I'll be back!

Sorry to be missing for so long - things are crazy busy right now and will be that way for a bit. You aren't missing out on any crafting since basically none is going on! Exams have taken over, as they probably should. 

The trip to Shanghai was great - it was wonderful to see my husband and there was some seriously good food. Miss that.
Here are a couple of photos to tide you over:

The city is full of these old/new contrasts.

The famous soup dumplings. Each of these is filled with a ground meat mixture and a puddle of super flavorful broth. The wrappers are delicate so eating them can be tricky!

And here's a dorky picture of me eating shashlik with naan from a steet vendor. It was SO GOOD.

Okay! Back to work for me!

Hi from Shanghai!

I'm here in China and having a wonderful time! On the flight over I managed to nab an upgrade to business class and holymoly! Talk about knitting elbow room.

As most of you know, I'm in the final push for my exam process so knitting is taking a back seat to my real job. That was the case on the plane, too, where despite having fifteen hours of uninterrupted knitting and movie watching time I read a book instead. (gasp!) I managed to squeeze in a little knitting here and there and am happy to report that I am most of the way through the raglan shaping of the blue sweater re-knit. After looking at the photos again and again and measuring my favorite cardigans, I decided to go with the next smaller size without any alteration. Hopefully it works out!

Photos coming soon!

Argh!

Serious frustration going on here.

1. I realized that the reason my stitch counts were so funny was because (duh!) I actually had to rip back to the beginning to CO the new size's stitches.

2. Rip, rip, rip.

3. Cast on, knit ribbing.

4. Try to divide for raglan shaping. End up with six stitches too many. (The trolls did it! I swear! I can't understand where these stitches came from!)

5. Rip, rip, rip.

6. Throw yarn and empty needles across room.

All I want is a simple project to knit on while I read, and dang it if this is ever turning into a thorn in my side! If I could just get off on the right foot I'd be cruising through this thing again. Argh.

Too big? Help me decide!

Okay, gang, I need your help.

First of all, thanks for all the super kind comments on my Urban Aran cardigan!

Now. On to the next project.

I'm nearly done with the body of the Diminishing Ribs Cardigan and at this point I'm thinking that I may need to rip back and make the smaller size. 

(please don't laugh at my ridiculous face in the following picture - these shots were taken between reading two hard books. That's why I look so consternated.)

What do you think? The pattern says it's designed to have very little ease so it fits slimly and sits open. I thought, gee that sounds nice! And then I can stretch it closed and fasten it with a pin at the waist if I want to!

But when I made the size that I thought would do this, the whole thing just feels too darned big. At the collar I can overlap the sides by about two inches without stretching. And here's what the back looks like:

(don't mind the dangling needles!)

I think that puckering is happening because there's just too much material across the upper back, and so when the ribbing starts and it pulls in a bit (though not nearly as much as it could for an actual fitted sweater) the stockinette section bubbles out.

The good news is that I'm loving the yarn and how the fabric works out. And I think I will love the sweater, but the fit isn't working for me right now.

That said, I'm worried that the next size down will be too small! This is the 39 1/2 bust size, and the next size down is 35 1/4. That seems like a BIG jump down. At the same time, there really is quite a lot of spare material right now. Hm. 

Tell me what to do! I can't decide!

UPDATE: I ripped. All the way back to the first few raglan increases. The sweater is down to about three inches from the cast on now. And I have angora up my nose. KaCHOO!

UPDATE #2: I cannot seem to get the right number of stitches after ripping! I have bizarre discrepancies between the increase stitches. I might just ignore it and plunge ahead working out the numbers in the increases. Or I could rip back farther (aaauuuuuuuuuggh!). I set the sweater aside for the night so neither of us got hurt.

FO: Urban Aran Cardigan

Finally!

Pattern: Urban Aran Cardigan, originally by Patons, cardiganized by Jared Flood
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool
Needles: Addi Turbo 9s and 10s

I adore this sweater.

The pattern was a breeze, the yarn was a floofalicious joy, and the fit worked out!

The collar looks good both zipped all the way up and flipped down in my favorite drama collar configuration. The two way zipper means I can unzip the bottom when I sit down so the zipper won't buckle and distort the knit fabric.

Putting the zipper in took about as long as I expected (which was a LONG time) but was not as tricky as I feared.

Setting in the sleeves was also less tricky than I remembered. (It has been seven years since I last did set in sleeves!) I used lots of binder clips and set the sleeves in before seaming the sleeve and side closed. I'll be doing that from now on!

The sweater is almost overwhelmingly cozy to wear - and while the crappy weather today made for bad photo lighting, it felt like the perfect day to wear my new favorite sweater.

Impulse.

I'm normally fairly measured in how I make my knitting project decisions. First a thought like "hm, maybe I'll make a sweater for my sister." Then researching patterns. Then researching patterns some more. Then looking through all the finished versions on Ravelry to see which yarn I like best with the pattern. Then change my mind and pick a different pattern after all.  Finally chose yarn. Then ask all of my friends which color I should use. 

It's a lengthy process.

But yesterday? My copy of Interweave Knits came in the mail in the morning. When I saw the Diminishing Rib Cardigan I said "I'm going to make that." 

In the afternoon I found myself in the yarn shop and, slightly dazed by the speed of it all, I came home with this:

That's Classic Elite's Lush - 50% wool, 50% angora, 100% dreamy.

And before you could say "top down raglan" I had this:

Sometimes things just come together. I'd needed a simple project to knit on at knit night and while I read.  I'd wanted to work in a luxurious yarn. And I'd wanted to spoil myself a little bit.

Done and done. 

PS- tubular cast on? SO COOL.

Still aroundish!

It's been a full week since I posted! LAME! This might happen more often than I'd like in the next few months or so, but I'll do my best to keep up in here. 

Nothing finished to report, but lots of projects in progress. My custom cut zipper arrived and it turned out to be the wrong color (totally my fault!) so it was back to square one. I ordered a replacement but without cutting so I could return it if I needed to. It's the right color, so this weekend I'm planning to learn to short a zipper! Wheee!

I have a pair of socks churning that'll hopefully be done soonish.

And I've been spinning:

I'm aiming for a three ply worstedish. I'm not as good at judging finished weights with three plys so I'm hoping I get it at least vaguely right! This is my Southern Seas at Twilight colorway and I'm loving the bright bright blues! Can't wait to see what it looks like plyed.

No progress on the seascape stole - I've had a busy week with work and couldn't fit lace knitting into my brain. Maybe next week.