, wait...I meant to say with my Umbrellas sweater :)

though as a side note how awesome is the name Benedict Cumberbatch?  I mean come on, can it get more British?  The man has amazing parents!  I of course deduced this from his name ;)

Okay, back on topic.  Knitting.  Fair Isle.  Sweaters.  Summertime.

I got the extra yarn I ordered.

I was over-the-top excited when I pulled them out of the bag. 

Look at the cake of yarn, that is what I had before.  They match perfectly!  I mean perfectly!   Considering that I didn't have the color number or dye lot for the yarn I had on hand...I just remembered the brand I think I got blessed by the Knitting Fairies :)  I promise, Fairies I'll pay it forward.

love the umbrella tops <3

Can I just say I love this sweater?  Oh, wait I just did :)  Honestly, I haven't found any errors or problems in the pattern though that doesn't mean I haven't made any.  It probably would go easier if I marked the fair isle pattern repeat but I can't find my stitch markers and I don't want to buy anymore.  I did have to go and buy another needle as my 29-inch just was too short for the 300+ sts and I still have one more row of increases!

Even though the pattern is knit with sock weight yarn it's really knit up at a DK gauge which doesn't bother me in the least.  Right now I'm following the pattern for the 36/38 but I may change it up after the split for the body and go up to the 40/42, I've had 5 babies people so I don't want to draw too much attention to the tummy but I did want some negative ease.  We'll see.  Once I'm done with fair isle pattern I'll try it on.

For those knitting along with me how is your sweater going?  Are you obsessed as me?  Personally I blame the obsession on watch Sherlock for most of the sweater, how can you watch that show and not become obsessed I don't know?  Seriously that show exudes obsession and compulsiveness :)  If you haven't watched it yet you should...you won't regret it!  BBC Masterpiece Mystery...on Netflix!  I'll see you all next week now I'm off to celebrate Independence Day by sewing, knitting and eating yummy food :) 

New Car, Sweaters, KAL and Sock Yarn...

I know I've been gone from this little corner of blogland for a while.  I've been struggling a lot with some personal and medical issues (nothing serious or life threatening, but a pain nevertheless) so my desire to blog and create has been on the back burner.  Don't get me wrong, I've been making stuff just not as quickly as I usually do ;)  Also, summer is here and well I think it's going to take me the full three months to get into the summer schedule...right about the time I have to get used the new school schedule :)  


There reason for mini-vacation from blogging explained.  Now onto what you're all here for The 2012 Summer Sweater Knit-A-Long hosted by the Fantabulos Shannon of luvinthemommyhood!  I'm excited to join in again this summer.  Do you remember my sweater from last year?  

Pumpkinlicious Cardi
Pattern Reversible Come and Go Sweater by Deborah Newton 

Oh. My. Goodness.  I just discovered that I never posted the finished picture!  Ack!  Well that's okay, I'm planning on tearing apart the fronts and turning the cardigan into a pullover.  I'll show before and after pics when I work on it, you forgive me now I know :)

I have decided to knit myself a pullover.  I really wanted to knit something seamless, preferably a top down (I love top downs).  I fell head-over-heels in love with Umbrellas by Joji Locatelli this spring.

lilalu's umbrellas

 As soon as I heard there was to be another summer sweater KAL I knew I wanted to knit this pattern.  However, I wanted to buy yarn to knit it and was fully intending to do so but then our car died, it wasn't worth fixing and so we took the plunge and bought a new car.  Husband loves it and it is a wonderful car, gets excellent MPGs and came in the perfect color for Husband (it's his commuter car) but it came with a car payment YUCK!  So in a moment of rare responsibility I put off buying yarn for this sweater mostly because I wanted to knit with something new and fresh - when you read the words new and fresh it does the same thing vintage does to the price tag at the thrift store...it goes up.

So I tucked the pattern away in my mind, life moved on and so did my knitting and crafting, well sort of, and I started to look to my stash and see what I had and if there was a pattern in my collection of patterns that would work with yarn that I already have.  Guess what?  I have a lot of sock yarn...no socks...but lots of yarn.  Different colors but most are in the same color family.  Umbrellas is knit with sock yarn, could I make it work with my modge podge of sock yarn?

no, this isn't all the sock yarn I have but these are the yarns I'm going to use

Yesterday I looked through it all and concluded that yes I could but that it would look even better if I were able to find a couple more skeins of a sock yarn that I had the most of.  A quick search on ravelry a few messages back and forth and winner winner chicken dinner I'm getting more yarn at a very reasonable price.  I bought the pattern this morning and while I can't cast on until I finish another project I am very happy.

The color I'm getting more of :)

Stay tuned to see how it turns out.  I'm going to be eternally optimistic about it and see it turning out incredibly well :)  Now to finish my project and get started on this one...it'll take me all summer!

I'm Gonna Do It!

Well Shannon from luvinthemommyhood and Becca from Nook. have spun up a new knit along (haha, did you catch my pun, totally intentional).  I was sooooo excited to find out about it and waited on needles with a cable hook to find out what we were going to be knitting next.  I confess I was hoping it would be shawls as I just got some ah.maz.ing Madelinetosh yarn that is crying to be knit up into a shawl.  However it wasn't.  If I'm totally honest I was a little let down by the choice as *gasp* it was something I'm nervous to make.  What is it that we're making?  Tops, Tanks & Tees...well really the and should be or unless you're a crazy fast knitter who could make more than one garment in a month.

In spite of my fear of knitting a top for myself I knew I had to join in.  I have loved these online KALs so much.  The conversations on ravelry, the different patterns, the different yarn and best of all the encouragement and accountability to actually finish what you start (a serious problem of mine, not finishing).  I started my pattern search by diving into my pattern collection.  I've only been knitting for 6 years but boy oh boy do I have a lot of patterns.  I'm a knitting magazine junkie!  I weeded out the patterns by only looking for magazines that were the Spring/Summer editions and found a mag that had tons of summer top patterns that I loved and would happily make.

Yet I've been conditioned to be cautious about magazine patterns.  Especially if the models of said patterns are small and twig like in stature.  So I picked my top three pattern choices and went to ravelry to look them up, see who had made them, if there were problems with the pattern, but most importantly to see if anyone of my build and fat content had made one and looked good in it.  I'm so glad I did because when I entered in one of my tank choices a little thumbnail picture popped up as a possible suggestion and I fell head over heels in love with it.

Frantically I searched to see if the pattern had been knit by someone my size...it had and she looked AMAZING in it.  Then I noticed that the pattern was from an old Vogue mag...2008.  I wasn't too disappointed as I could buy just that pattern but I remembered that my bestie subscribes to Vogue Knitting, maybe she had a copy of the magazine so that I could borrow it.  She did!  Oh victory oh victory!  The next best part is that I had yarn in my stash for it.  So I'm out $0 for the KAL a fact that husband is grateful for.  Well grateful for now, because as I'm using up my stash soon I'll have to actually go out and buy yarn and the longer I knit the more expensive my yarn tastes get :)

The KAL runs April 11 thru May 23, which is 6 weeks a perfect amount of time for a top.  Especially since I've gone and changed the gauge from 5 stitches to the inch to 7 stitches to the inch.  I had to cast on 252 stitches and I'll work a K2P2 rib for 13 inches!  I timed myself...it takes me 11 minutes to work one round!  Still I know I'll love having this in a finer gauge, it will add to the drape and look more professional in my opinion.

So what do you think?  Do you love the pattern?  The yarn is discontinued now but it was given to me and you just can't beat free!  Stay tuned for more progress :)

Shower Gifts

So I didn't mean to go radio silent on you guys, it's just that I have been hard at work on my crafty endevors and well...blogging sort of got left behind.  So sorry.  I'll make it up to you now by showing off not just one, but TWO finished projects.  I've been sewing and knitting up a storm over hear...I'm hoping it's the kind of storm that brings sunshine ;)

Last night I went to a baby shower and well of course I had to make something for the baby, it was for a dear friend who is expecting her second baby girl any day now.  So with my needles I whipped up this adorable sweater,

If you've been around blogland for any amount of time you've probably seen this pattern, it's the Puerperium Cardigan by Kelly Brooker.  I think I first saw it when Shannon made one and knew that the next baby that came (not my own) would get this.  Bonus it's a free pattern for the smallest size, though there is a pattern for larger sizes.

Vinny picked out the buttons and I do say he did a fabulous job.  The sweater is a top-down so there aren't any seams.  The most sewing you do is the buttons.  The mother proclaimed upon receipt of it that "Side buttons are my favorite."  I think it was a winner.

Of course no shower gift from me can be complete without baby shoes,

I just love these Little London Loafers.  This is the smallest size and they just use scraps, scraps I tell you of fabric.  One of the guests at the shower told me I should sell them, maybe I will one day.  

I didn't have any velcro squares so I opted for a snap...I was mildly disappointed in the pearl snaps that I used (not Dritz, so other off brand) as they cracked when I set them.  Still, you won't get cut on them but it did mar the beauty of the pearl top.  Note to self: Get more pretty snaps of quality.  Honestly I'm in love with snaps...so quick and easy and they add in my mind a professional look to them.

Of course for gifts it's all in the presentation so I whipped up a cute little box out of scrapbook paper, a few cotton balls in the toe of the shoes and I had this picture perfect gift to present.

Based off of all the other gifts received this baby will be one stylish girl!

So what have you been up too?  Any projects you're dying to show off?  I'd love to see anything you've made.  Next week is packed with projects to show off for you so no fears of me being silent forever!