Alpacomplete

Finished!

After many months of being picked up for a week or so, diligently worked on, and then heartlessly ignored for a week or two, the alpaca jacket is complete! I love the way it turned out. Only one small detail mars my otherwise blissful happiness with this project. Well, not really with the project, but with it's recipiant. Myself. I'm just too fat. It fits, mainly due to the forgiving nature of 4x2 ribbing, but it looks atrocious on me with the belt, since I have absolutely no waistling for it to "accentuate", so it accentuates my lack of one.

However, it looks soooooo good on my sewing model, which has a beautiful figure (the dummy!!!), as you can see in the photo. I actually finished the jacket a few days ago, but it took me tons of time to take the pictures, and then for some reason I didn't button the top button, so the hole at the top is a buttonhole, not a goofup...well, a photography goofup, not the knitting kind.

At any rate, I'm super duper proud of the jacket. I'm just not so happy with my figure right now. I suppose I could go on a diet. Well, it's a consideration, niggling around in the back of my head. We'll see.

On the needles right now is the Fringe jumper. I just knew I wouldn't do the right thing and finish those things in hibernation. Ah well, that will happen down the track. I'll need stuff to do at home soon, and this jumper is miles and miles of BORING knitting. I finished one sleeve (see photo) and have just gotten started on the body part, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 stitches, knit from back hemline to frount.

I'm using my Denise Needles http://www.knitdenise.com/ . When I first saw this project and wanted to make it, I was in the process of searching Australia to find the 100 cm circular needles the pattern calls for when I stumbled on the Denises, and I'll be forever greatful. They have revolutionized knitting for me. It's almost an obligation now that I knit this pattern.

Anyway, it's an easy knit five rows, purl 1 row, knit one row, purl one row "ridge" pattern, repeating every 8 rows. It's as simple as sin and easy to KIP, but I know that soon this thing is going to grow into a monsterous size and I'll need a trailer to haul it around in. Particularly since I've added stitches to the length and rows to the width. I probably shouldn't have done this so soon after trying on the "a bit snug" alpaca jacket, as likely I have overcompensated and this thing will finish out to be big as a tent :)

For that reason (or is it an excuse...and really, do I need one?) I'm thinking of starting a smaller project soon. I have the "stuff" to start some socks and have found some infomation about the "magic loop" which is a way of knitting small areas (such as socks) in the round without having to use the dreaded DPN's. Instead, you use two (or one very long) circular needles. To see this method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtBSmxGomPk . I don't know when I'll get started learning this, but soon I reckon. Aint the internet neat???

Well, those are my knitting adventures for the week. I'm waiting on some Koolaid that mom has mailed, at which point I'm planning on trying my hand at a bit of dying. Also, my co-op has finished taking orders for the Peace Fleece and almost all of us have turned in their money, so I'll be looking sooooo forward to that batch of stash to arrive.

In the meantime, I'll keep on knitting.