FO: Tweedy Ene

Ene is one fiiiiiiiiine lady...

Tweedy Ene
Pattern: Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Sigh, 4 or 4.5 balls
Needles: US 8

I only say 4 or 4.5 balls because most of this Felted Tweed was ripped from the back and front of a sweater that I abandoned two years ago. I have no idea how many actual balls I used, but I estimate it at about 4 or 4.5.

Other than using a bigger needle (to account for thicker yarn), I made no mods. This is a wonderfully clear, well-written pattern. It's super. Casting on a gazillion stitches in the beginning it actually not as bad as I'd feared.

It is, however, a ginormous shawl:

I think the wingspan of the shawl is 80+ inches. Didn't actually measure, but I know I could have blocked it bigger if I'd wanted.

It's nice and cozy (especially in air-conditioning) but I think I'll be able to let go of it and give it to my friend to give to her mum. I'm sure I'll make another Ene at some point and how many shawls does a gal need, anyway?

I also finished Clint's Ph.D sweater, but neglected to get a photo of him wearing it. Sigh. I was too busy being sad he was leaving. But he loves the sweater and promised to wear it to death and get a photo of it in blustery Chicago weather. Speaking of blustery, don't I have more sweaters to knit?

Stashbusting Mania!

I may have purchased more stash and pattern booklets. We'll get to that next time, but in the meantime, my guilt has targeted the massive amounts of Ultra Alpaca in my knitting bin:

Months ago, I saw Lolly's Jacquard Pulli and lusted after it, but thought I should wait until more WIPs reached FO status. However, after staring into my Ultra Alpaca basket and trying to figure out what to do it all, I decided fair isle was the perfect medicine. Turns out I was right!

Fair isle is one of those wonderful (or horrible, depending on how you look at it) things that are impossible to put down. I started this two days ago and the ribbing was slow, but as soon as the colorwork started, I was zooming along like Michael Phelps, Olympic-style. Here are some guts:

I'm using five colors of Ultra Alpaca, a red Ultra Alpaca Light, and a beige Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool. I redid the color chart on Excel in order to compensate for the similar color values my yarn has as opposed to the colors Rebecca 34 uses. Yes, I know I have just added more WIP to the WIP pile. But I don't feel bad since I'm done with the back and one front of the Snowdrift cardi, I'm done with the back and 90% of the front of Clint's sweater and Ene looks like this:

I have two repeats of the third chart and the final chart left to do.

Snow Falling on Sway

So...thanks to Estela's lovely completion, I had a fever. And the only prescription...no, it was not more cowbell. The only prescription turned out to be some pristine white wool from the mountains of Peru.

This here is Berroco Peruvia, knit on 10s, to make this:

I saw this cardi on the cover of the book, Inspired to Knit, and I knew with a mad, manic flash that I MUST have this cardi. There was simply no walking away from this. I didn't, however, like the idea of spending so much on something that is clearly outerwear. The gorgeous cabley cuffs are too bulky (and pretty) to be buried under a coat and the zipper lends itself to use as a fall cover-up. So instead of splurging on something pricey that would be buttery soft on the skin, I chose a workhorse yarn that's less cloud-like but ultimately more sensible. And what can be more sensible than 100% Peruvian wool? I'm planning on lengthening it a bit to better serve as outerwear.

Speaking of snowy projects, Irish Cream needs a time out. He got all mad that I didn't pay attention to him and decided to oh-so-sneaky-like fall off the dpns and unravel himself nearly a full border repeat. We're talking a 20+ row repeat. Yeah, he is SO in the doghouse right now. Or the froghouse. I honestly don't know what to do. The more I look at Irish Cream, the more I think he behaved this way b/c he wants to be something else. We shall see.

In other news, I'm finishing up the back of Clint's Ph.D. sweater and decided to do a stashbusting exercise.

It's Ene. Pretty, pretty Ene. Instead of lace, I decided to use up this purple Felted Tweed I've had in my stash since almost the beginning of time. About two years ago, I bought it for my second "big" project, which was supposed to be Elise from Rowan Vintage Knits. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I'm pretty sure I was screwing things up. The final straw came when I pulled it out in the subway to work on and a full ball of this yarn fell onto the track. I assure you, it was tragic. So I was now a full ball short for the project and I loathed going back to the store where I bought it because they made me feel so yucky. I frogged the whole back of the sweater and two inches of one front and stuffed it into the back of my dresser drawer. But that's enough time to pass for me to give the yarn a second chance.

I'm working on size 8s. This thing might be HUGE. Casting on almost 400 stitches sucks, but it makes the shawl a wonderful project because each right side row gets shorter and shorter.

And I finally finished reading that tome, Of Human Bondage. It was a wonderful read. I honestly didn't expect it to be as funny as I found it. There were moments when I laughed aloud on the subway and looked like a perfect idiot. There were moments when I hated Mildred so much that I wanted to reach through the pages and throttle her. There were moments when my heart broke for Philip and then other moments when I wanted to slap him and tell him to have some backbone. It's a long read, but worth it. I haven't been so eager to find out what happens to a character in a while.

Since I'm already gushing about Maugham, here he is with the next couple books in line:

I think I need to start attending British Writers Anonymous.