A Little Bit of Feathers...

In Toronto this weekend was the Downtown Knit Collective's Knitters' Frolic.

I picked up a few treats for myself, including 2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace in the colour Sealing Wax (102). It's a lovely rusty red, that I can't quite photograph accurately, but this is fairly close.



The wonderful Purple Purl ladies had sale prices for many of my favourites, so I managed to also snag two skeins of Fino by Alpaca with A Twist. It's a 2-ply laceweight alpaca/silk blend, and so scrumptious. With 875 yards in the skein, I'm excited to knit up some gorgeous shawls.

And so, I have a little bit of a Featherweight Cardigan. And I love it already!

I managed to wind most of the laceweight during a car trip that was supposed to be an hour long, and turned into a three-and-a-half-hour drive... but man did it look gorgeous in the skein:


My favourite part of the event? When another knitter came up to me (wearing my Whisper) and said: "Can I show you to my friend?"

She grabbed me by the arms, and took me over to her friend who was contemplating a Whisper. I then got to show off the malabrigo lace goodness, and shared the shrugigan love.

I was of course also petted by all of the ladies throughout the course of the day. It definitely pays to wear a snuggly knitted item to a yarn festival!

FO: Whisper Cardigan

What a wonderful knit!

I have enjoyed every stitch of this cardigan, and may be knitting laceweight sweaters exclusively for the next little while!

Project Details:
Yarn: Malabrigo Yarn Lace (100% baby merino) in Bobby Blue (27), 1.5 skeins (approx. 715 yds)
Pattern: Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Knits Spring 2009 by Hannah Fettig
Needles: Addi Lace Turbos in 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 4.5mm using magic loop

Stuff to know:
1) Hannah posted a really helpful schematic and sizing explanation at her blog.

2) The magic loop start was a real pain with this yarn/needle combination; it kept snapping on me as I forced it over the join. I had to restart about 5 times, argh. But after about 2 inches of knitting it was no longer a problem.

3) I knit this as part of the Yarn Snobs KAL for March and April. What fun, and great support from so many new friends!




I was desperate to wear this cardigan out, and so wore it around town all day - including to my dance class. It is so perfect in every way.

Now of course, I've been spoiled, and need many more laceweight malabrigo sweaters so I don't drive my friends crazy by wearing this one every day!

Almost a sweater!

Two and a half inches to go on my Whisper Cardigan (aka. "Shrugigan")!!!!

I'm so in love, and so ready to wear this every day. Just in time for my spring wardrobe -- we've finally got sunshine and warm air today!

Featherweight Cardigan

The new cardigan by Hannah Fettig (creator of Whisper) is out!

Check it out at Hannah's blog!

I'm very very excited, and think I like this even more than the Whisper Cardigan. This looks much more like a cardigan than a shrug, and I love love love it.

Oh yes, top of the queue to knit next!

Taking up my knitting time...

Oh dear me... I've found something else that eats into my knitting time: my family bought a Wii!

My favourite game so far is the cow racing game, that I call "cow jumping". Essentially, your Mii (personalized Wii character) rides the back of a cow, knocking over scarecrows for points.

I spent a good 20 minutes or so absolutely rocking this game, when I noticed this:



It's all knitted!!!!!!!!!



Of course, now I love this game even more!!

For more knit-stitch beauty, check out this gorgeous piece of jewelry, found via Knitty Amy's Twitter feed.

Much more whispering...

I am hopelessly in love with my Whisper Cardigan, even though it's only half-complete.

I've been enjoying working on it as part of a KAL: the Yarn Snobs Ravelry group started a March Whisper KAL, which has since turned into the perpetual Whisper KAL (April's discussions going on here).

I haven't really done a knit-a-long before that has felt this inspiring to me. I'm sure I've done so much more knitting on this project than if I weren't in the KAL... even though I'm in the perpetual ribbing state. It is a really fabulous group of knitters, and I feel like we all have a lot in common.

Not the least of which is the fact that we all want to knit both multiple Whispers, as well as Hannah Fettig's new pattern (Feather?) that also uses two skeins of mal lace, coming out April 11th.

Hannah just posted that the new pattern is finished and being worked on by the tech editor for sizing purposes. But I want it now!!!!!

I've never been this impatient for a pattern before... but I already love it so.

And will probably need fuscia yarn.

I'm knitting as fast as I can...

I swear, I am knitting! I'm even spending oodles of time on my knitting and I'm still stuck on this endless k1, p1 ribbing.

Who would have thought a 3" collar (and waist bit) would take this long?

I've started contemplating how I could knit simultaneously with the other things in life I do:
1) Get voice transcription software so I can "speak" my work emails and keep on knitting

2) Learn to cook foods that require a no-hands approach. I've gotten making popcorn down to a fine knitting science.

3) Knit whenever I'm having a conversation with someone, whether they understand that I'm able to pay attention to them or not... I'm testing this out tonight, but my test subject is also a knitter, so my results may be skewed.

4) Lead choral warmups with my feet. I'm sure they don't need to see my hands to know how to breathe!

5) Slack off, and watch more TV and listen to more podcasts instead of actually working, so that I have more knitting time.

6) Liquify all of my food -- no hands required if I use a straw!

7) I've already mastered reading blog posts, ravelry forums, and pdfs by scrolling with the spacebar (and any body part can hit the spacebar). Onto mastering word and excel scrolling... maybe I need one of those brain computers that was featured on House this week -- think down and the page goes down. It's worth looking into.

8) Get a new phone system so I can have conference calls on speaker phone while knitting. (Actually, this is ingenious and I should go buy a new phone this afternoon...)

9) Hire monkeys to do my daily cleaning around the apartment. I'm also finding this ingenious, but perhaps not quite as practical as #8...

10) Find a yarn-friendly workout. Somehow, I don't think rock climbing, dance classes, or zumba (Salsa-inspired aerobics) are going to go hands-free anytime soon...

Ok, ok. The main thing: spend less time on ravelry, and more time actually knitting! One inch of ribbing to go!

Shrugigan

I've been working on the Whisper Cardigan from the Spring 09 Interweave Knits... and I adore it like no other project.



But you know what?

It's not really a cardigan.

It's kind of half-cardigan, and half-shrug. It's a shrugigan.

I've already knit the shrug bit... starting at one sleeve in the round, across the back (flat), and then the other sleeve. I've picked up an infinite number of stitches (ask me how long that took!) and now I'm knitting ribbing around the whole thing. Once I've got 3 inches of ribbing, I'll knit the rest of the back (the bottom half), and the front panels.



It really is a fascinating construction, and I am learning a ton from this process.

However . . .

It's not a cardigan.



(Pssst... Cobbalicious, this update's for you!)